By Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair
This is the second book of a series by Kozinn and Sinclair. I
reviewed the first one here.
Like the first one, it's a door-stopper: 760 pages, of which 41
pages are bibliography and notes.
It isn't quite as interesting as the first one, simply because there wasn't as much that went on from 1974 to early 1980 as there was from 1969 to 1973. However, there is still a lot here of interest to hard-core McCartney and Beatles fans.
The book starts with the aftermath of the "Band on the Run" album, and the struggle to separate from Allen Klein and Apple. It covers the recording and release of "Venus and Mars", "Wings at the Speed of Sound", "London Town", "Back to the Egg", and ¨McCartney II". He also recorded a solo album by his brother, Mike McGear, assisted with an album of Buddy Holly covers by Denny Laine, and some singles by Suzy and the Red Stripes, a.k.a. Linda McCartney. For each of these projects, there are extensive details on how and where every song was recorded. Required reading for music geeks, might be boring for everyone else.
It goes without saying that these efforts got a variety of responses from critics, a lot of them negative. I'll single out two of them. "Mull of Kintyre" had a lot of people asking, why bagpipes? Paul insisted on releasing it, and it ended up being the biggest-selling single of Sir Paul's solo career; it sold twice as many copies as "She Loves You" in the UK. Then there was "Wonderful Christmastime", which got a torrent of negative criticism, but it's still getting radio play 45 years later. (Hey, I like it better than "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree", anyway.)
The book has a lot to say about the highly successful global tour in 1975 and 1976, and the recording and release of the excellent "Wings Over America" album.
I thought that the most interesting part of this book was the involvement of Sir Paul and the Eastman family in the music publishing business, primarily through MPL Communications. He acquired the Buddy Holly catalogue in 1971. He owns the rights to the musicals "Guys and Dolls", "A Chorus Line", "Annie", and ¨Grease". He also owns standards like "All or Nothing At All", "Sentimental Journey¨, "Autumn Leaves", and "Beyond the Sea". If you haven't figured this out already, Sir Paul McCartney is a very rich man.
The book ends with Sir Paul getting busted for marijuana possession when his 1979-80 tour went to Japan (he and Wings were barred from going there in 1975) and the words "to be continued".
