CLEVELAND – An unprecedented display of Paul McCartney’s personal memorabilia has taken center stage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, highlighting his life post-Beatles and his time with the band Wings.
The exhibit, titled “Paul McCartney and Wings,” launched on Friday in Cleveland, delves into McCartney’s transformation after departing from the legendary Beatles. It features an array of items including instruments, handwritten song notes, and photographs by his late wife, Linda, who played keyboard and sang harmonies for Wings during its tenure from 1971 to 1981.
Following The Beatles’ dissolution, McCartney was no longer just the global music icon he had been since his youth. He was now also a husband and a father, roles that shaped his creative journey with Wings. Andy Leach, the senior director of museum and archival collections at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, noted how the band’s formation resonated with McCartney’s new personal life phase.
Leach highlighted how the band’s integration of family life—touring with children, a husband and wife performing together, and songs inspired by Linda—was quite groundbreaking. At a time when rock music was predominantly male-driven and family themes were rarely part of a band’s image, Wings stood out as a pioneering force.
“Wings was all about reinvention, renewal, risk-taking, and experimentation, but it was also about collaboration,” Leach explained. “Family played a pivotal role in their story.”
To bring this exhibit to life, Leach journeyed to London to collaborate directly with McCartney and his team. They worked together to prepare and transport guitars and stage outfits to Cleveland, with most of the collection sourced from McCartney’s own archives.
Leach said Wings helped pioneer the large-scale production that came to define 1970s arena rock, using increasingly elaborate lighting and stage design on tours such as Wings Over the World and Wings Over America.
Leach said it was amazing to see and handle guitars that “I’ve heard on record my whole life.”
Visitors will also be able to step into a recreation of the farmhouse the McCartneys still own in Scotland, where Paul and Linda retreated after The Beatles’ breakup in 1970 and set up a recording studio.
In the home, photos of Paul and Linda McCartney and their children line the walls. Linda’s camera sits inside a case on the makeshift kitchen table.
The photographs taken by Linda, an acclaimed artist in her own right and the first female photographer to have a photo featured on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1968, showcase her role “at the center of the family, and in some ways, at the center of the band,” Leach said.
Linda McCartney was married for three decades to Paul, who taught her to play the keyboard after The Beatles’ breakup. She died in 1998 of breast cancer.
Another of Leach’s favorite artifacts is the handwritten scores by famed Beatles producer George Martin for the songs “Uncle Albert” and the James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” which became one of Wings’ most enduring songs.
Other items were lent by longtime Wings roadie John Hamill, former band members and the widow of Denny Laine, the co-founder of Wings and the The Moody Blues, who played guitar, bass and keyboards and contributed both lead and backing vocals.
The Hall of Fame said the exhibit will be open for at least a year with the hope of keeping it open through the summer of 2027.
Leach said the exhibit is “perfect timing” because of “a nice kind of renaissance or at least a new appreciation for them among fans and a new understanding about how remarkable and important” Wings’ musicians were, with the release of a new Amazon Prime documentary “Man on the Run,” along with a new box set and 2025 book “Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run” co-written by McCartney.
__ Willingham reported from Boston.
