Paul McCartney & Wings- Wild Life & Red Rose Speedway Reissue Review

After last year’s delayed reissue of Flowers in the Dirt, the Paul McCartney Archive Collection is back with two new reissues. For this year, MPL and the powers that be have remastered and reissued the first two Wings albums- Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. As always, each album is backed up with a second disc filled with bonus tracks. While neither are perfect, both albums have some good songs on them. After listening to both reissues, I think these are two welcomed entries in the Archive Collection.

  

Wild Life (1971)

Album rating: ***

Bonus audio rating: ***

            Towards the end of 1971, Paul McCartney had two post Beatles albums under his belt: McCartney (1970) and Ram (1971)- the latter of which he made with wife Linda. During the Ram sessions, McCartney had a solo band. When McCartney wanted his band to stay long term, drummer Denny Seiwell was the only one interested. With Seiwell on board, McCartney decided that he wanted to have another guitarist singer/songwriter to work with, which he found in guitarist Denny Laine- who at that point was best known for his short tenure in the Moody Blues. McCartney rounded up the new band by recruiting wife Linda join the new band as the keyboardist. With that, Wings was formed.  Their debut album, Wild Life, was released in December 1971. Despite the hype surrounding McCartney’s new band, the album received mixed reviews. Personally, I have to say that this is the weakest of Wings’ seven studio albums. While I like it a little more with the new remaster, it’s still an uninspired effort from McCartney.

            In terms of its production and approach, Wild Life does sound like the natural successor to Ram: it’s very simple and laid back. However, Ram took some time to record. With Wild Life, it was recorded within one week. Listening to the album, it certainly sounds like something that was lazily slapped together. Just listen to the opening track- “Mumbo”: it’s basically Wings jamming away while McCartney is improvising the most nonsensical lyrics. The nonsense continues with “Bip Bop”- which features some of the worst lyrics McCartney has written in his career. Another downside to Wild Life is that it doesn’t have a lot of rockers. Ram had a good share of them but Wild Life is lacking in them for the most part. Despite the album’s downsides, McCartney and Wings manage to offer some good songs here. The band’s reggae flavored cover of Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange” is my personal favorite from the album. I also like the protest themed titled track and the mellow sounds of “Tomorrow.” The album’s closer, the piano heavy “Dear Friend,” is another highlight as it served as McCartney’s response to the attacks John Lennon was making towards his former bandmate around that time.

            As with the albums before it, the new remaster sounds very strong. Prior to this, my only ownership of Wild Life was a vinyl copy and an MP3 rip of that copy. The same goes for Red Rose Speedway: these remasters sound amazing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the bass and drums are really strong on these remasters. Even though I’m not fond of Wild Life, it’s a great sounding album. It’s a shame that the songs on the album are mostly mediocre.

            The bonus disc for Wild Life features 42 minutes of music, which is pretty surprising coming from an album that was rushed. However unsurprisingly, most of the bonus tracks here are just okay at best. I do enjoy some of the home demos featuring Paul and Linda, harmonizing as their children are heard playing in the background.  Also featured on here is the controversial single “Give Ireland Back to the Irish.” Prior to this release, I hadn’t really heard the song. I think it’s a great song as it features that rocking sound missing from Wild Life.

 

Red Rose Speedway (1973)

Album rating: *** ¾

Reconstructed Double Album rating: *** ¾ to ****

Bonus audio rating: ****

            In 1972, McCartney added guitarist Henry McCullough to the band as a fifth member. Prior to joining the band, the Irish born McCullough was best known for playing in Joe Cocker’s Grease Band. With McCullough added to the band, Wings went on tour. They would release several singles before finally releasing an album in May 1973. As their sophomore effort, Red Rose Speedway is a much better album than Wild Life. While it has its weaknesses, this is an overall better album.

            Red Rose Speedway hits the ground running with the rocking “Big Barn Bed.” It’s a catchy rock tune with splendid guitar licks from Laine and McCullough. Other highlights include the R&B/soul inspired “Get On The Right Thing” and the mini-epic ballad “Little Lamb Dragonfly”- the latter of which features a strong vocal performance from McCartney. The album’s best known song, however, is the #1 hit single “My Love.” Written by McCartney as a love song to Linda, the song is still played live by McCartney to this day. McCullough shines on the song during the instrumental break with a soaring guitar solo, which McCartney has praised the now late guitarist for. While a more consistent album than Wild Life, Red Rose Speedway has some weaknesses. The album features one too many slow songs. While those songs are fine, this album could’ve used some more rockers. If you watch or listen to concerts from around that time, Wings were a rock band. When the album tries to offer rock songs later on, it’s in the form of “Loup (First Indian On the Moon),” a very lazy space themed jam. Aside from McCartney’s bass playing on the song, it could’ve been left off the album.  The album ends decently with the medley of “Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands of Love/Power Cuff.” While it’s a lengthy batch of tunes, it closes out the album nicely.

Believe it or not, Red Rose Speedway was originally planned to be a double album. In an effort to make a commercially successful product, it was left as a standard single album. This is most likely why the album received the criticism that it did: it was meant to be something else. For Red Rose Speedway’s reissue, MPL went all out and included almost all of the songs cut from the original double album. In the album’s box set form, one of the many discs is the double album configuration- entitled Red Rose Speedway: Reconstructed. While that disc is exclusive to the box set, you can still create the Reconstructed tracking list with the lower priced 2-disc reissue with an iTunes playlist. So is Reconstructed any good? Overall- yes, it is. It has a nice variety of songs and is more consistent than whatever ended up coming out in 1973. Some of the songs here should’ve been released back in the day. Personally, I like the all out rocker “Night Out,” Denny Laine’s “I Would Only Smile” and the Elvis Presley/Beach Boys inspired “I Lie Around.” Some of these songs have been released on previous reissues of Red Rose Speedway. This includes “The Mess,” Linda’s “Seaside Woman” and the aforementioned “I Lie Around.” While more consistent, it’s easy to see why Red Rose Speedway ended up being a single album: this is a lot of music to digest. It’s not bad, mind you, but it’s just a lot. Nevertheless, Reconstructed is a nice companion piece to the 1973 album.

Along with the Red Rose outtakes, the bonus audio disc also includes all of the singles and non-album tracks from around the time the album was released. This includes singles such as the banned drug rocker “Hi, Hi, Hi” and “Live And Let Die”- the band’s theme for the 1973 James Bond movie of the same name. The bonus audio disc for Red Rose Speedway has a runtime of nearly 70 minutes, making this the longest of the bonus audio discs in the Archive Collection to date. This is, hands down, my favorite bonus disc in the series: not only does it offer you the singles but you also get a whole slew of unreleased tracks.

            Overall, these reissues of Wings’ first two albums are very good. While this is leaning heavily on all of the extras on Red Rose Speedway, I always look forward to these reissues every year. As with Flowers in the Dirt before it, there is no insert announcing what the next albums in the series will be. Looking over Paul’s discography, London Town and Back to the Egg might be the next two released. For the time being, we can enjoy these two new entries.