When the Beatles came to an end in 1970, none of the Fab Four were content to rest on their laurels.
In the months before and after their final album, Let It Be, was released, solo efforts from each member — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — began to usher in the post-Beatles era.
Harrison and Lennon had the greatest success in those early years. Harrison's expansive and epic All Things Must Pass met with almost universal acclaim when it was released in 1970, while Lennon's sophomore solo release, 1971's Imagine, was a chart topper on both sides of the Atlantic and yielded one of his finest solo recordings with its title track.
McCartney had a tougher go at it. His earliest solo efforts — 1970's McCartney and 1971's Ram, credited to him and his wife, Linda— were panned by critics and fans, and the debut release from his group Wings — 1971's Wild Life — was dismissed as showcasing the nadir of McCartney's songwriting.
The following year, he upped his game by hiring guitarist Henry McCullough and taking Wings on the road to get them into shape for their next album, 1973's Red Rose Speedway. One month before that album's release, he helped promote it with a TV special that marked his first major TV appearance since the Beatles had split.
Titled simply James Paul McCartney, the program aired April 16, 1973 on Britain's ATV broadcast service and in the U.S. on ABC, with a mix of solo songs, Wings cuts, and Beatles classics that intermingled across a 22-song showcase.
The special was a chance both to get reacquainted with his fans and find his groove after spending years literally in the wilderness. Since the Beatles' breakup, McCartney had lived for much of the time at a Scottish farmhouse he purchased in 1966, a place he described as his “hideaway from the world.”
But equally, the show was a way to settle a dispute with his publisher, Lew Grade, who owned not only ATV but also the Beatles' Northern Songs catalog. Grade had objected to McCartney crediting Linda as a co-writer on his solo material. He complained that she lacked professional credentials, and he threatened to hold her portion of the royalties. Conveniently, McCartney's agreement to do the TV special for Grade's network put the problem to rest.
No doubt McCartney recognized the special had merits at this point in his career — certainly for his band and its new lineup — and he used it to demonstrate the range of his musical styles and creative talents. The songs performed included an upbeat and jangly take on Wings’ “Big Barn Bed,” their 1972 single "Mary Had a Little Lamb," their newly released single "My Love" and "Live and Let Die," his theme for the then-forthcoming 1973 James Bond movie of the same name.
Elsewhere in the show, McCartney donned an acoustic guitar for an abridged performance of his Beatles' era compositions "Blackbird" and "Michelle," as well as his solo cut "Heart of the Country," as Linda, a professional photographer, flitted around him taking photos.
While some portions of the show were an effort to show McCartney’s down-home side, he also went overboard attempting to show his wilder side. The skit titled “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance” was a parody of a Busby Berkley musical, but with a subversive bent: the dancers were dressed half in men’s clothes, half in women’s. The McCartneys planned to do a bit of gender swapping as well, but the U.S. sponsors weren’t having it.
“We wanted to do a drag sketch,” McCartney explained in a later interview. “I was going to come onstage dressed as Diana Ross and Linda was going to be dressed as a man. But they didn’t think that was a very good idea. It was a kind of Chevrolet show, and you couldn’t go too far or they wouldn’t show it.”
For the finale, the hour-long special featured McCartney with his Rickenbacker 4001 bass for the Wings' tune "The Mess," his 1970 solo hit "Maybe I’m Amazed" and the Little Richard rock-and-roller "Long Tall Sally," all performed before a feverish audience. It was followed by an intimate acoustic performance of his Beatles hit "Yesterday" as the credits rolled.
Unfortunately, McCartney's attempt to paint himself as an all-round entertainer fell flat. Critics almost universally savaged the show, and viewers largely ignored it.
Nevertheless, it put him back in the broader public arena for the first time in years. The release of Red Rose Speedway the following month, with the hit "My Love," was followed by the June release of Live and Let It Die and its chart-topping Paul McCartney and Wings title track.
By the following November, McCartney was back in his stride as he and a stripped-down Wings lineup — just McCartney, Linda and guitarist Denny Laine — released Band on the Run, his most successful post-Beatles album at that time.
McCartney's struggles with Wings would continue through the decade, and his 1980s return to solo work sputtered along as well. In 1986, he took an extended break from releasing albums — his first since the year-and-a-half pause after Wild Life — when he hunkered down to work on 1989's Flowers in the Dirt, turning to Elvis Costello for collaborative inspiration and perhaps a little help unleashing his inner darkness after yet another middling decade.
