Told in revelatory first person, this immersive account of Paul McCartney and Wings is the engrossing oral history of a band that came to define a generation. The Story of a Band on the Run tells the astonishing, almost improbable, story of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band from 1971 through its dissolution barely a decade later. Drawn from over 500,000 words of interviews with McCartney, key players, and family members, Wings poignantly recounts, now with a half-century’s wisdom, the story of a man and musician navigating the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup, soon joined by his wife—American photographer Linda McCartney—on keyboard and vocals; drummer Denny Seiwell; and guitarist Denny Laine, among many others. Organized around nine Wings albums, the narrative follows the adventurous band as they survive a robbery on the streets of Nigeria, appear unannounced at various university halls, tour in a sheared-off double-decker bus with their children, all while producing some of the most enduring music of the decade. With 150 black-and-white and color photographs, many previously unseen, this is a landmark work of soaring originality.
Author
Sir James Paul McCartney MBE, known as Paul McCartney, is an English singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, entrepreneur, painter, record producer, film producer, and animal-rights activist. He gained worldwide fame as one of the founders and members of The Beatles. McCartney and John Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and "wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history". After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman McCartney, and songwriter/singer Denny Laine. He has worked on film scores, classical music, and ambient/electronic music; released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist; and taken part in projects to help international charities. McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history, with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles. His song "Yesterday" is listed as the most covered song in history and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so—in 1984—was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?", whose participants included McCartney.) His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. An iconic figure in contemporary culture, he is regarded internationally as an entertainer and humanitarian. Aside from his musical work, McCartney is an actor, a painter, a poet, and an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt.
