Paul McCartney's "Coming Up" tops the US Top 10

I spent the Summer of 1980 as an intern for my small town newspaper and having massive amounts of sex. The latter part of that sentence isn't true, but I did learn from a reporter at the Shore Line Times that sex sells, which is why I guess I did an article on motel vacancies in our little town. I would ride up and down miles of hills on my bicycle to get to the newsroom, with a portable radio playing the top hits of the day which were not particularly exciting. If Rocky Burnette's "Tired of Toein' The Line" came out, I'd perk up a little. Anyways here's the list, on this particular week:

1. Paul McCartney "Coming Up"

2 . Lipps, Inc "Funktown"

-Hit No. 1 in 28 different countries around the world and was certified as double-platinum in sales

3. Bette Midler "The Rose"

4. Billy Joel "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me"

5. Elton John "Little Jeannie"

6. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band  "Against The Wind"

7. Robbie Dupree  "Steal Away"

8. The Spinners "Cupid/ I've Loved You For A Long Time"

9. Ambrosia "Biggest Part Of Me"

10. Jermaine Jackson "Let's Get Serious"

13. Rocky Burnette "Tired of Toein' The LIne"

NEW TO THE CHARTS :

                                            33. Rolling Stones "Emotional Rescue"

The surprising Paul McCartney smash that got John Lennon recording again

Paul McCartney : Coming Up

[Purchase]

On April 13, 1980 Paul McCartney's UK#2 hit "Coming Up" debuted on the charts at #62. Recorded during the Summer of '79 at High Park Farm in Scotland, the song was part of a session that was never intended to be released commercially.

I originally cut it on my farm in Scotland. I went into the studio each day and just started with a drum track. Then I built it up bit by bit without any idea of how the song was going to turn out. After laying down the drum track, I added guitars and bass, building up the backing track. I did a little version with just me as the nutty professor, doing everything and getting into my own world like a laboratory. The absent-minded professor is what I go like when I’m doing those; you get so into yourself it’s weird, crazy. But I liked it. 

Then I thought, ‘Well, OK, what am I going to do for the voice?’ I was working with a vari-speed machine with which you can speed up your voice, or take it down a little bit. That’s how the voice sound came about. It’s been speeded up slightly and put through an echo machine I was playing around with. I got into all sorts of tricks, and I can’t remember how I did half of them, because I was just throwing them all in and anything that sounded good, I kept. And anything I didn’t like, I just wiped.

In the memorable video for the songs McCartney plays dual roles impersonating Ron Mael of Sparks, Hank Marvin of The Shadows, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, and his own self as a young Beatle playing a Hofner bass. 

American DJs preferred playing the B side, a live version recorded on the last night of a 1979 tour in Glasgow. In the US the song topped the charts at the end of June, for two weeks.

The song is believed to have inspired John Lennon to get back in the studio, as McCartney relates:

I heard a story from a guy who recorded with John in New York, and he said that John would sometimes get lazy. But then he’d hear a song of mine where he thought, ‘Oh, shit, Paul’s putting it in, Paul’s working!’ Apparently Coming Up was the one song that got John recording again. I think John just thought, ‘Uh oh, I had better get working, too.’ I thought that was a nice story.

The Party's On

Paul McCartney : Wonderful Christmastime

[Purchase]

In December of 1979 Paul McCartney entered the U.K. charts with a new solo single, Wonderful Christmastime". The ear worm would peak at U.K.#6 and haunt every holiday season to come for four decades and counting, earning McCartney an estimated $15,000,000 so far. Not bad for a sng he wrote in ten minutes.

Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" and Elvis Presley's "It Won't Seem Like Christmas ( Without You)" were also getting a lot of airplay in the U.K. and so was a song by New York rapper Kurtis Blow.  His first single, "Christmas Rappin'", eventually sold more than 400,000 copies around the world. It is the first successful rap single by a major label. It also includes this enduring message: 

Money could never ever buy the feeling 

The one that comes from not concealing 

The way you you feel about your friends 

And this is how the story ends 

Squeeze entered the Christmas blitz with the forgettable  "Christmas Day". ( Added a link because the music video below isn't audible. 

And finally there were The Greedies, Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott and Scott Gorham teaming up with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols, with "A Merry Jingle". It's a call back to the Glam Rock days and is probably the most fun of the featured singles.

