Wings' Jimmy McCulloch & White Line

While perusing ebay, I found this 45 I'd never heard of:



Which caused me to do a further search, which revealed this website with what I'm sure is a rather rare video of Jimmy and his band:

http://mouserecords.kastoffkinks.co.uk/html/jimmy_mcculloch.html

I didn't know Jimmy formed his own band - I thought he just joined up with the reformed "Small Faces"...

According to wikipedia:

Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch also briefly joined this line-up of Small Faces after leaving Wings. Paul McCartney, who had found McCulloch increasingly difficult to work with, allegedly phoned Marriott and said, "You can have him." McCulloch's tenure with the band lasted only for a few months in late 1977.

And when he died, he was only TWENTY-SIX! Sad irony, writing "Medicine Jar", an anti-drug song and then to die from a heroin overdose. Terrible waste of talent.

Still, rather curious about the collection of tracks on the "White Line" cd; and what's with naming his band "White Line" - was he just OBSESSED with drugs?

And I had completely forgotten about THE DUKES, with Charles Tumahai of Be Bop Deluxe; and never knew that Miller Anderson, close friend of Ian Hunter was in that band!

 

My first thought was, "Geez, it's pretty pathetic that he named his band White Line, considering how he ended up."

His is such a sad story. To be that close to so much oppotunity and then just trash it all.

 

Not to mention the follow-up song "Wino Junko" on Wings At The Speed Of Sound. It was as if he was writing anti-drug songs to throw people off of the fact that he was using the stuff himself.

 

That seemed to be a common thing back in the 70's. I remember that in high school, it was always the heaviest stoners making the anti-drug posters in art class.

 

Jimmy didn't write the lyrics to Medicine Jar & Wino Junko. Colin Allen wrote the lyrics and then Jimmy put them to music. Colin told me the stories behind Medicine Jar & Wino Junko which I will post shortly.

 

White Line was formed for fun during 1976.

 

Last month I had the opportunity to interview Dave Clarke (of Noel Redding Band) via phone about Jimmy McCulloch. Dave played in White Line with Jimmy & Jack. Many thanks to Dave for agreeing to take time out of his day to do an interview with me.

Q: How did you meet Jimmy?

A: I was thinking about that. I can't remember *laughs* I have a feeling I met Jack just before I met Jim somehow but I really don't remember where we first met. I have a vague recollection it was in a pub somewhere. Jack and I did a few things together and he (Jack) came out and maybe was going to join the band with Noel Redding and me for a while. Jim also came over to Ireland to Noel's place so at one point we had a band which was Jack, Jim, me, Noel and Eric Bell. So we had three guitar players or I was playing keyboards and we had two guitar players. Later on I wrote Call My Name and I was playing to Jim and Jack at either Jim or Jack's flat and we decided to go in and record it because I had a whole load of other songs as well so we did some demos and decided to put a single out and Jim said that he had this song which he had written with Colin Allen which was Too Many Miles. Before that we did all the stuff that's on the White Line cd and your comment about Reindeer Rockets, yeah Jim stayed at my place. I had two young kids at the time so that came out of one of the times that Jim stayed at the house and he was playing around. I remember a great photograph of him and my daughter of a teddy bear on his head that she put there. We recorded in three or four different studios. We did a couple of live shows but we didn't advertise them, we just showed up where there were other bands playing that either of us knew and then just got up and did like half an hour. At all the shows, Jim played guitar and I played bass. There was nobody else involved in the shows that we did.

Q: What songs did you play live?

A: What did we play? Yeah, funny enough because Jim had been out to Ireland and played on some stuff that Noel Redding and I had written. We played a couple of songs that Noel and I had done. Particularly we played Born To His Name which is on one of the Noel Redding Band albums . I remember playing that live with Jim. I remember playing Call My Name, Get Back. We certainly played that (Get Back) live, I remember it very well. So it was a mixture of the stuff that we'd recorded with White Line, some stuff from the Noel Redding Band and a couple of things that he'd done with McCartney, you know a couple of the Wings things. We played a few Beatle things. It's hard because it was quite a short time really. It was only a few years that all this was going on and there was lots of other things going on. I was away with Noel and then I was involved in a lawsuit with Noel, we were suing the managers. That was when we put the White Line single out, Jim was still in Wings and then I went to California for a while and Jim came over there. That's when we got this idea of working with Carl Wilson and Terry Kath. Jimmy was still in Wings then and it was looking like it might happen because Carl was going to leave the Beach Boys and Chicago weren't working and then Terry died so that came to nothing. It all happened over a fairly short space of time. We were all doing lots of other things so it's kind of hard to remember exactly what happened when.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about Too Many Miles?

