Before I put this mini series to bed I'd just like to mention a couple of people. First up is the renowned composer of light music* (a dreadful term, I know), Eric Coates. However tenuous his links to the Fab Four, Macca and, indeed, Let 'Em In might be (he died five years before Love Me Do), his inclusion of Wings' doorbell intro into his London Suite is, I think, well worth a mention. This classic chime is the V.&E. Friedland General Electric Maestro which plays an eight-note Westminster sequence with a Vibrato Resonance feature. Also, and I think this gets him double house points - his middle name is Harrison. Oh, and he was born less than five miles from where I live.
Eric Coates - Westminster (from his London Suite; composed 1933)
Finally ('cos nobody wants Do me a flavour #5), it would be most remiss of me if I didn't mention Jellyfish. A couple of years ago I included them in a roll-call of notable power pop bands who, without Messrs. Lennon & McCartney (particularly McCartney) would not have come up with their particular brand of Wings-era pop perfection. It was only fitting that they used to drop a couple of Macca's tunes into their live set; one off them being, you've guessed it, Let 'Em In; here it segues into That is Why taken from their stunning debut album Bellybutton.
Jellyfish - Let 'Em In (1990)
* His greatest hits include The Dambusters theme, By the Slepy Lagoon (Desert Island Discs theme) and Music While You Work.
I think it was 2003 when I saw the Polyphonic Spree live; the NME Awards Tour had rolled into Rock City and Paul, my friend and neighbour, and I had blagged a pair of tickets and we ended up down the front. Which, to be fair, is where I always head for anyway. Even now. Memories of the night are pretty vague - I remember the Datsuns were on and they were fucking brilliant. I'd missed them a few months earlier when they'd played the Boat Club.
Anyway, the Spree. When they all trooped on they occupied every square inch of the stage; there seemed to be dozens of them. All clad in white choir robes it felt like a quasi religious experience - like we'd all gone down to the river to pray - à la O Brother Where Art Thou. And they were nothing short of amazing. I've always been a sucker for big old choral ensembles and the sheer vocal power alone was enough to knock you over. I must already have snaffled a copy of their first album as a lot of their set sounded familiar. You may or may not be surprised to know that they're still going. I know I was.
And then when I learned they'd covered Let 'Em In I thought 'of course they have.' Why would they not? See if you recognise them sans robes. And for those, like myself, who need a quick robe fix, look no further.
Chet Atkins was a guitarist's guitarist. Every bit as influential as Bert Weldon or Les Paul, Atkins' (musical) diet was more varied than he was given credit for - he singlehandedly saved county music from oblivion and was an accomplished jazz and classical guitarist to boot, and (when it came along) embraced pop music; Paul McCartney & George Harrison were huge devotees (George even played a 1962 Gretsch Country Gentleman - Atkins' signature guitar). Here's his jazzy instrumental take on Macca's 1976 opus...
Chet Atkins - Let 'Em In (1981)
Whilst in his executive position at RCA in Nashville Atkins was also a prolific record producer. He produced, and played on, Perry Como's monster hit single from 1973 And I Love You So (a Don McLean composition that first appeared on his 1970 debut solo album; Como's version shifted 300,000 copies in the UK alone). Here's Como & Atkins performing it on a glitzy TV special from 1977. God knows why Chet is lit in almost perma shadow.
Peterborough is synonymous with two things. One, its Passport Office: time was when it was the only place in the UK that issued passports and would even process them in person if you fetched up at their offices (thus saving countless trips and holidays from being cancelled due to lapsed documents). Secondly, its cathedral. John Betjeman one said it was the finest cathedral outside of London; I think he was right.
I took a punt yesterday and bought a train ticket to Peterborough. Armed with nothing more than my camera, a good book and a tube of factor 50 I jumped on the 8:41. An hour later I disgorged at Peterborough and immediately went in search of breakfast. I needed coffee and nosebag. From my booth in the Westgate Grill I mapped out what you could loosely call an itinerary. It included a lido, a couple of bridges, a museum and gallery, some street art, a cathedral (obviously), a sculpture, art deco architecture, and a hostelry or two along the way.(Maybe it was because of the pubs that I only spotted one of the three Antony Gormleys!)
