Music History Comes Knocking Once Again...

Thanks to our friends at W.W. Norton, we are very thrilled, once again, to be in a position to offer one lucky (very lucky) Skylark customer an opportunity to own a little piece of music global history.

Some of you may remember that Skylark had the privilege of selling two extraordinary books by a certain P. McCartney, Esq., one-quarter of the popular beat combination known as The Beatles. These books were incredibly sought-after, highly exclusive limited editions - so limited that each one was separately numbered (there are 175 in the whole world) and signed by the great man himself.

McCartney’s new book tells of his post-Fab Four career. It’s called Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run.

An engrossing oral history of a band that came to define a generation, the book tells the madcap story of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band, from their humble beginnings in the early 1970s to their dissolution barely a decade later. Drawn from over 500,000 words of interviews with McCartney, family and band members, and other key participants, Wings recounts—now with a half-century’s wisdom—the musical odyssey taken by a man searching for his identity in the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup. Soon joined by his wife, American photographer Linda McCartney, on keyboard and vocals; drummer Denny Seiwell; and guitarist Denny Laine, McCartney sowed the seeds for a new band that would later provide the soundtrack of the decade.

The narrative begins when a twenty-seven-year-old superstar, rumored to be dead, fled with his new wife to a remote sheep farm in Scotland amid a sea of legal and personal rows. Despite the harsh conditions, the Scottish setting gave McCartney time to create, and it was here where this new band emerged. Wings then follows the group as they play unannounced shows at university halls, tour in a sheared-off double-decker bus with their children, survive a robbery on the streets of Nigeria, and eventually perform blockbuster stadium shows on their world tour, all while producing some of the most enduring music of the time.

Wings transports the reader, as if on a magic carpet, to the grit and glamour of the 1970s. Pushing creative forms to produce a new history, the book refracts a bygone era in a totally new light. Introduced with a personal, heartfelt foreword by McCartney, the volume contains 150 black-and-white and color photographs, many previously unseen, as well as timelines, a gigography, and a full discography. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run emerges as a work of soaring originality that presents a new art form all its own.

Again, Norton are producing a special limited edition of 175 numbered and signed copies, packaged in a deluxe case. The edition includes:

• A 24-page, bound-in, full-color booklet of artwork featuring the covers (front and back) of the Wings-era albums and singles.

• It also includes an exclusive vinyl LP of WINGS, the forthcoming Wings collection. This record has been specially manufactured with a vinyl color and label unique to this edition. Can you say “collector’s item”?

• Complementing the production are a special pin and a blue and white embroidered souvenir patch.

With both of the other signed McCartney special editions we had, we received literally hundreds of enquiries. Alas, we will have only one to sell. We will be announcing how you can be the lucky owner of this extraordinary piece of music history next weekend. Watch, as they say, this space!