The pop singers that made Paul McCartney a better musician: “It keeps you on your toes”
What do the likes of Paul McCartney do after cementing themselves as one of popular music’s most lauded institutes before they’ve hit their 30s?
Following The Beatles’ aftermath and a brief smattering of solo records by 1971, McCartney decided to dream it all up again. For better or worse, Wings was formed as a new project for a new decade, initially playing only to small university venues and performing Fab Four numbers in earnest during 1975 – ’76’s mammoth Wings Over the World tour.
Enjoying a second run of commercial success, if lacking the same degree of critical pedigree, Wings largely remained an internal creative unit with little in the way of collaborations or guest spots.
Before EMI signings, Chesterfield suits and ‘Love Me Do’, McCartney had played with quiffed crooner Johnny Gentle and Merseybeat guitarist Tony Sheridan, and during The Beatles’ lauded recording tenure, R&B keyboardist Billy Preston and Cream’s Eric Clapton stood as the only collaborators from the world of rock and pop to contribute substantially to the Fab Four’s albums.
It’s following Wings’ disbandment in 1981 that Macca begins working with the stars of the day. Aside from some legendary bootlegged cuts and occasional live jams, the MTV era saw him share big credits with Billboard monsters, from then on boasting all kinds of special concerts and benefit gigs with an endless roll-call of artists, and collaborating in the studio with everyone from Johnny Cash to Carl Perkins.
The early 1980s saw McCartney partner with two heavyweights of pop. Speaking in 1984 on ITV’s Aspel & Company, the musician bestowed high praise on a legend of Motown’s album era: “…someone like Stevie [Wonder], he’s a very talented musician. So, just being around him, it keeps you on your toes”.
As well as guesting on ‘What’s That You’re Doing?’, 1982’s Tug of War’s lead single is what Wonder and McCartney are most remembered for. Topping the charts all over the world, the asinine examination of South Africa’s apartheid system, while noble in sentiment, stands as one of the pair’s most atrocious singles, a mawkish ditty which Wonder knew far better considering his fiercely political funk from less than a decade before.
Following Wonder came the ‘King of Pop’: “…Michael [Jackson] is such a great singer and everything. He’s so ‘up’ he’s ridiculous…I think it rubs off, and you find yourself being a little bit better because, you know, that’s how it was with John [Lennon]. You know, we just egg each other on all the time.”
Comparing the working relationship, even remotely, with his former co-songwriter is no faint praise. Feelings would cool following Jackson’s purchase of ATV Music Publishing and the rights to The Beatles’ work, but for a moment, the pair were keen collaborators. Having written the song with Jackson in mind, ‘Girlfriend’ would ultimately be cut and released on Wings’ London Town in 1978 before Jackson cut his take on Off the Wall the next year and had made his way to London for Pipes of Peace’s ‘Say, Say, Say’ and ‘The Man’.
The latter numbers wouldn’t be released till 1983, at which point Jackson had become one of the biggest stars on the planet and touched a level of deified fame unlike anything pop has ever seen before or since. Thriller wasn’t an overnight success, however. Before the title track’s iconic zombie-infested music video and the canonical hits of ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’, his and McCartney’s syrupy ‘The Girl is Mine’ was Thriller’s lead single, dropped a month before the album’s release in November 1982.
It seems strange now, with Jackson’s impact on popular culture so seismic, but for a moment, all the world had to hint at what Thriller was due to offer the music world was a silly throwaway with McCartney that arguably served better as a B-side, at best.
