Wings

Wings were formed by Paul McCartney as a means of getting back on the road with a working band after the slow, bitter split of The Beatles meant he hadn't appeared on stage for several years; and Wings went on to exist longer than The Beatles. The band idea resulted from the sessions for his third post-Beatles solo album Wild Life, which featured his wife Linda McCartney on keyboards and backing vocals, with Denny Seiwell on drums and Denny Laine (formerly of the Moody Blues) on guitar and vocals. Released in 1971, Wild Life became the first album by Wings, who introduced themselves with a series of unadvertised surprise gigs. Despite consternation about the musical limitations of Paul's wife Linda, Wings had their biggest success with the 1973 album Band On The Run and enjoyed a series of major hits, including: the big ballad My Love; the Bond theme song Live & Let Die; the children's song Mary Had A Little Lamb; the bagpipe anthem Mull Of Kintyre; and two tracks banned by the BBC,Give Ireland Back To The Irish and Hi Hi Hi, for their political and drug references respectively. The line-up changed regularly but Wings remained a major live attraction until deciding to split in the wake of John Lennon's murder in December 1980.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.