Paul McCartney & Wings-Band On The Run

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Band on the Run is an album by Wings, released in 1973.McCartney's fifth album since the breakup of The Beatles (and Wings' third), it became Wings' most successful album and remains the most celebrated of McCartney's post-Beatles albums.It was 1974's top-selling album, and revitalized McCartney's critical standing.
In 2000 Q magazine placed Band on the Run at number 75 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 418 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. A contemporary review by Jon Landau in Rolling Stone (issue #153) described the album as "the finest record yet released by any of the four musicians who were once called The Beatles".
After the success of Red Rose Speedway and "Live And Let Die" - the new James Bond theme song - Wings began contemplating its next album. Paul and Linda McCartney, bored with recording in the UK, wanted to go to an exotic locale. After asking EMI to send him a listing of all its international recording studios, Paul happened upon Lagos in Nigeria and was instantly taken with the idea of recording in Africa. Alongside the McCartneys, guitarist and pianist Denny Laine, lead guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Denny Seiwell also were set to go. However, a few weeks before departing in late August, McCullough quit Wings in Scotland; Seiwell followed suit the night before the departure. This left just the core of the band -- Paul, Linda and Denny Laine -- to venture to Lagos, along with former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, who was needed to record the basic tracks due to the primitive state of the Lagos studios, which Wings had failed to realize prior to planning the trip.

While there, both the McCartneys were mugged at knifepoint, were accosted in the studio by legendary musician Fela Kuti for fear that Paul was plagiarizing African music (fears which McCartney quickly assuaged by playing Kuti the recorded music), and were persuaded to record at Ginger Baker's studio in Lagos (where he lived at the time) by Baker himself once he heard that the McCartneys were in town. During this time, only the recording of the ensuing album's backing tracks, which generally featured Paul on lead guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, bass and drums and Denny on rhythm guitar, keyboards and bass, took place, as Emerick came to realize that EMI Lagos lacked such basic features as high-end vocal microphones.

In October, after the band's return to London, final overdubs and orchestral tracks were added and the album was finished. "Helen Wheels" was released as a non-album single at the end of the month, becoming a worldwide Top 10 by the end of the year. As Band On The Run was being prepared for release, Capitol Records, which distributed the Apple Records label in the United States, slotted "Helen Wheels" into the album - although it was never McCartney's intention to do so. The 1993 international CD reissue of the album - without the single interrupting the album's line-up - confirms this. Although "Helen Wheels" was not included on British versions of the Band on the Run CD (except as a bonus cut on the 1993 "The Paul McCartney Collection" edition of the CD), it has always been included on American editions of the CD (starting with the Columbia Records release of 1984).

Release
Band on the Run was issued that December to glowing reviews. The commercial reaction was slow, with the album gradually inching its way up the charts, but by the spring of 1974, bolstered by the hits "Jet" and the title track "Band on the Run", Band On The Run was a large success. It reached #1 in the US on three separate occasions, a first, and eventually went triple platinum. In the UK, it spent seven weeks at the summit that summer, becoming the top selling British album of 1974. Its lingering success was also beneficial in allowing Wings the time to locate a new guitarist and drummer, and to integrate them into the band before beginning new recordings.

In early 1975, Band on the Run won the Grammy award for "Best Pop Vocal Performance By a Duo, Group or Chorus."

The lead track, "Band on the Run" generally set the pace for the rest of the album. To tie back in with the album's title, the final track, "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" (also known as "1985"), fades into the "Band on the Run" chorus, to close off the album

Paul McCartney & Wings-Band On The Run @320

1 Band On The Run
2 Jet
3 Bluebird
4 Mrs. Vandebilt
5 Let Me Roll It
6 Mamunia
7 No Words
8 Helen Wheels
9 Picasso s Last Words
10 Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five

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Paul McCartney-McCartney

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McCartney is the first solo album by Paul McCartney and was released in 1970. It is notable for the fact that McCartney, a multi-instrumentalist, performed the entire album (all instruments and voices) by himself, except for some backing vocals from his first wife, Linda McCartney. McCartney stated that he played "bass, drums, acoustic guitar, lead guitar, piano, Mellotron, organ, toy xylophone, and bow and arrow" on the album
Recorded privately at his home in London; at Morgan Studios, London; and at Abbey Road Studios, London under the pseudonym "Billy Martin" from late 1969 to March of 1970; the development of McCartney was undertaken as the Beatles were falling apart.