A: We went into Air Studios to record Call My Name for the single and I just said to Jim, "Well you know I've written all the songs we've recorded so far pretty much so what have you got?" and he said "I've got this song that I've written with Colin." So we sort of kicked it around a bit and I think we pretty much did that from scratch in the studio. It wasn't something we'd already played or thought about. It just came up not long before we actually went into Air London to do it. I don't think we ever played it more than about 3 or 4 times. Basically we went in and recorded it. I remember putting the track down. I played bass, Jim played guitar and Jack played drums. Then Jim overdubbed another guitar and then I put the keyboards on. That was about it. It was not something we worked on that much before we got into the studio, nor did we ever play it again afterwords. We did some tv shows and stuff but we only ever did Call My Name for the tv and radio things. So Too Many Miles was pretty much only ever played that day in the studio.

Q: The television thing I find really interesting because I know that you guys played Supersonic and on the White Line cd, the very last song is a live version and it's from Twiggy's show?

A: Yeah, it's the same track. We did do a couple of other tv and radio shows but I don't have copies of them. We did an extra video for Call My Name which I do have, which I don't think anyone has ever seen when I was playing Jim's Flying V on that, I was playing guitar for some strange reason. The Twiggy Show clip is actually taken direct from the Supersonic Show. It's the same clip. So we didn't go out and record the Twiggy Show. We did Supersonic and Twiggy's Show was made up of things that came from other shows and that was one of the tracks that had came from Supersonic.

Q: I've always found Twiggy's introduction of the band really interesting because she mentions that Jimmy plays rhythm guitar on it.

A: Yeah well we didn't know anything about it until after it aired. We didn't know it was going to happen, we only found out later.

Q: Do you remember what radio promos you did for Call My Name?

A: Oh we did loads. We did a whole trip around the UK with shows in Manchester, we went to Scotland and all over the place. We flew to Luxenburg to do a live radio show. Some of the radio stuff just Jim and I went but the Luxenburg one all three of us went.

Q: How did the name White Line come about?

A: Because I had written a song called White Line and we thought it was particually interesting because of the cocaine reference you know a little bit naughty and we had a song called White Line anyways. It came from the song which I had written without particually thinking about doing it with Jim and Jack but when I wrote it I called them up and said "Can we have a quick go at recording it?" and that's where that came from.

Q: Do you have any favorite songs by White Line?

A: Yeah I guess Call My Name, I have a soft spot for that because that was the one that probably made it something at all when we made it into a single. As I said, playing it at Jim or Jack's flat when we were all there and all three of us played through it and thought "Ok we have to do that" and that made it into something more than just going in and doing a few things here and there. They were all fun you know in different ways.

Jim and I went together over to Paul's house in St. John's Wood about lunchtime. Paul was still upstairs so we hung out in the kitchen with Linda for a bit and Paul came down eventually and we went in, sat and played him the track which he thought was great. It was one of the days that they were playing at Wembley and he really liked it. Then we went off and had a bite to eat then went to the gig at Wembley.

I remember that very well because I think the week before or the week after we'd gone to see The Eagles who had also done Wembley with their orchestra. I went from Jim's flat, it's funny enough, I can't remember why but I finished up going in Joe English's car. Joe was so spaced out on the way to the gig that he drove the wrong way round a round about in the UK. So I didn't go home with him! I found another way to get home. Joe's a scary driver I have to tell you but a great drummer. I love his drumming, I think it's terrific.

Q: Is there any unreleased White Line stuff?

A: Radio, I don't know because I don't have any copies of any of them. I have a copy of a video we shot for EMI which I don't think anybody else has ever seen but it's on the old system, not on VHS. The only other stuff I have is when we were over in Ireland when Jim, Jack and I were over there with Noel Redding. I have some cassette tapes of us lot playing for like a day and a half which are pretty poor quality. It was recorded on a two track set machine. I have stuff there with Jim playing organ, me playing guitar and Noel playing bass. I have all kinds of stuff but it's a bit ragged. If there's anything I've got that's not been out, it's the one video and the stuff from Ireland.

Q: Do you have any memorable stories from watching Jimmy play?

