Forgotten Paul McCartney and Wings sessions reveal a band finding their feet and having fun

Freewheeling, looser and giddier take to some of Wings’ biggest hits are a delight

Left to right: Geoff Britton, Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch of Wings in 1974. Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images

John Meagher

In August 1974, five years after a film crew recorded the Beatles at work on Let It Be, Paul McCartney invited cameras into Abbey Road studios. This time, it was to capture Wings at full flight.

The previous November they had released Band on the Run, McCartney’s fifth post-Beatles album. After sluggish sales initially, it went on to become the biggest selling album in Britain in 1974, no doubt aided by the earworm title track and the equally radio friendly Jet.

That album was recorded with McCartney’s wife Linda and Denny Laine, but two new members — guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton — had newly joined the fold when the cameras started rolling.

The result, a TV special, didn’t seem to excite anyone, least of all McCartney. Maybe it’s because there was none of the bickering of the Let It Be sessions and discord tends to make for better telly than everyone getting on. It’s only now — half a century on — that an album from that six-day session is being officially unveiled. And what a delight it is.

One Hand Clapping — Macca claims the title plucked out thin air — is the sound of a band having a great deal of fun and finding their feet as a quintet.

One can almost sense how relaxed they are, not least on a delightful version of Maybe I’m Amazed — his vocal is every bit as lovely as it is on the original, from his self-titled debut album, while McCulloch’s electric guitar offers lively accompaniment.

McCartney even lets out a playful yelp at the beginning of an all-too-short Let It Be, which is composed entirely of voice and harmonium.

A highlight comes in the form of a spirited rendition of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, Band on the Run’s closing track. Here, the song is given a even more pronounced freewheeling approach, with McCartney’s vocals much more raw and frayed — a good thing.

It’s the same story on the rambunctious Jet, which is even looser and giddier than the recorded version. Linda’s Moog synthesiser really comes into its own on this version.

In between, song banter is kept to a comparative minimum, although we learn that the Live and Let Die version here is the third take. It’s a slightly funkier rendition to the original, the theme song for the Bond film of the same name and first to figure Roger Moore as 007.

A studio album, Venus and Mars, emerged in 1975 and the One Hand Clapping project would largely be forgotten about. The line-up soon changed too — McCulloch and Britton never quite gelled together and the latter soon went his separate ways.

But anyone smitten by McCartney’s ‘other’ band will find a great deal to savour here.