THE McCARTNEY LEGACY: VOLUME 1 1969-73 (2022) *****
by Allan Koznin & Adrian Sinclair
This hardback edition published by Dey Street Books, 2022, 712pp
First published in 2022
© Allan Koznin & Adrian Sinclair, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-300070-4
Blurb: When Paul McCartney issued a press release in April 1970 announcing that the world’s most beloved band, the Beatles, had broken up no one could have predicted that McCartney himself would go on to have one of the most successful solo careers in music history. Yet in the years after the Fab Four disbanded, Paul McCartney became a legend in his own right. Now journalist and world-renowned Beatles’ historian Allan Kozinn and award-winning documentarian Adrian Sinclair chronicle in technicolor McCartney’s pivotal years from 1969 to 1973, as he recreated himself in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles breakup – a period when, newly married and with a growing family, he conquered depression and self-doubt, formed a new band, Wings, and recorded five epochal albums culminating in the triumphant smash, Band on the Run. Part 1 of a multivolume set, THE McCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL. 1 documents a pivotal moment in the life of a man whose legacy grows increasingly more relevant as his influence on music and pop culture remains as relevant as ever. It is the first truly comprehensive biography, and the most finely detailed exploration of McCartney’s creative life beyond the Beatles, ever undertaken.
Comment: When Mark Lewisohn announced his intention to write the definitive chronicle of the lives of The Beatles in his incredibly detailed All These Years series of books, we wondered whether 1) He had sufficient years left in him to finish the project and 2) Where he would stop. As we so far have only seen volume 1 of that series covering 1958-62, published some 8 years ago, it is evident that at best Lewisohn will only reach the Beatles’ 1970 break-up. Given he has endorsed this project, in which Koznin and Sinclair take a similar approach to the post-Beatles career of Paul McCartney, we now have a concurrent book series taking a similarly in-depth look at the evergreen songwriter and musician as he branched out on his own. The authors have presented their painstaking research of McCartney’s recording sessions, and the ups and downs of his immediate post-Beatle life in a form that is both engaging and enlightening. Drawing on archive material and personal discussions and interviews with those around McCartney at the time. The result is a candid portrayal of probably the most creative and prolific songwriter the UK has ever produced. It’s warts and all. We almost feel like we are living alongside Paul, Linda and Wings during the period covered in this book – from the Beatles’ break-up in late 1969 to the end of 1973. Four years where there is no stone left unturned. We are taken through Paul’s crisis of confidence, his legal wrangles with his former bandmates and Allen Klein, his retreat to his Scottish farm, his formation of Wings and the tensions his need to control created with his new bandmates. McCartney is a prolific writer whose quality filter can sometimes be left unused, but he was still capable of writing gems as diverse as ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, ‘Band on the Run’, ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Jet’, ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, ‘My Love’, et al. We witness a man who tested the patience of foreign governments and law enforcement officers with his open attitude to dope. We also witness a loyal and devoted family man, who would encourage his non-musical wife Linda to join his band and help write some of the songs and who would take his children on tour and school them on the road. It’s all in here and it is a fascinating read, giving us perhaps the best insight to date into the psyche of this musical genius.
