Paul McCartney – Doyle’s Space: Music Hall of Fame

The Beatles’ bassist, vocalist, and songwriter would continue solo beginning in 1970 at the sign of the break-up of the band. He would release his first LP, McCartney, a month before the release of The Beatles’ swansong Let It Be. The album, rich with experimentation, has McCartney performing all instruments and vocals himself, aside from some backing vocals performed by Linda McCartney. It also contained the song, “Maybe I’m Amazed”.

As the Beatles were breaking up in 1969–70, McCartney fell into a depression. Linda, his wife, helped him pull out of that condition by praising his work as a songwriter and convincing him to continue writing and recording. In her honor, he wrote “Maybe I’m Amazed”, explaining that with the Beatles breaking up, “that was my feeling: Maybe I’m amazed at what’s going on …

Maybe I’m a man and maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me; Baby won’t you help me understand … Maybe I’m amazed at the way you pulled me out of time, hung me on the line, Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you.” He added that “every love song I write is for Linda.” McCartney was released on April 17, 1970, by Apple Records and charted at number 1 on the Billboard chart.

McCartney was born on June 18, 1942, at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practice as a nurse. His father, James (“Jim”) McCartney, was absent from his son’s birth, due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. Both of his parents were of Irish descent … McCartney taught himself piano, guitar, and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon’s skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into Doyle’s Space Music Hall of Fame inductee, The Beatles in 1960.

The next year would bring the only LP credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM. It was released on May 17, 1971, on Apple Records and reached number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. It contained songs like “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”, “Too Many People”, and “Smile Away”. McCartney auditioned musicians to play on this album.

In September 1971, the McCartneys’ daughter Stella was born, named in honor of Linda’s grandmothers, both of whom were named Stella. Ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell joined Paul and Linda at Rude Studios in Scotland, and began work on their debut album as Wings, “Wild Life”.

The album was recorded in eight days, from July 25 to August 2, 1971, at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) with Tony Clark and Alan Parsons engineering. A well-established college circuit seemed the best bet for impromptu gigs, and so it was that Nottingham University entered the history books as the venue for Wings’ first performance on February 9, 1972. Ten more gigs followed as they traveled across the UK in a van during an unannounced tour of universities. The band stayed in modest accommodations and received pay in coinage collected from students.

During the seven-week, 25-show Wings Over Europe Tour, the band played almost solely Wings and McCartney solo material: the Little Richard cover “Long Tall Sally” was the only song that the Beatles had previously recorded. McCartney wanted the tour to avoid large venues; most of the small halls they played had capacities of fewer than 3,000 people.

In March 1973, Wings achieved their first US number-one single, “My Love”, included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, a US number 1, released April 30, 1973. Before recording the album, Wings recruited lead guitarist Henry McCullough and released their debut single, “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, which was banned by the BBC for its political message.

Recording sessions for the album took place throughout 1972 at five recording studios in London. The group also recorded the non-album singles “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, “Hi, Hi, Hi” (also banned for drug references), and “Live and Let Die” the theme song of the 1973 James Bond film of the same name.

“Live and Let Die” was previewed in the 1973 television special James Paul McCartney, aired on April 16 in the United States and May 10 in the United Kingdom. In the segment, McCartney and Wings were shown performing the song in his studio, while clips of the film were shown, before the film’s US theatrical release on June 27.

Band on the Run was recorded in Lagos, Nigeria, shortly after Denny Seiwell and Henry McCullough left the band. With Wings helmed by Paul, Linda, and Denny Laine, Band on the Run was released on December 5, 1973. The album topped the US chart three separate times; in the UK, it was the biggest-selling studio album of 1974 and spent a miraculous 124 weeks on the chart.

The song “Band on the Run” hit number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. One of my favorite McCartney tunes is “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five” which has a grandiose ending with a full orchestra and the band. “Jet” and “Helen Wheels” were also top ten US hits.

They followed Band on the Run with the chart-topping albums Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976). They also started a 14-month tour, Wings Over the World, on September 9, 1975. More than 600,000 people attended Wings’ 31 shows in the United States and Canada between 3 May and 23 June 1976.

The live, triple album Wings over America was released following the tour on December 10, 1976. Venus and Mars, released May 27, 1975, peaked at number 1 in the US and the single “Listen to What the Man Said”. Some of my favorites from the LP were “Venus and Mars/Rock Show”, “Magneto and Titanium Man”, “Spirits of Ancient Egypt”, and “Medicine Jar”.

Wings at the Speed of Sound, their 5th studio album, was released on March 25, 1976, and contained the US Chart-topping single “Silly Love Songs”. The song “Let ‘Em In” charted at number 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the US Adult Contemporary and Cash Box Top 100 charts. In September 1977, the McCartneys had their third child, a son they named James.