So I'll start with the cathedral - the early Gothic architecture speaks for itself; construction began in 1118 and took over a century to build. It's where Mary Queen of Scots was originally interred before the body snatchers moved her to Westminster Abbey. I was also fascinated by the names of the city's previous Bishops. Tell me that Mandrel Creighton, Edward Carr Glynn, Frank Theodore Woods, Douglas Russell Feaver and William John Westwood weren't also members of Caravan between 1971 & 1976.
Gormley #1. There are three apparently, the other two are (hiding) in Cathrdral Square. I'll get 'em next time.
Today's blog post title comes from Paul McCartney. One of the exhibitions showing at Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery was the work of Jeff Cummins whose artwork and designs adorned countless album sleeves and book dust jackets. It's his painting of Wings that Macca used as the gatefold for his triple live extravaganza Wings Over America. I remember reading the review in Sounds when it came out and the writer made a big thing out of the fact that in the song Let 'Em In Paul sings 'do me a flavour' instead of 'do me a favour' - they were simpler times.
The Lido is a thing of beauty. Built in the Hacienda style there's not may of these left in the country.
Bridges; bridges that go over rivers, bridges that go over railway lines, bridges that go over roads.
And I kept seeing Daleks everywhere; most unnerving, I can tell you.
Travelogue over. Here's Macca with that rehearsed blooper (1:03).
If you're so inclined, and dig deep enough into the bowels of this blog, I'm sure you'll stumble across copious references to today's show & tell: C Moon may not be the toppermost of the poppermost when it comes to McCartney's combined canon, however, in terms of Wings' amassed output (spanning 1971-1979) I'd say it's definitely in the Top One.
From the moment I first saw them play it on Top of the Pops* I was transfixed. I still am, whenever I hear it (admittedly it gets precious little airplay these days; tho' a friend of mine has it on one of his three jukeboxes). Macca probably realised its limited shelf life when he gave Linda a co-write.
★
Wings - C Moon (1972)
* Released in December 1972 they premiered it on TOTP, 4 January 1973
The story of Jimmy McCulloch is not an epic tome; more a slim novella. Born in 1953 in Clydebank he picked up a guitar at 11 wanting desperately to emulate his hero, Hank Marvin. By 1969, aged just 16, he was on Top of the Pops playing with Thunderclap Newman on their #1 single Something in the Air; he hadn't even started shaving.
And although he's probably best known for his tenure with Wings (1974-78), this is where he was at just before Macca signed him up. I'd like to think it wasn't just his silky skills on the fretboard that McCartney took a shine to, but his rather fetching gansey.
Stone the Crows - Penicillin Blues (1973)
Jimmy's guitar sound defined mid-period Wings - he was all over Venus & Mars - but like many of McCartney's hired hands he would only ever be a sideshow to the ex-Beatle. His one composition for the band, Medicine Jar, was a live favourite - even making it onto the triple album extravaganza that was Wings Over America.
Wings - Medicine Jar (1976)
Quite ironic, Medicine Jar was an anti-drug song: just a couple of years later McCulloch was found dead at his London flat - cause of death morphine and alcohol poisoning. He was just 26; like I said, McCulloch's life was sadly not a long one.
Paul McCartney would often gives songs away: Mary Hopkin (Goodbye) and Badfinger (Come andGet It) being two lucky recipients that spring to mind.
One that a lot of people overlook is a song called 4th of July. In 1974, between the Band on theRun and Venus and Mars albums, Macca recorded a very loose demo but never did anything with it; instead he gave it to John Christie. Polydor put it out as a single, but, despite its lineage, it never amounted to much.
In 2010, when Venus and Mars was given the Macca remastering treatment, they chucked 4th of July in with the extras. Like a lot of stuff McCartney was writing at the time, it walked that fine line between bloody brilliant and twee. For what it's worth, I quite like it.
