The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

The McCartney Legacy Volume 1: 1969-73 - by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair.This fantastic book only covers 5 years of McCartney’s life but takes its time and spends 720 pages doing so. Over the last week, I’ve had a great time devouring every morsel of information within this epic tome. It covers Paul’s years between the ages of 27 and 31, from Let It Be, McCartney and Ram all the way through to Wildlife, Red Rose Speedway and Band on the Run! Not a bad track record for one so young! I’ve always had Ian MacDonald’s ‘Revolution in the Head’ as the best Beatles’ book, and whilst not surpassing that, this gives it a very good run for its money.There are plenty of staging posts to keep the story moving quickly along: Let It Be, the end of the Beatles and Paul’s ensuing depression after falling out with his fellow Fabs; business problems, legal wrangles and court battles with Allen Klein; Campbeltown, Scotland; the McCartney album; Linda and family; BBC bans; writing, recording and touring with Wings; and Linda’s lack of musicianship. It’s an infectious, inspiring read that regularly sent me scurrying off to dig out little known outtakes, alternate versions and demos, recently released on the various ‘Paul McCartney Archive Collection’ issues; and it’s prompted me to go back to discover and rediscover his early, post Beatles work, not all of which is to my taste - but that’s not the point.Macca’s cheery thumbs aloft media persona is all present and correct, but is impressively counterbalanced by a depiction of a fierce toughness and ruthlessness that was never apparent to me or many others at the time. His hatred of Allen Klein is well known but I didn’t know that after his spiteful delays to Wings’ debut album, Wildlife, he sent him a very terse strongly worded letter full of such obscene depletives, when I first tried to quote them in this review, Amazon rejected it!The extensive research necessary to produce such a deep dive into the minutiae of such a prolific career leaves no stone unturned, drawing on thousands of new and archive interviews with McCartney; band and family members; associates; and others who were there at the time. The detail is bewildering and nearly every day of the period covered is accounted for. Whatever you need to know about any aspects of Macca’s professional life - writing, recording or gigging - is here. The authors are a match for Mark Lewisohn’s thoroughness and comfortably meet the extremely high standard that his superb work has set. Want to know about the dates, instruments or microphones used for the recording of ‘C Moon’?; the places, times and set lists for the (now not so) secret 1971 UK University tour?; the matrix numbers of post session acetates?; the genesis of almost every song; or just the age and make of the bus that carried Wings around Europe during their 1972 tour? Worry not, all of that and much more is here. It’s important to say that while this forensic level of detail isn’t for everyone, it doesn’t get in the way of the narrative or impede the story by making it just a dry, fact filled tale. On the contrary, the skilful way the many jigsaw-like pieces of the story are seamlessly assembled, simply means that the research lubricates the history to make it a more interesting and authoritative read.While it’s not quite a warts and all hatchet job, it’s honest and doesn’t duck the difficult or controversial issues. That being the case, McCartney generally comes across well. He’s driven and restless and rarely seems to stop. He’s also a committed family man and seems to like nothing more than to be with Linda and his children. Reconciling his rock ‘n’ roll life style with family isn’t always easy and often raises eyebrows, but in this and other ways he was an ahead of his time, pioneer. Against that background, Paul and Linda’s strong mutual love in the face of so many obstacles is an impressive recurring theme, but how they ever found time for their children in the middle of their rock ‘n’ roll life, remains a mystery.Macca’s charming public persona and driven genius are well to the fore, whether it be in the guise of PR man; producer; composer; player or plain old flexible singer. As a multi-instrumentalist, he is equally and brilliantly at home on a wide range of instruments including bass; guitar; piano and keyboards; drums. As a composer, he’s prodigiously prolific and versatile, working in a range of genres that includes ballads, rockers, vaudeville and children’s songs. (We’ll have to wait for later volumes before we come to the electronica, avant garde and classical!) Throughout, his effortless gift for a sublime melody is never far away.It’s true that in places he seems a bit of a control freak, writing parts for his Wings’ co-stars rather than giving them a free reign. So, when setting up Wings with Denny Laine, Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell, with the stated intention of even working partnerships and equal billing, you know that it can never work. Having said that, with McCartney’s abundance of talent, it’s easy to understand why he might lean towards a more autocratic approach. Sometimes, the net result of all of that flair appears to have been a problem, and players and producers alike occasionally seem to find themselves intimidated by it. However, it poses the question as to whether his genius might sometimes be an isolating, inhibiting problem for him and others. Henry McCullough has more of an issue with this than the other Wings’ members, so there’s a great moment during the recording of ‘My Love’ when he asks his boss’ permission to depart from what had been written for him in favour of what turned out to be a spectacular, on the spot improvised, solo. Eventually, it’s Paul’s cast iron hold on things, that leads to Seiwell and McCullough leaving, but I really liked the fact that after their sudden, acrimonious, pre-‘Band on the Run’ departures, Macca goes back, kisses and makes up and repairs their broken friendships.For me, some mysteries were solved. For example, I’d always selfishly lamented the fact that when he was mugged in Lagos at the start of the ‘Band on the Run’ sessions, we (as well as McCartney!) were robbed of the demos that would make fascinating listening in a future expanded archive release. Not so! While the thieves did steal a cassette of his demos, it was only a copy of the 4 track master tape, recorded pre-departure with Wings in Scotland, not the original, all of which leaves me naively hoping for yet another re-expanded future release!At times, Kozinn and Sinclair provide a knowledgeable but accessible analysis of the structure and content of the music that somehow manages to be interesting without being too technical. In their minds, this started out as a Sessionography but grew to be that and a biography. In that respect, it still has the makings of the definitive McCartney reference work but badly needs an index before this is finally achieved. I’m guessing that lack of space prevented that, but as a result, I spent quite a bit of time to-ing and fro-ing between pages to cross check something I’d previously read. Similarly, it’s sparsely illustrated with unseen, illuminating period photographs which are a joyous treasure trove, but I could have done with more! Others have been unfairly critical of the font size and paper quality but my final niggle is so small and petty as to be almost insignificant, but oh dear: the cover! With the wealth of photographic material to hand, surely the book’s designers could have come up with something better than this?!Please ignore my tiny, nit picking misgivings - this is a mighty piece of work that I didn’t want to end. I’ve fully savoured and enjoyed it and am now impatiently waiting for Volume 2, next year. Bravo. Highly recommended.

