For Paul McCartney fans who wish to have the print counterpart to the Wingspan project, this book will be of interest. Released in September, with relatively little fanfare, Wingspan is an  intimate scrapbook and personal record of Paul McCartney’s “second band”.

Somewhat slight on text, Wingspan isn’t the full transcript to the Wingspan documentary. Instead, what is offered is an edited version by Mark Lewisohn. An obvious omission is, Paul commenting on Yoko’s bed being brought in to the recording studio for the Beatles’ White album. That sequence was present in the film but was not included in the book. Maybe Paul decided to “give peace a chance” in this instance, but fans will easily notice the omission .

Wingspans’s main strength is the numerous photographs covering the years 1968 to 1980.

The photos include:

Recording sessions for the various Wings albums and singles, including what may possibly be the only post-breakup photo of Wings, rehearsing for the 'Tug Of War' album, in October 1980.

Informal rehearsals at Paul's Rude Studio in Scotland during the summer of 1971.

The Wings press party (November 1971)

The British Tour of Universities (February 1972) and the European Tour (summer 1972), including a shot of Paul and Linda being busted for cannabis possession.

A rare photo of Paul & Fela Ransom Kuti in Lagos (who accused Paul of "stealing the black man's music”) when Wings recorded Band On The Run.

Rare shots of Wings in Nashville (summer 1974)

The Wings Over The World Tour (September 1975-October 1976). Beatles fans will note the rare shot of Ringo Starr holding Paul's Rickenbacker bass on stage with Wings during the encore in Los Angeles (June 1976).

Shots of Wings filming the 'Wonderful Christmastime' video, the 'Mull Of Kintyre' and 'With A Little Luck' promos.

Wingspan is appended by a UK & US discography which is annotated by Mark Lewisohn. Curiously, the bonus tracks contained on “The Paul McCartney Collection” CD reissues are not included.  There is also a list of all the Wings concerts from 1972-1980, including the cancelled Japanese dates.

As a book, Wingspan is a quick, easy read. More detailed than the Wingspan video documentary but still giving the impression of grazing the surface. More detail with quotes from other band members, even archival quotes from Linda McCartney would have fleshed out this publication.

The premise of Wings is a pop culture enigma. The co leader of the most popular band on the planet decides to form a new group. He could have established a superstar line up with musicians of equal calibre and start playing huge stadiums. Instead, he choses the unique (and courageous) option of hiring relatively unknown people, including his musically inexperienced wife. He starts over again from scratch, performing at small clubs and college campuses. Yet at the same time, he’s determined to prove that success can (and does) repeat itself. He wants to show that the lottery can be won twice in a lifetime. Eventually, his persistence pays off with the success of the ‘Wings Over The World’ tour. With this accomplishment intact, Wings slowly unravel and dissolves completely following a drug bust in Japan.

That story should make for compelling reading. When one considers the elements of self doubt, out spoken criticism from the music press and fellow musicians (like John Lennon); the internal strife and incompatible expectations among the various band members, etc., Wingspan should be a real page turner. However, it isn’t. The sense of real life drama that must have come from living this experience is not evident within the text of Wingspan. The history of Wings, if Wingspan is to be the primary source, is trivial and incidental. It leaves the reader feeling that there must be more to the story that what’s being disclosed here.

The more successful projects like ‘Band on the Run’ are retold. But, the history of that album is already very well known. Other projects like ‘Venus and Mars’ and ‘Wings At The Speed of Sound’ are granted a brief mention. It almost seems that, except for the obvious highlights, Paul McCartney has real amnesia about his years with Wings.

The one strength of this book is that it gives a glimpse into McCartney’s motivation behind the formation of Wings. Basically, having had success with the Beatles, Paul wanted to prove that he could do it again with another band. He details the difference between Wings and the Beatles. The members in Wings were not friends whom he had grown up with. The concept was different but in particular with the ‘Wings Over America’ line up, McCartney felt he had achieved his intended goal. Having done that, he lost interest in the Wings concept and was growing weary of the continuing line up changes.

