MOTIF Profile of Denny Laine

There are many musicians who perform. There are fewer musicians who perform prolifically. There are even less prolific musicians who manage to perform with other prolific musicians. And of course, there are those rare prolific musicians who make their own distinct mark on music history. And then there is Denny Laine, a living embodiment of all those musicians, rolled into one guitarist/songwriter/bandleader, whose decade-long tenure in Paul McCartney and Wings represents simply the tip of his continuingly venerable musical accomplishments.

From his earliest, pre-rock era influences like Frankie Lane and fellow gypsy/romanese guitarist Django Reinhardt, to later the obligatory rockers Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, in short order Denny Laine would develop a proficiency and lifelong passion for live performance. Starting with small bands at school, Laine would soon front his first eponymous outfit Denny & The Diplomats, who as one of the Birmingham region’s top acts, would in 1963 share a foreboding billing with England’s top act The Beatles. Laine recalls their first meet with an ironically unauspicious anecdote: “I remember the revolving stage. We were on first and then at the end of our act the stage turned around and pulled all the leads [wires] out of the speakers! Somebody forgot to take the leads out first. So when the Beatles came on there was no microphones working. But you couldn’t hear them anyway because of the girls screaming. John [Lennon] was pointing at his microphone saying 'What's going on?'"

But inside of a year, Laine’s secondary billing status would come to an abrupt end when he moved on to form the veritable Birmingham rhythm & blues band called The Moody Blues. Although the group would see some minor chart success, it would be a song suggested to them by a close disc jockey friend that was to catapult the group into international stardom. During an American sojourn looking for obscure R&B tracks, the DJ came across and returned to the U.K. with a little known Leiber & Stoller produced gem “Go Now”, previously recorded by soul singer Bessie Banks. With Denny Laine superbly executed lead vocals, the track was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic for the Moody Blues and destined to be an all-time classic. (In a sign of the times, the public’s insatiable desire for all things British would render the original Bessie Bank’s version virtually permanently void from the rock & roll lexicon.)

Following his immense success with The Moodys, Laine as many like-minded musicians are want to do, moved on to different and more challenging projects. One such noteworthy stint includes membership in Ginger Baker’s Airforce, a fusion-rock, post Blind Faith project of Ginger’s which would in one way or another involve Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, and future Yes drummer Alan White.

But it would be a prodigious telephone call from a bass player whose former group had recently disbanded that was to permanently impact the course of Denny Laine’s musical, personal, and professional career. The bassist was Paul McCartney. He was on a mission to leave behind the trappings of his former incarnation The Beatles, which hung around him like a four-headed albatross, and emerge with a new group which he christened simply Wings.

McCartney had long since known Denny Laine, the two of them having hung out socially with each other for years. However Laine’s reputation for being a musical innovator is clearly what sparked Paul’s interest. A man in his position literally had the pickings of the entire world’s population to place in his new band, and of those billions of guitar-slingers, Denny Laine would be the only permanent fixture in Wings (aside from Paul & Linda) who would ride out Wings’ entire decade long span. As monumental a moment that phone call would be, Denny recollects the conversation with a lighthearted simplicity that personifies their down-to-Earth demeanor: "'Hi man, what's going on. What are you doing? Fancy getting a band together?' It was as simple as that. And I said, 'Sure, you better believe it'"

Having lost professional ties with John Lennon, his songwriting partner of over a decade, McCartney needed to fill the gaping void with someone who could level him out musically, and give a creative input that would serve to counterbalance his often-sanguine style. Denny Laine was to fit that bill perfectly. “Paul called because he knew me...He also knew that I wasn’t going to be intimidated by him because of him being a Beatle...I was not about to sit around and just be a yes-man. And that’s what he wanted.”

The boundless pressure of following a mammoth success like The Beatles with a new project is a unique predicament that only four human beings on the face of the planet have experienced first hand. The truly public spectacle that was The Beatles caught the imagination of a generation, and those influences are still felt to this day. But for Paul McCartney to start fresh with Wings, he and those bandmates who dug into the trenches each day constantly had something new to prove. For many of them, the arduous chore would prove to be just too much. But not so for Denny Laine. “He had a lot of press trying to hound him...He had a lot to lose. I didn’t really have a lot to lose, me, but he did.” “There was a lot of pressure on. And a lot of the people who joined, they couldn’t take the pressure. They couldn’t take the pressure of the 24 hour job and the press, and the whole hugeness of it all...It’s a big deal working with somebody like McCartney who’s that big...I wasn’t tired of the pressure! I loved it and relished it.”

Throughout the span of Paul McCartney & Wings in the 1970s, musicians came and went like members through a revolving door. Aside from the group’s namesakes, the one constant presence in Wings would remain Denny Laine. That is until 1980, when after eight albums, and scores of hit singles like “My Love”, “Silly Love Songs”, “Band On The Run”, and “Mull of Kintyre” (which Laine himself co-wrote), it was Denny’s turn to vacate the organization.

The details behind Laine’s departure for years have been shrouded in half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies. What is known is that after a highly publicized arrest for marijuana possession in Japan (for which McCartney served nine days in jail), Wings’ 1980 tour was permanently terminated before it ever started. The debacle served as the proverbial straw on the camel’s back which facilitated Denny’s leaving the group. “I decided I wanted to leave and it was for many reasons. It wasn’t because I disliked The McCartneys in any way shape or form, which some people seem to think we had a big falling out, which we didn’t. One of the reasons was tax reasons. I had to live out of the country for tax reasons...that would have created some logistic problems – a lot in fact. Also I wanted to do my own thing.”

So fastforward almost three decades later, and doing his own thing is EXACTLY what Denny Laine is doing. Aside from a top notch live show (which brings itself to our neck o’the woods at The Misquamicut Arts Festival on Saturday, July 28^th), Denny is feverishly finishing his latest solo album “Valley of Dreams”, scheduled for an October release. This 14-track project is a concept album of sorts, spotlighting his own personal experiences of living in the US over the past 9 years from the San Fernando Valley to the Vegas Valley. “Basically the concept of the album is to do with people who wanna make it in any kind of business, and success stories of people who come to these places to try to make it to be successful.” The recording will reunite Denny and former Moody Blues’ bandmate Mike Pinder, who makes a cameo on that ever-illusive instrument, the Mellotron.

Denny Laine is more than a peripheral player in someone’s Beatles biography. He is truly one of rock’s key performers. And like so many others, he is often not given the proper deserved credit, but rather unsuitably overshadowed by former associations. He was not merely a colleague of Paul McCartney’s, but rather was an irreplaceable voice in the band that with his guidance, would actually surpass the success of the other three former Beatles’ solo hits combined!

Perhaps Denny Laine puts it best: “Somebody asked me what I thought of Paul’s new album [Memory Almost Full] yesterday. I said it’s ok, but it needed me!!”