HELLO GOODBYE
It began with playing Lucille in Camden – and ended in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
Michael Putland/Getty (2), Courtesy Geoff Britton
HELLO APRIL 1974
I was running the karate club in West Wickham, and one of the members was Cliff Davis, the manager of Fleetwood Mac. In a break, he said, “Do you know about the McCartney audition for Wings? Do you fancy going for it?”
He gave me [McCartney’s company] MPL’s phone number, and when I called this charming bloke, Alan Crowder, said he’d put me on the list. They’d hired the Albery Theatre on St Martin’s Lane and shortlisted 52 drummers! Mitch Mitchell was there. We played with session musicians, Paul and the management were sat to one side.
After that I got a call to come to the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town, on a shortlist of five, to play with Paul and the band. He’s about a foot in front of me – I’m thinking, Fuck! I’m sitting behind Paul McCartney! – and he says, “Do you want to do Lucille?” I said, The Everly Brothers’ version or Little Richard’s? He said, “Let’s do the Everlys’.” So we have a blow and everyone is very nice. Then I get another call saying, “Come and spend the day.” After that, I was out jogging, and my now ex-wife opens a window and shouts out, “Paul McCartney’s on the phone!” Telling me I got the gig.
We were about to go to America, and I was a bit worried that I might be experiencing a Scottish cell for a few months [his last group The Wild Angels had legal bother after flitting from a Glasgow hotel, later declared ‘Not Proven’]. Then I was training in my mum’s garden and I broke my big toe, and I’m limping around with a great big plaster cast on. I said, God, this is all I need. There were slight little upsets when we went to Curly Putman’s farm in Tennessee [in July ’74], but when we were jamming, I knew there was some glue there. When we came back, we went into Studio Two and did [live-in-Abbey Road doc] One Hand Clapping. Some of it was the first time, some of it was just a couple of run-throughs, some of it was just whacked straight out, full on. I knew then that we were good.
GOODBYE JANUARY 1975
I remember saying when we were going off to New Orleans [to record Venus And Mars], I’m really not looking forward to this. It felt like you had to re-establish yourself every day. Musically we were pretty tight and getting better – Jimmy [McCulloch] was a great guitarist and Denny [Laine] was a talented all-round guy – so I thought, This should be OK. But Jimmy and