Freeze Frame

Godley + Creme : I Pity Inanimate Objects

[Purchase]

In November of 1979, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley released Freeze Frame, their third album since departing 10cc. My favorite track is "I Pity Inanimate Objects" which anticipates the use of autotune. 

In an interview for The Idler magazine in 2007, Kevin Godley explained how that song was realized:
Recently, I played I Pity Inanimate Objects from Freeze Frame and I remembered how and why we actually did that. The idea was driven by a new piece of equipment called a harmoniser. It's used in studios all the time these days as a corrective device to get performances in tune, but this early version came with a keyboard. You could put a sound through a harmoniser and if you wanted an instrument or voice to hit a certain note that it hadn't, you could play that note on the keyboard. So we got to thinking, 'Let's forget about singing for the moment. What happens if I vocalize these words in a monotone - do an entire song on one note - and get Lol to play my vocal on the harmoniser keyboard?' That was the experiment. It worked pretty well. Predated Cher's digital gurglings by a few years. I don't know where the lyric came from. Maybe because the harmoniser was inanimate.

Paul McCartney provided vocals on album closer "Get Well Soon",  but the most famous track on the album is "An Englishman In New York". Released as a single, it charted in Germany (no. 25), Australia (no. 17), the Netherlands (no. 7) and Belgium (no. 4) 

You can often find Freeze Frame with 1978's superior L on the same CD. That's a keeper!

Cattle Beware of Snipers

Wings : To You

[Purchase]

I didn't mean [Back to the Egg] to be underground, but it's nice 
-Paul McCartney

On June 8, 1979 Wings released Back to the Egg in the U.K., the band's final album. In its day it was critically lambasted with Rolling Stone declaring Back to the Egg "the sorriest grab bag of dreck in recent memory" and although it did reach the top 10 in album sales, it has been forgotten by many.

At the time McCartney justified the album in this way:

 "It was just sort of a back-to-the-beginning kind of feeling for us, while we were making it. We were sort of trying different things, while we were making it, and that seemed to sum it up -- Back to the Egg. A back-to-square-one kind of thing, you know?"

I knew nothing of the reviews and picked it up the first chance I got. Why didn't I spend that money on Ram? Isolated in a Connecticut boarding school, I didn't know firsthand the punk scene that inspired "Spin It On" or the Rolling Stones's "Lies" from Some Girls. I just heard a 36-year old man trying to rave things up beyond what his voice could handle.

I have always had a fondness for something that sounds tossed off like a demo. So the deep cut "To You" remains a favorite track from the album.

It's obviously not the first one that comes to mind for anyone else. The single was "Getting Closer", a Top 20 hit featuring the unforgettable lines "I'm getting closer, my salamander" and "cattle beware of snipers". What would John have said had Paul shown him the lyrics? 

"Arrow Through Me", with its Miami style disco beat, is another single from the album.It crept into the U.S. Top 40 barely.  On the B side of the single was another Back to the Egg track, a U.K.#35 riff rocker called "Old Siam Sir". McCartney's voice had never sounded so strained.

Wonderful Tonight

Eric Clapton : Wonderful Tonight

[Purchase]

On May 19, 1979 Eric Clapton married Patti Boyd, the inspiration for her ex husband George Harrison's "Something", "I Need You" and her new husband's "Layla" and "Wonderful Tonight". Eric and George remained the best of friends despite what happened. At the reception, three of the Beatles reunited on stage for what were reportedly drunken and very loose versions of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Get Back" and "Lawdy Miss Clawdy". Only John Lennon was absent. 

Enjoy the wedding album below:

There's Paul and Linda McCartney ( dragging on a cigarette unfortunately) at :42 in. Apple Publishing manager and longtime Beatles associate Terry Doran, George Harrison and his wife Olivia appear at :44.  And there's Paul, George and Ringo together with the King of Skiffle, Lonnie Donegan at :51.

Don't Say It

Wings : Goodnight Tonight

[Purchase]

On March 23, 1979 Wings released the new single "Good Night Tonight" b/w "Daytime Nighttime Suffering". It would peak at both U.K. and U.S. #5. Only McCartney could have ever come up with "Goodnight Tonight", featuring his catchiest bass lick since "Silly Love Songs" as well as yet another call back to the days of British music halls. That breakdown with the conga drums and the heavily processed vocals does nothing for me, and unfortunately that part gets extended in the seven minute long 12-inch version. Is it disco? Every bit as much as John Paul Young's "Love Is In the Air", which is to say not so much.

