Band On The Run: How Paul McCartney Faced Adversity and Triumphed in Africa
Even before he turned up in Africa and was robbed at knifepoint of his precious demo cassettes, Paul McCartney was up against it.
Rarely during his storied career were the odds stacked against him as much as they were on August 29, 1973.
The next day, he was due in Nigerian capital Lagos to begin recording an album with his post-Beatles band Wings.
“A couple of the guys rang me,” recalls Sir Paul today, a little over 50 years on.
“Our drummer, Denny (Seiwell), and Henry (McCullough), the guitar player, just said, ‘We’re not coming’.
“I never quite worked out why. Perhaps they thought Africa was a long way to go!”
Suddenly, Wings had been clipped to a trio — Macca, his inexperienced but endlessly supportive wife Linda and Denny Laine, a multi-instrumentalist who used to be in The Moody Blues.
But, by summoning the indomitable spirit which helped carry The Beatles through the Sixties, he decided to board the flight.
This was the era of sonic explorers. The Rolling Stones had, as McCartney puts it, “wandered off” to the South of France to record Exile On Main St and he had the travel bug . . . “Wow! Africa! Lagos! Adventure! Let’s do it!”.
Exploring Africa with Paul McCartney
“I’m the kind of person who won’t go, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to rethink this.’ If I’m going somewhere, I like to stick to the plan,” he continues in a candid interview for his label, seen first by SFTW.
“I thought, ‘Well, we’ve got Denny’s guitar, Linda’s vocals, Denny’s vocals, my vocals and I’ll drum because I drum a lot anyway.
“Then I thought, ‘I’ll make this the best record I’ve made to date since leaving The Beatles.’”
True to his word, Macca returned to the UK on September 23 with the bulk of one of his defining albums, Band On The Run.
The timeless songs laid down in Lagos included the shape-shifting title track, Let Me Roll It “with vocals that sound a bit like John (Lennon)”, and a grand finale, Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five — all live staples to this day.
The album’s other big song Jet, named after the McCartneys’ black Labrador puppy, was recorded back in Abbey Road, where else?
The Band On The Run LP was housed in a memorable sleeve, inspired by Macca’s “prison escape” concept and realised by the creatives at Hipgnosis who were behind Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon iconic prism.
Caught in a spotlight against a brick wall was an unlikely assortment of renegades all dressed in black . . . Paul, Linda, Denny, Michael Parkinson, Kenny Lynch, James Coburn, Clement Freud, Christopher Lee and John Conteh.
To mark Band On The Run’s 50th anniversary, new vinyl and CD sets match the original LP with a raw “underdubbed” mix which comes minus orchestrations and various other embellishments (in vein of stripped back Let It Be . . . Naked).
The releases are tinged with sadness because soon a…