Is it "Wings - At The Speed of Sound" or "Wings At The Speed of Sound?"

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by beatlesfan9091, Oct 18, 2018.

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  1. Blair G.

    Blair G. Senior Member

    Location:
    Delta, BC, Canada
    It’s an odd album for sure with all the other band members getting a shot at lead vocals
    Been listening to it in the car lately (because I love Beware My Love) and find myself enjoying almost the whole album (sorry Linda, Cook of the House still sucks 40 years later).
    Definitely not at the bottom of my McCartney list.

    Wings at the Speed of Sound for me, but it still gets filed under “Mc”
     
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  2. Andrew J

    Andrew J Forum Resident

    Location:
    South East England
    Did I end up in another parody thread?
     
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  3. xilef regnu

    xilef regnu Senior Member

    Location:
    PNW
    I've always called it "WINGS - The Sound of One Hand Clapping".

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2018
  4. beatlesfan9091

    beatlesfan9091 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Seattle
    I suppose it depends on whether you file it under "Wings" or under "Paul McCartney." So it'd either be "At The Speed of Sound" by Wings, or "Wings At The Speed of Sound" by Paul McCartney.
     
  5. sandmountainslim1

    sandmountainslim1 Vicar Of Fonz

    "Wings At The Speed of Sound" to me. Other than the two singles this album is unlistenable to me. I bet the fans of 1976 had to be disappointed since Venus and Mars was the previous album.
     
  6. Claudio Dirani

    Claudio Dirani A Fly On Apple's Wall

    Location:
    São Paulo, Brazil
    I was searching for the Archive thread, but I noticed it's been closed down.
    So here's something I came across recently.

    Joe English – Making Music with Paul McCartney

    Posted on May 20, 2020by scottkfish

    Scott K Fish, Joe English

    SKF NOTE: Here’s the back story on my interviews with Joe English which began in 1980 and concluded years later. During his music career Joe played with some excellent bands — including his own. But he is perhaps best known for the music he made playing drums with Paul McCartney and Wings.

    I’ve isolated from the full interviews Joe’s comments about his time with Paul McCartney. From his audition until Joe chose to leave the band and move back permanently to the United States.

    Mostly this Q&A is verbatim. In a few brief spots our conversation veered away from McCartney and Wings. For clarity I’ve edited out those sidetracked moments. This excerpt begins with Joe answering my question about joining the band, “Was it an audition?”

    Finally, I decided to post Joe’s recollections in two parts.

    =====

    Joe English: No audition. Tony Dorsey met me in Nashville. He was with McCartney at Allen Toussaint’s studio, Sea-Saint. He said, “Man, I want you to have this gig.”

    I said, “Tony, I don’t know the material.” And then I went right into a recording situation — which I hadn’t hardly been doing any of.

    Tony said, “Don’t worry. You just watch me.” He was the arranger and was sort of directing the date. He stood in front of the drum booth and gave me every cue: when to stop, when to hit accents.

    Scott K Fish: There were no [drum] charts?

    JE: I didn’t read. We went ahead and did it and I guess my concept of playing was different. McCartney liked it and it jelled. So we went to New Orleans, and then to Los Angeles, to mix the album at Wally Heider [Studios]. And McCartney asked me to join the band.

    That didn’t take much thought. I said, “Yes sir. I’ll take the job.”

    I eventually had an apartment over in London. I was going back-and-forth, spending some time over there and some time at home.

    When I moved to England we started to get into some heavy recording. The on-the-scene experience and the skill I got in recording with McCartney — hour upon hour, into the early morning, working at the board with him, recording and learning recording techniques — that was really fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better guy to work with for learning what songs are about, and learning what recording in the studio is about.

    SKF: Was Wings like a real band situation? Or was it actually still Paul McCartney and his band?

    JE: Well, I just came in on the first album. So I was sort of following. That was the Venus and Mars. From Wings at the Speed of Sound on out it was like we could have contributed as much as we wanted. I mean, I could have recorded my tracks and then just hung out in the hall and drank coffee.

    On Wings at the Speed of Sound we mixed tunes where everybody had a fader at the board. It was a real band situation. It wasn’t like, “Hey, I’m Paul McCartney. I know more than you.” It wasn’t like that. If people had good suggestions it was used.

    It was a real learning experience just to be in that situation. Working at Abbey Road with good engineers, actually watching the recording process go down. I soaked in as much as possible.

    To this day, when I’m in the studio getting into some production stuff, some things will come out that I’d learned back then and forgotten about. I couldn’t even put a dollar value on what that experience was worth.

    SKF: What did you think when you heard playback of yourself that first recording session in Nashville?

    JE: I was pretty excited. I was just doing my job. a lot of people think that Joe English never did anything before Paul McCartney and Wings. I’d been playing years before that. And when I think back, McCartney was always up for getting something different. a lot of the stuff I played on the Wings albums was straight-ahead. But to McCartney, I guess it had just a little different edge.