Wings fans will often argue the B side is better. McCartney gave his bandmates the weekend to write a song good enough to back up "Goodnignt Tonight", which would have earned someone a small fortune in royalties. Instead McCartney walked in with "Daytime Nightime Suffering", which has remained one of his favorites.

"That’s a pro-women song,"McCartney told Billboard Magazine. “'What does she get' for all of this? 'Daytime nightime suffering.”'It’s like the plight of women. You were saying about the Beatles stuff and my stuff being very humanistic. And I say that’s what I would be most proud of — as would any artist."

Fun fact: two minutes in you can hear McCartney's infant son James crying.

Like a Heavenly Choir

Wings : Mull of Kintyre

[Purchase]

On August 9 1977, during a break from recording London Town, Wings recorded "Mull of Kintyre", named after the Scottish peninsula where McCartney has owned a farm since 1966.

"I certainly loved Scotland enough, so I came up with a song about where we were living: an area called Mull of Kintyre," McCartney said. " It was a love song really, about how I enjoyed being there and imagining I was traveling away and wanting to get back there ."

McCartney recorded the guitars outside and brought in the Campbeltown Pipe Band to ply bagpipes. The single would hit #1 over Christmas on its way to selling a record two million copies, the biggest selling hit single until Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?".

The song would later be covered by Glen Campbell.

Red Hot Holly Days

Denny Laine with Paul McCartney : It's So Easy/Listen To Me

[Purchase]

On May 6, 1977 Wings member Denny Laine released Holly Days, an album recorded with Paul and Linda McCartney on Paul's four track recorder in the highlands of Scotland. McCartney, who had just purchased the Buddy Holly catalog, recorded all the instruments himself during the Summer of 1976. Then Denny and Linda added a few licks with Denny doing lead vocals. The sound is lo-fi. The mood is giddy. Fans of Ram will almost surely enjoy this hard to find release.

Robert Gordon with Link Wray : Red Hot

[Purchase]

For former Tuff Darts frontman Robert Gordon the appeal of 50's rock lay not so much in the music of Buddy Holly as the tunes of Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. When a producer hooked him up with another one of his heroes, guitarist Link "Rumble" Wray, the result was this ten song set of modern takes on the rockabilly sound. The pair would follow this up with outstanding set in 1978, but it would be another musical act, The Stray Cats, who would hit paydirt with this sound. 

Percy

Percy "Thrills" Thrillington : Too Many People

[Purchase]

In April of 1977, a true curiosity entered UK record stores, a track by track easy listening remake of Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram as performed by a big band orchestra. Why would anyone make such an album? The answer lies in who made the album. Paul McCartney himself.

Recorded in June of 1971, the album is the result of three days McCartney spent in the studio with session players and arranger Richard Hewson, who was responsible for arranging the strings Phil Spector added to "The Long and Winding Road". Ironic because McCartney hated the arrangement.

When McCartney started Wings, he lost interest in the Thrillington recording, which wouldn't see light of day until its release April 29. 1977.

The album came out with mysterious liner notes suggesting Percy Thrillington was a well traveled, extremely wealthy band leader. Sounds like McCartney to me. And there was a further hint.

The art work on the back cover revealed McCartney's reflection. Still it would be many more years before McCartney would confess his role. 

In the meantime, record buyers who picked up the album had a collectors item on their hands.

Knockin' at the Door

Billy Paul : Let 'Em In

[Purchase]

In March of 1977, Billy Paul's Let Em In was climbing the charts, thanks in large part to the title track. Paul covered the recent Wings hit, "Let'Em In", replacing some of Paul McCartney's guests (Phil and Don Everly, Keith "Uncle Ernie" Moon, "Brother John" Lennon and some real life relatives) with civil rights activists and African American heroes .The song also includes inspirational passages from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and Malcolm X's "The Ballot or The Bullet" speech ("But America is in a unique position. She's the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a blood-less revolution"). Now "Let Em In" becomes almost as profound a statement for African Americans in the 70's as "Don't Fence Me In" was for interned Japanese Americans in the 40's.

40 Year Itch : Knebworth '76

On August 21, 1976, 250-thousand fans --some naked, some high --attended the Knebworth Festival, including Linda and Paul McCartney and David Gimour. The Rolling Stones headlined the UK rock festival, but the  highlight was Lynyrd Skynyrd's scorching performance. The Alabama rockers followed Utopia on stage. "America's Confederate rockers" would be releasing their live album, One More From the Road, in September and were in peak form. 