I've only just started reading this and it certainly seems authoritative and a fascinating biog. Perhaps the last word on his early solo years. It's very well written and researched. There is masses in here I am reading about for the first time. I am not an obsessive fan but I have been listening to Macca and following his career for over fifty years. So, it's a major piece of writing. But I'm giving it only four stars due to the poor production and design of this book, which badly let it down. Really it should be three stars. As other reviewers have commented already, this book is a square format and the typesetting is not great - the line length is too long and the type too small (a fatal combination and big no-no among book designers!). This makes it an unenjoyable read. The paper is also very thin and cheap and on my copy the dust wrapper slips about too much. It's a huge shame. The book deserves so much better - maybe it will be picked up by another publisher who can do a better job. I'll probably give up on this before I reach the end and get the audio edition.

Couldn't put this book down ! The amount of research and detail that's gone into this first volume is outstanding. Hopefully the next volume won't be too long in arriving !

Absolutely superb telling of the early post Beatles McCartney. Can't recommend it highly enough. My copy had a printing error with about a block of about thirty pages repeating elsewhere in the book but nothing was missing so it makes no difference to me.

This is a meticulously well researched book. It tells a story all fans know much about, but not everything. It acts as a fly on the wall, looking in great depth at Paul's creative life from The Beatles breakup to the Band On The Run album. Just what the fans wanted, future volumes forthcoming.

A monumental book, but probably easier to navigate in the Kindle version. As others have commented, the typeface is difficult and small, and most dissappointingly the book is lacking an index.

This is a big book which I can't wait to get into, looking forward to the second volume

Charting McCartney’s journey from the depths of depression to his resurrection through the release of Band On The Run, this book offers Lewisohn levels of detail, and genuine insight and revelation. Cannot recommend this more highly - this is the definitive account of the end of the Beatles and the beginning of Paul’s solo career.