WITH RED ROSE SPEEDWAY, BAND ON THE RUN AND “LIVE AND LET DIE,” 1973 WAS THE YEAR PAUL McCARTNEY’S RAGTAG GROUP, WINGS, FIRST SCORED BEATLES-SIZED SUCCESS. AS FOUNDING MEMBER/GUITARIST DENNY LAINE RECALLS, “IT TOOK A LITTLE WHILE”
BY BILL DeMAIN
“THE FIRST LINEUP of Wings was my favorite one,” Denny Laine says. “Something about those players together really gelled.”
With the benefit of hindsight and critical reassessment, the early incarnation of Paul and Linda McCartney’s group — rhythm guitarist/vocalist Laine, drummer Denny Seiwell and lead guitarist Henry McCullough — really does stand out. They were, as Laine modestly puts it, “a really good rock ’n’ roll band.”
But back in 1971-72, Wings was relentlessly maligned by the press. Rolling Stone called them “flaccid” and “aimless,” wondering why they even bothered to release their debut album, 1971’s Wild Life. Linda’s presence in the group galled critics to go further, writing what McCartney called “really savage stuff” about her. Much of this was fueled by the impossible bar raised by the Beatles. And rather than try to measure up to their legacy, Wings were willfully low-key and ramshackle, traveling in a beat-up van, turning up unannounced at colleges to play and never including any of the songs that made their leader one of the most famous musicians on the planet.
But all that changed in 1973. Red Rose Speedway came out in April. The album — re-released in 2018 as a deluxe box set — marked the beginning of McCartney putting more polish on the band’s record-making. “We’d done more work,” Laine says, “and we were much tighter.” The album also gave Wings their first Number 1 single with “My Love.” Three months later, the rollicking James Bond theme “Live and Let Die” upped the ante even further. Nobody was laughing at Wings now. And then in December came their masterpiece, Band on the Run, made as a trio under trying circumstances in a rundown studio in Lagos, Nigeria. Featuring “Band on the Run,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Jet,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five” and Laine’s co-written gem “No Words,” it remains the band’s definitive statement. Though Laine says he “doesn’t do favorites,” the experience of making it is still a highlight of his 60-year career. “It was just the three of us, and the input I had
