There’s not much more to learn about Paul McCartney, he’s probably the most famous musician on Terra Firma, So what can l learn in this book, about Macca in the seventies. Pretty much as it happens,I love a lot of what McCartney did in the seventies, stuff like Ram and McCartneys first solo album are wee gems, and lets not forget the stuff he did with Wings marvellous.

So one was was definitely interested in reading an indepth book, about his life during the seventies period.
After recording his debut solo album, he missed the camaraderie of a band, so he put together a band with his wife Linda and Denny Laine who would become the main stalwarts of Wings, the first line-up featured Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell, and they started turning up unannounced at various colleges, and started making a melodic racket. This worked well at first, but soon the press caught on, and scuppered that plan. Might as well make some records then, which they did including a protest song Give Ireland back to the Irish, The songs kept coming out, as been in a band with McCartney you never had to worry about lack of songs. Talking of songs what about the epic Live and let Die after which the original line-up split, and off went the 3 stalwarts to Lagos to come up with Band on the Run.

Now growing up in the seventies as l did, you could surely be almost forgiven for thinking that Wings were verging on being classed as light entertainment, due to songs like Mary had a little lamb, the theme from Crossroads, and not forgetting Mull of Kintyre this of course is tosh, now enter into this, Scottish guitar player Jimmy McCulloch and have a listen to Juniors Farm that song is a wee cracker. Other great songs are Helen Wheels,Rockshow, Wino Junko and the Denny Laine penned Again and again and again to name a few of the top of my head.

Wings were a very troubled band, with many line-up changes due to all manner of things, like money issues to general not getting on, were the main concerns, but it must have been weird to be in a new band with Paul McCartney who is a giant amongst musicians, it could never be equal being in a band with an ex-Beatle. On Paul’s side he also found it difficult having grown-up in The Beatles and now finding himself with session men and yes men.

In the end Wings disbanded, this may be due to the japanese drug-bust and the tragic death of John Lennon,plus l think Denny Laine had enough, as he loved to tour and McCartney by this time had enough of the hassle that touring endured on him. Man on the run; Paul McCartney in the seventies by Tom Doyle is the book, if you want to check out the whole shebang, but like it says on the cover, it deals with a specific timeframe, this l have noticed is a current trend, in books l have recently read, where it deals with events over a certain period of time, so your not, for example going to read about McCartney chomping vegetables for The Super Furry Animals in the 21st century.

Chris McDougall