They were followed by 10cc, in what I believe is their final performance as the original quartet. They may have had the best sound but they had a hard time winning over the crowd who were anxious to see the Rolling Stones. They rocked out on a ten minute version of  "Rubber Bullets" before saying goodnight.

Conditions at Knebworth were fairly miserable. Long lines for bathrooms and drinking water. A naked hippie raced on stage and pleasured himself in front of the crowd. When he was finished he grabbed a mike and said "Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long".

The Rolling Stones came on hours late, in part because some giant lips had to be inflated above the stage. Finally around 11:30 that night , they opened with "Satisfaction". Billy Preston played keyboards. Ron Wood played some hot licks on lead guitar. Despite the recent Lester Bangs obit* for the band, The Rolling Stones were still alive and still mattered.

*There are two things to be said about the new Stones album before closing time: one is that they are still perfectly in tune with the times (ahead sometimes, trendies) and the other is the heat's off, because it's all over, they really don't matter anymore or stand for anything, which is certainly lucky for both them and us. I mean, it was a heavy weight to carry for all concerned. This is the first MEANINGLESS Stones album, and thank God... I don't even hate Black and Blue like the new Led Zep, which admittedly is unworthy of hatred from anybody except a true patriot who expected more than what you knew you were going to get - what you get here is sweet flow Muzak dentist office conversation piece bright eyes shining in the face of nothing at all which they will not even confront and more power to 'em... So thank you for not aspiring: you are an inspiration to the blank generation whole.

Meanwhile in France,  on the way to the Mont de Marsan punk festival , headlined by Eddie and the Hot Rods, Nick Lowe, The Count Bishops and Pink Fairies, The Damned's Ray Burns buys a shirt with epaulettes and exchanges his nickname "Eats" for "Captain Sensible". The Damned's first single, "New Rose", will be released in two months.

40 Year Itch : She Tastes Like Wine

Wings : Letting Go

[Purchase]

   On September 5, 1975 Paul McCartney ran his band and crew through one final exhaustive rehearsal as he prepared for a world tour. The next evening, Wings held a dress rehearsal in front of twelve hundred EMI employees and members of the UK Wings Fan Club. McCartney did not want to repeat the mediocrity that was George Harrison's 1974 tour. He had attended one of Harrison's shows in disguise, wearing an afro wig and mustache, and decided when he played Beatles songs they would sound like the original versions.

   And speaking of "original versions", you can hear a very early version of "Let Em In" at about 12:15 into the video above.  The hit single would appear on Wings at the Speed of Sound in March of 1976.

    The tour would kick off with 12-cities in the UK , beginning September 9 at Southhampton. At the end of the month Wings released a new single from Venus and Mars, the concert favorite "Letting Go". The song peaked at #41 in the US and #39 in the UK. 

Next stop: Australia.

40 Year Itch : Awwwwwwwww Yah!

McCartney and The Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli, 1975

[Purchase]

    After Marshall Sehorn threw a Mardi Gras party for the visiting McCartneys, who had recorded Venus and Mars at the New Orleans studio he owned with Allen Toussaint, Paul McCartney returned the favor the following month in Long Beach aboard the Queen Mary.

    The guest list was spectacular : George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Marvin Gaye, The Faces, Phil Everly, The Jackson Five, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Cher, Derek Taylor and Mal Evans. 

    The event was the first time Paul McCartney and Harrison had been seen in public since The Beatles' break-up. 

    The party saw musical performances from Lee Dorsey, Ernie K-Doe, Professor Longhair, The Meters and Chocolate Milk. Professor Longhair's set was later released as the album Live On The Queen Mary, which was co-produced by McCartney and released on his MPL label. The Meters show was released by Rhino. Unfortunately, the label decided to fade out some of the extended jamming to squeeze everything on one CD.

40 Year Itch : This is my Carnival

Photo by Sidney Smith

[Purchase]

  

 In New Orleans to record the Wings album Venus and Mars, Paul and Linda McCartney masked as a pair of clowns and joined the Mardi Gras crowds on Charles Street and Canal. 20 year old Sidney Smith was asked to be the personal photographer of the McCartneys and documented their stay in New Orleans. Wings recorded at Sea-Saint Studios, co-owned by famed producer Marshall Sehorn and songwriter Allen Toussaint.

