The Cover Uncovered: The famous faces on the cover of Wings album ‘Band on the Run’
Band on the Run, the third studio album by Paul McCartney and Wings, remains the frontman’s most successful and critically acclaimed effort of his post-Beatles years. Released in December 1973, the LP features classics such as the title track and ‘Jet’. It is also notable for being mostly recorded at record label EMI’s studio in Lagos, Nigeria, as McCartney wanted to make an album in a glamorous location.
However, things didn’t go as swimmingly as expected for McCartney and the band in West Africa. Shortly before they left for Nigeria, drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough quit the group. With no time to recruit their replacements, Wings’ remaining members, McCartney, his wife Linda, and co-founding guitarist Denny Laine, entered the studio after arriving in Nigeria on August 9th, 1973.
Accordingly, the former Beatles man played bass, drums, percussion and most of the lead guitar parts on Band on the Run. Denny Laine later recalled how they approached recording: “[Paul and I] made the album as though we weren’t in a band, as though we were just two producers/musicians.”
However, the issues didn’t stop with Seiwell and McCullough leaving. The Lagos studio was of poor quality, and the conditions in the West African country were testing. The McCartneys were robbed at knifepoint and lost a bag of demo tapes and song lyrics.
Dejected, scared and disheartened, Wings flew back to England on September 23rd, 1973. In a reflection of the condition the military-ruled Nigeria was in at the time, upon return to London, the McCartneys received a letter from EMI warning the band not to go to Lagos due to a cholera outbreak. Interestingly, though, the message was dated before Wings had left England for Nigeria. Continuing on their way regardless, a fortnight after the trio returned to England in October, they checked into Beatles producer George Martin’s AIR Studios to finish the album.
Despite the technical and logistical issues that got in the way during the making of the record, Band on the Run is nothing short of a masterpiece. It went platinum in the United Kingdom and three times that in the United States. Although there exists an extensive story behind the music of the album, there’s also a tale to be told about the cover artwork. Like any legendary album, the cover is as memorable as the music.
Explaining the album’s theme, McCartney said: “It’s a collection of songs, and the basic idea about the band on the run is a kind of prison escape. At the beginning of the album, the guy is stuck inside four walls and breaks out. There is a thread, but not a concept.”
This is what the cover photograph reflects. Notably, it features nine figures, with only three of them members of Wings. The group are dressed as convicts and are meant to be caught in the beam of a prison searchlight, with the circle they’re in framed in the middle of the artwork, surrounded by black. Above it, the album’s title is written in a white 1940s-esque film noir-evoking typeface.
The esteemed photographer Clive Arrowsmith took the Band on the Run cover photo on October 28th, 1973, at the Georgian estate in West London, Osterley Park. It depicts all three Wings members, McCartney, Linda, and Denny Laine, but what really catches the eye is the other six people featured. They are musician and entertainer Kenny Lynch, talk show host Michael Parkinson, broadcast and politician Clement Freud – the grandson of psychologist Sigmund – action star James Coburn, boxer John Conteh and iconic actor Christopher Lee.
Demonstrating what great sports all non-Wings members were, they appeared in person for the shoot, in another display of the pull that Paul McCartney withheld. Reportedly, McCartney had also agreed with Michael Parkinson that he would appear on his show if he appeared on the album cover, although it took until 1999, a full 26 years to fulfil this promise.
It should be noted that Clement Freud, who passed away in 2009 aged 84, has faced numerous allegations of child sexual abuse and other sexual crimes since his death. These were aired in the June 2016 ITV documentary Exposure: Abused and Betrayed – A Life Sentence. In the fallout from the program airing, it emerged that Operation Yewtree – the investigation by the Metropolitan Police into historic child sexual abuses, opened in the aftermath of Jimmy Savile’s crimes – had been passed Freud’s name in 2012 by the NSPCC. It remains a dark spot of what is one of rock and roll’s most iconic record sleeves.
Moving swiftly on, writing on his website in 2014, Clive Arrowsmith recalled shooting the cover for Band on the Run in a piece titled, ‘Band on The Run – The Great ‘Wrong Film’ Debacle’. He revealed that the late, great Storm Thorgerson – the era’s most sought-after sleeve designer – also had a role in bringing the artwork to life.
The photographer recalled: “This was one of my first photographic jobs when I was still an Art Director. I had known Paul McCartney and John Lennon from my art school days, and Paul asked me to shoot the cover of his new Wings album Band On The Run. With only enthusiasm and not much experience, I went for a meeting with Paul and his art director, the late great Storm Thorgerson from Hipgnosis. Paul and Storm talked through the basic concept that, surprisingly, the ‘band was on the run’, and we all agreed that the best way put this across was like an old fashioned ‘Hollywood prison break movie’ with the convicts in a spotlight against the prison wall (with additional celebrities as convicts).”
He continued: “On the day I hired a spotlight from the lighting company, which, unfortunately, was not powerful enough for the job. This meant that everyone had to be very still for over 2 seconds for the picture to be sharp. Two seconds may not sound like a long time; however, they did have a party before the shoot, and everyone was very much the worse for wear but still enjoying each other’s company, to say the least.”
Arrowsmith remembered: “Trying to get everyone to stay still and play the part of escaping prisoners was proving extremely difficult, amid the laughter, jokes and substance haze; I arranged them all together so they could lean against each other and the wall. Now, because they had all become a little unsteady on their feet, Denny Lane fell over a couple of times laughing hysterically – everyone was having a great time. I had to have a megaphone to get their attention; I had even positioned myself up to the top of a ladder next to the spotlight and barked instructions persistently, which, for the most part, everyone ignored until I finally snapped and screamed, ‘Stay Still!’.”
Recalling how tricky the shoot was, Arrowsmith disclosed that following the physical challenges of the pose the group made for the photograph when he got the film back, it had the “strong warm yellow cast” we all see today. This was because he used a daylight film instead of a tungsten one, which would have been much better for shooting at night.
Arrowsmith explained: “I only managed to shoot two rolls of film, which is only 24 exposures in total. The group couldn’t hold the pose for long; some would be still in one frame, and others would be moving in another. The real worry was that there wouldn’t be a shot where everyone was still and sharp. My woes did not end there. Once the film came back, it had a strong, warm yellow cast, but thankfully, there were four frames where everyone was sharp. I showed them to Paul, and he loved them. I never mentioned the golden hue to him until a few years later when I was photographing the back cover for Wings At The Speed of Sound.”
Despite Arrowsmith’s mistake in not using tungsten film, Paul McCartney thought the hue “looked great”. The photographer said: “After the shoot, over coffee, I said, ‘Paul, there is something I’ve meant to tell you for years, that yellow light on the Band on the Run cover? That was a mistake. I used daylight film instead of tungsten.’ Paul laughed and said, ‘That’s fine, I thought it looked great and that you meant to do it.'”
As a parting gift in his article, Arrowsmith included a letter he received from McCartney alongside the 25th anniversary CD of Band on the Run. It read: “Dear Clive, Thanks for taking part in the Band On The Run special CD – everyone really got into the spirit of the project – and as you say, the yellow light looks fab. I hope you enjoy the enclosed CD. See you around. Best regards, Paul McCartney.”
The photographer concluded: “The great thing about Paul I have found over the years, is that when you ask him to dress up or do funny things, he is always up for it – and is magic in front of the camera. Working with him over the years has been a lot of fun and a genuine pleasure.”
Watch footage from the cover photo shoot of Band on the Run below.
