Pugin Hall rehearsal #1 (session) • The Paul McCartney Project

In October, Wings regrouped to rehearse tunes for the next album. The initial plan was to create another Wings album, produced by George Martin; do some rehearsals in October, start recording in November / December and continue recording in Montserrat (where George Martin’s recording company, AIR, owns a recording studio) in the new year. One month later, the plan changed. From Wikipedia:

By 1980, McCartney was growing weary of maintaining Wings and his personal and professional aspirations began to diverge from the group. The McCartneys now had three school-age children and had moved out of London to the countryside of East Sussex, desiring that their children have a normal upbringing. Musically, McCartney was dissatisfied by the band’s performances during the 1979 UK tour, and when rehearsals for the next album began in October, it was apparent his latest songs were not a good fit for the band. Consequently, he and George Martin, who would be producing the album, decided not to use Wings for recording. Instead, top session musicians and guest artists were brought in to make the best possible album. In November 1980, Holley and Juber were told they would not be needed for the new album and other than sessions in January 1981 to finish work on the Cold Cuts album of previously unreleased tracks, no further activities were scheduled for Wings. Juber has said he could see the “writing on the wall” regarding Wings’ future at that point and moved to New York to continue his career there.

[…] Paul’s artistic direction and that of the band were diverging. […] We were rehearsing tunes that needed to be realized in the studio. It was a rock band rehearsing sings with a broad pop sensibility and would have been better off simply sitting in Abbey Road for a while and actually recording.
Laurence Juber, in Guitar With Wings, 2014

Last updated on February 24, 2020