Michael Parkinson and James Coburn? The story behind Wings’ baffling cover for Band on the Run – Telegraph.co.uk

It bore the melodramatic quality of a cinematic jailbreak. On closer inspection, this rag tag band on the run featured familiar faces. Surrounding McCartney, his wife Linda and Wings guitarist Denny Laine, was an odd assortment of celebrities. From left to right: chat show host Michael Parkinson, comedian and singer Kenny Lynch, Hollywood film star James Coburn, former Liberal MP and gourmet Clement Freud, Hammer horror star Christopher Lee and boxer John Conteh. If you are mystified by what could connect such an odd assortment of British TV personalities and movie legends, then youre probably overthinking it. According to McCartney, they were people whose numbers he had in his phone book, who happened to be around that day.

During one of the interminable business meetings during the final days of The Beatles, George Harrison said: If I ever get out of here The phrase stuck in McCartneys mind, and became the basis for a song about escape and freedom. He was saying that we were all prisoners in some way, noted McCartney. I think most bands on tour are on the run. McCartney combined different pieces of music in one song, as the Beatles had done on Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road, to create a transition from captivity to freedom. When the tempo changes at The rain exploded with a mighty crash, that feels like a freeing moment.

It was Linda McCartney who came up with the cover concept. Although her photographs frequently appeared on her husbands albums, she couldnt take this since she would be in shot. She suggested Clive Arrowsmith, an art school friend of Lennons who was belatedly establishing a career in fashion photography. It was Arrowsmiths first album shoot, and he almost messed it up by bringing the wrong lights and wrong film. I really didnt know what I was doing, he has admitted. The session took place after dark on October 28, 1973, against the wall of a stable block at Osterley Park, a 16th Century Tudor mansion in West London.

There was little evidence of the painstaking planning Peter Blake had undertaken for Sgt Pepper, as McCartney called famous friends for a lark. There was a Liverpool connection to musician turned comic Lynch (who shared bills with the Beatles on early performances) and boxer Conteh (whose fights the McCartneys attended). Christopher Lee and Clement Freud were social acquaintances from the London dinner-party circuit, Coburn was in the UK filming The Internecine Project, while McCartney lured Parkinson with the promise of appearing on his chat show (an obligation he did not fulfill until 1999).

Dinner with the McCartneys prior to the shoot was a well lubricated affair, and according to Arrowsmith the group turned up in high spirits. I was the only one who wasnt wasted, the photographer recalls. Arrowsmith made the rookie mistake of bringing daytime film instead of the more artificial-light-friendly Tungsten. The single spotlight he had hired proved not bright enough for fast exposure, so the cast was required to hold poses for two seconds at a time. Everyone was very much the worse for wear but still enjoying each others company, to say the least, according to Arrowsmith. Getting them to stay still amid the laughter, jokes and substance haze was a challenge, so he arranged them so they could lean against each other and the wall, because they had all become a little unsteady on their feet. Denny Laine fell over a couple of times laughing hysterically.

Arrowsmith positioned himself at the top of a ladder, with a megaphone, barking instructions which everyone ignored, until I finally snapped and screamed Stay Still!. It turned out there were only four frames in focus, and the whole shoot had a sickly yellow pall due to the daylight film. When it came to showing Paul, I was freaking out too much to say anything. I just held my breath. McCartney loved them.

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Michael Parkinson and James Coburn? The story behind Wings' baffling cover for Band on the Run - Telegraph.co.uk

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero