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Garage to Stadiums is one of the Top 5% of podcasts in the world. From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums Music History Podcast
The Story of Paul McCartney & Wings Part II
Guest: Allan Kozinn author of “The McCartney Legacy”
Host: Dave Anthony
[00:00:00] Dave Anthony: Welcome to part two of the Story of Paul McCartney and Wings, where we'll discuss with our guest Alan Cozen, Paul's efforts at continuing to put out albums and hits despite the internal struggle facing the personnel of the band. We'll also look at Paul's continuing relationship with the Beatles on the legal front, and we'll also discuss a mysterious offer that surfaces for an incredible amount of money for the Beatles to reunite despite the de defection of two members.
[00:00:30] Dave Anthony: McCartney decides to plot on with only Linda McCartney and Denny Lane. He decides on Legos Nigeria as the recording site for the wing's Next album. Nigeria was a British colon until 1963 and it had undergone a military coup in 1966. There was targeted assassinations of the Prime Minister, regional premiers and top military officers.
[00:00:55] Dave Anthony: The brutal operation resulted in the deaths of over 20 people. Simple war from 67 to 1970 continued, and Lagos was not really a modern city. Sanitation was very basic. There was constant disease, outbreaks, and crime was a challenging problem. Robbers were up and executed in public, and Paul actually saw an execution on the beach one day, and Paul and Linda were even robbed at knife point.
[00:01:23] Dave Anthony: It's interesting when you move forward, all this kind of culminates. When the band on the Rud album is being conceived in of all places, leg of Nigeria. Which Paul chooses to record the November 73, the Wings. I Ban On the Run. On the run,
[00:01:45] Dave Anthony: on the run, man, and searching everyone, all the, the teams, obviously they hit Bando, the run, the pedal track.
[00:02:14] Dave Anthony: Let me roll it.
[00:02:22] Dave Anthony: I can tell you,
[00:02:33] Dave Anthony: Mrs. Vanderbilt hope. When you lying is on the blink, you never think I'm worrying
[00:02:50] Dave Anthony: Bluebird and last we will be. A blue Blue,
[00:03:03] Dave Anthony: a 1,985. I never dreamed.
[00:03:20] Dave Anthony: Helen Wheel
[00:03:26] Dave Anthony: Wheel.
[00:03:35] Dave Anthony: The US released in the albums, great reviews. The album hit number one in the US and UK and many other countries. And what I find incredible, Alan, is that Paul having lost these. Members of the band, essentially, they quit over the issues. You mentioned that McCarthy himself handles lead guitar rhythm, acoustic guitars, bass guitar, drums, percussion in addition to vocals and keyboards, and he does it in, by all accounts of substandard studio, live offs, Nigeria, and out comes banned on the run.
[00:04:09] Dave Anthony: This killer elbow, the guy's just so incredible when you think of achieving that with back to the backdrop.
[00:04:18] Allan Kozinn: Yeah, that's true. Denny Lane was still in the group, right? He, he did some of those guitar parts and bass parts, and Linda by then had, she had taken a lot of criticism when she joined the group because she wasn't really a keyboard player and he just wanted her in it
but by then she was
[00:04:36] Allan Kozinn: getting to be pretty good. She contributed a lot of those synthesizer lines that you hear on the band on the run album. Those are hers. And in fact, when Paul was arranging to have some of it orchestrated, she was listening to the discussion with Tony Visconti, who was gonna do the orchestration, and he proposed an idea and she said, no, you're not burying my synthesizer line.
[00:05:01] Allan Kozinn: So she even took some pride of authorship there. But yeah, it was difficulty. Denny Sewell wanted to, when Henry quit. Which was two weeks before they left for Legos to record that album. Denny Sewell said, look, we've been rehearsing this album as a band, and why don't we just get another lead guitarist, break in, a lead guitarist, and go and record it as a band.
[00:05:27] Allan Kozinn: Now, Denny Sewell had been the drummer on Ram, which was just Paul Denny Swell and one guitarist, uh Hu Hugh McCracken, and in some cases David Spinoza. And so Paul said, no, we'll just do it like Ram, when Denny didn't want to do it that way. He wanted it to be a band album. So yeah, there's a certain degree to which band on the run was like Ram, or to some extent, even the McCartney album, where Paul did play all the instruments.
[00:05:57] Allan Kozinn: And yet it turned out to be an incredible album. But that's partly because. Paul has a, uh, one other aspect of his personality. You could talk about wanting to control things, all that stuff. But another aspect of it is that if someone tells him he can't do something or shouldn't do something, he will say, I'll show you.
[00:06:17] Allan Kozinn: And, and so he may band on the run and he basically showed everyone it turned, it went to number one in the US three separate times.
[00:06:26] Dave Anthony: Wow.
