After his comprehensive work on the life and work of Paul McCartney from 2022 titled The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, noted Beatles author Allan Kozinn has prepared a Volume 2, which has a publishing date of December 10, 2024, via Dey Street Books. Author Allan Kozinn was a music critic and culture reporter for The New York Times from 1977 to 2014, where he was, in effect, the Times’ Beatles desk.
His collaborator is again researcher Adrian Sinclair and this time around the duo has covered McCartney’s work post-Beatles, and his life from 1974 to 1980. The new title is available for pre-order in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
From the publisher’s announcement: By 1974 the Beatles were a distant memory, and Paul McCartney had already gone on to release a solo album and form a new band, Wings. By the end of the decade, Wings would be the bestselling band of the 1970s. [Ed., Not likely.] The McCartney Legacy, Volume 2 begins in 1974 at the height of Wings’ popularity and the beginning of McCartney’s next chapter.
Picking up immediately after its predecessor which covered 1969-1973, Kozinn and Sinclair have brought the same exhaustive research ethos to Volume 2 that made the first volume a critical success, following McCartney the man, establishing himself as a musician beyond Beatlemania and his legacy throughout the 20th century through the present day. Volume 1 is available here.
The acclaimed albums recorded during the period covered in Volume 2 include Venus and Mars, Wings at the Speed of Sound, the triple live Wings Over America, and Back To the Egg. McCartney’s oft-bootlegged, One Hand Clapping, was recorded live in the studio in 1974.
