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July 20-22, 1971

First rehearsals for Wings

For Wings

Last updated on May 1, 2022

In May / June 1971, Paul and Linda McCartney were at their farm in Scotland, and Paul started forming the idea of creating a new band.

Sometime in June 1971, Paul McCartney called Denny Seiwell and Hugh McCracken, the players who participated in the recording of the album “RAM“, and invited them and their wives for some holidays in Scotland. Denny accepted Paul’s offer to join his new band, but Hugh refused.

In mid-July, Paul contacted Denny Laine and asked him to come and join the band as well.

From July 20 to 22, Paul, Linda and the two Dennys spent three days rehearsing at Paul’s farm in Scotland, in a small barn equipped with a four-track machine and named Rude Studio.

Back in Scotland, I had a four-track recording studio installed at the farm, which we called Rude Studio, so I was able to demo and experiment and make bits and pieces of music. Eventually, when we started to put a band together, we could rehearse there.

Paul McCartney – From “Wingspan: Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run“, 2002

It’s just a barn. And then some days when the sun was shining, we’d go outside and rehearse in the open fields, with just the fields and the sea around us. I bought a Land Rover so that I could drive up to Paul’s farm, which is really hilly; you have to drive over boulders to get there.  My Land Rover is over at the farm nearby which Denny is renting and where I’ve been staying up there.

Denny Laine – From interview in 1971

At Rude, we played the kind of music we grew up on – Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, grooves that we knew. It was purely to see if we were going to lock in together. If Paul went off on a tangent, I would just follow him. It came together very organically. That’s what he wanted.

Denny Laine

He had some songs. And we made some up in the studio. I think Paul’s idea was to give the world the first completely new look at his first completely new band that wasn’t The Beatles.

Denny Laine

By that time, we had material to record. We’d been rehearsing a song like “Wild Life”, because I remember Paul teaching Linda the piano notes. She used to start it off with two fingers. We rehearsed “Bip Bop” and “I Am Your Singer”. I loved “Some People Never Know”, just a great song.

Denny Seiwell – Interview with Maccazine – Volume 47, Issue 1 – The birth of Wings

At the end of those rehearsals, Paul decided the band should go into a recording studio. On July 23, they took a private flight to London, and start the recording of their first album, “Wild Life“.


Wings outside Rude Studio, Scotland, 1971
Wings outside Rude Studio, Scotland, 1971
From 1971 Ram – Paul McCartney – Rockronología (rockronologia.blogspot.com)
From Better than looking in the mirror — 1975lennon: Paul, Heather and Linda McCartney with… (tumblr.com)

Session activities

  1. Wild Life

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

    Recording

  2. Bip Bop

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

    Recording

  3. I Am Your Singer

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

    Recording

  4. Some People Never Know

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

    Recording


Staff

Musicians


Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

Shop on Amazon

Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium

We owe a lot to Chip Madinger and Mark Easter for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details!

Eight Arms To Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium is the ultimate look at the careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr beyond the Beatles. Every aspect of their professional careers as solo artists is explored, from recording sessions, record releases and tours, to television, film and music videos, including everything in between. From their early film soundtrack work to the officially released retrospectives, all solo efforts by the four men are exhaustively examined.

As the paperback version is out of print, you can buy a PDF version on the authors' website

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Maccazine - Volume 40, Issue 3 - RAM Part 1 - Timeline

This very special RAM special is the first in a series. This is a Timeline for 1970 – 1971 when McCartney started writing and planning RAM in the summer of 1970 and ending with the release of the first Wings album WILD LIFE in December 1971. [...] One thing I noted when exploring the material inside the deluxe RAM remaster is that the book contains many mistakes. A couple of dates are completely inaccurate and the story is far from complete. For this reason, I started to compile a Timeline for the 1970/1971 period filling the gaps and correcting the mistakes. The result is this Maccazine special. As the Timeline was way too long for one special, we decided to do a double issue (issue 3, 2012 and issue 1, 2013).

Maccazine - Volume 47, Issue 1 - The birth of Wings

"Maccazine is a hard copy magazine (a bound paperback) about Paul McCartney. It is published twice a year. Due to the fact that the Internet has taken over the world and the fact that the latest Paul McCartney news is to be found on hundreds of websites, we have decided to focus on creating an informative paper magazine about Paul McCartney."

"In this issue we take you back to the early days of Paul McCartney’s solo career when he decided to form a new group. With Wings he proved there was life after The Beatles. This Maccazine features a detailed timeline of ‘the birth’ of the band with interesting entries including many new facts and unpublished photos. Follow-up timelines will be published in the upcoming years."

Paul McCartney writing

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