The Wings song “Mull of Kintyre”, co-written with Laine, was quickly becoming one of the best-selling singles in UK chart history, becoming the most successful single of McCartney’s solo career, it achieved double the sales of the previous record holder, “She Loves You”, and went on to sell 2.5 million copies and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

The US number 1 single “With a Little Luck” was released on March 20, 1978, and was on the next album “London Town”. The following album, possibly my favorite Wings LP was “Back to the Egg”. Wings returned to Abbey Road in March 1979 to complete the album, before filming a series of promotional videos in Lympne and elsewhere, for what became the Back to the Egg TV special.

The singles “Old Siam, Sir”, “Getting Closer” and “Arrow Through Me” were released. McCartney put together a supergroup to record the tracks “Rockestra Theme” and “So Glad to See You Here”. Joining the Wings were James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders, Hank Marvin of the Shadows, the Who’s Pete Townshend, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour,

Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and John Bonham, and the Attractions’ Bruce Thomas. Wings completed their final concert tour in 1979, with twenty shows in the UK that included the live debut of the Beatles’ songs “Got to Get You into My Life”, “The Fool on the Hill” and “Let It Be”. In 1980, McCartney released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, which peaked at number one in the UK and number three in the US.

Just as his first LP he composed and performed it alone. “Coming Up” was included, recorded live in Glasgow by Wings. The single was number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and would be Wings last hit. They broke up in 1981, as a disgruntled Denny Laine left the band.

In 1982 McCartney collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the number 1 hit “Ebony and Ivory” which was included on McCartney’s Tug of War LP. He also worked with Michael Jackson, recording “The Girl Is Mine” from Thriller. The following year, he and Jackson worked on “Say Say Say”, McCartney’s most recent US number one as of 2014.

 Tug of War was Pauls’s third solo LP, produced by George Martin and released on April 26, 1982. It was also McCartney’s first album after the murder of former songwriting partner John Lennon. It includes the ex-Wings Denny laine and Linda, 10CC’s Eric Stewart, Carl Perkins, Stanley Clarke, and Ringo Starr in an all-star ensemble.

Pipes of Peace was his next solo album, released on Halloween, 1983. This one included the two tunes co-written with Michael Jackson, and pretty much the same all-star cast. In 1984, McCartney starred in the musical Give My Regards to Broad Street, a feature film he also wrote and produced which included Starr in an acting role. The soundtrack includes “No More Lonely Nights”, featuring David Gilmour on lead guitar. In 1985, Warner Brothers commissioned McCartney to write a song for the comedic feature film Spies Like Us which he composed in 4 days.

On July 13, 1985, McCartney performed “Let it Be” for Live Aid^[1]. McCartney collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play, released on August 25, 1986, with Stewart co-writing over half the LP’s songs. Four singles were issued from Press to Play: “Press”, “Pretty Little Head”, “Stranglehold” and “Only Love Remains”.

In 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, initially available only in the Soviet Union, which contained eighteen covers; recorded over the course of two days. In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders Gerry Marsden and Holly Johnson to record an updated version of “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, for the Hillsborough disaster appeal fund.

On June 5, 1989, he released his 8th studio solo album, Flowers in the Dirt; a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello that included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins. Several singles were released including “My Brave Face” and “This One”. McCartney then formed a band consisting of himself and Linda, with Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh on guitars, Paul “Wix” Wickens on keyboards, and Chris Whitten on drums.

In September 1989, they launched the Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade. During the tour, McCartney performed for the largest paying stadium audience in history on April 21, 1990, when 184,000 people attended his concert at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That year, he released the triple album Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained selected performances from the tour.

McCartney delved into orchestral music in 1991 when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial.

The same year he also performed on MTV Unplugged and released the album Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated twice with Youth of Killing Joke as the musical duo “the Fireman”. The eighth studio album, Off the Ground, was released on February 2, 1993.

The subsequent New World Tour followed, which led to the release of the Paul Is Live album later that year. In 1994, McCartney took four years off his solo career to work on Apple’s Beatles Anthology project^[2] with Harrison, Starr, and Martin.

Flaming Pie was released on May 5, 1997, including Jeff Lynne, Steve Miller, Ringo Starr, Linda, and their Son James McCartney. The next album was Run Devil Run, released on October 4, 1999, recorded in one week, and featuring Ian Paice and David Gilmour, it was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals.

He had been planning such an album for years, having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died of cancer in April 1998. He participated in the National Football League’s Super Bowl, performing “Freedom” during the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.