Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney (42 page)

You know - suddenly she marries him and suddenly she’s writing songs. ‘Oh sure (wink, wink). Oh, sure, she’s writing songs.’ But actually one day I just said to her, ‘I’m going to teach you how to write if I have to strap you to the piano bench.’ … I like to collaborate on songs [and] if I can have Linda working with me, then it becomes like a game. It’s fun. So we wrote about ten songs [together].

For many people,
Ram
is one of Paul’s best solo albums, with a Beatles sparkle, notably on ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, which became a hit single, as indeed
Ram
was a very successful album, reaching number one in the UK, number two in the US charts.
Ram
is certainly more highly finished than
McCartney
and it has an abundance of catchy tunes. Despite all the prevarication over the final song selection there was, however, a sense that Paul had released a record that still needed work. The lyrics are so-so, ranging from veiled sarcasm (‘Too Many People’) to simplistic celebrations of love (‘Long Haired Lady’) via novelty (‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’). Taken as a whole, there is a lack of discipline and focus as there was on
McCartney
, as well as a sense that, without a strong collaborator like John Lennon, or an authoritative producer like George Martin, Paul struggled to distinguish between what was good enough to release and what would be better cut.

Although frequently derided, the rock music of the early 1970s was often superb. Recent months had yielded
Bridge Over Troubled Water
(Simon and Garfunkel),
Hot Rats
(Frank Zappa),
All Things Must Pass
(George Harrison),
Tapestry
(Carole King) and
Blue
(Joni Mitchell); with
Who’s Next
(The Who), Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, and David Bowie’s
Hunky Dory
soon to follow. All these records had a musical and/or intellectual weight that made them great in their day, and marks them as classics now.
Ram
is not and never was in the same class, which is concerning because there was much more of this sort of music to come from Paul McCartney. All such judgements are, of course, subjective. Many fans loved
Ram
. Other listeners wondered what had happened to the man who had been a prime mover in the world’s greatest pop band. While it had been ridiculous to suggest in 1969 that Paul McCartney was dead, one might wonder if he’d undergone a lobotomy before leaving the Beatles.

Whimsy had always been one of Paul’s musical moods, as it was one of John’s. In the context of the Beatles it was charming - Paul’s ‘Yellow Submarine’, for example, John’s ‘I am the Walrus’ - but in Paul’s solo career whimsy too often became annoying. There is a surfeit on
McCartney
and
Ram
, and in June 1971 Paul indulged this side of himself to the full by hiring session musicians to record light orchestral versions of the
Ram
songs. One of the musicians hired for the gig was Clem Cattini, who’d known Paul when the Beatles were playing the ABC Blackpool and Clem was drumming with the Tornados on the North Pier. ‘I crapped myself a bit when I walked in[to Abbey Road] and I’m doing a session for Paul McCartney.’ Paul wasn’t going to play on this new record himself, just direct. To play bass, he hired Brian ‘Herbie’ Flowers. Also on the sessions were the Mike Sammes Singers, a vocal group who sang on ‘I am the Walrus’, but more typically emitted the
oohs
and
aahs
on television commercials. Partly as a result, the record they made at Abbey Road sounds like incidental television music, with a
soupçon
of the tea dance. Jim Mac’s Band must have sounded similar. While Paul naturally enjoyed hearing his tunes orchestrated, with the help of the arranger Richard Hewson, one suspects he may have made these curious recordings primarily to please his father. In short, this was an indulgence. It was also an anachronism in the context of his career and it wasn’t released for six years. When Paul did finally put this odd record out, he did so as quietly as possible under a pseudonym, titling the album
Thrillington
after an invented character named Percy ‘Thrills’ Thrillington ‘Born in Coventry Cathedral in 1939’. Somehow this wasn’t as amusing as Paul obviously thought it was.

