See the New Paul McCartney and Wings Rock Hall Exhibit

Paul McCartney fans are finally having their moment with Wings.

The legendary Beatle has put out a number of projects in recent years related to his ’70s group, including the recent Man on the Run documentary, an expansive book and even a comprehensive anthology, the first of its kind, dedicated to the music of Wings.

Not bad for a band that was at times, maligned and criticized, both by the critics and as a topic of sometimes polarizing discussion within the worldwide fanbase. But there was always a large segment of fans who got it and recognized that McCartney was in fact, doing some of his best work in that period.

The respect for Wings has only continued to grow as the decades have passed. Now, the Rock & Roll of Fame has joined the conversation, launching an impressive new exhibit fully dedicated to the journey that Paul and Linda McCartney traveled in the ’70s. It also gives equal representation to the members who traveled that path with them.

You can see a gallery of photos from the exhibit below.

There are surprises, including ephemera from the Wings Japanese tour that never happened, early conceptual drafts and notes for album artwork that show how some of our favorite cover sleeves came together, stage props, tour set lists and the score for his epic James Bond classic, “Live and Let Die.”

Of course, there are also plenty of outfits from the members as well, plus lyrics and musical instruments, lots of them!

Wings fans have been taking it all in since the exhibit opened on May 15. As workers were still building the final pieces of what people would see and experience, we had the opportunity to see the results of a lot of hard work by the Rock Hall.

Andy Leach is the senior director of Museum and Archival Collections and spent a lot of time working on this new exhibition with his associates at the Rock Hall as well as McCartney’s team at his own organization, MPL Communications. As he details in the conversation below, a long series of Zoom and phone discussions, emails and travel helped make the idea of this current exhibit a reality.

He took us through the exhibit, shared thoughts and insights with us about what fans should look out for and talked about his experience working with McCartney and the MPL team on the special installation, which is currently scheduled to be open through at least the end of 2026.

I’d love to have you talk about a few key items as we get started.
Okay, well to start, I am a big fan of Wings’ final album, Back to the Egg. I think it’s an underrated album and I think if anyone except for Paul McCartney had put it out, it would be considered a classic today.

I am also super appreciative of both [Wings guitarist] Laurence Juber and [Wings drummer] Steve Holley and how generous they’ve been in contributing artifacts. They were the first people, really, to come forward and be on board. We have Steve Holley’s Pollard Syndrum, which is two electronic drum pads and a control module that he used in the studio. It’s on things on Back to the Egg. Specifically, he used it a lot in in the live performance of “Coming Up”. So anytime you see them performing “Coming Up” in footage from 1979, he’s using the syn drum pads.

There’s also this Flexitone, which is an instrument that was invented in the ’20s and he uses that a few times on the song “Arrow Through Me.” But especially at the beginning, there’s this little pause and you hear this kind of creepy, funny sound. And you can see it even in the footage here in the gallery. But then Laurence Juber also lent us his Gibson SG that he used throughout the 1979 U.K. tour, and one of his Mesa Boogie amps that was on stage throughout that time as well. So we love to have those guys represented [as part of this new exhibit].

Listen to Paul McCartney and Wings’ ‘Arrow Through Me’

Just seeing Robbie the Robot here in the exhibit, were there things that you had on your want list going into the process of obtaining items for this exhibit? 
You know, that was actually, believe it or not, suggested by McCartney’s team. It was just a question, do you want to use this? And I said, Yes, I definitely want to include Robbie the Robot in the exhibit. It’s a perfect, kind of fun way to end the ’70s and you see him in all these great clips. There’s a nice little clip of Paul coming over and giving Robbie a little kick.

What was some of the interesting lore you learned about some of these items as far as the history of Paul and Wings?
One thing I remember learning, we have two clothing items that were designed by a clothier in in London, named Tommy Nutter, who [also] designed three of the suits that the Beatles are wearing on the cover of Abbey Road. But we have the suit that Paul wears on Top of the Pops in 1974 [as well], when Wings performed “Junior’s Farm” — and that’s a Tommy Nutter suit. There’s a Tommy Nutter jacket that’s here as well. So I learned a little bit about tailors in London that I didn’t know about.