McCartney had been the most keen to keep the band together after the death of manager Brian Epstein in 1967, but with John Lennon's de facto departure after the Abbey Road sessions, greater interest in performing and being with Yoko Ono, George Harrison's emergence as a fine songwriter and Ringo Starr's growing interest in movies and a solo album in the works, it was clear to the general public and members alike that the Beatles had effectively dissolved.

Accepting that the band was now a sunken ship, McCartney decamped with wife Linda McCartney and their new family, including Linda's daughter from her first marriage, Heather, and their newborn, Mary, to their home in London in the autumn of 1969 so he could plot his next move.

As ever, McCartney had brought his instruments with him, as well as a portable Studer four-track tape recorder, and recorded the ad-libbed "The Lovely Linda" to test the equipment before the year was out. Enjoying the experience, he continued on, composing and improvising new material as he went along and overdubbing himself in the process. By late March 1970, as Phil Spector was concurrently mixing the Let It Be album, the simply-titled McCartney was completed.

Scheduled for release on 17 April 1970 the other Beatles realised that McCartney could conflict with the impending Let It Be album and film. The amicable Ringo Starr, whose own first album was almost ready for release, was sent to request that McCartney delay his solo debut. McCartney later commented, "They eventually sent Ringo round to my house at Cavendish with a message: 'We want you to put your release date back, it's for the good of the group', and all of this sort of shit. He was giving me the party line; they just made him come round, so I did something I'd never done before or since: I told him to get out. I had to do something like that in order to assert myself because I was just sinking. I was getting pummelled about the head, in my mind anyway."

The McCartney album was thus released on 17 April as planned, but not before a major announcement.

On 10 April, after intense disputes with Phil Spector over the final results of the long-delayed Let It Be album, McCartney finally snapped and publicly announced his departure from the Beatles, therefore completing the dissolution of the group. The world was stunned and – whether deliberate or not – the media circus surrounding the band's dissolution proved to be beneficial to market McCartney, which was released a week later. Advance copies sent to the press included a Q & A package containing questions McCartney could – and probably would – have been asked about the Beatles' break-up and their future; he gave a strong impression of his views, but stated that he did not know whether the group's break-up would be temporary or permanent. (The complete questionnaire, as well as McCartney's own song-by-song commentary, was included in Richard DiLello's book, The Longest Cocktail Party, as an appendix.)

As for McCartney, the album quickly shot to #1 in the US for three weeks, eventually going double platinum. In the UK, it was only denied the top spot by the highest-selling album of 1970 (and one of the all-time top-selling albums) Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, which stayed at #1 for 41 (non-consecutive) weeks. There McCartney debuted straight at #2, where it remained for 3 weeks.

Although McCartney contains several pieces that are considered to be less than profound, it also includes "Every Night" and, more importantly, "Maybe I'm Amazed", one of McCartney's many love songs for his first wife, and one of his most enduring songs. McCartney has subsequently revealed that Linda was instrumental in bolstering his spirits and confidence during the album's making, and helping him out of his depression over losing the Beatles.

Shortly after the album's release, George Harrison described "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "That Would Be Something" as "great", and regarded the other tracks as "fair". John Lennon was less than impressed with McCartney, stating in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner that, given McCartney's penchant for demanding perfectionism in the studio from his fellow Beatles, he was surprised at the lack of quality in the album. Lennon also made several remarks comparing McCartney negatively to his own solo album debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

With a raw honesty that had never typified a McCartney-related recording before, McCartney indeed has an unpolished sound; but its minimalist, intimate feel was – and remains – a refreshing change from much of McCartney's more ambitious recorded works. Although some of its initial critics considered it slight (especially compared with the scope of the recent Abbey Road), the album's reputation has increased with time, and McCartney is a firm favourite with many McCartney devotees

Paul McCartney-McCartney @320

1 The Lovely Linda
2 That Would Be Something
3 Valentine Day
4 Every Night
5 Hot as Sun/Glasses
6 Junk
7 Man We Was Lonely
8 Oo You
9 Momma Miss America

10Teddy Boy
11Singalong Junk
12Maybe I'm Amazed
13Kreen-Akrore

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