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As the Sixties came to a close, Paul McCartney was faced with the daunting prospect of being a solo artist for the first time. Wings’ ascension to the top of the charts with classic albums including Band on the Run, Venus and Mars and At the Speed of Sound, along with the band’s stadium-filling live shows would prove to critics and fans that not all great acts are impossible to follow. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is a rousing, stereophonic celebration of the songs, collaborations and performances that would shape the soundtrack of the late 20th century.

Drawn from over 500,000 words, based on dozens of hours of interviews with McCartney and numerous key players in the band’s orbit, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run weaves together the improbable trajectory of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band (featuring co-founding members Linda McCartney and Denny Laine) across the technicolor 1970s until their dissolution in 1981. 

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Edited by the prize-winning historian Ted Widmer and organized around nine Wings albums, the oral history sheds new light on the immediate aftermath of the seismic global impact of The Beatles’ break-up, as the musical landscape and tastes began to splinter and diverge along with societal views. The narrative follows the various incarnations of the band as they survive a mugging in Nigeria, appear unannounced at UK university halls, tour in a sheared-off school bus with their children, while producing some of the most indelible and acclaimed music of the decade, including: “Mull of Kintyre,” “Live and Let Die,” “Band on the Run,” “My Love,” “Jet,” “With a Little Luck,” “Silly Love Songs,” “Let ‘Em in,” “Junior’s Farm” and more. 

With more than 100 black-and-white and color photographs, many never seen before, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is part of a larger reexamination and appreciation of the group and their catalog, including the 2024 theatrical release of the rare Wings live-in-studio performance film One Hand Clapping and its accompanying album; 50th anniversary editions of the Wings albums Band on the Run (released February 2024) and Venus and Mars (releasing March 2025); and a forthcoming documentary on Paul McCartney’s solo and Wings-related musical work of the 1970s from Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Morgan Neville.

“Wings was about love, family, friendship and artistic growth, often in the face of tremendous adversity.  It was a joy to relive the madcap adventures of a special band, by listening to their stories, and compiling this oral history.” — Ted Widmer