    I guess playing with Jaimo and living out in the country did something for my playing.

    To hear it played back was nice. It was a feeling that I was moving forward in the music business all of a sudden. I just went purely for what I felt was needed at the moment. I guess what I felt the songs needed was sort of what McCartney was thinking they needed — because I got the job.

    I guess that is a good way to check a guy out. Put him under pressure. It’s sort of like they wanted to see if that horse could run.

    When I left Wings it was on a good note. We’re still friends right now. We don’t see each other. But every time I go over to England I call Paul and see him.

    But I just could not give up the States. It’s the same thing with McCartney. You don’t see him moving over here.

    I just thought I could do it in two places. That sort of wore thin after awhile.

    To be continued….

    SKF: You had thirteen cents in your pocket when you got the call from McCartney. You were with Wings for three years making a six-figure income. And yet you’ve said that it created a turmoil within you. Why?

    JE: I’ve got no idea. It’s hard to answer that. I could’ve locked into that scene, but I know the Lord had different plans for me. Now I look at what I’m doing and how my life has changed personally.

    McCartney gave me a fantastic break with Wings. I’ll never take that away from him. He’s a fantastic guy to work for. These are things that never get into print. It’s always the mystique that, ‘Boy, Paul must’ve been a hard guy to work for. Joe must’ve gotten into a fight when he left.’

    Let me tell you. Paul McCartney treated me like one of his family. When I first joined the band and moved to England I used to stay at his house to adjust. He didn’t want me staying off in some cold hotel room. He treated me wonderful.

    I traveled all around the world. And it wasn’t Paul and. It was us. It was a family for about two-and-a-half years. If you can find anywhere to print any of that — you need to let people know that. It was Paul McCartney and Wings.

    Deep down I think I knew that one day I’dd have to pursue my own career. I couldn’t ride off Paul forever. I just decided to pull up stakes. And it wasn’t easy to give up a situation like that. I could’ve really pursued different things while I was with Wings.

    There was a sort-of-like peak. I joined the band. We did a couple of albums. Then we did that world tour.

    For me, that’s when Wings peaked. I felt like: what else can I do? We did a lot of things off that tour. There was a movie called The Paul McCartney Rockshow. We did an ABC Television special. It was like pulling all the stops out. This is the big one. Paul wanted to have his own band and go out and do it. And we sure did. I got a lot in in two-and-a-half to three years.

    SKF: Did you do anything to keep yourself physically and mentally in shape during the world tour?

    JE: I didn’t do anything physically. And mentally, I didn’t have to. I had a gig most musicians dream about. I had people opening limousine doors for me. We flew on chartered jets. First-class. We had four bases when we toured the States: Texas, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. We’d play our dates and fly back to our hotel. People were always wanting to do stuff for you. I didn’t have to do anything but play. I had no other worries.

    All I thought about was playing my gig at night. I didn’t worry about where my clothes were, what I was going to wear. We had people with trunks of clothing that were pressed and ironed and all sewn and custom made for the tour. You’d walk into a room and they’d ask, “What do you want to wear?” I didn’t have to do anything. It was a dream gig.

    So people ask, “Well, why did you leave?” I was a kid who’d seen The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.

    Now, you’ve got to understand. All that was going through my mind. I’m going, “Hey, I’ve got a chance. This is Paul McCartney. This guy is no slouch.” I’m not talking about working with some mediocre guy in the rock n’ roll business. There are a few people in the business who are on the top. And he’s one of them. I got a chance to work with him and he turned out to be a great guy. a lot of people in that situation don’t have to be great guys. But Paul made it as nice as possible. And it paid off, because all we had to concentrate on was what we were doing.

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  7. rlj1010

    rlj1010 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Coral Springs, FL
    I was watching the "Rockshow" movie the other day, and they introduced a song, "And now we'd like to do a number from our latest album, At The Speed Of Sound..."

    But despite that, to me, it always has been and always will be Wings At The Speed Of Sound.
     
  8. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    It's Wings, At The Speed Of Sound
    :laugh:
     
  9. MetalGuruMessiah

    MetalGuruMessiah Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    Some seriously underrated and under appreciated songs for sure. It’s not close to being a bad album.
     
  10. Brian Doherty

    Brian Doherty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA
    This lp was dominating the charts the very first week or month I became aware as a kid of the notion of "albums that dominated the charts" and thus retained an outsized sense of "major cultural moment" equal almost to FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE and it took me a long time to adjust to realizing in the grand scheme of things it was not only not a very major and important lp but also not even a very good one, tho "Must Do Something About It" is very nice. (As are the two singles in their way.)
     
  11. MetalGuruMessiah

    MetalGuruMessiah Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    Think I’ll update these ancient and cheesy videos with something a bit more worthy these great tunes.
     
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