WINGS: Wings (Capitol)
Verdict: Macca’s glorious second act
Depressed and disillusioned after the breakup of The Beatles in 1970, Paul McCartney found himself in limbo as the new decade began. Marooned in legal woes, and wondering whether his days in the limelight might be over, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to keep making music. ‘I had a choice to make,’ he says. ‘In the end, I chose music.’
It was the right decision, although his new way of working would prove very different to his previous one. Married to his wife Linda since 1969, and with the needs of a young and growing family to consider, any new project would have to be compatible with his domestic set-up.
And so, after two whimsical solo LPs, he formed a new group, Wings, with Linda playing rudimentary keyboards and former Moody Blues member Denny Laine on guitar.
Between their 1971 debut album, Wild Life, and their dissolution ten years later, Wings made seven studio albums and one triple live LP. They might not have defined the 1970s in quite the same way as The Beatles characterised the 1960s, but classic singles such as Jet and Live And Let Die were an integral part of the era’s musical fabric.
It’s a family affair: McCartney with his daughter Stella, and wife Linda, in 1976
With an ever-shifting line-up, and the children accompanying Paul and Linda on the tour bus, they also re-wrote the rulebook for a travelling rock group.
It’s no surprise that he’s now keen to burnish the legacy of his ‘other’ band. The past two years have seen deluxe reissues of Band On The Run and Venus And Mars and an official release of documentary film soundtrack One Hand Clapping.
An authorised book, The Story Of A Band On The Run, out this week, details the group’s adventures, from unannounced guerrilla gigs at UK universities (admission 50p) to a knifepoint mugging in Nigeria.
Then there’s this revealing new anthology, curated by Paul, that gathers together the band’s greatest songs, from the rough-hewn spontaneity of 1972’s Hi, Hi, Hi to 1978’s mellow With A Little Luck. It’s out as a single vinyl LP (£35), triple LP (£90), double CD (£23), single CD (£13) and digitally and, despite the absence of any fresh material, it’s a fascinating mix of well-loved hits and overlooked gems.
Rather than tell the tale chronologically, the expanded 32-track editions are sequenced as if Macca was putting together a marathon live show, opening with Band On The Run, running through the deeper cuts — Getting Closer, I’ve Had Enough, Arrow Through Me — around midway, and finishing with Goodnight Tonight.
Band on the run: Wings – Denny Laine, Linda McCartney, Henry McCullough and Paul McCartney (playing Fender Rhodes electric piano keyboard) – performing in April 1973
Scottish Wings: The band (L-R: Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell, Linda and Paul McCartney) outside the Rude studio, at High Park Farm in Kintyre, in 1971
Even on their earliest recordings, the band were forging a signature sound that distanced them from The Fab Four. Some People Never Know (from Wild Life) and My Love (from 1973’s Red Rose Speedway), were built on sunny vocal harmonies, with Paul’s singing augmented by Linda’s sweetness and Laine’s deeper tones.
Later hits, such as Let ’Em In and Mull Of Kintyre, also feature, but it’s the less well-known tracks that really make this anthology worthwhile. Letting Go, on which Paul sings of giving Linda space in their relationship, is still in his live set today. Get On The Right Thing is a classic rock and roller, and Call Me Back Again a screaming soul number in the style of The Beatles’ Oh! Darling.
Not everything hits the mark. I’ve Had Enough, from 1978’s London Town, lacks sharpness, although that album’s title track, enhanced by strings and brass, exemplifies Paul’s ability to capture the loneliness of some ordinary lives in a simple pop song.
Wings were often considered a joke by the serious-minded rock fans of the 1970s, with Linda’s lack of musical pedigree making her a particular target, while Alan Partridge later claimed they were ‘only the band The Beatles could have been’.
But this anthology reiterates their excellence. The Fab Four were an impossibly hard act to follow, but McCartney’s second act began an artistic rebirth that still resonates today.
MAVIS STAPLES: Sad And Beautiful World (Anti-)
Verdict: Gospel legend shines on
Still going strong at 86, gospel legend Staples maintains her recent habit of working with younger musicians as she enlists a cast of stellar American indie-rock luminaries for an album of gentle covers and one striking new original — Human Mind, co-written for her by Hozier and Canadian singer Allison Russell.
The focus is on Staples and her seemingly ageless voice, but the discreet contributions of her collaborators lend Sad And Beautiful World a contemporary edge, with producer Brad Cook assisted at the mixing desk by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who also supplies backing vocals on Satisfied Mind, a country standard made famous by Porter Wagoner.
There are songs here that hark back to Staples’ role as one of the voices of the American Civil Rights movement. She’s in her element on Curtis Mayfield’s We Got To Have Peace. and R&B songwriter Eddie Hinton’s Everybody Needs Love sees her joined by guitarist MJ Lenderman, slide guitar queen Bonnie Raitt and backing singers Katie Crutchfield (of Waxahatchee) and Nathaniel Rateliff.
Ageless: Gospel singer Mavis Staples, 86, is still making music – and still inspiring a host of younger artists, who collaborate with her on new album Sad And Beautiful World
She also tackles tracks originally by Tom Waits (bluesy shuffle Chicago), Leonard Cohen (Anthem) and Texan rock musician Kevin Morby (anti-gun ballad Beautiful Strangers).
The inclusion of rapper Frank Ocean’s Godspeed is a surprise, but its hymn-like nature makes it a natural fit for a gospel singer.
Staples considered retiring in 2023, but these spirited renditions suggest she intends to remain centre stage a little longer.
NEW RELEASES – CLASSICAL
DVORAK: Slavonic Dances (Pentatone)
Eight years later he added another eight and in 1886-7 he orchestrated all 16; they are given very sprightly performances here by the Czech Philharmonic and Simon Rattle.
As a convinced Pan-Slav, Dvorak did not restrict himself to the rhythms of Bohemia and Moravia but sought out the exciting dance styles of Slovakia, Poland and the Ukraine.
Smetana was a little upset by this attitude but his disgruntlement worked to our advantage, as he wrote his own great set of 12 Czech Dances for piano; so we do not have to take sides.
This Dvorak CD is recorded (in the Rudolfinum, Prague) in a concert acoustic, so turn up the volume to get the full flavour; Rattle allows the CPO leader a brief cadenza in No. 4.
MARTIN FROST: B.A.C.H. (Sony)
Bach never wrote for the clarinet, which was in its infancy in his lifetime, but that is not going to impede Martin Frost.
With the help of a few friends and brother Goran, a violist, the great Swedish clarinettist has worked out a programme of 17 pieces for his instrument and a handful of others.
You will find popular movements such as the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite, played beautifully, and the Ave Maria which Charles Gounod fashioned from the First Prelude.
The CD was recorded last year in a little chapel which Frost’s wife found in the woods and has now been partly turned into a studio — the chapel makes a nice holiday home.
The brothers play two pieces together and my only objection is that, at 42 minutes, the disc has half as much music as can now be fitted on to a CD. Nonetheless, the sound is seductive.
TULLY POTTER
