Apple 3409
Producer: Paul McCartney
Track listing: Big Barn Bed / My Love / Get on the Right Thing / One More Kiss / Little Lamb Dragonfly / Single Pigeon / When the Night / Loup (1st Indian on the Moon) / Medley: (a) Hold Me Tight (b) Lazy Dynamite (c) Hands of Love (d)
Power Cut
June 2, 1973
3 weeks
Paul McCartney had to feel a certain satisfaction when his fourth post-Beatles album, Red Rose Speedway, Knocked the Fab Four’s 1967-1970 from the top spot on the albums chart. After all, McCartney was attempting to establish his new group, Wings, as a viable entity, distinct from his notoriety with the Beatles.
After becoming the first Beatle to hit top of the album chart as a solo artist with McCartney, the singer-songwriter recorded an album with his wife, Linda. Ram, which contained McCartney’s fist post-Beatles Number One single, “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” spent two weeks at number two. For his third album, McCartney formed a band called Wings, consisting of Linda on keyboards, former Moody Blues member Denny Laine on guitar, and New York session player Denny Seiwell, who had played on Ram, on drums. Without the benefit of a hit single, Wings’ Wild Life stalled at number 10 in early 1972.
Prior to recording Red Rose Speedway, guitarist Henry McCullough was added to the lineup. But despite McCartney’s ambitions to make Wings into a legitimate band, he didn’t quite pull it off on Red Rose Speedway. “He was less than secure, really,” says Glyn Johns, who served as an engineer on the album. “I admired him for what he was trying to do, but I think he was confused. He didn’t know if he wanted to be the bass player in the band or Paul McCartney. He ended up with a bunch of sycophantic musicians who were all climbing up his backside. It wasn’t a band, although he was constantly saying he wanted it to be one.”
Red Rose Speedway was spotty at best. “The band itself was not very good,” adds Johns. Yet the album did include one gem, the ballad “My Love,” which McCartney wrote for Linda.
The same week that “My Love” hit the summit on the Hot 100, McCartney scored his second post-Beatles’ Number One album with Red Rose Speedway. The album hit the top in its fourth week on the chart.
While McCartney may have slipped artistically, he still showed signs of brilliance and continued to have commercial success. Red Rose Speedway was the first of five consecutive Number One albums for McCartney and Wings.
Says Johns, “There were a couple of songs that I thought were a bit iffy, but it never crossed my mind for a minute that Paul McCartney was not going to carry on with the same sort of standing he’d established for himself with the Beatles. I felt that the material that was less than what one expected was just him trying to explore new territory because he was on his own.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of June 2, 1973
I . Red Rose Speedway,Paul McCartney and Wings
2. House of the Holy, Led Zeppelin
3. The Beatles/1967-1970, The Beatles
4. They Only Come Out at Night, Edgar Winter Group
5. The Beatles/1962-1966, The Beatles