[00:06:27] Allan Kozinn: Yep.
[00:06:28] Dave Anthony: That's amazing. That's an interesting insight there about the. Show you Factor. While Baki of the globe of the success of Band of the Ron McCartney also has other good news, constructive discussions between all four Beatles have begun on how to work out and unwinding their business interests.
[00:06:46] Dave Anthony: Now that the other three Beatles have fired Alan Klein Scottish guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch now joins the band, but it quickly becomes clear that he's a heavy drinker and ultimately he becomes critical of Linda McCartney's musical abilities. 1974, when they got Jimmy McCulloch became their lead guitarist.
[00:07:07] Allan Kozinn: He had some rough words with Linda. He could reduce her to tears. And that put Paul in a tough position because he wanted Jimmy McCulloch to be the lead guitarist and. Didn't necessarily want the band members attacking his wife,
[00:07:22] Dave Anthony: the side men who came in and outta wings. That was a prelude to the movie Spinal Tap with so many lineup changes incredible. Linda McCartney's musicianship. It's always been a thorn in the side of many. Why do you think Paul and Linda did not see the writing of the wall? That she should probably not be in the studio or on stage.
[00:07:41] Allan Kozinn: He wanted her there and that was. Basically all there was to it and, and she did improve by the time of the Wings Over America tour in 1976, she was playing.
[00:07:53] Allan Kozinn: She was able to play her parts perfectly well, and the trouble with the other band members stopped after. Wings over America. The World Tour 75, 76. That was an awful lot of concerts. It was over a year of them, and she s bore up pretty well under that by the time of the next iteration of wings with Lawrence Juer and Steve Holly, and they both have perfectly nice things to say about Linda, including as a musician.
[00:08:24] Allan Kozinn: So she grew into the role. It, it took a while, but she did it and. Let's also not forget that her vocal contributions were a really important aspect of the wing sound. So even if the keyboards took a while for her to develop as a singer, the blend of Paul Denny Lane and Linda is the classic wing sound is very crucial to the wing sound.
[00:08:51] Allan Kozinn: She would give interviews and she would be completely straightforward and say, look. I didn't wanna be in this band. I didn't wanna be a rock star. Paul wants me to do it, and he, he just wants me on stage with him, and so I'm doing it. But I could be, I would be perfectly happy sitting on our farm in Scotland looking at the sheep riding horses and raising my vegetable gardens.
[00:09:17] Allan Kozinn: It, it wasn't something she insisted on doing. He insisted, and that was it.
[00:09:22] Dave Anthony: Hmm. That's an interesting retake 'cause she's taken a lot of heat over the years, perceptually from many corners, and the musical chairs of personnel and wings continues. The press reports that Paul is looking for a new full-time drummer.
[00:09:38] Dave Anthony: His office is flooded with hundreds of applications and they narrow it down to 52 drummers to audition. Finally, there is an attempt to rectify the financial situation for the musicians of the band. A two year contract for the band members to sign, which will give them a percentage of touring box office plus royalties on recording.
[00:09:57] Dave Anthony: And this is discussed with the musicians in July, 1974 in Nashville. However, only two weeks later, a drunken episode of Newest Recruit, Jimmy McCullough Anchors McCartney, and he tells his manager Linda's father, Lee Eastman, to rip up the proposed contracts and instead. Eastman poses a super session fee, which will be paid when in studio of 170 pounds.
[00:10:26] Dave Anthony: The contracts that were presented in Nashville were now off the table, more musical chairs In January, 1975 with Jeff Bri, fired as a drummer and replaced by Joe English, who was so broke that he could not afford the plane ticket. To join the wings recording session in New Orleans. In the spring of 1975, Paul's Inlaws, the Eastmans negotiated a lucrative four year extension with EMI capital.
[00:10:53] Dave Anthony: The fact that they go through so many musical chairs on the band front, obviously it's economics, it's Paul being controlling. It's the things we've talked about. But I guess my question to you, if I dig a bit deeper here with you, is this still true in some ways that this band that he tries to form. I'll call it a bad costume that he tried to disguise himself in.
[00:11:17] Dave Anthony: Do you think he may have been subconsciously or even consciously avoiding creating an actual functioning band given the experience of the Beatles, his own personality, et cetera?
[00:11:29] Allan Kozinn: That's an interesting question. I, I doubt it. I think he really did want to have a functioning band, and he would've liked it if it, the personnel had remained constant.
[00:11:40] Allan Kozinn: With the next version of wings. It was really in a way, nothing to do with him. Jimmy McCulloch tended to like to drink a bit too much, and one day he decided he wasn't gonna come out and play at Encore. And Paul decked him and, and then at one point, right before Paul finally fired him, he trashed one of Paul's cabins, a kitchen.