   The album doesn't have much of a New Orleans feel, but the band also recorded a Professor Longhair inspired number called "My Carnival", which was released as a B Side to "Spies Like Us" in 1985, and is now one of the bonus cuts on the remastered Venus and Mars.

The McCartneys with Ernie K-Doe

40 Year Itch : The Dream is Over

    On December 19, 1974 George Harrison and Paul McCartney met in a Plaza Hotel suite in New York City to sign documents formally ending The Beatles. Ringo had already signed the papers in England. Watch below as Harrison chants "krishna krishna krishna" as he gives his signature. 

             


 So, let's see. Who's missing? John of course. Lennon told May Pang "the stars were not right" to attend the meeting. That pissed George off so much he cancelled Lennon's appearance on stage that night. Julian went to the concert though, and even got to go backstage where George sent him home with a message : "All's forgiven, George loves you and he wants you to come to his party tonight."

  After the concert John, Paul and George met at the Hippopotamus Club and "hugged it out".

On December 29, Lennon finally filled out his paperwork, seated inside the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World where he had taken Julian.

40 Year Itch : Beatles On Stage

It was good fun, but I wouldn't like to do it for a living.

-John Lennon

  On November 28, 1974 a nervous  John Lennon joined Elton John onstage at Madison Square Garden to pay off a bet he lost. After they recorded "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" that Summer,  Elton bet Lennon it would be the former Beatle's first #1 hit. Lennon agreed to appear on stage with Elton should he lose. And lose, he did. The song hit #1 in November 1974.



    They performed "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and Elton's ten day old single,  "Lucy on the Sky With Diamonds", which Lennon had helped Elton John record under the pseudonym Dr Winston O'Boogie. The final song was another Beatles cover, " I Saw Her Standing There", introduced in this way by Lennon:

    I'd like to thank Elton and the boys for having me on tonight. We tried to think of a number to finish off with so I can get out of here and be sick, and we thought we'd do a number of an old, estranged fiancé of mine, called Paul. This is one I never sang, it's an old Beatle number, and we just about know it.

    This was the last time Lennon ever appeared in a major concert.

    


  A day earlier Lennon's "estranged fiancé" and his wife Linda appeared onstage with Rod Stewart to sing "Mine For Me",  a song he'd written for Stewart's most recent album Smiler.

40 Year Itch: The Brothers

[Purchase]

In late September of 1974, Paul McCartney's young brother, Mike McGear,  released his second solo album McGear.

   It has often been thought of as the great lost Wings album because an uncredited McCartney helped his brother write most of the songs and his band plays and sings on the album.

    The Paul McCartney-penned single, "Leave It", peaked at #36 in the UK Singles chart. It's a power pop classic. There were two other singles, "Dance the Do" and the Roxy Music cover "Sea Breezes".

McGear had changed his name a decade earlier so he wouldn't appear to be riding his famous brother's coattails. As a member of the English comedy/musical group The Scaffold, he hit #1 in 1968 with  "Lily the Pink". One listen will explain why the band never had a hit in the US. 

  On McGear, the McCartneys limit the silly punning to a few tracks ( "What Do We Really Know, "Norton") and settle in for a ride that will remind listeners of Ram-era rock and roll. Wings stretches some of the tunes beyond the 5-minute mark giving Jimmy McCullough room to show his stuff, especially on "Giving Grease a Ride".

  Full of odd moments, ( "The Man Who Found God on the Moon" could have been taken the wrong way by George Harrison), McGear is too good to be a curiosity. Billboard Magazine's critic even went so far as to tell record store owners "Play this one in the stores and it will sell itself."

   Warner Brothers released the album shortly after signing Badfinger. The talk at the time was McCartney's contract with Apple would soon be up and the label hoped to gain Paul's favor so he'd sign with Warner Brothers next.

BONUS

Chris Jagger also released his second solo album in 1974 with a little help from his old brother, Mick. It's called The Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist. Ten years ago, in an article for The Independent entitled "Why Can't Your Brother Support You?",  Chris dismissed it. " I made an album in the early Seventies but punk washed all that away and I fell musically between rock and roll and punk rock."

    He would wind up driving a taxi and acting a bit before returning to the stage to play swamp music in clubs.   

