Studio B, CBS Studio Building, New York City
Producers: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney
Having attempted to record the first part of it the previous day, on 6 November 1970 Paul McCartney successfully recorded the backing track for the Ram song ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’.
As suggested by the title, ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ was a song in two distinct halves, but contained several more unfinished fragments of tunes that McCartney weaved together. The song comprised 12 separate sections, some of which were repeated during the course of the song.
I like that format. There was an album that came out in the sixties called A Teenage Opera and it had a couple of songs where there were different sections all put together, it wasn’t a usual rock ‘n’ roll record. This was more operatic in its form and I always liked that. You sometimes want to change something, you want to write a ballad, or you’re feeling a rocking thing, or sometimes a folk thing and then you want to put them together. It’s a format that I really enjoy writing, because it allows you to stretch. It’s something that I use quite often, like in ‘Band On The Run’.‘Uncle Albert’ was a little message to my real Uncle Albert – it was symbolising my family, basically saying ‘I’m so sorry I don’t live up there anymore, and I’ve got a completely different lifestyle to all you guys. I’m sorry, Uncle Albert!’ Like a tongue-in-cheek apology, and then with Admiral Halsey, well, it just all went mad after that when he entered the picture. Again, we come back to the word free – it was very free and that made this record very enjoyable.
paulmccartney.com
The song was recorded in two parts. McCartney and the session musicians – guitarist Hugh McCracken and drummer Denny Seiwell – first worked on the ‘Uncle Albert’ section, which they had worked on the day before. With the backing track finally complete on this day, McCartney and McCracken overdubbed additional guitar parts, and Seiwell added a tambourine part.
They then turned their attention to the song’s second part. McCartney played the upright piano he had used on ‘Monkberry Moon Delight’ the previous day.
The lyrics for that part were still unfinished, aside from the ‘Hands across the water’ and ‘Gypsy get around’ sections.
McCartney overdubbed an organ part towards the end of the session, but it was dropped during the mixing stage.