[00:12:03] Allan Kozinn: Took all of these sort of freshly laid eggs that Linda had supplied the kitchen with and smashed them all over the place. And finally Paul had enough and said, okay, that's that. The drummer in that band, Joe English, was an American. Paul tried to do everything he could to move Joe's wife and daughter to England, and they just didn't like it.
[00:12:25] Allan Kozinn: So they stayed in Georgia and Joe got homesick and his wife got into a car crash and he felt he needed to be with her, so he left then. So both of those departures really aren't anything Paul could really control.
[00:12:41] Dave Anthony: Although in the book, I think it says Joe Engli quits the wings instead, "The music was sort of getting on my nerves. It was pure commercial stuff." Nothing else in wings that could never interfere with McCartney's thing.
[00:12:54] Allan Kozinn: Ha. Yeah. Okay. Because he, he came to it from a soul blues band's background, and maybe that's how he felt, but he didn't say any of that stuff while he was in wings. Right. But yeah, that's, that's a good point. Maybe it was a little too commercial for him. And I think it also dawned on all the wings members at, at a certain point that while Paul. Ideally wants this to be a real band of equals. It's never going to be a real band of equals, so long as only one of them is a former Beatle. Yeah, it's just not, not realistic.
[00:13:31] Dave Anthony: In May of 75, the album of Venus and Mars is released. Containing rock Show up. Listen to what the man said. That's what said.
[00:13:47] Dave Anthony: Said, he said,
[00:13:52] Dave Anthony: which went number one in the us, number six in the uk. It also contained. The song Venus and Mars, a.
[00:14:13] Dave Anthony: And another one called Letting Go
[00:14:29] Dave Anthony: Next, a music promoter comes forward with a multimillion dollar offer to The Beatles to get back together for one performance.
[00:14:39] Announcer: Are you a fan of Bob Dylan? The who? Jim Morrison or Bob Marley. Check out garage to stadiums on Spotify, apple Podcasts and more.
[00:14:50] Dave Anthony: In January, 1976. An incredible offer appears promoter Bill Sargent offers the deals a $30 million advance to do a one-time televised live show with closed circuit screening and record for an album.
[00:15:06] Dave Anthony: Total payout would've been an estimated $200 million, but he's turned down in March 76 Comes wings at the speed of sound containing. Song called Silly Love Souls Love doesn't come in a minute. Sometimes it doesn't come at all, which went to number one in the US and number two in the uk. And another hit called Let Him In. Somebody ringing Bell. Do favor picking up on that outrageous offer by Bill Sergeant Saturday Night Live. Producer Lauren Michaels offers the Beatles. A grand total of $3,000 to reunite and play three songs on SNL. And Paul and Joellen are watching the show at John's apartment and thinking about jumping in a cab and going to the studio but are too tired in a later show.
[00:16:17] Dave Anthony: George Harrison is a guest and they did a bid about George trying to collect the money from Michaels. In December of 1976, a live elbow called Wings Over America is released containing a live version of, maybe I'm amazed,
[00:16:41] Dave Anthony: maybe I'm You love me all the time. It's several other tracks. It sells extremely well. Next, the musical chairs of Band members continue. Paul responds with a surprising plan.
[00:16:58] Announcer: Want more garage to stadiums? Check out garage to stadiums.com for official playlists, concert footage, and other interesting facts. For each episode,
[00:17:11] Dave Anthony: Paul blindly addresses the financial discontent and ambiguity of the band arrangement. Offers the band members at CONGRA to be employees of McCartney Music Inc. With an annual salary of a hundred k plus bonuses for touring and recording. But just as that deal is settling in a dramatic turn occurs in a drunken rage.
[00:17:31] Dave Anthony: Guitars Jimmy McCullough wrecks the kitchen of one of the cottages at Paul's Scottish property where everyone is staying and recording the next hit that Paul will, Elise Mul of Tyre. Next morning, Paul wakes him up and tells him to get off his property and he's out. Similar to everyone else who leaves the wings, Jimmy had been frustrated with money and the lack of creative freedom.
[00:17:54] Dave Anthony: Paul micromanaged and mapped out all of Jimmy's solos, and Jimmy died two years later at age 26. Then a couple months later, drummer Joe English quits the wing. 1970 sevens Mole of Kintyre was the first single to sell over 2 million copies in the UK coming at the time, the biggest selling UK single. The Bag Pike led Ballad became a massive phenomenon. It remains one of the bestselling non charity singles in, in British history, and that March, 1978, the next WINGS album, Londontown is released. Containing the hit sold with a Little luck, which went to number one in the us. It also contained a soul called, I've had a,
[00:19:05] Dave Anthony: is it fair to say that Paul McCartney will. Never be considered or identified in textbooks on human resource of practices like he was controlling, managing nature.