40 Year Itch: Night of the Butterflies

On July 18, Zoo World: The Music Magazine related the story of how Peggy Lee wound up recording a song written by Paul McCartney.

Los Angeles – What do you do when Peggy Lee asks you to dinner? Well, if you’re Paul McCartney, you just don’t buy a bottle of rare champagne to show your appreciation. You sit at your piano and compose her a song. That’s what Paul did when the McCartneys were to meet Miss Lee in London earlier this year. And that’s why he and a most flattered Peggy – one of the greatest pop vocalists of the era, whose name is certainly known to as many people as the Beatles – were at the Record Plant studios one day the first week in June: McCartney was producing his song, "Let’s Love," for the title track to what must be Peggy Lee’s fortieth album.



  After a hard day’s work, Paul, unmustachioed and dressed sharply in a black satin shirt and washed-out blue jeans, and Peg, looking trim in a tan suede suit (having recently taken off some weight) and youthful, though at 54 years of age she could be Paul’s mother, held a mini press conference/photo session around Studio C’s grand piano. In high spirits, they casually sang a couple of songs together, elaborated on their surprising collaboration and then took the small mob into the control room to hear the finished track.

  "Well, of course," said Peggy to Paul, "I was a fan of yours before you knew about me."

  "No, that’s not right," answered McCartney. "No. I was a fan of yours before you knew about me, Peggy."

 "Yeah, I used to have records of Peggy. I did ‘Til There Was You’ because I had Peggy’s record of it [see Latin a la Lee]… So I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, you know. And she came to London and she invited us for dinner over at her hotel. So I thought ‘I’m going along to dinner. Well, I’m either gonna take a bottle of champagne or a song…’"

  "I’d rather have a song anytime," added Peggy. "I can always get some champagne, but it would be very difficult to get a Paul McCartney song – written especially for me."

   "So I took a song along and Peggy said, ‘Great. Let’s do it.’ So we got a hold of Dave Grusin (who with Peggy is producing the rest of the album). And really that’s all there is to it." The logistics were no problem.  


"I was delighted, naturally," said Peggy. "And Linda didn’t mind."

  "Let’s Love," recorded with Paul on piano, is a simple romantic tune with characteristic McCartney production. From the lone piano introduction, strings and woodwinds enter in stages as Peggy sings in her rich, becalming tones: "Lover, let’s be in love with each other / Tonight is the night of the butterflies / Let’s love…"

  When the new album (her first on the Atlantic label) – and "Let’s Love" in particular – are released sometime in August Peggy Lee may very well have another hit in the Hot 100 charts. "I hope so," she said, speaking in her lavish – but not opulent – Beverly Hills home. "I am so thrilled about the whole thing. The material is strong and I love the one Paul wrote. And to think that he would go to all that trouble. He said it was his way of returning an inspiration… You know I met him and Linda in London an it was instant friendship. And somehow I feel that with all the great things Paul has done, his talent is just growing and growing."

Despite its lazy lyrics, the single did hit the mid 20's in the Easy Listening charts the Thanksgiving week Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain" held the the top spot.

40 Year Itch : A Toot and a Snore

On March 28, 1974 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were reunited in an LA studio where they jammed with Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson as tapes rolled. It would be their only post Beatles recording session. Ever.  Wow! With that set-up , you're probably expecting something amazing. You'd be wrong.

It happened during Lennon's infamous "Lost Weekend", a year of drugs, drinking and debauchery the ex-Beatle spent with Harry Nilsson and others. Lennon and Nilsson has just finished a productive day in the studio working on "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and nobody  but drummers Keith Moon and Ringo Starr left.

    McCartney entered the studio with Linda and, after a brief hello ( from John: ‘Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?’ McCartney responding  ‘Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume"), McCartney sat down at the drums. Linda went for the keyboards. Stevie Wonder entered next and sat down at the electric piano. They decided to record their jam, now bootlegged as "A Toot and a Snore in'74" after Lennon's offer to Wonder:

“You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It’s goin’ round.”

Most of the bootleg is dominated by Lennon complaining about the what he's hearing in his headphones. Halfway through, McCartney's drums vanish from the mix.

  This would be the last time Lennon and McCartney were recorded in a studio together. Yes, the music is wretched but it's nice to hear the two Beatles getting along so well with each other. For more information on the recording visit Bootleg Zone.

The photos occur a week later when the McCartney visit Nilsson and Lennon's beach house to catch up and jam again.