The often repeated premise in Wingspan is, that in a commercial sense, Wings equalled the success of the Beatles and in some ways surpassed it. That kind of accomplishment deserves a more thorough treatment .

From a technical point of view, the scrapbook approach employed in the design of Wingspan may be jarring to some readers. Incidents of too much white space, erratic paragraph justification, virtually invisible chapter breaks and large pull quotes gives the impression of a hastily put together project. A little too “cut and paste” in appearance. Since the photographs are the most important aspect of Wingspan, it is curious that they are not properly captioned, leaving the reader guessing their origin. Even the most experienced fan is challenged.

Wingspan is a worthy purchase if you can overlook some of it’s literary shortcomings and appreciate the wealth of photographs. Anyone who desires a more detailed account of the Wings experience will need to look elsewhere.

Publication Details:
Paperback, 176pp.
ISBN: 0821227939
Publisher: Bulfinch Press
Pub. Date: September  2002

Purchase Links: Chapters.ca ; Amazon.com ; Barnes and Noble .
Related Page: Book Review: "A Single Step" by Heather Mills McCartney .

May 23, 2001 - Wednesday May 23, 4:26 pm Eastern Time

Press Release

First the TV Film, Then the Album, Now It's 'Wingspan' the Book: New McCartney
Biography to Reveal Linda's Never-Seen Rock Shots

Wingspan Remains in the Top Ten On the Billboard Album Chart

NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--May 23, 2001-- PAUL McCARTNEY will follow the recent release of his 'Wingspan' TV film and album with a 'Wingspan' book that will publish for the first time the never-seen backstage rock photography of his late wife Linda. WINGSPAN, the 40 song double CD from Paul McCartney and Wings, entered the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #2, making it the highest debut album that week and fastest selling post-Beatles album of McCartney's career. The album remains in the Billboard Album Chart Top 10 in its second week.

Just as the Beatles carved up their 'Anthology' project into a TV documentary, albums and hefty autobiography, Paul is to follow suit with his acclaimed Wings retrospective. The 'Wingspan' biography will be centered around Linda McCartney's pictures from her ``lost decade,'' the Seventies years during which Linda stopped her career as a photographer in order to play keyboards in her husband's band, Wings.

Prior to Wings, Linda McCartney established herself as rock and roll's foremost female photographer. In the Sixties, as Linda Eastman, she photographed all the legends of rock - including The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and The Beatles.

A collection of her pictures from the time - 'Sixties; Portrait Of An Era' - was published in 1992 and became an international best-seller, with more than 200,000 copies sold.

Before her death in 1998, Linda McCartney said: "Playing in a band totally stopped me from being a working photographer, my career just stopped. Before that I was taking pictures for all sorts of magazines and was working on photographs for a book about rock and roll. But it stopped because I joined a band and all the time that I was in that band was time that I would have been taking photographs.''

"Photography was more important to me than music - but my husband and my family were more important to me than photography, and I was prepared to give up photography for them.''

But now it will be revealed that Linda didn't stop taking her rock-pop pictures. Although playing in Wings stopped her working as a photographer, in private throughout the Seventies she continued to record the rock and roll way of life.

Now these never-seen pictures will be published later this year in a 'Wingspan' biography along with text by Paul McCartney that will be more detailed and revealing than his interview for the 'Wingspan' TV documentary.

Said Paul McCartney: "Because of her perception, Linda could see the way you are inside, beyond the act or the image, and it was that honest reality that she photographed. Linda had an eye for honesty, she saw the truth and that shines through all of the images that she produced. Her pictures are all very natural, nothing was posed''.

Contact:

     Paul McCartney Press UK:
     Geoff Baker, 01380-860-169 or 07968-271-243
                    or
     Paul McCartney Press USA:
     Paul Freundlich, 646-658-8313
                    or
     Paul McCartney Press USA:
     Allison Elbl, 646-658-8314