Indeed, it's amazing to think pretty much everything on the platter is Paul McCartney with a side order of Denny Laine.
All of the idiosyncrasies of Paul’s post Wings work are purely Paul idiosyncrasies. They sound like Paul with —- whomever. You can’t say that about Wings recordings. They sound like Wings. Especially from Hi Hi Hi through Girls School/Mull of Kintyre. The BTTE band was kind of a new edition Wings. They needed more time to form an identity.
I agree with this. In fact, full disclosure here…after reading through all the various thoughts here, my extremely one sided viewpoint on Wings not being “a band” (albeit Paul’s band all the way and then some), has moderated a bit. I hope @maccafan is listening.
To me the amazing thing is how much Jimmy 'Maybe I'm Amazed' and Laurence 'Every Night' rocked Live compared to Rusty and Brian (they seem so low keyed, no raw power)!
I'm not sure who you are thinking of, but in the 70s the backing band modality was to some degree falling out of fashion (in the rock world, anyway). I can think of a few. Probably the closest analogies to Wings would be Steve Miller's band and Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band. There were backing bands like the E Street Band and the Attractions, but the difference is that they had stable (or relatively stable) memberships and a consistent sound and identity much moreso than Wings did. The thing to remember is that types of bands exist on a continuity. It's not always an absolute either/or situation, where a band is either a "real" autonomous entity or a backing band. The concept is sometimes blurred and bands can exist somewhere in the middle of "autonomous band" and "backing band." But regardless of the fact that they were sometimes allowed to sing and write songs, Wings were a backing band in almost every meaningful way we could define it: 1. McCartney was clearly the star 2. McCartney had absolute control over all artistic decisions, including content of their albums and shows and decisions about which projects they undertook. 3. McCartney was the only one signed to the record contract. Wings were hired employees who were paid a salary. McCartney owned the name "Wings" and could use it as he pleased (I remember an interview from the late 80s where he said he considered using the "Wings" name on his 1989 tour). As I've noted, the idea of sometimes sharing the spotlight with backing band members and letting them sing or write songs (live and on record) is not unprecedented. Buck Owens did it in the 60s. That didn't change the fact that they were a backing band.
Sorry if I didn't make it clear: "singing" meant "singing lead". Backup is to be expected from a backup band! ( I thought Macca and Hamish might've collaborated on songs, but I looked at the tracklists for "Flowers" and "Ground" and saw nothing on those albums. I dug a little deeper and saw they co-wrote the B-sides "The First Stone" and "Keep Coming Back to Love". Of course, "Party Party" is credited to the whole band - may Oat have mercy on their souls! 2 B-sides doesn't make Hamish much of an actual partner, IMO. Still in the realm of "backup band"...
Sorry, I still view "backup band" in a more pure sense along the lines of Macca's 2002-date live band or the Attractions or E Street. Maybe the leader lets them co-write occasionally but they're truly just there as backing and not active creative partners. Even if it's solely at the pleasure of one person, when the band includes people who write/sing their own songs, it leaves the realm of "backup band"...
Use whatever semantics make you feel better, but here's the absolute bottom line, there is absolutely no definitive definition of a band! They can be created, formed, and consist in many different varied forms. Wings were a band period!
Well, it's a semantic debate I guess. I think that just because a singer lets members of his backing band sometimes share the spotlight, that doesn't automatically make them no longer the backing band. As noted, Buck Owens did this all the time. Both Johnny Cash and Elvis sometimes let their backing singers sing lead vocals on songs. If bands exist on a continuum with "backing band" on the right and "autonomous group" on the left, then Wings would be slightly to the center right, since they fit backing band criteria much more than anything else. I'd say the minimum criteria for a "band" is "a group of musicians who play together as a unit on a regular basis." Wings certainly fit that criteria.
Growing up in the 70s, I thought Wings was "Wings", not Paul McCartney, although I knew he was the "main guy". And in my head to this day when I think of the sound of "Wings", I think of Linda and Denny's background vocals behind Paul's lead pop vocal. So I guess Wings is a band for me...
Per the thread topic . . . Paul McCartney: "Anything Wings did had to be viewed in the light of The Beatles. And the comparisons were always very harsh" Were Wings underrated? “Yeah, they are, completely, yeah. Number one, The Beatles was the best band in the world. It’s difficult to follow that. 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. “The critics gave us a hard run, but I was particularly hard on us. I remember looking at a book, there was an album we did, I think it was Back to the Egg, which didn’t do well, and I remember thinking, ‘God, complete disaster.’ Years later, I remember looking at it with Bowie in this old book – one of these ‘who-did-what’ Hit Parade books, looking it up – and it was like number eight in America. And I thought, most people would give their right bloody arms to be number eight. “But eight, and I wasn’t satisfied. The Beatles had been number one. This is all right, keeps you going. But yes, a lot of the stuff is underrated, because of that. The truth of the matter is that I had The Beatles and then had another bite of the cherry through Wings, and a lot of what we did, because the industry was growing, we would eventually outsell The Beatles in a number of cases... “So, you know, there’s a lot to be said for the period after The Beatles, really, and it was a longer time – which was strange when I realized that Wings had been going as long as The Beatles had.“
I dearly wish I could remember what my knowledge of Beatles vs. Wings vs. Macca was in the 70s. My first conscious memories of any Beatles or related music was when "Listen to What the Man Said" was a hit and I was 8. "Silly Love Songs" was the 1st Beatles/related product I bought. "Wings Over America" was the 1st Beatles/related album I got, though I got "Hollywood Bowl" a couple months later. Anyway, I really have no idea if I was aware of Paul as the leader of Wings back in 1975/76 and/or his Beatles status. I'm pretty sure my parents gave me some understanding of the Beatles, though. Neither mom nor dad liked the Beatles, but they exposed me to various music and would've told me that Paul was the main "Wing" and his Beatles history. I never was a "Paul was in a band before Wings?" guy but I really don't recall the specifics of how I differentiated. I did view Wings as pretty much a "real band", though - probably largely because "WOA" was my first real exposure to them. Sure, Paul sang most of the songs, but Denny did a few and Jimmy had 1, so I saw them as more than just "Paul" at the time. If I knew I'd be quizzed on this stuff decades later, I'd have taken notes!
On Paul's "Unplugged" album, Hamish sings lead on Ain't No Sunshine. Also, "Paul Is Live" has Robbie's Bit, which could have been removed.
Wings has their own section on Spotify. And while it's only my fingers that have to do some walking, it's still a pain!
Not exactly on topic, but... I was born in '67. Was about 8 or 9 when music first appeared on my radar. I recall Listen to What the Man Said. And then Let em In was huge. And Silly Love Songs was bigger. All of a sudden the radio can't stop playing Got To Get You Into My Life. I didn't know Wings from Beatles at this point. But i did know it was the same voice singing all of them.
I'd say the fact that Paul is and always has been a terrible judge of his own work (a trait he shares with a certain Mr. Lennon) is a separate issue.
Story I just remembered from my college dorm days in 1976. I told one of the guys who lived on my hall that I was driving down to San Diego to see the Paul McCartney concert and he said, "Wings?"
I think this is true. There was a Wings sound. It overlaps significantly with the solo Paul sound, but it's not the same. By the standards some in this thread have set, the Rolling Stones aren't a real band either. (and you can see I'm catching up after having been away from the forum for nearly a week, lol)
I'll blame Macca for his 80's music, not his band members. He's the guy who has to come up with the songs, and I don't believe the 80's were good to him. We all know his 70's music was legendary!
