The Photography of Linda McCartney: Part Two

Wrensilva collected thoughts from MPL Communications curator and editor Karen McQuaid and archivist Steve Ithell about Linda McCartney’s legacy and eight album covers that feature her photography.

The picture sleeve for the U.S. release of the 1969 single featured two photos taken by Linda in the garden of the McCartneys’ London home. These images are the only official Beatles photos that Linda ever took.

Linda reflected on the session in Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era, “When I did take pictures, it was just for myself. I could have pushed to be the stills photographer on Let It Be, but I never thought about it. In fact, the only time I did an official Beatles photo was when Paul called me up at the last minute from the studio, and said that EMI needed a cover for the sleeve of ‘The Ballad Of John And Yoko’. I took a color portrait of the group with Yoko.”

Linda was a fan of The Cimarons, the UK’s first self-contained indigenous reggae band, and shot the cover for their sixth and final album Reggaebility. 

The Jamaican natives emigrated to London in the 60s. They played around town with bands like The Clash and Generation X during the punk reggae collision of the 70s and backed visiting Jamaican legends Bob Marley, Desmond Dekker, and Jimmy Cliff. 

Linda and Paul encouraged the band to cover McCartney and Wings material.

Guitarist and founding member Locksley Gichie says, “Paul brought his entire catalogue of songs. He just said, ‘Do whichever you want to.’” The Cimarons recorded eleven reggae cover versions from Paul McCartney’s MPL Communications publishing catalog, including Wings “With a Little Luck” and The Beatles “Love Me Do.”

 Wings co-founder Denny Laine recorded his second album in the summer of 1977 with Paul and Linda at the McCartney farm in Scotland between the Wings Speed of Sound and London Town sessions. Linda contributed vocals and keyboards to the tracks–eleven cover versions paying tribute to Buddy Holly–and photos for the album package, which included images of Denny and Paul and scenes from the farm.

The cover photo of Paul McCartney’s 1970 debut solo album was taken in Antigua during family holidays in 1969. 

Paul recounts, “The front cover is a picture of a bowl of cherries we got from the barman at the hotel we stayed at in Antigua, and we laid them out on the wall in front of our cottage so that the lovely birds of the area could land amongst them, drink the juice, and eat the cherries.”

Linda’s photography in the gatefold package reflects family life with holiday photos and snapshots from the home recording of the album. 
The back cover, a photo taken by Linda in Scotland, shows Paul with their daughter Mary tucked inside his jacket. 

Paul says that the theme of the record is “Home, Family, Love.” Linda’s imagery tells that story.

The packaging for Paul’s second solo album was conceived and executed by Paul and Linda, with a black-and-white image of Paul on the cover taken in Scotland in 1970. Linda’s photography showcased their back-to-basics rural life on the farm. The home-spun design with colorful felt-tip pen illustrations hides a secret message in the border: L.I.L.Y., which stands for “Linda I Love You.” 

RAM is the only album credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney. Linda co-wrote six of the twelve tracks on the album and contributed harmonies. 

Paul says, “I gave her a hard time, I must say, but we were pleased with the results. Elton John later said somewhere that he thought it was the best harmonies he’d heard in a long while. It was very much the two of us against the world at that point.”

Linda and Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde were close friends and passionate animal rights activists. The black-and-white portrait of Chrissie for the cover of ¡Viva El Amor! was shot at Linda’s studio in Sussex in 1998. During the shoot, Paul was next door in his recording studio working on tracks for Linda’s solo album. This was one of Linda’s last formal portrait sessions before her passing.

Paul and Linda discovered Professor Longhair while in New Orleans during the recording of Wings’ Venus and Mars. Linda shot the black-and-white cover portrait for Live on the Queen Mary there in 1975.

Although Venus and Mars didn’t necessarily have a New Orleans sound, after immersing themselves in the city during the recording session, the inspiration was there. When it came time to plan the album launch party aboard the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, they asked Professor Longhair if he would play.

Paul shares, “Our favourites are The Meters and Professor Longhair. So we asked The Meters if they would back him and if he was happy to play with them. And everyone was happy. So that’s what we did: we booked them for the party! And then we thought, ‘Well, this is an opportunity not to be missed. We should record it ‘cause they’re such favourite artists of ours!' So again, we asked if they minded being recorded, which they didn’t; they were very happy to do that. And so we got this record out of it, which was very exciting.”

The remastered “Long Live Fess” deluxe edition was released in 2019 with a foreword by Hugh Laurie, bonus 7” single, Linda McCartney press photo prints, a facsimile MPL press release letter, and a Living Blues article about Professor Longhair. 

Sugar Mountain (Live at Canterbury House 1968) compiles tracks from the live recording of Neil Young solo acoustic shows at Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Michigan in November of 1968, after the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, and before the release of his first solo album. 

The cover photo of Neil Young is actually a close crop of a Buffalo Springfield band photo that Linda took in Boston in 1967. 

Linda describes the scene in Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era, “The group shot and the photo of Neil were taken in Boston. I had flown up with them for a small club gig. In the morning, as we were waiting to go to the airport, I took them around the back of the motel and had them stand in front of a pile of salt that was waiting to be sprinkled on icy roads.”