Rock and roll springtime take 1 (Paul McCartney) (LP 3140 - 3150)

Paul McCartney  McCartney (CD and Vinyl, Apple Records, 1970) ***  

Paul & Linda McCartney   Ram (CD and Vinyl, Apple Records, 1971) *****  

Wings   Wildlife (CD and Vinyl, Apple Records, 1971) ***  

Paul McCartney & Wings   Red Rose Speedway (CD and Vinyl, Apple Records, 1973) ****  

Paul McCartney & Wings   Red Rose Speedway: Reconstructed (Double Vinyl, Capitol Records, 2018) *** 

Paul McCartney & Wings   Band On The Run (CD and Vinyl, Capitol Records, 2018) *****  

Paul McCartney & Wings   One Hand Clapping (Vinyl, UMC Records, 2024) ****    

Wings   Venus And Mars (CD, MPL Comms, 1975) ***

Wings   Wings At The Speed Of Sound (Vinyl, Capitol Records, 1976) **    

Wings   London Town (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1978) **  

Wings   Back To The Egg (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1979) *** 

Genre: Apple records, pop 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records, DJ Records, Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Little Lamb Dragonfly (Red Rose Speedway)

Gear costume: Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (One Hand Clapping). And about 20 others - he's amazing and churns out gear songs like a tap!

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Clearly as a Beatles obsessive I also have to have every album each member released, so I'm going to have to split the McCartney albums up into decades (plus odds/sods and live albums) because this would be a monster post otherwise. Even so they are each going to be pretty expansive posts because he's been really prolific throughout his solo career!

The seventies Macca began with an album that just gets better as the years go by. The relatively homemade McCartney showed off his precocious talent. Everything he touches isn't always solid gold, but it damn near is!

This first solo album (with only some vocal contributions from Linda) has a lot of charm, and melodies to burn. I like the half-finished doodles as well as the well-formed, completed songs like Maybe I'm Amazed and Every Night. 

Yes, it's lo-fi and almost amateurish in approach but it was meant to be. Anyway, the world caught up with Macca and eventually appreciated this first album for what it was - an anti-Beatle album. By that I mean he attempts to distance himself from the other three and George Martin with an album recorded away from Abbey Road (even if it was a couple of streets away).

Second album and he's hitting top gear with the more polished, well-rounded Ram. This has always been one of my favourite albums - starting with Uncle Albert/ Admiral Halsey but including the snipes at John (Too Many People, Dear Boy). 

Other favourites are the Fab tunes like The Back Seat Of My Car, Monkberry Moon Delight. Five-star classic all the way!

Wildlife is credited to the newly created Wings. The cover is great, Tomorrow is great, but there are too many wobbly moments on it. Linda would eventually develop into a good backing vocalist, but she was never an assured solo voice. 

Dear Friend is interesting as another song directed at John but the album as a whole is dodgy.

I have a soft spot for Red Rose Speedway in its original format (the other version listed above is a 2018 release as a double album - apparently truer to Macca's original vision for the album).

First the original - it includes my favourite McCartney solo song of all time - Little Lamb Dragonfly. There are also a couple of other songs here that I love - One More Kiss and My Love (of course). I also don't have a problem with the suite of songs ending side 2.

The 2018 reconstructed double album version included Linda's Seaside Woman and I Would Only Smile and Denny Laine's Japanese Tears, various singles with their respective B-sides, early and rough mixes of several songs as well as previously unreleased studio and live recordings. It's as messy and incoherent as all that sounds. Fun to have though.

Band On The Run is a classic album. The story of how Denny, Linda, and Paul (especially) pulled this one out of the fire is well known. In adversity, genius emerged. The hits are well justified - the title track, Mrs Vandebilt, Bluebird, Let Me Roll It and especially Jet.

The Lennonism of Let Me Roll It has been mentioned before in despatches but I've also noticed how the song No Words sounds a lot like a George song - vocally and instrumentally. Eerie. 

One Hand Clapping was released last year, but it documents a short-lived iteration of Wings from the mid-seventies. Having just returned from Nashville and the superb Junior's Farm single, they are captured live in the Abbey Road studio in 1974. 

Geoff Britton is superb on drums and Jimmy McCulloch is in his element. They proved to be short-lived as Wings members but they added a lot of muscle to the band at the time.

They run through a staggering amount of songs on One Hand Clapping and as I listen, I'm just in awe of McCartney's seemingly unlimited ability to write catchy songs during this period. Wings were cool maan.

Venus And Mars is a good Wings album, but not a great one (unlike Band On The Run), because the material is inconsistent with real ups and downs. Downs are You Gave Me The Answer, Treat Her Gently, Crossroads theme.

But the ups are really up - Listen To What The Man Said, Letting Go, and even Magneto And Titanium Man is a lot of fun.

The return to the use of the Wings name is significant, as Macca tries to be generous with bandmates material. These emerge as good rock songs and fit the rock show remit. Sadly though, Macca is Macca! He's next level (with only John above him), and this isn't a democracy - let's not kid ourselves.

Wings At The Speed Of Sound was a second attempt at Wings as democratic band with everyone getting at least one lead vocal. Linda is still not a solo vocalist, Denny and new drummer Joe English (both of whom who can sing) seem a bad fit for the slight material somehow.

I refused to buy this album when it was released and only picked it up years later because I had to. I really don't like it. A lot of it makes me cringe (and, shock horror, I include Paul's songs in that statement). Of course, it was a commercial monster - which just goes to show.

The better songs would toughen up in a live setting (I'll get to Wings Over America later on) but here they are mild, soft rock versions. Beware My Love is the best song on the album, but it's markedly better done live.

Although the democratic experiments were over, London Town was not a return to form. Mull of Kintyre was the non-album giant hit but would have been completely incongruous on London Town.

Yikes - how the mighty were falling. It seemed to all get too cozy - I mean recording on a luxury yacht in The Virgin Islands? Pleeze. If soft yacht rock and laid-back Paulie is your thing then this is an album for you. 

That said, there were some positive signs: I've Had Enough has potential and gives a glimpse of what he's capable of when he's not coasting on silly love songs like Warm And Beautiful. His co-write/duet with Denny on Deliver Your Children is interesting as well, although the lyrics on this and elsewhere are terrible. 

Overall though, I'm more inclined to go with Back To The Egg. At least there are some rock songs on his last album of the seventies. Evidence: Getting Closer; Spin It On; even the ensemble Rockestra Theme.

Sadly though, the rest of the album is pretty forgettable. By the end of the seventies it appears he'd run out of steam, and all of the band changes in Wings had taken their toll as well.

Where do they all belong? In summary - a great couple of years at the start of the seventies but then diminishing returns at the end of the decade. Would the eighties see a return to greatness? Tune in for the next post for the answer.