Paul McCartney: One Hand Clapping
The unreleased live-in-the-studio album from 1974 captures a short-lived incarnation of Wings that feels thrillingly alive.
Paul McCartney & Wings—One Hand Clapping (2024; 1974)
During the waning days of the Beatles, Paul McCartney got the notion that the best way for the group to shake their doldrums was to return to their rock & roll roots.
His plan didn't quite work. The Beatles didn't agree to head out on an incognito tour of tiny venues, only acquiescing to document the creation of a back-to-basics record. The ensuing Get Back sessions became a quagmire—one now chronicled extensively on the Peter Jackson docuseries of the same name—yet that didn't dissuade McCartney from the romantic allure of playing rock & roll in a small club.
McCartney finally had the chance to chase his dream a few years after the dissolution of the Beatles. As he attempted to get Wings off the ground, he took the band out on a tour of English universities, following it quickly with a jaunt through Europe in a double-decker bus. That version of Wings fractured just prior to the recording of Band on the Run, the album that revived McCartney's critical standing; I recently reviewed the 50th Anniversary edition for Pitchfork.
Flush with success, McCartney assembled a new incarnation of Wings, adding Geoff Britton and guitarist Jimmy McCulloch—his surname disarmingly similar to his predecessor Henry McCullough—to the core lineup of Denny Laine and Paul & Linda McCartney. He rushed this band to Nashville to test out their chemistry, embarking on a session that produced "Junior's Farm," a Steve Miller Band tribute that's one of Paul's best rockers. Invigorated by the group's potential, McCartney resurrected his Get Back idea: he ushered the new Wings into Abbey Road to film a documentary called One Hand Clapping, a film intended to capture a band at its inception.
Once again, things didn't go as planned. Wings found no buyers for their completed film and, soon enough, Britton jumped ship during the recording of Venus and Mars so he could pursue his love of judo, a departure that didn't slow the band's ascendency. Joe English took his place just as Venus and Mars and Speed of Sound turned Wings into one of the biggest bands in rock, an imperial period captured on the gleaming Wings Over America triple-LP.
Wings Over America carries a sense of inevitability: this is a band destined for stadiums. As an album—albeit one that's long-delayed, finally appearing as a stand-alone set fifty years after its recording—One Hand Clapping comes closer to the sound of a band being born. The inherent looseness of the One Hand Clapping project—it preserves rehearsals, a far cry from how both Michael Lindsay-Hogg's Let It Be and Jackson's Get Back chronicled the creative process—allows for the kind of wandering that adds character. A lot of this comes from snapshots of solo McCartney. Whether he's alone at the piano singing vaudevillian pop—he lays into the standard "Baby Face" then attempts to write his own with "I'll Give You a Ring"—or tearing through rock & roll oldies in Abbey Road's backyard (preserved on a bonus seven-inch with the vinyl set of One Hand Clapping), Paul plays with a casual panache; the charm just comes to him naturally.
That effortlessness flows through One Hand Clapping yet the album doesn't feel relaxed. In particular, the full-band Wings cuts crackle with discovery as the group realizes what kind or racket they can make. Much of this is fueled by McCulloch, a young, doomed guitarist who plays with a charismatic abandon; he lights a fire underneath Paul, one that McCartney never sought to replicate once the young gun departed in 1977. Britton also adds a kick to the proceedings, playing with a vigor that underscores how this version of Wings was at its heart the hard, lean rock & roll combo McCartney wanted.
Of course, this version of Wings disappeared almost as soon as it appeared. Britton's departure could've played a part in the shelving of One Hand Clapping, since it ultimately preserves a fleeting moment in time, not the first act of a triumph. That transience is what makes the album of One Hand Clapping so precious: it captures a Paul McCartney who'd yet to develop his solo shtick, a McCartney who still was learning how to marshall his strengths and eccentricities. Unlike so many of his crowd-pleasing concert LPs, this is an album that feels thrillingly alive.
Paul McCartney Live Albums Ranked
One Hand Clapping (2024; 1974)
Wings Over Europe (2018; 1972-1973)
Wings Over America (1976)
Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) (1991)
Amoeba Gig (2019; 2007)
Good Evening New York City (2009)
Tripping the Live Fantastic (1990)
Paul is Live (1993)
Back in the World Live (2003)
Back in the US (2002)