HOW A DRUMMER GOT HIS "WINGS!"

by Tom Lounges


     After the Beatles called it a day in 1970, Paul McCartney recorded two
solo LPs with his wife Linda.  The first, simply titled –  McCartney – was
release just days before his former group’s swansong, "Let It Be."

    There’s a lot of rumors concerning that era of McCartney’s life. A time
when he was looked upon as the “bad guy” who broke up the world’s most
popular rock ‘n’ roll band.
    Midwest BEAT had the opportunity to get an insider’s view at McCartney’s
life and career at that time. 

    Drummer Denny Seiwell, an American session player who for a while called
Chicago home, was there when McCartney began to rediscover himself musically.
 He was the first official member of what would become one of the most
commercially successful rock bands of the Seventies  – WINGS!

    Much of the B&W archival footage shown in the recently aired ABC-TV
special, “Wingspan,” was there courtesy of Seiwell, who fortunately for us
had taken up the hobby of 8-mm film photography at that time.  That footage
was solicited from Seiwell by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney and her husband,
Alistar Donald, who produced the impressive documentary.

    “He was pretty nuts at the time.  He was going through some very
difficult shit at that point of his life, having to sue his best friends, his
mates, the guys that he had made a remarkable body of music with,” recalled
Seiwell.  “It was a really ugly time for him personally and he would have
been content to just walk away from it all [music] and sulk about his farm in
Scotland.”

     Seiwell said Paul’s wife, Linda McCartney, was responsible for making
the former Beatle pick himself up and dust himself off.   “She really pushed
him to get back to making music,” he remembered.  “Linda just put a boot up
his butt and said – ‘You’re a great singer, songwriter and you’ve got to be
making music!’  I give that lady a lot of credit.  If it weren’t for her
staying on him about the music, I doubt we’d be talking now, because I doubt
there would have ever been a band called Wings.”

    A lot of people presumed that Linda’s becoming a member of Wings, playing
keyboards and singing, was her idea.  In truth, McCartney is the one who
insisted she be a part of the band. “Linda did it for him,” said Seiwell. 
“She was in no way an accomplished musician and she’d have told you that
herself, but she had a lot of music in her soul and she learned her parts and
played them to the best to ability.  She’d have rather been back on the farm
with the kids and all the animals she loved, but she was there for him. She
was devoted to Paul.”

    The son of a professional drummer, Denny Seiwell, started playing drums
at age five.  “I think I’d played every drum book written at the time by age
13,” he laughed. 

    While in the U.S. Navy a few years later, Seiwell was stationed in
Chicago.  Once each week, when he got “liberty,”  Seiwell would hop the
train to downtown Chicago and study at an Oak Street studio with local drum
legend, Roy C. Knapp.   “He was the guy who taught Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa and
Louie Belson,” says Seiwell.  “He was a remarkable man and the best drummer
that ever lived – bar none!”

   Following his stint in the Navy, the drummer jobbed on recordings that
ranged from full orchestrated film scores to jazz albums to sessions with
everyone from James Brown to John Denver.  [Author’s note: Seiwell is still
very in demand for session and specialty work.  He most recently recorded
music for the TV series “Gideon’s Crossing” and played drums on the
soundtrack of the new Disney film, “Atlantis.”]

    Aside from his drumming skills, Seiwell has also made a name for himself
as a record producer.  He twisted knobs on Billy Joel’s first album and he
produced a pair of RCA releases for the Chicago singer/songwriter, Bill
Quateman.  Seiwell even spent some time in the A&R field, discovering a
hit-making band called Pablo Cruise that he contracted to A&M Records.

    But it’s for his two tours and the three albums he recorded with
McCartney – "Ram," "Wildlife" and "Red Rose Speedway" – that Seiwell is best
known.

    He recalled how his agent called him up and asked him to report to a
run-down warehouse in New York one afternoon for an audition. 
 
    From the part of town and the condition of the building where the
auditions were held, Seiwell said never would have guessed that waiting
inside for him was the former Beatle and his wife. 

     The audition went well and  Seiwell was hired to play on Ram. Paul later
called with the news he was forming a new band and wanted to tour.  He asked
Seiwell to be it’s drummer.  He accepted.

    The first song he recorded with McCartney was “Another Day,” but Seiwell
feels his best Wings-era drumming can be heard on the "Ram" tracks – “The
Back Seat Of My Car” and “Monkberry Moon Delight” – and “Woman Oh Why,”
the obscure B-Side of the “Another Day” single.

    Two tours and three albums later, the drummer quit on the very day they
were to record "Band On The Run," the album that would make Wings an
international sensation.   “Paul was and still is a good friend. He is
absolutely brilliant.  But there were some issues and I felt it was time to
leave,” said Seiwell in a politically correct manner.

   “Paul always let us have freedom to be creative with our parts and I
respected him for that.  When 'Band On The Run' came out, a lot of the drum
parts I worked out were still there.  It irked me, but it was also a
compliment too that he kept them.”

    The “Wingspan” project stirred up a lot of memories for the drummer, who
said he was very happy to go back and revisit what he called – “a real rock
‘n’ roll adventure!”


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