denny, dad, and me: the stories we could tell

Denny Laine brought his City Winery “Acoustic Songs & Stories” minitour to NYC on February 7 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The phone rang right on time.

“Hi, this is Denny Laine,” the voice on the other end said. “Is this Mark?”

I fumbled with the phone to make sure the voice recorder was working.

“I am new to this whole world of cell phones,” I told Laine, who was calling from his home in Naples, Florida. “My wife made me get one in the summer of 2021 because I had no choice. I had never had one before.”

Laine, the seventy-eight-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who cofounded Wings and the Moody Blues, laughed. “Oh, really? Geez. You’re old school. Trying to hang on to the old days, I see. I used to be like that, but, you know, I had to own up in the end and get on with it.”

“Well, I had no alternative, especially when I was traveling or going to shows,” I said, thinking about the sedentary Winnie talking about “the old style” in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.

“That’s the way the world turns now,” Laine replied. “That’s funny. You gotta do it, you know.”

(You can read the full interview here.)

Music has always been an integral part of my life, and Laine was a big reason why.

My mother was a rock and roller who used to sneak out of the Brooklyn apartment where she lived with her parents and brothers and go to see shows at the Paramount, checking out Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and so many more.

My mother also had an incredible collection of 45s from the 1960s, which I still treasure, as well as a handful of Broadway cast albums (some on 8-track) that I listened to often (The King and I, Hair, Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha, West Side Story).

When I turned thirteen, my father gave me the best birthday and bar mitzvah presents ever.

Wings over America ticket stubs from my first concert (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

First, he took me to see Wings at Madison Square Garden, my first concert. He got great seats, and we had an amazing time. I remember walking into school the next day with my Wings T-shirt and everyone being jealous.

Then my dad promised to take me record shopping at Korvettes at the Green Acres Mall once a week for a year; if we ever missed a week, I could choose two LPs the following visit. Thus, at the end of one year, I would be fourteen and own fifty-two albums — and would have racked up a whole lot of quality Dad time, especially since he ended up leaving this mortal coil way too soon.

My collection was chock-full of vinyl from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Elton John, Mott the Hoople, and Bob Dylan, alongside thirteen cassettes I got for a penny through the Columbia House Record Club (Three Dog Night, Jim Stafford, the Jackson Five, Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods, Jim Croce). My friends and I would listen to the LPs on the Garrard turntable my father had won by selling a certain amount of tires (my family ran a tire and auto repair shop on Utica Ave. and Ave. D in Brooklyn called Commercial Tire), including playing the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” backward to hear secret messages about the status of Paul McCartney’s existence.

Band on the Run, back cover and inner sleeve (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

I remember hanging out in my cousins’ basement, studying Wings’ Band on the Run album. On the front was a photo of the band and several surprise guests all dressed in black, huddling in front of a brick wall, a spotlight on them like they had just been caught by authorities during a jailbreak; the group featured Laine, Paul and Linda McCartney, actors Christopher Lee and James Coburn, boxer John Conteh, journalist Michael Parkinson, entertainer Kenny Lynch, and celebrity chef Clement Freud.

On the back cover were individual snapshots of Paul, Denny, and Linda, with stamps that read “London Lagos Sept. 1973” and a copy of their Nigeria itinerary; among the phrases that stuck out were “Will attempt to find,” “Routine digression from,” and “review situation at later date.” There was also an inner sleeve with a black-and-white picture of the three bandmates with eight young boys, studio photos, and the lyrics, which I pored over.

Since there were no smartphones or internet in the mid-seventies, I didn’t have easy access to find out who this other person was that Paul and Linda had teamed up with, this “Denny Laine.” He wasn’t just the guitarist; he was writing songs on his own and with Paul and singing on them, like “No Words” on Band on the Run, “The Note You Never Wrote” and “Time to Hide” on Wings at the Speed of Sound, and, later, five tunes on London Town as well as the huge hit single “Mull of Kintyre,” which I had on 45.

At the Wings show on May 25, 1976, at one point Laine took center stage to sing “Time to Hide,” which was a thrill for me to see, not only because I loved the song, but because here was Paul McCartney, one of the most popular, successful idolized human beings in the world and he was ceding the microphone to this other guy who was not John Lennon, George Harrison, or Ringo Starr. It was a life lesson that has stayed with me for more than forty-five years.

Laine is currently on a City Winery minitour with “Acoustic Songs & Stories,” where he looks back at his fascinating six-decade career.

“With Covid, I had to keep all that information on the phone, so that’s another reason I had to get one,” I said to Laine.

“Did you get Covid?” he asked.

“I got it twice.”

“I got it too. Badly,” he said. “It went away in a couple of days. I was on tour at the time. Somebody brought it onto the tour, and we all got it. It stays in your system for months. It’s scary, scary stuff, man.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “I’ve got a few friends who are very sick with it right now.”

“Oh, yeah. It just stays with you. I mean, what are you gonna do, especially if you’ve got something else wrong with you,” Laine, who had to be convinced by McCartney to get vaccinated, explained. “I got some food poisoning on this tour as well for eating some old cheese. One evening, I’m sitting there eating snacks, and this cheese had been left out of the fridge and I was really sick for a few days. So that all stuck with me as well. It added to it, you know, so I’m very careful these days, especially when I’m going out on tour again.”

“Yes, of course, back out on the road,” I said.

Laine continued, “You know, you gotta be very, very aware of it and stop all this meet-and-greeting and all that stuff, you know? I mean, it’s a whole new world really.”

“I can’t remember if masks at City Winery are optional, but I go to shows now where there are no masks in the audience and it’s kind of weird,” I offered.

“Oh, well, it’s been like that down here for a long time. Florida,” Laine said. “Nobody wears masks down here.”

At the City Winery show on February 7 in Manhattan, Laine sat on a stool at the front of the stage, with two acoustic guitars and a harmonica. He played more than two dozen songs over two hours, introducing each one with a story about how it came to be. The setlist included covers (full tunes or snippets) of Buddy Holly, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan, “Go Now” from his Moody Blues days, “Man of Constant Sorrow” from his stint in Ginger Baker’s Air Force, and such solo songs as “Say You Don’t Mind” and “Below the Waterline.”

There was a loose, relaxed, intimate feel to the show. Laine answered a few questions from the audience, played a request (it looked like he might actually do a bit of “Freebird” when some idiot called that out near the end), and was clearly enjoying himself, as we all were. He’s such a likable guy that you can understand why so many legends have wanted to work with him through the years.

He acknowledged that he can be somewhat of a name-dropper, but he’s just telling it like it is; among the people who make it into his vastly entertaining stories are the Fab Four, Jimi Hendrix, John Bonham, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Peter Asher, Donovan, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, John Paul Jones, Steve Winwood, Jimmy Page, Chuck Berry, Jack Bruce, and David Crosby.

Despite what he told me about “no more meet-and-greeting,” after the show he shook hands, signed autographs, and took photos with dozens of fans, who had surrounded the half-circle stage. He made sure to get to every single person.

I introduced myself and thanked him for doing the interview.

“Ah, you’re that Mark,” he said. “Cheers.”

Cheers, Denny. To paraphrase what you sang in “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me),” here’s to your health.

Laine’s next area gig will be February 23 at, coincidentally enough, My Father’s Place in Glen Cove.

Cheers, Dad.