Paul, Denny, Jimmy, Joe and Linda never became the household names that John, Paul, George and Ringo did, but for a short period in the mid 1970’s the group dominated the arena rock scene in America. The group’s “Wings Over America” tour remains the stuff of legend, and luckily it was well documented, both on film and on album formats.
When the live album came out, it was a triple, a rarity in the rock world, and the only other successful live album I remember that was over two albums was Bruce Springsteen’s five album live release in the 1980’s. For a record label to even consider pressing more than two discs you had to be in the upper echelon of rock music.
Another reason Wings deserved three albums worth of material is simple enough, there was not a second of filler in their set. Even when a young Jimmy McCulloch or Denny Laine takes over lead vocal duties, there is no drop off in quality.
Perhaps what is the most amazing thing to consider about “Wings Over America,” is that it documents Paul McCartney at the peak of his musical prime as a live performer. When Sir Paul was a Beatle, he was a writer and a studio performer most of the time, here we see him on stage with all the modern accouterments and singing his heart out.
I have long considered “Wings Over America” one of the greatest live rock albums of all time and owned vinyl, cassette and CD copies of over the years. The latest remastered version is superior to anything I have heard to date. They cleaned up the guitars and gave the rhythm section a lot of punch. Inasmuch as some people may hate to buy another copy of an album they already own, the sound quality improvements make it well worth the investment.
Also just released is the movie from the same tour. I can only speculate as to why the movie wasn’t a bigger hit when it came out, but I would guess that being released just a couple of weeks before John Lennon was murdered didn’t help. Lennon’s death put a new focus on the media fueling the “feud” between Lennon and McCartney. It also caused McCartney to cease touring for a long period of time, which meant the band could not properly promote the release of the film (in addition, guitarist Jimmy McCulloch had died of a drug overdose a year before the movie was released).
Far removed from those events, “Rockshow” gets its just due treatment in a beautifully packaged DVD. The clothes look a little dated, and McCartney is sporting a mullet, but the music and the performance is so fantastic. It was Wings’ best lineup, and thankfully we get to see them in all their glory with a full horn section backing them up.
