Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on the Run (1973, photography by Clive Arrowsmith) The whole package was finished off with a Braille message to Stevie Wonder on the rear, which said, “We love you, baby!” The cover photograph itself was taken by Linda McCartney, while the lavish gatefold-plus-12-page-booklet package included Paolozzi’s artwork alongside photos of the band on stage and on their travels. Now, over a decade later, Paul turned to Paolozzi, a pioneer of the pop art movement, to help with the artwork for his new album. This created a vacancy on bass, which Paul dutifully took up.
While the fledgling Beatles honed their craft in the clubs of Hamburg, original bass player and artist Stuart Sutcliffe left the band to remain in Germany and study art under the instruction of Scottish artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi.
It also saw a connection from the early Beatles days come full circle. The cover art for Wings’ first album of 1973, Red Rose Speedway, was Paul McCartney’s most extravagant package since Beatles albums like Sgt. Paul McCartney & Wings – Red Rose Speedway (1973, cover photograph by Linda McCartney artwork by Eduardo Paolozzi) apparently standing for Linda, I Love You. In amongst the rainbow zig-zags, he’s added a message to his wife – the letters L.I.L.Y. RAM features a Linda McCartney portrait of Paul with a ram on their Scottish farm, while Paul has doodled a multi-colored, childlike frame with felt-tipped pens. However, the contents were far more polished, and featured session musicians as well as the McCartneys on what has come to be viewed as one of his best post-Beatles albums. If Paul McCartney’s eponymous debut of the previous year had a homemade quality to it, then RAM, the 1971 album by Paul & Linda McCartney, certainly had a homemade appearance. Paul & Linda McCartney – RAM (1971, photography by Linda McCartney artwork by Paul) The cherries, laid out on top of a wall, create a burst of color against the bleached wall, with the ground below reduced to a solid black. The picture is titled “Feeding the birds in Antigua, 1969,” and it’s a striking image full of contrast. The cover is another of Linda’s shots, this time of cherries laid out on a wall next to a bowl of cherry-red water. People simply had it all the wrong way around. In fact, many fans thought (and still think) that the back cover – which bears the name McCartney alongside a Linda McCartney portrait of her husband and their daughter, Mary, on the family’s Scottish farm – must be the album cover.īut no. Not only did Paul McCartney’s 1970 debut album, McCartney, carry with it a press release effectively announcing the end of the Beatles, but the album featured neither his image nor his name on the front cover.
It was a bold way to launch a solo career. Paul McCartney – McCartney (1970, photography by Linda McCartney)