[00:19:16] Allan Kozinn: You could probably say that, but he could be considered a textbook case for business models because he's done quite well by diversifying into publishing. People don't really focus much on his publishing career, which is just a sideline, but it has made him an extremely wealthy man. And that's without owning the Beatles catalog.
[00:19:40] Dave Anthony: Let's talk about how he earned that, how he got there. Obviously there's a couple obvious reasons, but maybe give us some insight on that.
[00:19:47] Allan Kozinn: Well, principally we can return to Lee Eastman, his father-in-law, who we mentioned earlier, Lee owned publishing companies and. Was a lawyer for publishing companies. He knew the publishing field really well. And basically what he said to Paul is, when you have money that you wanna invest, you might as well invest it into something you love.
[00:20:11] Allan Kozinn: What do you love? Well help. Paul loved songwriting and he loved songs and he loved all of the old classic songs going way back. So the first thing that he did with Lee's help. Lee representing him as his lawyer, as he bought the Buddy Holly catalog. Paul loved Buddy Holly. And so now he owned Buddy Holly's catalog and that was a start.
[00:20:36] Allan Kozinn: And then over the years other companies would come up and he ended up owning lots of American standard songbook. He ended up owning a company that had a lot of Broadway musicals like Annie and Greece. And quite a lot of those shows that were extremely successful
[00:20:58] Dave Anthony: in 1979, Paul would receive $20 million over three years with annual $2 million advance plus a royalty of a then unheard of 22% per album. The industry standard is 3%, 5%,
[00:21:13] Allan Kozinn: and even when, when he signed with Columbia Records in 1979 for. It was really just for a few years. But one of the things that Lee negotiated was that Columbia owned a publishing company that had a lot of songs Paul liked in it, and, and the publishing company became part of the deal. So he didn't get just an advance and just royalties. He got a publishing company out. So he owns a ton of songs and they're now published under his company, which is called MPL. Anybody can go online and look up MPL and you can get lists of the things that Paul owns. And it's, yeah, just startling how much music he owns. So with, and yet, the one thing that he really has always wanted and hasn't been able to get his hands on is the Lennon McCartney catalog. And long feil.
[00:22:11] Dave Anthony: 'Cause Michael Jackson at one point owned the Northern Publishing.
[00:22:14] Allan Kozinn: Sony owns it now. Michael Jackson ended up having to sign a lot of it over to Sony to his own deal. Yeah. So that came up for sale and it somehow slipped through his fingers. He's always blamed Yoko, actually, he said that when that came up for sale, he thought that he and Yoko should buy it together because it's. Him and John and Yoko, he says, kept saying that she could get it cheaper. She could get it cheaper, and finally Michael Jackson had it. So whoa, what the actual truth is there. I haven't quite gotten to yet, but theoretically in volume three of McCartney legacy, we should get there.
[00:22:56] Dave Anthony: That brings up an interesting question. When he signed, what was then the most lucrative recording deal in history in 1979? . EMI agreed as part of its deal to increase Paul's royalties on the Beatles back catalog. This was not known by John, George and Ringo. Did this ever get revealed that they ever played out?
[00:23:16] Allan Kozinn: Yes. Ringo found out when he was appearing in Paul's movie, give My regards to Broad Street, and he found out about it then. That was in 1983 and the other Beatles were quite upset about that because. Their feeling was it was all for one. One for all. There's no reason one of them should be getting higher recording royalties than the others. Now, Paul's argument was, well, could have said, I want part of some other catalog, but it's us.
[00:23:48] Allan Kozinn: I could have said, I want part of the Beach Boys catalog, but I said, I want part of our catalog. So from his point of view, that was a legitimate request. It didn't, it's not like because he was getting more, they were getting less. He was just getting more and they were getting what they were getting right, but they were very upset about that.
[00:24:07] Allan Kozinn: And that's, and, and that battle between them is why when the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, Paul didn't turn up because he felt that, wait a minute, we're having these knockdown drag out battles. It'd be kind of hypocritical for me to turn up and accept this. So he didn't, and the others did.
[00:24:28] Allan Kozinn: George just said that's a pity Paul didn't come because he's the one with the speech. Yeah. When they finally settled it, it wasn't the first time something like that happened. Back in the days towards the earlier part of this discussion with the Klein versus Eastman thing, Lee Eastman had recommended to Paul that he buy up more shares of Northern Songs.
[00:24:51] Allan Kozinn: And Paul bought more shares of Northern Songs. He and John originally had the same amount of shares. Each. Paul bought some more, didn't bother mentioning it to John. When John found out about it, he was really upset and Paul basically made the same argument that he made about the royalties later, which is I wanted to invest in something I. Thought, why not invest in us?
