Album review - Paul McCartney’s ‘One Hand Clapping,’ much more than a collection of session parts

Some previously recorded sessions, whatever their initial purpose was, simply remain in the can. Sometimes their purpose ran out, other times the quality of these isn’t up to a scratch, and sometimes it remains puzzling why they never reached the audience as an album proper.

Whoever saw any film footage of PaulMcCartney in session, with The Beatles, Wings or solo, including the documentary series with Rick Rubin where he goes into detail on how he creates music, never doubted either his genius, devotion to his music, or seriousness with which he employs to playing even a single note.

With all that in mind, it becomes quite puzzling why the sessions for One Hand Clapping, originally recorded for, and as a part of a documentary of the same name for fifty or so years were never released as an album. That is, until now, when the brilliant and sparkling studio sessions McCartney recorded with the expanded Wings back in 1974 see the light of day.

Maybe it was thought that the documentary itself was enough, or that the audience might have been too familiar with most of the material recorded, but whatever the reasons were, it is great that these sessions have reached us in an album form, as they present McCartney and his music, particularly its post-Beatles part in the best possible light.

Paul McCartney and the concert-ready concept

Recorded as a proper concert, with Macca and the band covering his solo repertoire that of The Wings, a few of The Beatles greats, and even a few covers, it just presents not only McCartney’s songwriting genius but his (and the band’s) capability to present his music in a concert-ready concept (with all the minute or not so minute changes such a situation demands) with such an ease that it is astounding.

Negatives? None, really, and it is great to have this one in album form, even fifty years on after it was recorded.