Wings Live – Almost Complete!

Around six months ago I announced that I was working on a new book, Wings Live – a study of Wings’ concerts in the 1970s

The good news is that the book is almost complete – I am currently editing (and re-editing) and working on the front and end matter, such as the contents, bibliography and index.

I hope to have this book available around Xmas – in both paperback and hardback.

Here is the wrap-around cover for the paperback

What will be inside?

The book is organised into thirteen chapters. The first chapter covers McCartney’s work before the first tour, including the albums McCartney, Ram and Wild Life. Chapter Two is about the University Tour and Chapter Three is about the 1972 Wings over Europe tour. Chapter Thirteen is a conclusion that draws everything together.

There is a postscript entitled “Wings: Where Are They Now?” that looks at the careers of the individual members of Wings

Plus there are no fewer than four appendices, including detailed tables of every Wings concert; a discography; and an short section called “Fan Polls and Opinions.”

By far the biggest chapter deals with the 1976 US tour – this forty pages long and around 13,000 words in length.

The entire book is 115,000 words long and 377 pages in length. This in paperback “Crown Quarto” form, The 6×9″ hardback will be around 500 pages long – Crown Quarto is a book size about 2/3 of A4.

A Sneak Preview

You can hopefully get a flavour for the book from the following double-page spread:

As you can see from the extract, the book includes many fan recollections – this one is from Patricia Naylor, who was lucky enough to have seen Wings on the 12th of May 1976 at The Spectrum Arena, Pennsylvania.

Here is another extract, this time from the 1973 British Tour:

Ordering Details

The book should be ready very soon. It will be initially available from this website and about a month later, from Amazon. I always encourage people to buy from the author direct – I think the small publisher needs more support than Amazon but Amazon has such a hold over the book trade, all authors feel compelled to offer their books for sale there.

And Finally

This project has taken me hundreds of hours to complete. I couldn’t have done it without the help of many others – this book, more than any other, has been a true collaboration and everybody will be acknowledged in the book’s introduction. People who contributed accounts or photos will be sent a free book as soon as it is published.