One Hand Clapping

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by Jeff Wilson
Nov 29, 2024

Let’s start with some dates. Paul McCartney released his first solo album in April 1970, a few weeks before The Beatles’ swan song, Let It Be, showed up in record stores. Up next was Ram, credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, from May 1971. In December of that year Paul’s new band, Wings, rolled out Wild Life. In May 1973 Wings released Red Rose Speedway, and Band on the Run appeared in November of that year.

Between those brackets, Paul McCartney got over some major humps as an artist. Acknowledging that The Beatles were a tough act to follow, we can appreciate the loose vibe of Mc- Cartney, whereupon an ex-member of the Fab Four let us know, post-breakup, that he was more concerned with finding terra firma than matching his previous artistic highs. (That said, “Maybe I’m Amazed” ranks with any songs he recorded for The Beatles.) With Ram, Macca pushed harder, but there was still a casual feel to parts of the project.

Much in the same spirit as Let it Be, the first Wings album, Wild Life, came together quickly, but while the same spontaneous atmosphere was there, the material wasn’t nearly as strong. Red Rose Speedway was the most carefully crafted project the post-Beatles McCartney attempted up to that point, but it was hardly a career high point. In spite of all the chaos taking place, a scaled-down and much-beleaguered version of Wings managed to record Band on the Run, which, against all odds, accomplished everything McCartney could have hoped for during that phase of his career. The best-selling album was packed with hits, especially if you owned the original American version of the record, which added the single “Helen Wheels.”

This background sets the scene for One Hand Clapping, a new archival release containing live-in-the-studio performances Wings filmed and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in August 1974. For decades the music was only available in bootleg form, but now One Hand Clapping is available digitally or as a 2-CD or 2-LP set—or you can opt for an online exclusive that adds a 7-inch 45 to the vinyl package.

Paul’s bandmates at this point were Linda McCartney on keyboards, Denny Laine on guitar and bass, Jimmy McCulloch on guitar, and Geoff Britton on drums. Everyone except Britton contributed background vocals, and Laine sang lead on his bracing reprisal of the Moody Blues classic “Go Now.” Initially, skeptics wondered if Wings would offer a true band dynamic, but on the warts-and-all One Hand Clapping the group certainly feels like a band, as the recordings combine solid musicianship with scrappy live-in-the-studio energy. On the up-tempo numbers, Britton drives the band hard, and both guitarists add a touch of grittiness to the proceedings.

Along with including a generous helping of Wings songs that originally appeared on their studio albums (and especially Band on the Run), One Hand Clapping contains the non-album Wings cuts “Live and Let Die,” “Hi Hi Hi,” “Junior’s Farm,” and “Soily.” As such, the album serves as an overview of the band up to that point, and what becomes clear after you sift through all the Wings material is that forming a band inspired McCartney artistically. Whatever their virtues, Macca’s first two post-Beatles albums celebrated his isolation. By the time One Hand Clapping rolled around, however, he seemed fully engaged. That’s evident in the chemistry he shares with the other band members, and you also hear it in the lyrics, which, in true late Beatles style, feature a large cast of characters, including such personages as the poker man, Bloody Hardy, Sailor Sam, an Eskimo, an undertaker, and enough stern authority figures (Sergeant Major, the county judge, the jailer man) to make a pot-smoking 1970s version of a hippie a bit edgy. Evidently getting out of the house stimulated Macca’s imagination.

The sound for One Hand Clapping is good. Although originally only available as a boot, it was professionally recorded (Geoff Emerick was the engineer, with assistance from Mark Vigars and John Barrett), and it’s definitely not “bootleg quality.” Of the 26 cuts on the regular release, there’s a healthy percentage of spirited performances where Wings clearly sets out to impress a TV audience. At the same time, there are a few duds, including some so-so post-Beatles ballads and some tentative run-throughs of Beatles songs that are “interesting historically” but less than compelling. I assumed, when I dropped the 7-inch that accompanies the online-only release, that I would hear music that was solely of interest to the most ardent Beatles completists. Boy, was I wrong. Taped in the backyard of Abbey Road studios, this startlingly intimate recording of Paul on guitar and voice is as stripped down as it gets. The A side of McCartney originals includes a stirring performance of “Blackbird.” The B side features cover versions of songs associated with Buddy Holly (“Peggy Sue,” “I’m Going to Love You Too”) and Eddie Cochran (“Twenty Flight Rock”). Listening to the flip side, you feel the shared lineage between the great early rockers and the generation that followed. To Macca’s credit, the live-in-the-studio Wings performance of “Let Me Roll It” that appears elsewhere on this release has such a strong 50s vibe that you can picture the malt shop where it would have played had it come out 15 years earlier. No wonder he sounds so authentic while paying tribute to his influences.

Tags: MUSIC ROCK BEATLES PAUL MCCARTNEY

By Jeff Wilson

This will take some explaining, but I can connect the dots between pawing through LPs at a headshop called Elysian Fields in Des Moines, Iowa, as a seventh grader, and becoming the Music Editor for The Absolute Sound. At that starting point—around 1970/71—Elysian Fields had more LPs than any other store in Des Moines. Staring at all the colorful covers was both tantalizing and frustrating. I had no idea who most of the artists were, because radio played only a fraction of what was current. To figure out what was going on, I realized that I needed to build a record collection—and as anyone who’s visited me since high school can testify, I succeeded. Record collecting was still in my blood when, starting in the late 1980s, the Cincinnati Public Library book sale suddenly had an Elysian Fields quantity of LPs from people who’d switched to CDs. That’s where I met fellow record hawk Mark Lehman, who preceded me as music editor of TAS. Mark introduced me to Jonathan Valin, whose 1993 detective novel The Music Lovers depicts the battles between record hawks at library sales. That the private eye in the book, Harry Stoner, would stumble upon a corpse or two while unraveling the mystery behind the disappearance of some rare Living Stereo platters made perfect sense to me. After all, record collecting is serious business. Mark knew my journalistic experience included concert reviews for The Cincinnati Enquirer and several long, sprawling feature articles in the online version of Crawdaddy. When he became TAS music editor in 2008, he contacted me about writing for the magazine. I came on board shortly after the latest set of obituaries had been written for vinyl—and, as fate had it, right when the LP started to make yet another unexpected comeback. Suddenly, I found myself scrambling to document all the record companies pressing vinyl. Small outfits were popping up world-wide, and many were audiophile-oriented, plus already existing record companies began embracing the format again. Trying to keep track of everything made me feel, again, like that overwhelmed seventh grader in Elysian Fields, and as Music Editor I’ve found that keeping my finger on the pulse of the music world also requires considerable detective work. I’ve never had a favorite genre, but when it comes time to sit down and do some quality listening, for me nothing beats a well-recorded small-group jazz recording on vinyl. If a stereo can give me warmth and intimacy, tonal accuracy, clear imaging, crisp-sounding cymbals, and deep, woody-sounding bass, then I’m a happy camper.