The Beatles always did things big, even as solo artists. Rather than release your standard one or two-album live set, Paul McCartney not only released his band’s entire setlist, it came as a monster 3-LP package. Here’s how a bootleg inspired Paul McCartney’s first live album, Wings Over America.
The Bootleg Business
By 1976, it was pretty easy to go to your favorite independent record store and buy a bootleg. Titles were popping up everywhere from any artist you could name, in varying degrees of sound quality. Having said that, in most cases the sound was pretty rotten. But it didn’t seem to matter to fans. The underground bootleg business was thriving, with pressing plants all around the world secretly pressing bootleg vinyl. Fans were scooping them up as fast as they were coming out. Live concert performances and even rare, unreleased studio outtakes were now being heard by fans.
Bootlegging Boldness
It took guts, and some ingenuity, to record live shows. Some of these bootleggers were really brazen when it came to smuggling in high end sound equipment. Legend has it that one guy came to a show in a wheelchair and was, of course, given preferred access right up front. What no one realized was that the wheelchair was completely wired for sound. It had stereo mics coming out of each arm, and recording equipment strapped underneath the seat. Many artists, obviously, were not too fond of bootlegs. In a classic clip, Neil Young was filmed shopping in a random record store and finding one of his own bootlegs. He was not happy. Some artists didn’t mind having their shows recorded, so long as the tapes were used for trading only. I can think of The Grateful Dead, Phish and George Clinton as examples of this policy.
The birth of Wings From The Wings
So how is it that a bootleg inspired Paul McCartney’s first live album? When Paul McCartney announced his U.S. Wings Over America Tour, fans like me were out of our minds with joy! Little did we know in advance what a tremendous live set Paul and Wings would perform. For the first time since he left The Beatles, Paul performed Beatles songs live, some for the very first time. Needless to say, bootleggers were drooling at the prospect of recording these historic shows and getting them out to the underground collectors’ market.
Paul and his band played their final night of sold out shows at the L.A. Forum on June 23, 1976. 18,000 fans saw Paul and his band run through a simply stellar setlist. There were also a smattering of tapers amidst the crowd, with one recordist in particular getting a really good audience recording of the entire show. The photos below are NOT the cassettes from where the bootleg was taken but, rather, from a recording made by legendary taper Mike Millard. It’s to show the number of expert tapers who were in the audience that night.
A photo of legendary taper Mike Millard’s recording of Wings’ L.A. forum Concert on June 23, 1976. Photo used by permission.
A copy of “Wings From The Wings”, plus a recording made at the same show. Photo used by permission.
It wasn’t long before that complete Wings Forum concert would be pressed on red, white and blue, and sometimes black, vinyl and released to the underground market as Wings From The Wings. It was a stellar set, had all the between song chatter intact, and it sold quite well by bootleg standards. I never picked one up back in the day, so I asked a few of my collector friends and associates to show me their copies!
Roy Fisher, of the Road Dogs, with his copy of “Wings From The Wings.”
Rick Glover, of “Fans On the Run,” was kind enough to show me his copy. This one was on standard black vinyl.
Collector Bob Koenig sent me a shot of his set.
Mike Constantine, frequent contributor to my old Breakfast With The Beatles radio show, with his copy of that classic Macca boot.
How A Bootleg Inspired Paul McCartney’s First Live Album
Right around the same time, Paul and his engineering team were preparing his first live album, going through the hours and hours of concert audio they’d recorded from the tour, and picking the best performances. Originally, Wings Over America was going to be a single album release. After the apparent success of that triple LP bootleg, it was decided to release the entire show as a 3-LP set. None of the between-song banter was used on the official release, and not all of Wings Over America was live. Paul and the band reconvened at Abbey Road Studios in the fall of 1976 to fix mainly some vocals. Wings Over America was released on December 10, 1976, just in time for the holidays, and hit #1 the week of January 22, 1977. It’s also part of MGK’s Thursday Top 10 Countdown from April 4, 1977, which you can see below.
