Wild Life (Remastered) Paul McCartney & Wings

• 1 Mumbo (2018 Remaster) 03:55
• 2 Bip Bop (2018 Remaster) 04:10
• 3 Love Is Strange (2018 Remaster) 04:50
• 4 Wild Life (2018 Remaster) 06:40
• 5 Some People Never Know (2018 Remaster) 06:37
• 6 I Am Your Singer (2018 Remaster) 02:15
• 7 Bip Bop Link (2018 Remaster) 00:52
• 8 Tomorrow (2018 Remaster) 03:24
• 9 Dear Friend (2018 Remaster) 05:50
• 10 Mumbo Link (2018 Remaster) 00:46
• Total Runtime 39:19

Info for Wild Life (Remastered)

Wild Life was the first Wings album but third overall by McCartney outside the shadow of his famous band. Paul and his wife Linda teamed up with drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Denny Laine to create a relaxed, pastoral album that was intentionally as light as a feather. Recording occurred over a little more than a week at Abbey Road (with Alan Parsons engineering alongside Tony Clark), and a number of songs were recorded in just one take. “Dear Friend” – a response to John Lennon’s scathing “How Do You Sleep” which was, in turn, a response to Paul’s “Too Many People” – was a holdover from the Ram sessions. Recording took place from July 25-August 2, 1971, and on that latter date, McCartney announced the birth of Wings to the world. Wild Life arrived on December 7, making No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and No. 11 on the U.K. Albums Chart but was generally considered a commercial disappointment; it yielded no hit singles. Wild Life was eventually certified Gold in the United States, and has since become a cult favorite for its loose, freewheeling sensibility and homespun sound.

"Rich, successful, happily married and absurdly talented, Paul McCartney had nothing to do, so he recorded Wild Life. That would explain the frippery for which this curious record has long been ridiculed, but it's a perspective that does Wild Life--recorded in a couple of days-a disservice. Really, it sounds shattered, in every sense, the work of a still-young man still reeling from the Sixties, unsure what to do with himself, in a still-young decade that had the same problem. Once past the thumbs-up inanity of "Bip Bop", much of it is great. The title track is an ominous, slow motion blues, showcasing a vicious, throat-shredding McCartney vocal and a genuine sense of doom. Best is "Dear Friend", a red-raw ballad that throws long shadows over the rest of the album, McCartney singing of his crushed friendship with John Lennon and the termination of whatever the Sixties meant to the men who made them." (Taylor Parkes)

"The irony of the first Wings album is that it seems more domesticated than Ram, feeling more like a Paul 'n' Linda effort than that record. Perhaps it's because this album is filled with music that's defiantly lightweight -- not just the cloying cover of "Love Is Strange" but two versions apiece of songs called "Mumbo" and "Bip Bop." If this is a great musician bringing his band up to speed, so be it, but it never seems that way -- it feels like one step removed from coasting, which is wanking. It's easy to get irritated by the upfront cutesiness, since it's married to music that's featherweight at best. Then again, that's what makes this record bizarrely fascinating -- it's hard to imagine a record with less substance, especially from an artist who's not just among the most influential of the 20th century, but from one known for precise song and studiocraft. Here, he's thrown it all to the wind, trying to make a record that sounds as pastoral and relaxed as the album's cover photo. He makes something that sounds easy -- easy enough that you and a couple of neighbors who you don't know very well could knock it out in your garage on a lazy Saturday afternoon -- and that's what's frustrating and amazing about it. Yeah, it's possible to call this a terrible record, but it's so strange in its domestic bent and feigned ordinariness that it winds up being a pop album like no other." (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG)

Paul himself oversees all aspects of each and every title in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection from remastering to the curation of lost tracks, outtakes, artwork, photographs and video from his personal vaults, and much more. The result is one of the most ambitious and personal undertakings of its kind, one that encompasses more than 40 years of cherished, classic material from the most successful songwriter and recording artist in music history.

Paul McCartney, lead vocals, bass guitar, guitar, piano, keyboards, percussion
Linda McCartney, co-lead vocals (3, 5, 6), keyboards, piano, percussion, backing vocals
Denny Laine, guitars, bass guitar, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals
Denny Seiwell, drums, percussion

Recorded from 25 July to 2 August 1971 at Abbey Road Studios, London
Produced by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

Digitally remastered

Paul McCartney
Following his second solo album, Ram, in 1971, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, formed Wings, which was intended to be a full-fledged recording and touring band. Denny Laine, a former guitarist for the Moody Blues, and drummer Denny Seiwell filled out the lineup and Wings released their first album, Wild Life, in December 1971. Wild Life was greeted with poor reviews and was a relative flop. McCartney and Wings, which now featured former Grease Band guitarist Henry McCullough, spent 1972 as a working band, releasing three singles — the protest tune "Give Ireland Back to the Irish," the reggae-fied "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and the hard-rocking "Hi Hi Hi" — in England. Red Rose Speedway followed in the spring of 1973, and while it received weak reviews, it became his second American number one album. Later in 1973, Wings embarked on their first British tour, at the conclusion of which McCullough and Seiwell left the band. Prior to their departure, McCartney's theme to the James Bond movie Live and Let Die became a Top Ten hit in the U.S. and U.K. That summer, the remaining Wings proceeded to record a new album in Nigeria. Released late in 1973, Band on the Run was McCartney's best-reviewed album to date and his most successful, spending four weeks at the top of the U.S. charts and eventually going triple platinum.

Following the success of Band on the Run, McCartney formed a new version of Wings with guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton. The new lineup was showcased on the 1974 British single "Junior's Farm" and the 1975 hit album Venus and Mars. Wings at the Speed of Sound followed in 1976, and it was the first Wings record to feature songwriting contributions by the other bandmembers. The album became a monster success on the basis of two McCartney songs, "Silly Love Songs" and "Let 'Em In." Wings supported the album with their first international tour, which broke many attendance records and was captured on the live triple album Wings Over America (1976). After the tour was completed, Wings rested a bit during 1977, as McCartney released an instrumental version of Ram under the name Thrillington and produced Laine's solo album, Holly Days. Later that year, Wings released "Mull of Kintyre," which became the biggest-selling British single of all time (at the time of its release), selling over two million copies. In 1978 Wings followed "Mull of Kintyre" with London Town, which became another platinum record. After its release, McCulloch left the band to join the re-formed Small Faces, and Wings released Back to the Egg in 1979. Though the record went platinum, it failed to produce any big hits. Early in 1980, McCartney was arrested for marijuana possession at the beginning of a Japanese tour; he was imprisoned for ten days and then released, without any charges being pressed. Wings embarked on a British tour in the spring of 1980 before McCartney recorded McCartney II, which was a one-man-band effort like his solo debut. The following year, Laine left Wings because McCartney didn't want to tour in the wake of John Lennon's assassination; in doing so, he effectively broke up Wings, which quietly disbanded as McCartney entered the studio later that year with Beatles producer George Martin to make his 1982 album Tug of War.

This album contains no booklet.