[00:25:16] Dave Anthony: That was a public entity, so he was really buying shares of the public market, which he has every right to do.
[00:25:22] Allan Kozinn: Right. And John felt that if he was gonna do that, he should have told him and he would've had the opportunity to match the number of shares. But whatever it was, there was always something going on that Right. One of them was upset about, uh,
[00:25:37] Dave Anthony: in November, 1979, the no one album, single wonderful Christmas time is released. It does extremely well. In May of 1980, Paul releases McCartney two, a solo album, and it contains the hit coming up, which went to number one in the US and number two in the uk. Next, we discussed Paul's personality and his legacy and ask a key question about his motives in starting another band.
[00:26:20] Announcer: Want more garage to stadiums? Visit us on Instagram, YouTube X, Facebook, and LinkedIn
[00:26:32] Dave Anthony: After hearing Paul's Bull's story, the audience, as I'm sure forming some opinions on Paul Alan, you've done such extensive, incredible amount of research on this subject. How would you, after all you've done, and looking back on your excellent works, how would you describe his personality if we said, give us sort of a short synopsis of who Paul really is?
[00:26:57] Allan Kozinn: Well, he is an incredibly creative guy. That's just a base. He's really actually quite likable. I've interviewed hundreds of people really over the years. You walk into a room to interview Paul, and he has a way of making you feel as if you're just old pals and he has nothing he'd rather do than talk to you.
[00:27:25] Allan Kozinn: Now, as a journalist. that can't be true, but that's his superpower in a way. On the other hand, he's very, as we've said, very determined to have things the way he wants it. And once he sets his mind on something, that's what it's gonna be. In volume three, we're gonna write about, give my regards to Broad Street.
[00:27:45] Allan Kozinn: His movie, the one where Ringo found out about those royalties. He was advised by a lot of people that the script for this, it just wasn't very good. He did it himself, and he's not a filmmaker or wasn't a filmmaker, and everyone advised him against it, including his manager. Who he then fired for advising him against it.
[00:28:11] Allan Kozinn: And then when it got really bad reviews, he said, Hey, I, I wish someone would've told me. So that's an aspect of Paul too. He comes with gazillions of ideas and a lot of them are spectacular. Some of them are maybe not very good at all, and he will wanna do them all and see what the consequences are, and you can't talk him out of it because he's very headstrong.
[00:28:38] Dave Anthony: A few words that you're saying are creative heads and strong, bold in terms of the fortune, favors, the bolt. The guy's made a fortune. He's made some mistakes along the way, but you can't bolt him for his courage. That's for sure.
[00:28:52] Allan Kozinn: He's also remarkably personable. That's the other aspect of it. Everybody who works with you don't run into a lot of people who say he is one nasty dude. Right. Everyone says he is the nicest guy.
[00:29:05] Dave Anthony: Even Keith , when I read Keith Richards book, my Life, I, I didn't expect Keith to Paul to be friends, but he spoke very highly about 'em. They got together, they jammed a little bit, and he loved them. Yeah. It's incredible that these two fellows, 15 and 16 hunker down in bedrooms right together, face to face, nose to nose. Then ultimately the rivalry begins Rolling Stone Magazine. Do you think they helped create the perception that cool fans like Lennon and Teeny Boppers like Paul, you couldn't like both or do you think that was an influence on the John Paul rivalry among fans?
[00:29:44] Allan Kozinn: I think it absolutely was, and I grew up reading Rolling Stone at that time and listening to the radio and all of that, and they definitely did put forth this narrative that John was the cool revolutionary one, and Paul was the sort of straight low song singing pop guy. It wasn't so much that you could only like one, you could like them both, but John was still the cool one as they were presenting it.
[00:30:14] Allan Kozinn: There was, I think, a reason for that, um, which was John Winter. The publisher and founder, first editor of Rolling Stone went to London in April, 1970 and interviewed Paul the day before. Paul sent out copies of the McCartney album, which in the British press copies included a self interview. In which he said, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be working with the Beatles again.
[00:30:42] Allan Kozinn: And a lot of things that were instant headlines. And he didn't actually mention this to Wener Wener must have sent back his story, must have been on deadline, and wrote a story with no references to this. And then the very next day, the British headlines are Paul Quis Beatles. So. Probably was a little unhappy about that, whereas Lenin would sit down and give him long, completely open interviews.
[00:31:15] Allan Kozinn: Pretty regularly. Anything Winter wanted, he could call John and John would be there and would answer the questions. So from from Winter's point of view, that was a much better relationship. And when the review of the McCartney album came in at Rolling Stone, it was originally just a straightforward and positive review.