More importantly, in the week of the
Thrillington
session, Paul formally adopted eight-year-old Heather See as his daughter. Although a couple of hippies in many respects, there was a traditional parental firmness to Paul and Linda McCartney. ‘We explain to Heather that she can’t have too much ice-cream or that sweets will ruin her teeth - that sort of thing,’ Paul said. ‘She’s going to get the lot when she’s 21 and I want her to have learned how to cope when that time comes. I don’t want her to be a spoilt little brat. We’re really quite strict with her in some ways.’ Indeed some observers felt Paul was stricter with Heather than his own natural children. As yet, Heather could only be measured against Mary McCartney, who was coming up for two, but Lin was pregnant again.

ANOTHER BAND

Having begun to extricate himself from the Beatles, and having released two exploratory solo albums, Paul’s next move was to form a band. He intended to develop the group slowly, as the Beatles had been able to grow naturally, enjoying the process of playing small shows again, and making records in a relaxed collaborative atmosphere.

When it came to choosing the members, Paul first telephoned the New York session men he had been working with on
Ram
, Denny Seiwell and Hugh McCracken, inviting the guys and their wives over to Scotland. ‘I thought he meant take a vacation,’ says Seiwell, who arrived in the UK with his wife Monique on 23 June 1971. ‘That’s when he says, “Yeah, I’ve invited Hugh up here as well. I’m thinking of putting together a band.”’ Seiwell hadn’t been to the UK before, and its Scottish extremities were a culture shock. ‘It wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be.’ He and Monique, and Hugh and Holly McCracken, were put up at the Argyle Arms Hotel in Campbeltown, where they found the food disappointing while the nights were so cold they had to go to bed with hot water bottles. And this was supposed to be summer!

Although it was only a short drive from the Argyle Arms to Paul’s farm, High Park seemed incredibly remote and basic to the New Yorkers, who wondered, as many others would, why such a rich man chose to rough it like this, not appreciating that Paul and Linda enjoyed a rustic contrast to their metropolitan life. ‘Two bedrooms and a kitchen, a cement floor. The walls were finished in unpainted pine. It was very, very bare,’ says Seiwell, ticking off the primitive features. Recording equipment was set up in an adjacent lean-to shed, which Paul named Rude Studios: a nod to reggae influences (Paul and Lin had recently started to holiday in the Caribbean and loved reggae music). The McCartneys showed their American friends over the farm, and had a few drinks with them in the evening. Relaxed and convivial though Paul was, one subject was obviously out of bounds. Paul did not mention the Beatles, and without anything being said the American visitors understood that they shouldn’t ask him about the band.

Music-making started awkwardly. ‘As we were leaving, Linda said, “Would you mind coming back tomorrow and maybe leaving your wives at home? We’re going to spend the day playing some music,”’ Seiwell recalls. This didn’t go down well with Monique and Holly. Having come to Scotland with their husbands for what they thought was to be a vacation, the American women were obliged to entertain themselves at the Argyle Arms while their menfolk made music with the McCartneys up at High Park. After a few days of this, Hugh McCracken told Paul that he and his wife had to go back to New York. Hugh didn’t want to be in Paul’s band. The Seiwells were also going back to New York, but Denny told Paul he would return if he wanted him.

The nucleus of the new group therefore became Paul, Linda and Denny Seiwell. As yet Linda didn’t play an instrument. Paul was sure she could pick up keyboards, so when they got back to London Lin went for lessons with an elderly Cavendish Avenue neighbour named Mrs Matthews. The lessons didn’t go well. ‘Mrs Matthews gave up. She said, “I can’t teach you any more!”’ recalls Evelyn Grumi, whose family occupied the apartment over Mrs Matthews’s basement flat in Cavendish Avenue, across from Paul, and were thereby obliged to listen to Linda plonking about on the piano. ‘Mrs Matthews said, “I’ve had enough of her, she’s stupid, she doesn’t even know her right hand from her left.”’ So it was that Paul found himself in a band with a woman who could neither sing nor play. As George Martin remarked drily, ‘I don’t think Linda is a substitute for John Lennon.’

To be fair, Linda never pretended to be Paul’s musical peer. She didn’t really want to be in the band at all. It was Paul’s fancy that his wife should work with him. He found it ‘comforting’. Professional sidemen would cover Linda’s bum notes. Her value was the moral support she gave Paul. More than a wife and band member, he saw Linda as his career partner now, using her as his link with the world, which is to say that Mrs McCartney was the one who made calls on Paul’s behalf, getting information he wanted, screening out people he didn’t want to speak to, making the peace with those he’d upset, and dispensing hard news. It was of course Paul who wanted Monique Seiwell and Holly McCracken out of the way so he, Denny, Hugh and Lin could jam together at High Park, but he delegated the ticklish task of telling the women they were surplus to requirements to Lin, a tough broad who grew tougher during their long marriage.

Still, Paul also felt the need of a more experienced musician in the band, someone he could write with, play with and sing harmony with, as he had with Lennon. He chose Denny Laine, a musician he’d known since the early 1960s when Denny had fronted the Midlands band the Diplomats. The musician’s given name was Brian Hines, born in Birmingham of Romany Gypsy descent in 1944. He took the stage name of Laine in honour of Cleo Laine and Frankie Laine, two singers he admired. Denny was a childhood nickname. A friendly, easy-going guy with a broad Birmingham accent and a wide love of music, particularly jazz and blues, in 1964 Denny co-founded the Moody Blues, who supported the Beatles on tour and went to number one with ‘Go Now’. Denny knew the Beatles well by this stage. ‘All the boys were friends of mine … I used to go to the clubs with Paul and Jane Asher, and we used to talk forever about music … I used to go to the parties, I went to Abbey Road to some of their
Sgt. Pepper
sessions.’ As a result, Denny was relaxed around Paul, not somebody who would ask a lot of star-struck questions about the Beatles. ‘I think that’s why Paul wanted me in the band - because he knew I wouldn’t bring up all that stuff. That’s kind of boring for him.’ In 1966 Denny left the Moodies to form the Electric String Band, after which he played briefly with Ginger Baker’s Air Force. Always bad with money, Denny was unemployed, broke, and sleeping in his manager’s office when Paul called offering him a gig. ‘Hey man, how’s it going? Long time no see. Fancy putting a band together?’ McCartney asked, as Denny recalls their perfunctory conversation.

‘Yeah, great. That’s perfect timing. I’m doing nothing … I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Denny flew to Scotland the next day, meeting Linda McCartney and Denny Seiwell at the farm.

Confusingly, this meant there were now two men named Denny in the band, both hired on a salary basis and initially paid a retainer of £70 a week ($107). This was a reasonable wage in 1971, when you could rent a house for £5 a week ($7.65), but certainly not riches, especially not for Seiwell who had the additional expense of relocating from New York to the UK. He and Monique rented a farm near the McCartneys initially, Laine staying as their house guest. Money soon became an issue with Seiwell, whereas happy-go-lucky Laine was more relaxed about it. ‘I wasn’t looking for anything more than that to start with, because I knew there would be a deal along the line, that it was just a retainer so we wouldn’t go off and do something else.’

Not long after the formation of the band, the McCartneys returned to London so that Lin could give birth to her third child, Paul’s second. She went into labour at King’s College Hospital and it was a long and complicated labour, Linda finally giving birth on 13 September 1971 to a daughter the couple named Stella Nina McCartney. So anxious had Paul been about the difficult pregnancy, and so thankful was he that mother and daughter had come through OK, that he imagined a guardian angel with wings standing over the family. It was this image that gave him the name for the new band. They would be Wings.

16

THE NEW BAND

‘TAKE IT, TONY!’

Wings began recording their first album in London, working quickly and using up leftovers from Paul’s LA sessions. The record was
Wild Life
, named after one of Paul’s new compositions - an inchoate song about animal welfare the lyrics of which were sketchy to the point of meaninglessness. ‘Man, you’ve gotta care’ was the considered message. Musically, this and several other tracks on Wings’ début album sound like stoned jams; the very first track, ‘Mumbo’, most obviously
was
a jam, over which Paul could be heard yelling excitedly to his engineer. As with his two previous albums, Paul was the producer, and again, without a strong hand to rein him in, he was content to release tracks that should never have left the studio, including folderol like ‘Bip Bop’.

The whole album was recorded and released with reckless speed. ‘Five of the eight tracks
⁴¹
were first takes,’ notes the drummer, Denny Seiwell.

Whatever we did as a band was going to be compared to the last thing they heard of the Beatles, so what we were trying to do was give an honest representation of this new band, and we didn’t want to use every studio trick in the world … it’s gonna be a little raggedy, but that is what we are … that record was done in a heartbeat. I mean ‘Mumbo’, we were just jamming, fooling around in the studio and you can hear him screaming at the engineer, cos it was getting good: ‘Take it, Tony!’
⁴²

The band had a rocking sound, which was partly Denny Laine’s influence. The guitarist says he envisaged Wings as ‘a rough and tumble rock/blues-type’ band. But there were no shortage of good-time rock ’n’ roll bands in the early 1970s, and in the cold light of day there were only two interesting songs on
Wild Life
: ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Dear Friend’. Recorded in LA during the West Coast sessions for
Ram
, the latter is sometimes read as a message from Paul to John Lennon, but in truth it could mean almost anything, so insubstantial are the words, and by the time Paul had made
Wild Life
John had addressed their broken friendship much more eloquently on his
Imagine
album, which he made with help from George Harrison and Klaus Voormann, under the direction of Phil Spector, demonstrating in the process what a difference a professional producer can make. Paul’s record sounded amateurish and thin;
Imagine
sounded big as a mountain, Lennon touching profundity with the title song, ‘Imagine’; delivering a powerful anti-war message in ‘I Don’t Wanna be a Soldier Mama I Don’t Wanna Die’; and writing a love song as tender as any Paul had penned with ‘Jealous Guy’.

Lennon was still sufficiently irked with Paul to mock him with
Imagine
, having himself photographed wrangling a pig for a souvenir postcard included with the LP, in parody of Paul shearing sheep on the cover of
Ram
, and including two songs that expressed contempt for his former partner. ‘Crippled Inside’, a country-and-western pastiche, described a man who was emotionally dead, while ‘How Do You Sleep?’ was direct character assassination, suggesting that Paul didn’t know what the Beatles had on their hands when they made
Sgt. Pepper
, noting nastily that ‘those freaks’ were right when they said Paul was dead; criticising Paul for living with ‘straights’ while being bossed about by his ‘Mamma’ (Linda). Most hurtfully, Lennon stated in ‘How Do You Sleep? ’ that the only song of consequence Paul had written was ‘Yesterday’, since when his music had been typified by the sugary ‘Another Day’, and soon everybody would realise his music was actually just Muzak - a disparaging reference to the American company that created muted versions of pop hits for public places, a use Paul’s tunes were suited to. In summary, Lennon asked his old mate how he slept at night, the implication being that Macca was such a complete bastard his conscience - if he had one - should keep him awake. Was Lennon speaking the truth, seeing McCartney through the clear eyes of someone who had known him as man and boy, or was he merely trying to get even after his defeat in court? There is probably truth in both hypotheses. It should be remembered also that Lennon was abetted at this stage in his career by Phil Spector, whom Paul had crossed on
Let It Be
. Spector now seemed to encourage Lennon in his feud, as an exchange between the two while they were working in New York on a new Christmas song illustrates: ‘Have you heard Paul’s new album? ’ Spector asked Lennon, referring to
Wild Life
.

‘No.’

‘It’s really bad,’ replied the producer spitefully, ‘it’s awful.’

‘Don’t talk about it. It depresses me.’

‘Don’t worry, John.
Imagine
is number one, and this will be number one, too. That’s all that matters.’
⁴³

These comments were reported in
Melody Maker
the week Paul launched Wings with a party at the Empire Ballroom in London’s Leicester Square. Although security was tight, and many famous faces were among the guests, there was a relaxed, homely feel to the event that typified Wings, from the hand-made invitation cards to the McCartneys’ own party clothes. Paul showed up in a baggy tartan suit, like a Caledonian clown. Lin wore a maternity dress. Paul had cut a sharp figure during the Sixties, never more so than when he strode across the Abbey Road zebra crossing in a beautifully tailored Savile Row suit. Now he had mislaid his style compass. It would be years until he found it again. Not all Seventies fashion was bad, but it is fair to say that Paul McCartney dressed appallingly throughout that decade and much of the Eighties, wearing vulgar and ill-chosen clothes and sporting a trendy yet hideous mullet haircut.

There was a conscious turning away from the Sixties in other areas of his life. Despite the size of the Wings launch party, none of the other Beatles attended, and there were hardly any old faces from Apple at the function. It was as if Paul wanted to forget his illustrious past. ‘This was a fresh start, clean slate,’ says Denny Seiwell, ‘and we did not discuss the Beatles. Every once in a great while he might make a reference to an old story or something, but very, very seldom.’

The exception came when interviewers drew Paul on the ongoing legal fight over the break-up of the Beatles. ‘I just want the four of us to get together somewhere and sign a piece of paper saying it’s all over, and we want to divide the money four ways,’ Paul told
Melody Maker
that month. Paul’s personal assistant Shelley Turner, together with Laine and Seiwell, sat and listened uneasily as Paul went on about the Beatles break-up in what was meant to be a band interview. (‘He’s talking about money now. That’s one of his pet points. He’ll never stop,’ Turner told the reporter in a worried aside. ‘Please get him on to talking about Wings.’) Still, Paul had more to say on the rift, responding to John’s dig in ‘How Do You Sleep?’: ‘So what if I live with straights?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t affect
him
. He says the only thing I did was “Yesterday” and he knows that’s wrong.’

Mild though this and Paul’s other remarks were, Lennon retaliated with an open letter to
Melody Maker
, which had become a forum for the ex-Beatles to snipe at each other. ‘Dear Paul, Linda, et all [sic] the wee McCartneys,’ Lennon began, before resuming the old arguments about who owed what to whom, and challenging Paul’s version of events in his recent interview. He mocked his former friend mercilessly throughout, referring to ‘my obsessive old pal’, and saying Paul took ‘How Do You Sleep?’ way too literally. One of the bones of contention between the men was Maclen Music. Lennon wanted Paul to sell his share to the other three, but according to Lennon Paul had refused. ‘… two weeks ago,’ Lennon harangued his ex-friend,

I asked you on the phone, ‘Please let’s meet without advisors etc., and decide what we want,’ and I especially emphasised ‘Maclen’ which is mainly your concern, but you refused - right? You said under no condition would you sell to us, and if we didn’t do what you wanted, you’d sue us again … If
you’re not
the aggressor (as you claim) who the hell took us to court and [shit] all over us in public?

Paul chose not to respond publicly to these allegations.

BACK ON STAGE

The McCartneys went to the United States for Thanksgiving, leaving their pets - Eddie, Martha, a Dalmatian named Lucky and several cats - in the care of their housekeeper Rose Martin. The McCartney menagerie was a source of disquiet in Cavendish Avenue where, despite his fame and wealth, Paul was not altogether popular. Some neighbours snobbishly looked down on Paul as
nouveau riche
, considering the press and fans he attracted a damn nuisance. Then there was the time the McCartneys painted their listed house in bright colours, which led to complaints to the council, who made Paul change back to an authorised scheme; while one particular neighbour, Alice Griswold, an elderly woman whose wealth and class were established by the fact she ran a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, seemed to have it in for the family. Mrs Griswold got it into her head that the McCartneys were neglecting their dogs, leaving them locked in the house while they were in America, and made a complaint to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). When the McCartneys returned home, Paul went over the road and had ‘a right row’ with Mrs G. He told her sharply he’d never harm his dogs; he and Lin were animal-mad, and Rosie had been in every day to make sure the animals were all right. The man from the RSPCA agreed. Lin remarked that, ‘Mrs Griswold gives me a pain in the you-know-what.’

