The set is due to arrive on November 7 in “an impressive array of beautifully designed formats”, per a press release. You can pre-order it here.
Each version will include the band’s hits ‘Band On The Run’, ‘Live And Let Die’, ‘Jet’ and ‘Let ‘Em In’ – all of which are staples of McCartney’s solo live shows to this day.
The forthcoming ‘WINGS’ is described as “a lovingly curated time capsule of imagery and music for the mega Wings fan”. It is available as a 3LP limited edition colour vinyl, as well as a 1CD and 1LP.
“The Beatles was the best band in the world. It’s difficult to follow that,” McCartney explained. “It’s like following God. Very difficult unless you’re Buddha. Anything Wings did had to be viewed in the light of The Beatles. And the comparisons were always very harsh. Denny Laine wasn’t John Lennon. Henry McCullough wasn’t George Harrison. That was inevitable. The interesting thing is that looking back on some of the work, some of the stuff, it’s better than you think it was, but because it got such harsh criticism… from me.”
Additionally, fans can get their hands on both 3LP and 2CD versions – complete with an expanded 32-page booklet featuring photographs, artwork, paintings, trivia and information about the group.
The artwork for ‘WINGS’ was overseen alongside Paul by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell of Hipgnosis – the iconic design studio that worked with Macca for seven Wings albums, including ‘Band On The Run, ‘Venus And Mars’, ‘Wings Over America’ and ‘Wings Greatest’.
The expanded booklet boasts extensive album-by-album notes on the artwork written by Po, with additional editorial by Pete Paphides.
McCartney yearned to play before audiences again, which he hadn’t since the Beatles stopped touring in 1966. But he couldn’t face doing it solo, the spotlight trained on him alone. So he asked Linda to help him put together a new group. This authorised, illustrated oral history, edited by cultural historian Ted Widmer, tells the story of one of the most successful bands of the 1970s – and one of the strangest.
It’s based on interviews (given for a new documentary on the band) with McCartney and former band members, as well as archive material. Widmer does an expert job of stitching this into a compelling narrative that includes cultural context – like what else was in the charts at the time – and plenty of photographs, many previously unseen. The result is a portal into a more eccentric age of pop, a fable about the tension between celebrity and creativity, and a story with elements of Spinal Tap and Wacky Races.
The personnel of Wings varied over the decade around a core of Paul, Linda and Denny Laine, formerly of the Moody Blues. The group did not soar effortlessly to high altitude because of McCartney’s fame. In fact, determined to remake himself after the Beatles, he waged a kind of guerrilla campaign against his own celebrity. In 1972, he said: “A year ago, I used to wake up in the morning and think, I’m Paul McCartney. I’m a myth. And it scared the hell out of me.” The first Wings album, Wild Life, released in 1971, was almost deliberately half-baked, and arrived to another round of jeers.
McCartney then instigated one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of rock and pop, packing the other members of Wings into a battered van, along with his children and his sheepdog Martha, and driving them on an unplanned tour of British universities. He would look at the map, identify the nearest university, find the student union, and ask an open-mouthed social secretary if they fancied a gig that evening.
For 50p, anyone who wanted could come and see Paul McCartney lead his new group through a ragged set of rock’n’roll covers, new Wings songs, and no Beatles songs.
Read the full story on (The Guardian)