[00:31:37] Allan Kozinn: Winter called the writer and said, you don't really understand what this is. This isn't just an album, it's a manifesto, and you have to treat it that way. Right. And so the review was rewritten and it became all about how this album is like Trojan Horse and there's Army about to come out and wreck the Beatles.
[00:31:57] Allan Kozinn: Oh, it was? Yeah, it was like that. And Rolling Stone definitely did have a hand. Creating this idea that John was cool and Paul wasn't, and, and that's kind of a shame.
[00:32:08] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because when you look at the, the Beatles, there it was Paul who lived in London. He was the one going to the clubs. John lived in the suburbs. Paul was underrated relative to his exploration and innovation of culture. So I think your point is well taken. Two parter question. Here's the, the question of questions. Because we're gonna talk a little bit about his legacy here. If Paul had only been in the Beatles, what would his place in history be? And the second part, ell, his second act is a solo performer and member of Wings looked upon when music history is told.
[00:32:47] Allan Kozinn: His legacy, if he had only been in the Beatles, I think would still be. Amazing because the Beatles themselves, the catalog that they recorded from my point of view, is the Zenith of Western civilization. But no, not to put too fine a point.
[00:33:07] Dave Anthony: How do you really feel?
[00:33:09] Allan Kozinn: So the Beatles' music will always be out there. People will always. Love it. You keep seeing generation after generation. When I was growing up, we would never have listened to our parents' music. I listen to it now, but I wouldn't have as a kid. But you see kids listening to the Beatles music and we're now old enough to be their grandparents, that music is always fresh. It's always great. And so even if Paul had never done another thing, even if none of them had ever done another thing. It would still be an amazing catalog, the greatest pop catalog of the 20th century after the Beatles.
[00:33:48] Allan Kozinn: I think because of what we said about how to describe Paul and the incredibly creative aspect, he just wasn't going to stop, and he's continued and he's developed over the years. He's done tons of really interesting things. These are things we haven't even talked about, like his classical stuff and wrote a ballet.
[00:34:10] Allan Kozinn: He's done a lot of sort of avant garde experimental things and weird dance music, things like with the firemen, and so he's just, his creativity has allowed him to create a really impressive post Beatles catalog to, and Wings is only a part of that. Wings was only the first decade. They broke up really in 1981.
[00:34:34] Allan Kozinn: After that, he's done a ton of extremely good stuff. Some stuff that isn't amazing, but at his best, his best stuff is really as good as a lot of the Beatles best Almed
[00:34:49] Dave Anthony: concert. 10 years ago maybe I was blown away. I I the performance, he refused to leave the stage. He must have been on there for three hours.
[00:34:58] Allan Kozinn: That's right.
[00:34:59] Dave Anthony: He just gives a great show and when you see that catalog in action. Kind like me. We're witnessing history in here. The guy is a legend. That's absolutely true. He is. He really has done some astonishing work. What are three songs you think the audience should give a listen or re-listen to to get an appreciation of his post Beatles work?
[00:35:19] Allan Kozinn: It's a really difficult question. On any given day, I, I would go up with three other songs. So we're talking about three post Beatles songs, correct? The, the first would be backseat of my car on the Ram album. Pretty. We may end up in Mexico
[00:35:45] Allan Kozinn: Room. There's a lot of influence in that song of Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys, who Paul absolutely admired. Sure. Both in terms of backing vocal harmonies and melodically, and so backseat of my car is like a little rock symphony. This is a story. There's a two kids and their parents are sort of frowning upon them being out late and all that stuff, and they just want to do it and maybe drive down to Mexico and.
[00:36:14] Allan Kozinn: And, and get free of it all, but it, it is an exquisitely beautiful song and it's on Ram. The second one I would choose is Picasso's. Last words drink to me from band on the Run.
[00:36:38] Allan Kozinn: Before he went, he beat us partly because I think you need to have something from Band on the run and from Wings and Picasso's. Last word is not the first song people choose. You know, people would go with the title song or Jet, or one of those Picasso's last words. Is really interesting because first of all, he wrote it like he or at least wrote the seed of it at a dinner with Dustin Hoffman, where Dustin Hoffman said, could you write a song about just anything?
[00:37:12] Allan Kozinn: Like what about this? And he picked up a Time or Newsweek magazine where Picasso had just died and it included Picasso's last words. Paul can just write a song out of nowhere, and he did that in front of Dustin Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman to say, I can't believe it. He's doing it. But then he took it to Legos.
[00:37:34] Allan Kozinn: He recorded it at Ginger Baker Studio and ended up making it into a multi-car sing where there's a bit of a French radio, supposed to represent what Picasso was hearing on his last night. And he took A BB, C French. Language tape and put it in there and had some clarinet and brought some people in to do a kind of lightly jazzy thing to go with it.
