Hot off the heels of the runaway success of
Band on the Run -- not to mention the recording of "Junior's Farm," a rocker that would become an American Top Ten hit later in 1974 --
Paul McCartney rushed his reboot of
Wings into Abbey Road Studios to film a documentary about the band's prowess as a live unit. The hour-long
One Hand Clapping was finished and solicited to various broadcast organizations, but it, along with its live recordings, were scrapped, possibly due to the footage revealing internal friction between
McCartney and guitarist
Jimmy McCulloch and drummer
Geoff Britton, the newest recruits to
Wings. Consigned to bootleg status for decades,
One Hand Clapping finally surfaced among the video material added to the 2010 Paul McCartney Archive edition of
Band on the Run, yet it would take another 14 years for the music to be released as a stand-alone album. This 2024 release of
One Hand Clapping features all the music from the film on its first CD/LP, then rounds up the additional material
Wings recorded at Abbey Road for its second CD/LP, with a handful of solo
McCartney appearances comprising the bonus 7" dubbed "The Backyard" added to the vinyl edition; the highlight here is an amusing throwaway called "Blackpool."
Although
Wings are augmented by an orchestra on occasion,
One Hand Clapping feels rough, free, and immediate, lacking the polish that gave
Wings Over America its sheen. The loose feel isn't limited to the performances themselves.
McCartney punctuates the rockers with vaudevillian throwaways, alternating between classics like "Baby Face" and originals like "I'll Give You a Ring," not so much concentrating on smooth transitions as indulging his every whim.
Wings do find space for ballads and
Beatles -- "The Long and Winding Road" and "Lady Madonna" are crammed together in a medley -- but the intent is capturing the group that just hammered out "Junior's Farm," a ragged and right rock band who can rumble through "Soily" and lend "Wild Life" a muscle missing on its studio incarnation a couple years earlier. Compared to the snazzy
Wings Over America, this seems almost amateurish, but that was
McCartney's intent: he wanted to get back to basics, to play spirited with little pretense. That's precisely what he achieved with
One Hand Clapping, which is a dose of rock & roll that's pure unassuming joy. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
