by Hunter Davies
This is a long article (a little over 5 pages) so beware!
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The last time Paul McCartney played in America was 10 years ago with a group called the Beatles. It was in San Fransisco on August 29, 1966, their last public performance anywhere in the world.
Next week, Mr. McCartney returns to play in the USA. He will be with a group called Wings. Will they love him, like they used to love him? Will they love Linda McCartney? She's his lady wife and she plays in the band with him. Will the U.S. critics be snotty about Linda and her lack of musical experience just as the U.K. critics were snotty, not to say b****y, when Mrs. McCartney first burst into flight with Wings some four years ago? And other questions....
Their London house in St. John's Wood is the one that Paul bought a thousand years ago back in the days of Beatlemania. He's the only one to have stuck to the same house. Just as he's the only one of the fab four to have stuck to the same wife. Paul is a conservative. He doesn't like people saying that, but he is. He's disgusted that Britain is in the Common Market and he's disgusted that we've gone decimal. Not that the neighbours think he's very conservative, going by the colour scheme of his handsome Regency mansion. Linda took a liking to the Portuguese peasant style after a holiday in the Algarve with some friends and came back and painted the windows blue and the portico yellow. It looks more like Brixton than St. John's Wood. At the back, they've turned the garden into a farmyard. They've ducks, hens, geese, a cockerel and four dogs. Their next door neighbour, the Hon David Astor (former editor of the Observer) must think he's in the heart of the English countryside.
Mr. and Mrs. McCartney are very much family people and their three children are very much in evidence. There's Stella and Mary, aged four and six, and Heather aged 13. The house is nicely scuffed and the Magrittes, of which there are three, are now surrounded by child art and picture postcards stuck in the side of the frames. One of the four dogs, which bound straight in from the farmyard, is Martha. Martha is an Old English sheepdog and is aged 11. She was the onlie begetter of Martha My Dear, as every true fan knows.
Linda stands in the kitchen pressing 24 tangerines to make fresh orange drinks for breakfast. Rose is putting the bacon in the pan. Rose is a friendly, red-headed cockney lady who is their housekeeper-come-nanny. They took her on their recent Australia tour, although normally Linda manages by herself, despite singing and playing in the band. But for their exhausting two month coast to coast trip of the States, Rose is probably going to help out. Of course the children are going. What would be the point of having children if you didn't take them with you on tour?
Just after 12 Paul comes down for breakfast wearing a Wings T-shirt and jeans with braces. Linda serves him a large glass of the orange juice. She's a fruit juice freak. Rose swore that their last baby would turn out orange. After fruit juice each has a big plate of fried bread, fried eggs and bacon. Wasn't a fry-up ruining all the goodness of the orange juice, increasing cholesterol and all that? "I don't get cholesterol," said Linda.
Linda can get nervous, despite what some fans think when they see her performing on stage, aggressive and assertive, strutting in her Rod Stewart hairstyle. She is worried about America. He tells her there is nothing to worry about. They've turned down many offers to tour America in the past two years, waiting their time, perfecting their act. Now, says Paul, they've got it right. They've got a good band. In fact an excellent band. Despite what the snotty critics once said, Wings have made it. Their album Band on the Run won a Grammy award in 1974 and was voted the best group performance in the world.
"When the Beatles split up," says Paul, "I felt on the rocks. I've been accused of walking out on them, but I never did. It's something I'd never do. One day John left and that was the last straw. It was the signal for the others to leave."
It's strange that Paul should have been so widely believed to have been the cause of the break-up. When they'd finished touring, packing it in out of boredom, concentrating on records only, Paul had been the one who had continually been trying to get them on the road again.
He'd kept them together as a group, setting up Apple, moving into films. Perhaps he had been a bit bossy at times, but he'd certainly wanted the Beatles to continue.
"The Beatles were like a blanket of security. Everything just went right ahead and we never thought of contracts or problems. Then the job folded beneath me. Suddenly I didn't have a career any more. I wasn't earning anything and all my money was in Apple and I couldn't get it out because I'd signed it all away."
He retreated to Scotland, to his cottage near Campbeltown, and the fans spread a rumour that he was dead, that he became a recluse, seeing no one, doing nothing.
