Paul McCartney‘s decade-long run with Wings in the wake of the Beatles’ 1970 dissolution will be explored in heretofore unpublished detail in Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, which will be released Nov. 4 through Liveright/W. W. Norton and Allen Lane/Penguin Press. Presented as an oral history, the volume was written by McCartney and edited by Ted Widmer.
“I’m so very happy to be transported back to the time that was Wings and relive some of our madcap adventures through this book,” the music legend says. “Starting from scratch after The Beatles felt crazy at times. There were some very difficult moments and I often questioned my decision. But as we got better I thought, ‘OK, this is really good.’ We proved Wings could be a really good band, [could] play to huge audiences in the same way the Beatles had and have an impact in a different way. It was a huge buzz.”
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The Story of a Band on the Run is drawn from “dozens of hours of interviews” with McCartney, band members and other “key players.” It will feature more than 100 photographs, many previously unreleased. It’s part of a hefty Wings reissue campaign that has already produced a 50th anniversary edition of the album Band on the Run and a forthcoming Venus and Mars remastered LP, plus the live-in-studio documentary One Hand Clapping.
“Wings was about love, family, friendship and artistic growth, often in the face of tremendous adversity,” says Widmer. “It was a joy to relive the madcap adventures of a special band, by listening to their stories, and compiling this oral history.”
McCartney’s solo career will also be the subject of Man on the Run, a documentary from filmmaker Morgan Neville for which no release date has been announced.
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