[00:38:07] Allan Kozinn: And at the same time, he reprises themes from band On the run, there's a bit of jet in it,
[00:38:18] Allan Kozinn: jet jet, there's a bit of Mrs. Vanderbilt, and then at the very end band on the run seam comes back in. So it sort of weaves it all in. And what I like about that is. The complexity of that song. And there was a part also it, it's not even exactly as he recorded it, he decided to chop it up into sections and move sections around.
[00:38:47] Allan Kozinn: So it's a very creative use of the recording studio, and it's a great song too. Hm. And then the third one is from 1989 from the Flowers in the Dirt album, and it's my brace Chase. Save me.
[00:39:20] Allan Kozinn: And it's a collaboration with Elvis Costello, with whom he wrote basically in albums worth of materials. It appears on a number of his albums in Elvis' albums. I think that Elvis Costello was probably his best collaborator since John Lennon, because Elvis has this tough edge that John had. And my brave face is, it's a song about someone who's after a breakup, he's on his own and he is not used to it.
[00:39:47] Allan Kozinn: And he says, breaking up the dirty dishes and throwing them away, kind of thing. So, and it's also, again, melodically beautiful backing Vos. Everything about it is it, it just clicks right into place. So those would be my three picks for today. But if we talk next week. It could be three others. But, uh,
[00:40:07] Dave Anthony: today we've been talking to Alan Cozen, the co-author, along with documentarian Adrian Sinclair, of a two volume pair of books called the McCarthy Legacy, a retrospective of Paul McCartney's Career from the End of The Beatles Onward. And volume three is coming,
[00:40:25] Allan Kozinn: I would say 2028 probably.
[00:40:27] Dave Anthony: The detail that Alan puts in these books is incredible. And if you're a McCartney fan. The Beatles fan, you'll wanna start with volume one, and it's unbelievably scholarly work, I will say, Alan. So congrats on the book. Thank you. And thanks so much for eliminating us on a lot of elements of Paul and Wings and most Beatles there.
[00:40:50] Allan Kozinn: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:40:53] Dave Anthony: Some closing notes on Paul McCartney. As we discussed on our episode on Paul, he's a multi-instrumentalist. The first reasonable instrument he played was the Trumpet, which was a gift from his dad for his 14th birthday, which he later traded for guitar, and Paul was originally the guitar player for the Beatles when they were known as the Corman.
[00:41:13] Dave Anthony: It only began playing bass guitar after the so-called forgotten Beatle. Stuart Sutcliffe quit the group in 1961. McCartney's Peak accomplishment was probably in playing instruments on the Wings album band on the run where he played four different types of guitar lead rhythm, acoustic and bass. He played piano, keyboards, drums of percussion, and also provided lead vocals.
[00:41:40] Dave Anthony: The band named Wings came to Paul while he was pre in the hospital during the difficult birth of his daughter, Stella. In 1971, he imagined, quote, an angel with big wings, and Paul intentionally named the Band Wings rather than the Wings to distinguish it from the Beatles. Stella, by the way, survived a win on to become a famous clothing designer known globally for her innovative fashions.
[00:42:07] Dave Anthony: The recording of the classic band on the Run album by Paul McCarney and Wings was full of adversity. GA guitarist, color and drummer, Denny swa left the crew. Leaving the band is just a trio of Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, and Denny Lane to head to. Lagos Nigeria to record this meant Paul had to play multiple instruments while in Lagos, Paul and Linda were Mag Point.
[00:42:31] Dave Anthony: The robbers took a bag containing demo tapes and lyrics, but did not hurt them. In legendary Nigerian musician, Fela Kuti accused McCartney of coming to Nigeria to quote, steal African music. And finally, Paul actually collapsed in the studio due to a bronchial spasm brought on by excessive smoking. And the hot climate Since 1960, Paul McCartney has been arrested six times in various global locations as follows, in Hamburg, Germany in 1960, in the pre fame days when the Beatles played, lived there, Paul was charged with arson.
[00:43:08] Dave Anthony: He tried to make a makeshift candle that caused a fire. Two, he was arrested in 1972 in Sweden. Which was incidentally one of the inspirations for the song band on the Run. Three in 1973 for possession of cannabis at his country home. Four in 1975 in Los Angeles, where his wife, American born Linda McCartney, took the fall for.
[00:43:34] Dave Anthony: So that he did not lose his US visa. Five, the penultimate time in 1980 in Japan where he spent nine days in jail after arriving in Tokyo with 200 grams of pot, which led to cancellation of the Japanese tour and. And number six. One more time for his final time in the jailbird bracelets. Paul was arrested in 1984 in Barbados again for another possession of cannabis.
[00:44:01] Dave Anthony: Paul McCartney has been an advocate for the legalization of cannabis from as early as. July, 1967, he alone with other Beatles and other prominent figures of the day, paid for an advertisement in the Times newspaper declaring that quote, the law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice, unquote.