"I stayed up all night, went on the booze, hit the ciggies. I used to watch the TV and see another 500 Scots being laid off and for the first time in my life I could understand their problems. They would have said that I had money, of course, so I wasn't like them, but that wasn't the point. I'd lost all my security. I'd no idea what I was going to do. There seemed no point in joining another group, not after all that. Ladies and gentlemen, follow that. I was out of work and the ghosts from my past came back, from those early days when relations and friends we'd never do anything anyway and we should get proper jobs."
Then the big legal rows began, all of them sordid, all of them nasty, as the four Beatles started slanging each other, in and out of court. Paul was the main instigator of the legal trouble because he disliked Allen Klein who had taken over Apple and their contracts. Paul wanted the help of Lee Eastman, an eminent New York lawyer, who also happens to be Linda's dad. "That's what really made them angry - they thought I was just trying to get in my in-laws. I couldn't believe it. After what we'd all had been through in 10 years. I thought they knew me, that I'd never do anything for those reasons. I was told to get free because I couldn't sue Klein, I had to sue John, George and Ringo instead. What a trauma. Unemployed and up to my ears in a High Court case.
"I think we were all pretty weird at the time. I'd ring John and he'd say don't bother me. I rang George and he came out with some effing and blinding, not at all Hare Krishna. We weren't normal to each other at the time."
The case dragged on for what seemed like years, but eventually Paul got his freedom. "I'd always been very fuddled on the law, but I'm glad I went through it. I now read contracts. I even read Mike's (Mike McGear of the Scaffold, Paul's brother). I found a clause in one of his contracts, in very small print, which said, "If you sue and we lose, you pay.'"
During the legal troubles, Paul was slowly getting back to music, bringing out albums under his own name, just as the other three were doing. He was also writing songs for other people and for James Bond films. But he began to realise that he was missing most what he'd like best about the Beatles. Singing. "My main thing I like doing is singing. I'm a man who sings. A Man who sings every day is a man who sings every day. That man is a singer. Then I met Denny Laine again, an old mate who used to play in the Moody Blues. We used to have some good laughs. We have the same sort of background, grammar schools, but both yobs at school. We decided to start up a new group of our own. We got another guitarist and drummer, but they weren't right. It must have been hell for them I suppose, what with me into lawsuits and everybody else thinking I was trying to make a sort of come back."
They called themselves Wings and produced their first album, Wild Life. "The name Wings just came into my head when Linda was having Stella. She was in Kings College Hospital, where she'd had Mary, and I went round with my camp bed as I'd done before to watch the birth. This time it was a Caesarean and I wasn't allowed in. I sat next door in my green apron praying like mad."
"Wings of an angel," says Linda. "That's what he was thinking about."
Later on, while they were in their Scottish cottage, they got talking one night about the next stage in Wings development - live performances. Playing in the recording studio was one thing, but what a man who is a singer likes to do is sing in front of an audience. Yet how could Paul go back to trailing round the world now he was a family man, a man who didn't want to leave his wife and family? Linda, who used to be a photographer and had never played an instrument or sung in public in her life, wasn't immediately excited when Paul suggested she should tour with the band.
"He went on and on about it, saying he was dying to get back to performing, but wanted me to join in. 'Can you imagine standing on stage, the curtain going up, the audience all waiting...' He made it sound so glamorous that I agreed to have a go."
Paul got Linda to do little bits of keyboard work on Red Rose Speedway, Wings next album, showing her how to press the keys. He'd never been taught the piano himself, but he felt confident enough to teach his wife. "We had a few rows as he tried to teach me. He really put me through it. When everything went wrong I used to say, 'I thought you knew how to make a group?' I'd never realised how hard it all was."
"I did think now and again how getting in professional musicians, getting in the super session men. I could have asked the best in the world to play with me. But I wanted Wings to be our sound. I wanted the amateur approach, something we could make ourselves and then work on. Ringo got blown off at our first recording session with the Beatles. And now look at him."
Wings early singles, back in 1972, such as Mary Had A Little Lamb, weren't greeted with much rapture. John was quoted in the pop papers as saying Paul sounded like Engelbert Humperdinck, beyond which there is no nastier comparison. "I was in Scotland when I read this in Melody Maker. I was depressed for days."