A: The thing that stands out to me was that Jim was a great blues player. I think, for me, one of the best ways to really get a feel about Jim's playing is on Treat Her Gently from the Venus and Mars album where he plays not very much but just some real good feel blues lines you know there's not a lot of it but for me that's what Jim was all about. He was really good at that.

Q: Do you have any favorite songs that Jimmy performed on throughout his career?

A: Yeah some of the stuff he did with Wings particually around Venus and Mars was really the best time for Jim. I think he was playing up a storm at that time. I think when the Speed of Sound album came out I don't think there was quite so much of Jim in that you know although it was a bit part of the stage show and actually on stage he played bass on Let Em In and as you know did all that kind of stuff. For me it was the Venus and Mars tracks where Jim really came into his own. For Jim, that was probably the most consistent album and there's some great guitar stuff on there. I think the only track he didn't play guitar on was Listen To What The Man Said which Dave Mason played on. For me, that was Jim at his best really. I don't know what you think?

I would have to agree, I love Venus and Mars, some of the tracks off Speed of Sound and London Town has some good ones too.

London Town's a good album but I think you're looking at what Jim's contribution was it's pretty hard to beat his playing on Venus and Mars. It's real good on there. That was probably the height of that Wings band. I think it's better than the stuff that he did with Stone the Crows as well.

Q: I have heard that Jimmy was working on a solo album off and on for years but just never got around to it..

I don't think Jim was particularly up for making a solo album. Jim was essentially a guitar player, he wasn't a particularly prolific writer, he didn't write hardly at all. If you had written a song he was great to have around in the sessions to add stuff to it and make it better. He wasn't a writer, he wasn't a great singer and he would have owned up to that as well. So I don't think he ever really (not as far as I saw anyway), I don't think it was ever high on his list of things to do. He was a guitar player, a real guitar player and a real good one. That's where I think he kind of sat in all of it, that's what he did. Also, he was much better with playing around the new stuff rather than the old stuff. I remember when he joined up with the Small Faces. I knew Steve Marriott very well, we were neighbors for a while. I remember going to see Jim doing one of the very few gigs he did with the Small Faces in London. He was okay with it but he wasn't that comfortable with it because it really wasn't anything that he'd been involved in. He liked to do stuff that he'd made a contribution to so wither it was Stone the Crows new tracks, the White Line stuff or especially the Wings stuff where it was all new and he was part of making it what it was. I think that's what Jim liked doing best and I think that's why the thing with the Small Faces was doomed to failure really. It was never going to work. Him and Stevie both great players, Stevie a great singer and the whole band was great but I don't think Jim was comfortable just slotting in doing stuff from other people. It was great if he was there when it started. He got excited about that, he didn't get excited about playing All Or Nothing with Steve Marriott particularly. It's a kind of ownership really if you're part of it. I think that's where he was and I think he would have made an album with a band like we could have done with White Line. We could have done a full studio album if we had time and the circumstances had been right. I think The Dukes came too late for him and I don't think Jim had that much ownership in The Dukes. There were a couple of things wrong with The Dukes. First of all I don't think he had enough to do with what they were playing and how they were playing it, particularly because he wasn't that interested and also he was back with a bunch of old guys, I don't think that's what he wanted and it wasn't fresh enough for him. That's just a gut feeling. The Dukes, I think were just something for Jim to do while he was looking for something else.

 

Thanks for posting this! A lot of good info.

 

+1

 

I have the White Line CD...and here's a few things I thought would add to the thread.

JF

 

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing

 

Wow, it's refreshing to read a lot of info I never heard of.
Thanks.

 

It is a nice single, I have it on UK EMI ...... somewhere.

They did do at least one UK TV show to promote it

 

Supersonic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE0hfy8t2vo

 

Spent this weekend with Jimmy McCulloch's family and his brother Jack played me an unreleased acoustic version of Jimmy's song Too Many Miles. The lineup consisted of Jimmy on acoustic guitar and lead vocals. Jack on drums. Steve Marriott on acoustic guitar and backing vocals and Mel Collins on flute.

Absolutely brilliant it was and it blows the White Line version of Too Many Miles out of the water.

 

Here's White Line performing Call My Name on Supersonic and I added Twiggy's introduction from her Jukebox show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEb2GQYIr7U

In addition here are some other tracks that White Line did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Ee0jhnRsg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6VPyLq0M6c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbfiYncmuzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilJ32PE8DRQ