[00:44:20] Dave Anthony: Did you know that Paul McCartney went to save from drowning? Multiple crabby winning producer Mark Ronson Ronson is well known for his work with a v Winehouse Lady Gaga, Bruno Warez Ade A Dua Lipa. But when Ronson was seven years old. He entered the waters off Long Island, New York, and soon was in trouble in the waves.
[00:44:40] Dave Anthony: Paul McCartney just happened to be there with his first wife. Linda and Paul leapt into action and rescued Mark. And in a strange twist, here's how it was verified. Mark S confirmed it with Paul when he acted as Paul's producer on McCartney's 2013 album entitled New. If anyone downed Paul McCartney establishing himself as a second act after he quit the Beatles, his hit 1970 seven's mole of Kintyre must have certainly convinced them it was the first single to sell over 2 million copies in the UK coming at the time, the biggest selling uk.
[00:45:19] Dave Anthony: The bagpipe led ballad became a massive phenomenon. It remains one of the bestselling non charity singles in in British history. We discussed how reviews were often harsh when it came to McCartney's post Beatles albums. Well, Paul had the last say when he wrote the hit silly love songs in 1976 as a direct response to critics who locked him for writing sentimental love song.
[00:45:44] Dave Anthony: It went to number one on the US billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for five non-consecutive weeks, starting on May 22nd, 76, and it was the biggest song of that year in the us. The iconic band on the Run Eldon cover were trained prisoners breaking out of jail featured famous figures of the day, including Hollywood, tough Guy, actor James Cober, BBC broadcaster, Michael Parkinson, and British Boxer, John Conte.
[00:46:10] Dave Anthony: Here's a strange fact about Paul McCartney. He's the only artist to have a number one hit while in several different configurations as an app, as a solo artist. He hit number one with his song coming up. He had a number one hit as a duo with Stevie Wonder on Ebony and Ivory as a trio when Wings had a number one hit with Band on the run as a quartet with the Beatles, with several number ones, and even made the top spot as a quintet when The Beatles and Billy Preston collaborated on the number one hit.
[00:46:46] Dave Anthony: Get back, Paul McCartney. Liz White Linda McCartney appeared on The Simpsons in the episode titled Lisa the Vegetarian. Which originally aired in Season seven, episode five. In October, 1995, Paul agreed to guest star only on the condition that Lisa Simpson would remain a vegetarian for the rest of the series.
[00:47:07] Dave Anthony: Paul, his wife, Linda McCartney, played themselves helping Lisa embrace her new lifestyle. Paul even jokingly mentions in the episode that if you play his. Song, maybe I'm amazed backwards, you'll hear a recipe for lentil soup. How's this for an interesting rock history story, a legendary punk group named themselves after Paul McCartney.
[00:47:30] Dave Anthony: Here's the story. It starts with the fact that before the Beatles became famous, Paul briefly went by the stage name Paul Ramon. He used to check into hotels under that Paul Ramon pseudonym, a young musician from New York City punk band bassist. Douglas Colvin loved the Beatles music and suggested the name for the band After Learning of McCartney's pseudonym.
[00:47:54] Dave Anthony: The other band members loved the idea of the rest is history. The Ramones often considered the godfathers of the punk genre, even changed their sude to match the PNE moniker. Douglas Colvin, the man who came up with the Ramon's name became Bassist Dei Ramon. Jeffrey Hyman became vocalist. Joey Ramon. John Cummings became guitarist.
[00:48:12] Dave Anthony: Johnny Ramon and Thomas er Lee became drummer. Tommy Ramon, Paul McCarthy may have organized the most famous group of musicians ever to play on one song. The wing song er theme was recorded on October 3rd, 1978 at Abbey Road Studios by an all star collection of musicians dubbed ER and featured Paul McCartney on vocals, bass and piano.
[00:48:36] Dave Anthony: Pete Townsend of the Who on electric guitar. David Gilmore of Pink Floyd Electric Guitar, Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces on Bass. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass and piano. John Bono drummer of Led Zeppelin. Special thanks to our guest today, Alan Cozen, co-author. Of the McCartney legacy. Thanks to you for making Garage to stadiums, one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world.
[00:49:05] Dave Anthony: We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platforms so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interview.
[00:49:24] Dave Anthony: Visit us at that website for more bonus content on all the bands featured, and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify. Thanks to our producer, Cameron Dolliver, our program director Scott Campbell, creative director Chad Rabid, and video director Nigel Campbell. You've been listening to Garage to Stadiums.
[00:49:46] Dave Anthony: I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another Garage to Stadium Story.
[00:49:53] Announcer: Another Blast. Furnace Labs production.