There were rows and bickerings in the group, with further changes of personnel. "I could sense a feeling among the others of 'Linda's holding us back,'" says Paul.
"I could feel this," says Linda. "They thought I was getting the best bits without being any good."
"I didn't worry really," says Paul. "She'll improve. She's an innocent talent. I like the idea of innocent talent. That's all rock and roll music is. Innocent music."
Came the time when they felt ready to unveil themselves to the public. In a recording studio any innocent can have the rough edges disguised, or do it a hundred times till by chance one rendition is right. In the flesh all can be revealed. To protect Linda from the ace reporters from Melody Maker, the New Musical Express and others, Paul decided not to reveal their plans.
"We got in the van and went up the M1 looking for a university. I thought we'd practise on students first, play on campus, as they say in Africa. Nottingham was the first university we arrived at so we sent the roadie to the students union. He said I've got Paul McCartney and his group in a van outside, can they play at your next dance? They said yes and put the announcement over the Tannoy while we went to get digs in Nottingham for the night. It was 50p at the door and the guy sat at the table making the money. The kids danced and we all had a good time. The students union took their split and gave us the rest. I'd never seen money for at least 10 years. The Beatles never handled money. I felt like Duke Ellington, divvying out the money. We walked round Nottingham with 30 in coppers in our pockets."
Back on the M1 they went next to Leeds where their performance didn't start off too well. When Paul shouted "One, two three", giving the signal for Linda to go into the opening chords of Wild Life, nothing happened. He said "One, two, three", again, followed by more silence. Linda was panic stricken, unable to move, frozen over the keys. Paul went over and he couldn't remember, either. All the students cheered, thinking it was part of the act.
Their next stop was Bradford, but the university was in the middle of exams and there was nowhere to play. They headed north to Carlisle where they stopped and asked the way to the university. There isn't a university in Carlisle, alas, despite its natural charms and famed cultural heritage. The nearest one was Lancaster, they were told, so they turned round and drove back down the M6.
Musically they progressed slowly; their records got more acclaim, they began to move into Europe on small tours. They took the kids with them everywhere, travelling by Dormobile. They recorded Band on the Run in Lagos, Nigeria, having asked EMI for a list of their studios in hot climates. They thought the kids would like the sun.
With Band on the Run, they were over the hump and their live performances ceased to be criticised in the way they had been. Last year's tour of Britain, culminating at Hammersmith, was a sell out and received wide acclaim.
"Perhaps I did have doubts now and again about Linda on keyboard. I did once say to her in a row that I could have had Billy Preston. It just came out. I said I was sorry, about an hour later. I knew she wasn't going to be liked and I knew it was my fault, encouraging her to do it. I could have done a smart bit of PR during the time she was being criticised, got ourselves on Parkinson and let the world see what a lovely modest human being she is. But I thought 'Sod 'em', I don't have to explain her away. She's my wife and I want her to play. But she had to take a lot of stick.
"Everyone kept on suggesting I was an egomaniac. I was done in by several people who were supposed to be friends. So I'd thought."
"I decided not to defend Linda; let them find out what we were trying to do. I said nothing, just as I said nothing during all John's tirades against me. I've had enough press to last me more than a life time.
"They now seem to like us, at least in Britain they do. I know in America the press will be sitting in the front three rows, their pencils ready. But it doesn't really matter what they say. I'm not as precious about Wings as I used to be. If it folds, it folds, hard luck. I'll be very upset. I'll say 'Sod it,' but we'll survive. I feel very secure with Wings now. I even sing Beatle songs on tour. I shied away from them at first. They were too big for us. I knew the audience would be thinking: 'Oh, not as good as the Beatles.' Now I sing about five in every show."
He'll probably do five Beatles songs when they open in Fort Worth, Texas, next week, and in most of their American concerts over the next two months. The five he usually sings are Blackbird, Lady Madonna, Long and Winding Road, Just Seen a Face and Yesterday.
It doesn't sound much of a life for three young kids, or their mother, being trailed all round America. Paul says he gave Heather, the eldest, the choice and she chose to tour. He long ago gave up the one-night hotel stop, which they did in their Beatle days.