After Christmas, Paul hired an additional guitarist for Wings. Born in Northern Ireland in 1943, Henry McCullough had been a professional musician since the age of 17, playing notably with Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, and was an old friend of Denny Laine’s. ‘I wanted to bring more of a blues element into the band,’ explains Laine. ‘I didn’t want to be in a pop group, and Henry was the epitome of a blues player.’ So Henry joined Wings on the standard £70-a-week deal, rehearsing initially with the group in rooms off the Mall. It soon became clear that Henry didn’t quite fit into Wings, which was poppier than both he and Laine wished, with a distinct weakness in the keyboard department. Henry suggested to Paul that they hire a professional keyboardist to strengthen their sound. Paul admitted that his wife was ‘absolute rubbish’ on keyboards, but there was no prospect of replacing her. ‘Once that was accepted by meself and everybody else, that was it. Linda was 100 per cent a part of the band and that’s the way we worked,’ says Henry, who developed a respect for Mrs McCartney, as most Wings members did, not for her musical ability, but for her pluck and charm.

On Sunday 30 January 1972, what became known as Bloody Sunday, news came from Northern Ireland that the British Army had opened fire on a Republican demonstration, killing 13 people: In the wake of this appalling incident, Paul did something that was for him very rare indeed: he wrote a protest song, not only condemning the shootings, which most people lamented, but calling for the British to get out of Ireland, which was more problematic because the Protestant Loyalist population feared they would be murdered by their Catholic neighbours if the British Army withdrew. In writing this song, Paul put himself on the side of the Republican movement and its terrorist group, the IRA, which was engaged in a murderous campaign against the British. Paul’s maternal grandfather had been Irish, which gave him a personal connection to Ireland, but one wonders if his decision to write a Republican marching song had more to do with wanting to match John Lennon, who projected a trendy image of political engagement these days and had written two songs of his own about Bloody Sunday, both of which shared the simplistic sentiment expressed by Paul in his self-describing ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’. It is also possible that Paul wanted to reach out to John again by aligning himself with one of his old friend’s pet causes. Certainly Paul tried hard to remake their friendship in the Seventies.

A slow song, with incongruously jaunty hand-claps, ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ was released as a single in February 1972. It was the first major Wings project for Henry McCullough, an Ulster Protestant who says he didn’t discuss the song with Paul and had been on the road too long to feel personally connected to Irish politics. ‘I knew it would cause a little bit of a fuss,’ is as far as he will go, diplomatically. It is hard to believe Henry was truly indifferent to a song that commented directly on the delicate politics of his homeland, and he certainly looked uncomfortable when Paul invited a US television crew into Cavendish Avenue to film Wings rehearsing the number. Paul gave the Americans a short interview, in which he said he didn’t intend to become a political singer, but ‘on this one occasion I think the British government overstepped the mark and showed themselves to be more of a sort of oppressive regime than I ever believed them to be’.

As the song was rush-released, Paul led his fledgling band out on the road for the first time. On the morning of Tuesday 8 February 1972, an Avis truck and green van pulled up outside 7 Cavendish Avenue. The McCartneys, together with their children, the band and the family dogs, climbed aboard the van; roadies Trevor Jones and Ian Horn loaded the truck with equipment, and the two vehicles headed north on the M1, whither no one knew. Paul was realising the ambition he’d harboured in the latter years of the Beatles to go back on the road and play small provincial shows, but he’d taken the concept to the extreme, setting off without any theatres booked.

After driving 130 miles north, Wings reached Nottingham University, where the roadies informed the students’ union that they had Paul McCartney outside. Could Wings put on a show? Strange though this now seems, British rock bands such as the Who and Led Zeppelin did play universities at this time, building up their fan base, but acts didn’t turn up at universities unannounced in the hope of a chance booking, and Paul McCartney’s status as an ex-Beatle elevated him above and beyond everyday rock musicians. Then, as now, McCartney was one of the most famous entertainers in the world, and the students didn’t believe he had come to play for them until they saw him for themselves sitting in the van with Lin and the kids, at which point the booking was made. The McCartneys went off to find a guest house, leaving their roadies to make the necessary arrangements. Fliers were posted around the campus advertising a surprise show the next day. The entrance fee would be just 40 new pence (61 cents).