When is Paul McCartney’s new Wings documentary ‘One Hand Clapping’ released?

In August 1974, Paul McCartney and his post-Beatles band Wings entered Abbey Road studios to record a live album. The sessions were captured on celluloid by filmmaker David Litchfield. Over four days, Macca, Linda, Denny Laine, Jimmy McCulloch, Geoff Britton and saxophonist Howie Casey, an old friend from the Cavern/Hamburg days, ripped through Paul’s back catalog, laying down raw live versions of classics such as Maybe I’m Amazed, Let Me Roll It, Hi, Hi, Hi. Latter day Beatles numbers including The Long And Winding Road were reworked and even covers such as Presley’s Blue Moon Of Kentucky which he performed right at the start of his career and Bessie Banks’ Go Now, which Laine and the Moody Blues scored a No.1 hit with in January 1965.

The footage was to be edited into a documentary called One Hand Clapping, the title borrowed from an ancient Buddhist koan. But the project was shelved and the rushes archived. Some outtakes from the August 74 sessions appeared on the 2010 Japanese release deluxe box set of Band on the Run, plus a DVD with a 51 minute edit of Litchfield’s film.

One Hand Clapping footage remastered

Following on from Peter Jackson’s recent Get Back Movie project, in which archival footage was restored using the latest audio separation technology (MAL) to enhance over 150 hours of films from the Beatles’ Let it Be sessions, it was decided that the One Hand Clapping material should be revisited and turned it into something new for today’s audience.

“It’s so great to look back on that period and see the little live show we did,” McCartney explained in a statement. “We made a pretty good noise actually! It was a great time for the band, we started to have success with Wings, which had been a long time coming”.

To accompany the film a double album soundtrack was released in June, featuring 26 tracks from the sessions plus six acoustic versions which Paul recorded as rootsy guitar-and vocals solo cuts in the back yard at Abbey Road.

One Hand Clapping premieres September 26 with limited screenings at cinemas worldwide. Tickets for Paul McCartney and Wings - One Hand Clapping will be available beginning Friday, August 16 at onehandclapping.film.

The new Wings documentary will also act as a prelude to McCartney’s upcoming Got Back world tour - a whistlestop jaunt across South America and Europe - all of the announced dates have already sold out.