Following the session, Paul and Linda McCartney hosted a launch party for Wings’ fourth album Venus And Mars on 24 March 1975 aboard the RMS Queen Mary, which was permanently docked at Long Beach.
Two hundred guests attended, including George Harrison and Olivia Arias, Derek Taylor, Klaus Voormann, Mal Evans, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Mick Jagger, Dean Martin, Tatum O’Neal, Tony Curtis, Carole King, Cher, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, José Feliciano, Linda Ronstadt, John Mayall, Paul Williams, Richard Perry, and members of Led Zeppelin, The Jackson Five, Chicago, The Faces, and America. John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Elvis Presley were all invited but did not attend.
The event started at 8pm. Arriving guests were greeted by members of the US Naval Sea Cadet Corps. The party took place at the ship’s Grand Salon ballroom, where candlelit tables were sited throughout. Seven food buffets and ice sculptures were available; the food included gumbo pie and hurricane punch.
The performers included Professor Longhair and The Meters, and Ev Segress and his Orchestra. There was an impromptu performance from Rudy Vallée, who sang ‘Kansas City Kitty’ and ‘If You Were The Only Girl In The World’.
The music was recorded for the McCartneys’ private collection using Wally Heider’s mobile recording studio. The party reportedly cost $97,000. The only photographer invited was Harry Benson.
The RMS Queen Mary was a British ocean liner operating primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936-1967. It was converted into a troopship to ferry Allied soldiers during World War Two before reverting to passenger service. Cunard retired the ship in 1967 and it opened to the public at the Port of Long Beach in 1971.
The party for Paul and Linda’s immediate 350 pals did turn out to be quite an evening for the rock regalia. Everyone from the industry, it seemed, arrived and got piped and saluted on board by 12 uniformed officers. There were about 40 round tables scattered around the formal dining room and dance floor, complete with elaborate centerpieces and matches reading “Venus and Mars”. Someone said the rock title is supposed to stand for Paula Linda. So much for their contribution to cosmology.The guest list included everyone from the Jackson Five to Dean Martin (who sat at the table next to Linda and Paul and kept booze bellowing. “Who the hell is giving this party? Do I know these people?”) Since most of the guests were stars who wouldn’t normally go to a private party, but only press promotionals for themselves. It was, I guess, hard for them to relate to one another. The atmosphere seemed stilted and strained. At first, no one was talking. I already knew rock etiquette was non-existent. There were too many colleagues, lights bumping into one another, and it made for discomfort.
Since I wasn’t friendly with a soul, I ended up sitting at an empty table next to the McCartneys, who were the first to sit down and eat. Linda was cordial enough. She gushed up to me, “Oh, far out. You really came.” Do people still say ‘far out’ anymore? Linda McCartney does. “Did you remember to bring the cream for my herpes?” It seems four days previously, Linda broke out ear to ear with a heavy rash. I told her I had some medicine for it, and she told me to bring it to her party.(By the way, that was the only drug I saw her deal the whole night.) I told her I forgot, and she dropped me like a broken guitar string. I never saw her the rest of the night.
As for her party attire, clunky black patent sandals, a la foot savers, no stockings, a black shirt with a black lace corset tied over it. (Do you think she was trying to look S& M in league ?) and a black short skirt. Paul was wearing the same black kimono coat and lounging slippers I saw him in before. 14-year-old daughter Heather looked the way Tatum O’Neill should look with a boarding school pinafore and Mary James.
The night eventually took off when a rhythm and blues band from New Orleans, who Paul is mad for, called the Meters, caught fire with some decent dance music. It was everyone to their feet, Paul and Linda jerked up and down on the center floor, but Paul stopped after a while, remaining transfixed by the group. He didn’t once notice Linda’s humping motions.
Dylan and his wife, Sara, did show, as did George Harrison with his new artichoke haircut (Now you really notice his lousy teeth) in a wrinkled Leisure Suit and a girlfriend whom he never introduced naturally. Everyone paid their last respects to the McCartneys, and Cher came late with her girlfriend-secretary ( not Geffen or Greg) and talked to Dylan and Linda. What these people had to say to one another seems questionable. Whenever I listened in on conversations, they were about what labels they were all getting kicked off of, or what TV series they’re all getting canceled on. The rest of it was like dangling inanimate dialogue.
By 2am, people were winding their way back on the freeway. Linda and Paul were the last ones seen, streaming off the ship. Linda took the yellow and red carnation centerpiece, which just goes to show you can take the girl out of the bar mitzvah, but you can’t take the bar mitzvah out of the girl.
Village Voice, 14 April 1975