Wings Greatest

Recorded: 12 October; 5, 6 November; 6 December 1970
21, 27, 28 January; 1 February; 1, 7 April 1971
19 August; 3, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25 September; 5, 19, 20, 21 October; 6 November 1972
26, 27 January; 4, 5, 6 September; 3, 9, 17, 18 October 1973
13 July 1974
16, 19, 20 January; 3, 12, 19, 20, 24, 25 February 1976
9, 10, 11, 12 May; 8, 9 August; 3, 28 October 1977

Producers: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, George Martin

Released: 1 December 1978

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, electric piano, Mellotron, synthesizer, drums, percussion, xylophone
Linda McCartney: vocals, keyboards, organ, Mellotron, synthesizer, tambourine
Denny Laine: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, synthesizer, drums
Jimmy McCulloch: vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar
Henry McCullough: electric guitar
Denny Seiwell, Geoff Britton, Joe English: drums, percussion
Howie Casey: saxophone
Tony Dorsey: trombone
Steve Howard, Thaddeus Richard: flugelhorn
David Spinozza, Hugh McCracken: acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Paul Beaver: synthesizer
David Nadien, Sanford Allen, Joseph Bernstein, Michael Gilbert, Morris Kreiselman, Aaron Rosand, Joe Kennedy, Harold Coletta: violin
Henry Nigrine, Emanuel Vardi: viola
Lorin Bernsohn: cello
Homer Mensch, Ron Carter, Richard Davis: bass
Joseph Singer, Jim Buffington: French horn
Ray Crisara: trumpet
Marvin Stamm, Mel Davis, Snooky Young: trumpet, flugelhorn
Hubert Laws: flute
Phil Bodner, Harvey Estrin: piccolo
Tommy Newsom: clarinet
Myron Rosen: harp
Tony Wilson, Dougie Lang, John McGeachy, Ian McKerral, Archie Coffield, John Lang Brown, David McIvor: bagpipes
Campbell Maloney, Ian McKenzie, David Hastie, Jimmy McGeachy: snare drum
Ian Campbell, John McCallum: tenor drum
Tommy Blue: bass drum

Tracklisting

‘Another Day’
‘Silly Love Songs’
‘Live And Let Die’
‘Junior’s Farm’
‘With A Little Luck’
‘Band On The Run’
‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’
‘Hi, Hi, Hi’
‘Let ’Em In’
‘My Love’
‘Jet’
‘Mull Of Kintyre’

Wings Greatest was the first post-Beatles compilation by Paul McCartney.

The album contained 12 songs, although only 10 were by Wings: ‘Silly Love Songs’, ‘Live And Let Die’, ‘Junior’s Farm’, ‘With A Little Luck’, ‘Band On The Run’, ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’, ‘Let ’Em In’, ‘My Love’, ‘Jet’, and ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. The opening songs on each side, ‘Another Day’ and ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’, were credited to Paul McCartney and Paul and Linda McCartney respectively.

Four of the songs were released for the first time on an album: ‘Another Day’, ‘Junior’s Farm’, ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’, and ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. ‘Live And Let Die’, although previously appearing on the Bond soundtrack of the same name, had not been issued on a McCartney or Wings album before.

Wings Greatest peaked at number five in the UK, and 29 in the USA. It was a top 20 hit in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and West Germany.

Cover artwork

The cover photoshoot for Wings Greatest took place on 14 October 1978. As with all Wings albums since Band On The Run, the design was handled by Hipgnosis.

Paul and Linda McCartney had recently bought ‘Semiramis’, a sculpture by Romanian artist Demétre Chiparus, which they wanted to feature on the cover. However, their stipulation to Hipgnosis’s Aubrey Powell was that they wanted Mount Everest to be the backdrop.

Powell unsurprisingly pushed back on the idea, suggesting instead that they photograph the ornament on the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps. That was also unfeasible, due to the difficulty in landing a helicopter on the slopes. A compromise was to use a neighbouring mountain, the Unterrothorn.

Powell accompanied photographer Angus Forbes and a small crew on this day to shoot the image.

It just so happened that a helicopter couldn’t fly to the top of the Matterhorn, but there was a mountain next to it called the Rothorn, which a helicopter couldn’t land on, but it could go at a 45 degree [angle], which would allow us to open the door and put the statue on top of the mountain. And Paul said, ‘Yeah, okay, great. You know what I want – I want the mountains behind, and snow, and stuff like that.’

It was a lot of fun, and very dangerous, and absolutely terrifying. I think it’s one of the most frightening shoots I’ve ever done, because the top of the Rothorn is about the size of four sitting rooms, with a 10,000-foot drop below you, on all sides. And the funniest thing was, if you look at the cover, you can’t see the Matterhorn behind, although the Matterhorn was there. I did shoot pictures that showed it, but Paul didn’t want them. He wanted it very much to be about the statue.

When we finished the cover he was really happy. And I’ll always remember, it was just before I walked out of the door of his house, he said to me, ‘You know, we could’ve shot this in a studio with an effect drop.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I know, but we didn’t – we did it for real, and it’s all in Club Sandwich, and there are photographs everywhere, and it’s great PR.’ And he said, ‘I know, man, it’s terrific.’

Also shot on this day was the rear album cover, which showed the mountain range as a backdrop to superimposed images of single and album covers, and a central portrait of Wings by Clive Arrowsmith.