In America they're hiring three houses, one for the West Coast, one the East and one for Middle. Linda will be home each night to do the cooking, to be mum.
"The kids learn a lot on tour - but most of all, they have us, they're secure in a family atmosphere. I see these kids in our neighbourhood coming home from boarding school and they just have no connection with their families. They're strangers. I've now got what my dad used to call experience and I think experience is just as important as education.
Paul is proud of the quality of his family life, though at times it can sound positively schmaltzy or even, perhaps, that he protests too much.
"It probably is schmaltzy. I'm from that sort of family. We were very close, with aunties and uncles always coming in, sing-songs and parties. I saw John and Yoko last time I was in New York and I happened to mention for some reason our family sing-songs. He said he never had them. He didn't have the sort of family life I had, being brought up by his aunt, having his mother killed in a car outside his house. Yoko didn't either. She had to make appointments to see her dad. I now realise how lucky I am to have a close, loving family."
After breakfast Paul and Linda drive to the recording studio to finish off their latest album, Speed of Sound. They record in EMI's Abbey Road studios, of blessed memory, where so many Beatle records were produced. The ghosts of Sergeant Pepper still linger on. Next door is the synagogue where the memorial service to Brian Epstein was held.
There is as ever a gaggle of girls outside, waiting for Paul. Perhaps even waiting for Linda, now that she's a star. These days they're very well behaved, no screaming or shouting or pushing. They stand like pupils waiting for a favourite teacher and then line up quietly for autographs, politely asking Paul to smile for their little cameras. "When's the marriage then," says Paul to a regular, a girl who'd come every day since the recording session began. There is no impoliteness from Linda or Paul. It was never Paul who swore at the fans, refused to sign, couldn't be bothered to stop or chat. Conservatives aren't rude.
Denny Laine arrives in a fur coat. Paul has written a song for him on the album The Note You Never Wrote, giving him a chance to show off his voice. There's a silly love song, called Silly Love Songs. There's a moody one called Warm and Beautiful and a jumpy number Wino Junko written by Jimmy McCulloch.
Then there's Linda's solo, her first solo song on a Wings album. Paul has written it specially for her. It's called Cook of the House. You never know, it could catch on. It might meant hat Linda, the non musical wife, has finally made it.
"What worries me most about America is that we'll have to start again," says Linda. "Rolling Stone will be waiting for me. I'll obviously be criticised and I'll hate it. I'd love to put the critics up on stage and see them do better. You lose a few years of your life on stage. You live on your adrenalin. When it's over I want to crash out and go and live in Scotland for awhile. We've got to do America to prove we can do it, but after that, I hope we'll just stick to occasional concerts, playing a big festival, or a little club. I don't want to spend my life touring."
"America will be OK," says Paul. "I've told you. There's nothing to worry about."
"There will be all those questions, the same old stupid questions," says Linda.
"It doesn't matter. John was best with the smart answers, but any jokes go down well. They ask what brings you here and you say you 'came on a Jumbo' and they all go ho ho. You don't have to be Oscar Wilde."
"It's the really tired old questions that get me. 'Do you ever see John? Are the Beatles getting back together?' I go mad when I hear them a hundred times a day..."
For those interested, yes they do see John when in New York and yes they chat like old friends, but that's about all. As for coming together as Beatles, that seems highly unlikely. They've all moved on to different things, different lives. They see little point in playing in public again.
Linda naturally gets more upset at the continual harking back to the Beatle days, an era she never knew. "I mentally go backwards. I begin to feel schizophrenic." But Paul, having shied away from it at first, now takes it in his stride, if rather wearily.
"I'm pleased with Wings. I'm as happy as when I was playing with the Beatles. Not happier. As happy. No more, no less. But what I have got now is an extra - the family. I had chicks in the Beatle days and now I have kids. I don't miss the old way of life at all"
Here are the photos that were in the article as well as the cover of the magazine.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1271/wingsmagazine001.jpghttp://img195.imageshack.us/img195/7388/wingsmagazine002.jpghttp://img194.imageshack.us/img194/161/wingsmagazine003.jpghttp://img43.imageshack.us/img43/3571/wingsmagazine004.jpg
