Wings’ third drummer Joe English left the band on 4 October 1977.
English had been playing with the band since replacing Geoff Britton in January 1975, and became a full member in March that year.
The American had struggled with homesickness, and was attempting to balance life in an international rock band with having a wife, Dayle, and stepdaughter Christy in Georgia, USA. Joe and Dayle had married in January 1977. However, in April she was seriously injured in a car accident. She spent a month in hospital, after which she was wheelchair-bound and addicted to painkillers.
English faced a dilemma, as Wings were planning to record the London Town album in the US Virgin Islands. He employed a nurse to help Dayle recover, and attended the sessions, but her accident brought his homesickness into sharper focus.
English had never shied away from drink or drugs while in Wings, but in recent months had started using heroin, even overdosing several times at his London apartment. Aware that something had to give, he told Paul and Linda McCartney that he wanted to leave. He agreed to come to the MPL offices in Soho Square, London, to discuss it on the evening of 4 October.
He left for Georgia within days. Wings did not announce his departure until November 1977, in the hope that he might reconsider and return, but the exit was final. He began playing with the band Sea Level in Macon, Georgia, and later formed The Joe English Band.
McCartney once wrote this song [with the line] ‘happiness in the homeland’ and I reminded him of that. I told him, ‘The US is my homeland. I miss the US. I miss my family. I’d had enough of the hype and big glamour.’ I mean, you can sit there and fool yourself all you want. But when you work with McCartney, the people are there for one reason. And it wasn’t to hear me. I told Paul that. I said, ‘They’re here for you and I’ve got to get on my own feet before I stay too many years.’ He saw this wild and crazy look in my eyes and told me to go home, mellow out for a month and think about it. But I never went back.
Star Telegraph, 10 May 1981
English’s decision was announced in McCartney’s magazine Club Sandwich.
Wings a trio!… After Jimmy McCulloch’s move to join the Small Faces, Joe English decided recently to return to his family in America. Joe feels that his roots are there, and he was not too happy spending the necessary time in Britain. Both he and Jimmy will be heard playing on Wings new album which looks like being released early in 1978.