Paul McCartney 38: One Hand Clapping

In 1974, it was safe to say that Paul McCartney had recaptured the stature that had been lost since he announced he was leaving the Beatles. His fifth album was a smash hit, and he was able to replenish the Wings lineup with lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton with an eye on getting back on the road. Having just recorded the soon-to-be hit single “Junior’s Farm”, and not quite ready to start on the next album, the band went into Abbey Road Studios for a few days to be filmed, in conversation and performing songs destined for their live shows, for a TV special to be titled One Hand Clapping. And like similar projects Paul started in the ‘70s, it was completed and promptly shelved. (For one reason, Geoff Britton barely lasted past the end of the year, given personal conflicts with members not surnamed McCartney.)

As would often happen, the audio and visuals were widely bootlegged over the years. It wasn’t until the second decade of this century that Paul officially released any of it, with some songs parceled out to bonus discs in various Archive Collection reissues, and the full film in grainy quality on the DVD in the 2010 edition of Band On The Run. Fourteen years later, that album was expanded for the umpteenth time for its 50th anniversary with a rough mix of the album in an alternate sequence without orchestrations. Then a few months after that, One Hand Clapping was finally released as an official album, remastered from the original multitracks, without the dialogue that was alternately pompous, drunk, or tedious.

The title track—or theme song, if you will—isn’t much more than a simple jam, but from there, the band goes through some very good selections from the catalog, some of which would soon be making their onstage debuts. “Jet” is always terrific, and “Soily” is very close to how it would sound in 1976. After the strange medley of “C Moon” and “Little Woman Love”, “Maybe I’m Amazed” isn’t there yet, but would always sound better on a grand piano than the electric piano used here. The film only had a snippet of “My Love”; here we get the full take, with orchestra added, Jimmy almost copping his almost-namesake Henry McCullough’s solo. “Bluebird” is slightly more electric, and Howie Casey comes in to play his sax part.

One segment of the film showed Paul in tie and tails playing solo at the (grand) piano; these included brief renditions of “Let’s Love”, which he wrote for Peggy Lee, the otherwise unreleased “All Of You”, and even “I’ll Give You A Ring”, which would emerge as a B-side in 1982. Both “Band On The Run” and “Live And Let Die” get a boost from the overdubbed orchestra, and we should mention somewhere that Linda knows her keyboard parts well. “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five” [sic] would not make it to a live setlist until well after that year, but this partially karaoke’d version over the album track is still pretty cool. McCartney favorite “Baby Face”, from the piano segment and with horns added in New Orleans, accompanies what would be the credits if you were watching instead of listening.

Of course there were plenty of other songs recorded during the course of the project, and the second disc of the set includes a pile of those, including some that hadn’t been bootlegged. “Let Me Roll It” would go on to be played on nearly every McCartney tour going forward to this day. “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” was in the Wings set before they had enough of their own songs, and here gives Denny Laine a chance to shine on harmonica. (He also gets to do “Go Now” towards the end of the disc.) “Junior’s Farm” and “Hi, Hi, Hi” each pack a wallop, but “Wild Life” would be thankfully retired.

More bits from Paul’s solo segment include “Power Cut” (of all things) on organ, upcoming B-side “Sally G” on acoustic, the seemingly impromptu “Love My Baby” on celeste, “Let It Be” on harmonium, and a verse each of “The Long And Winding Road” and “Lady Madonna” on piano. Most striking perhaps is a slow, torchy run through “Tomorrow”.

Another portion of the filming had Paul playing acoustic in the garden behind the studio, for a featurette titled The Backyard. This too had been bootlegged, but in the end eleven minutes of the performance were included only on a 7-inch shipped with the vinyl version of the album ordered direct from his official online store. Especially irritating is that there was plenty of room for it—and then some—on the second CD. At any rate, he plays the inscrutable “Blackpool”, “Blackbird”, “Country Dreamer”, and three covers: “Twenty Flight Rock”, and Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” and “I’m Gonna Love You Too”.

Still, One Hand Clapping is a fascinating look at a brief stage of McCartney’s career. Given the prolonged, inexplicable absence of two later Wings albums from expansion, it makes for a nice tribute to Denny, who died in December 2023. (The album was also dedicated to the memories of Linda, Jimmy, and engineer Geoff Emerick.)

Paul McCartney & Wings One Hand Clapping (2024)—3½