Timing is everything - boiling an egg, the 100 metre dash, buying newly released vinyl; in 1977 and most of 1978, despite being a huge Beatles fan, there was no way I'd be seen dead in a record shop asking for the new Wings album. They were tribal times: the only albums (and singles) acquired*during those heady days of punk and the subsequent new wave (and Wings were obviously as old wave as you could possibly get) were by the likes of the Buzzcocks or the Clash, 999 and the Damned: turns who would regularly feature between the covers of Sounds and/or the New Musical Express, basically. Wings were more Melody Maker, or Record Mirror.
Of course when the dust settled, and the battle lines become less blurry, it was safe to not only bring your old Emerson Lake and Palmer albums out of hiding, but you could once again walk into record emporiums, politely ask for the new, say, UFO album (other second division English rock bands are available) and not be ridiculed by the punk police.
Yet still I never went back and bought the album Macca and Wings recorded in '77 and put out the following year: London Town was released hot on the heels of Mull of Kintyre which had occupied the number one slot seemingly forever (and alienated a lot of Macca fans to boot). In fact, he and the missus, together with Denny Laine, had recorded it in the same sessions but (thankfully?) never put it on the album.
But I digress; all this preamble comes on the back of a Tweet that caught my eye earlier in the week from Eoghan Lyng at the magnificent We are Cult, who had the audacity to claim that London Town was in his Top 5 Macca post Beatles albums. Surely not I thought. Better than Flaming Pie (which didn't feature) I fired back? Oh yes, came the the reply: the exchange went something like this:
Top five McCartney: 1) Band On The Run, 2) Tug of War, 3)Ram, 4) McCartney II, 5) London Town.
So I said to myself I'd live with a copy of London Town for a week and see how I got on; of course, in that short time, it couldn't possibly compete with an album I'd emotionally invested so heavily in over the years: Flaming Pie, for me, was Macca's last hurrah - the last time he was truly relevant. In 1997 he came out with a set of songs that seemed to chime with the very times it was released.
But in the week that Macca came back to Liverpool (here's his visit condensed into 20 minutes) and, for once, appearing quite humble to be back in his hometown, I wasn't in the mood for a pointless slanging match. You know what, both albums stand up just fine in 2018 and Macca should be proud of both sets of work, bookended, funnily enough, by the birth of his son James and, twenty years on, the same young lad's first recorded guitar solo.
So in the end, I say to Eoghan and all at We are Cult, London Town is the perfect companion piece to Flaming Pie. And, here, to prove same I give you the two standout songs - one from each. The title track from London Town, here, in the form of a rough and ready promo film of Mr. & Mrs. McCartney and Denny Laine cruising down the Thames eating a bag of chips.
And here's Heaven on a Sunday from Flaming Pie, twenty one years later, with James providing *that* solo.
* I really must dig out the notebook I kept at the time that details all record shop purchases from the arse end of 1974 to, I think, mid 1979. And I can assure you that from 1st. January 1977 till the day the Pistols imploded, all my purchases were coated in a fine film of gob.
Quite how many Os should appear in the spelling of today's post is really up to Paul McCartney. Or, indeed, Stevie Riks - the one man Beatles*.
'Paul McCartney makes a cup of tea' has been staple viewing at Medd Towers since I first stumbled upon it on Youtube (where else?).
Riks has, without doubt, studied Macca, complete with all his facial tics and mannerisms, in the same way David Attenborough might study a rare species of insect in the Serengeti. As for the 'Doooo', it obviously has its roots in Get Back: fast forward the link to 2:32 and there it is. Moving on a handful of years and here it is again in its first non Beatles setting: 'Wings - the band the Beatles could have been' - as Alan Partridge once said. Its first spotting is at 1:19.
And then as a more recent example we see it rediscovered in a solo performance. Dance Tonight, his Radio 2 friendly mandolin waltz, has a rather special Doooooo clocking in at 2:08. Also, look out for Mackenzie Crook doing his best Postman Pat impression.