But, yeah, I love all the original artwork for album covers that I’ve looked at for most of my life. A lot of them have handwritten notes from either Paul or Linda, telling the designer, try this, move this font down here. turn [the text] for Red Rose Speedway this way. So it’s very interesting to see the collaborative process between Paul and Linda, and also between the two of them and an album cover designer like Gordon House [who worked on the artwork for the Wings Wild Life album as well as Red Rose Speedway] or the guys from Hipgnosis,

That’s so cool.
Did you see Linda’s camera?

No!
Let’s do that. It’s over this way.

Here we have a recreation of the kitchen at High Park Farm where Paul and Linda moved up to Scotland in 1970, just sort of as a retreat from London when they needed it. This is a recreation of their table with some lyrics, mostly about country life in Scotland, with photos surrounding it. At the center of it all is Linda’s camera, from one of the cameras she used from the mid-’60s through the mid-’70s, just as a reminder of her central place in their family. And she was the anchor who, I think, especially, made it possible for Paul to be successful by anchoring their family and being a key member of Wings too. So the camera is also just a great reminder of how the aesthetic of the band and the fashion of the band kind of comes through her eye.

Are visitors going to be able to sit at the kitchen table?
As of now, the plan is that you’ll be able to sit at the table. There are only two chairs, so you won’t be able to have dinner here with a big group [he’s joking about having dinner at the table, folks!]. But yeah, we might add some things to the kitchen. At the moment, we’re focusing on all this great imagery that Linda mostly took herself.

How long has this overall exhibit been in the works?
I first reached out to McCartney’s MPL team in London three years ago, just to talk about ways we could expand Paul’s representation here. Slowly that turned into what we see now, mostly because they were already working on Man on the Run, which is now on Amazon Prime.

A new book about Wings and a new box set just came out last year too. It was just great timing. I’ve really been working on it mostly in the last year or so. That’s when the research started, the initial ideas and inspiration — and then starting to work with them about on signing the agreement. But also choosing artifacts from from Paul’s collection as well.

You know, it was really a back and forth collaboration, but also, nailing down the story we wanted to tell and how to best tell it with the right artifacts and the right combination of instruments, clothing, handwritten lyrics, artwork and films and images.

I mentioned this briefly earlier. What did the wish list look like as far as items you knew that you wanted?
My wish list was fairly open-ended. I sort of started with knowing, we definitely want to have instruments that Paul played and others played throughout the entire decade. We want to have each lineup of Wings represented, equally,

With that in mind, I know we wanted to have instruments, we want to have clothing. We want to have lyrics, of course, because Paul is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Once they started suggesting specific things, I would select from there and maybe ask, what about this one bass I know that he played throughout the ’70s? Or specific instruments I knew about and even, maybe a particular clothing item that I had seen? Then, sometimes the answer might be, we can’t part with that. Or we don’t have that anymore. So it was a bit of a combination.

What’s the appreciation you came away with after all of this came together?
I think it’s just great to do this exhibit, because Wings, it’s just such a remarkable story. You know, when Paul formed the band, it wasn’t to reinvent or recreate or continue what he had done with the Beatles.

But it was a reinvention and kind of a new era of independence for him. He did it by starting completely over, first of all by himself, then adding Linda in with the RAM album. Then [he started] bringing in his evolving group of collaborators. It was kind of all about the spirit of collaboration, experimentation, risk-taking, and also family in a way that a lot of bands just didn’t do in the ’70s.

I mean, in some ways, they kind of redefined what a rock band could be. He brings his wife into the band who wasn’t really a skilled musician, but he wanted her there. And she brought a lot to the group. But they brought their kids on tour, which was pretty unusual at the time. And they also really pioneered a lot in terms of the kind of spectacle and sound of ’70s arena rock, with the stage shows they put on, especially on the Wings Over the World and Wings over America tours.

Now that this is all said and done, is there anything about the story that either surprised you or gave you new insights that you weren’t expecting?
I would say what I really have come to appreciate is Linda’s role in all of it, and her central place, not only in the band, but in in the family, and her being able to, you know, serve as a creative partner for Paul that in a way that allowed him to succeed, I think, as much as he possibly could. So, yeah, that’s why I’m so proud to have the camera here to represent her.

Almost every photo you see as you go around the room, you’ll see as each member joins. It’s a photo taken by Linda, except for the one of Linda, which was, of course, taken by Paul. The warmth of the relationship comes through in the photographs. You can see this is a close friend of theirs that they’re looking back at.

READ MORE: Paul McCartney’s 30 Best Songs With Wings