Nashville sessions

About

So now it was me, Linda, Denny, Jimmy and Geoff, and with that line-up we took off for Nashville to some recording and get the band ‘together’.

Paul McCartney, in Wingspan, 2002

On July 17th Wings arrived back in England after seven weeks of rehearsing and recording in Nashville, Tennesse. The McCartneys had rented a 133 acre ranch near Lebanon from songwriter Curley Putman, who wrote ‘Green Green Grass of Home’. Most of their stay was spent rehearsing Wings and jamming with local musicians, including Chet Atkins, country pianist Floyd Crammer, fiddle player Vassar Clements, banjo player Bobby Thompson, and the Cate Sisters. Among the tracks recorded was a song called ‘Eloise’, written by Paul’s father twenty years ago. Also recorded was a ‘country flavoured’ song called ‘Sally G’, written by Paul after visiting a country music club in Printers’ Alley. He was impressed not only with Nashville, but with the musicians and the ‘Sound Shop’ studios where he worked, usually from 6 p.m. to midnight.

“We had great fun using pedal guitars, fiddles and banjos. The musicians out in Nashville are a great pleasure to work with because they are so sharp and professional.”

In an informal press conference held on the front porch of the ranch Paul said:

“I came here, because Nashville is the music centre; I hope to return sometime in the near future to do an American tour. If it does develop, there are definite plans for a Nashville concert. We just couldn’t skip Nashville, we have too many friends here. The trouble is that since I’ve been here I promised a lot of people that I would write songs for them. It’s amazing the people who want songs, like Johnny Cash and Charlie Rich. You’d think they’d have plenty of material but they all tell us they don’t have enough good songs.”

During their stay, Paul and Linda visited the new Opry land, an enormous park with four or five stages, each with different kinds of music being performed – folk, Dixieland, country etc. They attended a fiddle contest, and saw Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner and Gordon Stoker, lead singer with Presley’s backing group The Geordinaires. Also they frequented their favourite local restaurant ‘The Loveless Motel’, and a few drive-in movies. One evening Roy Orbison came over for a supper cooked by Linda.

Linda told reporters:

“One of the best times we had in Nashville was on Paul’s birthday. I’d bought him a lighter from Rivergate, and in the evening we had a barbecue down on a lake, but the next day we were back to rehearsing for possible future tours and recordings. Most of the time we rehearsed in a garage next to the house.”

Among the thirty pieces of luggage loaded into the rented car and truck en route for New York, was a Honda motorcycle.

From Wings Fun Club newsletter N°2, 1974

There were rumors of the band splitting after the Nashville sessions.

“We went to Nashville with the idea that we’d get this group together and we’d all sign contracts and be Wings, as a business thing. All going out under the same roof… but then it all seemed as if it was being a bit rushed. I thought, ‘hang on – let’s make sure that this is the right group’. Then I started thinking about contracts, and I decided that I could be in any group without signing contracts – I never did it with the Moody Blues, never a piece of paper to say I’d stay with them for so many years, so why should it be that way with Wings? I think if you don’t like what’s going on, you should just be able to leave — pick up your money, clock out, and that’s it, just like anybody else is able to do in their job.

“It just didn’t seem necessary to me, and the minute I said this to Paul he said ‘great, that’s the way I want it too’, and then I realised that we were only going through this thing with contracts because we’d all been advised to do it. It wasn’t what we wanted. Mind you, I’d always known that to a point, but I feel l had to say it then because I could see myself suddenly having to become a worker in Paul’s group, and I just thought no — no way. And I wasn’t the only one saying it, believe me.

“Contracts tend to make you lazy, I think. Anyway — we sorted that out.”

Denny Laine – Interview for Sounds, August 31, 1974

While in Nashville we recorded about five tracks… one is a song written by Paul’s dad called “Walking In The Park With Eloise”, just music. When Paul was a little boy, about 10, even younger, he remembers sitting at the foot of the piano while his dad was playing this song. We were having dinner with Chet Atkins, the guitar player, one night in Nashville, and Paul had being playing a lot of his music for Chet and he said, “here, here’s one that my dad wrote long time ago” – and he started playing it.

Chet got talking to Paul, saying that the song should be recorded and that would be nice for his dad and so on. We thought, why not? So we got Chet playing on it and Floyd Cramer the piano player and Chet himself got together a nice little band called Country Hams with lots of other Nashville people. So there’s this single called “Walking In The Park With Eloise” by Country Hams coming out on EMI in a couple of weeks.

Linda McCartney – Interview with Sounds, October 5, 1974

Last updated on August 5, 2023

Songs recorded

Staff

Production staff