Band on the Run

April 1, 2003
In the mid-1970s, Paul McCartney found some brief, post-Beatles success with Wings. Originally consisting of McCartney, wife Linda, and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, the band pleased both critics and fans with Band on the Run, which was recently rereleased. McGee, who has worked in the film industry for several years, has written a fan's notes on the band's approximate ten-year life span (1971-81) through breakups, arrests, and infighting. Drawing on previously published articles, he chronicles already well-known stories about the band members' denigration of Linda's musicianship, Paul's ego and control over the music, Laine's high-profile split with McCartney, and the McCartneys' constant marijuana use that once got the band kicked out of Japan. In addition, McGee provides brief but graceless and uncompelling analyses of each single and album, as well as exhaustive lists of the band's official permutations, concert tours, album releases and single releases, Grammy nominations and awards, and presence on the U.S. and U.K. record charts. Overall, fans will find no new information about McCartney and Wings here; the lack of interviews with McCartney or Laine means that this book is neither useful nor definitive. Not recommended.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2003
Just as Disney fans are either "Mouse" or "Duck" people, Beatlemaniacs are either John or Paul people. Although perhaps not without interest to both camps, McGee's book aims at Paul people who are also Wings fans, which raises some special challenges, such as evaluating Linda McCartney's contribution to the band and Paul's willingness to share credit and remuneration for Wings' commercial success. McGee is frank about the latter. For instance, he cites Denny Laine's situation vis-a-vis "Mull of Kintyre," for which he should have been paid millions but, as a contractual collaborator, got very little. Such was doing business within Wings. As for Linda's musicianship, while no one lauds her keyboard virtuosity, and some disdain her singing, Wings guitarist Henry McCullough says, "it didn't make any difference because she was playing a part"-- rather like hired hand Sid Vicious in the Sex Pistols, eh? McCartney says he doesn't regret Wings or think it was "that much of a mess." High praise. As a book-length exploration of McCartney's first post-Beatles band, this is the stuff.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)