CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has unveiled its most extensive collection of Paul McCartney memorabilia ever put on public display, focusing on the legendary musician’s transformation following his departure from The Beatles.
The exhibition titled “Paul McCartney and Wings” debuted Friday in Cleveland, chronicling the artist’s creative rebirth through showcased musical instruments, original handwritten lyrics, and photography by his spouse, Linda McCartney. Linda served as both keyboardist and harmony singer for Wings throughout the group’s ten-year existence from 1971 to 1981, during which they created memorable tracks like “Band on the Run,” “Silly Love Songs,” and “Live and Let Die.”
Following The Beatles’ dissolution, Paul McCartney transformed from a globally recognized musician since his youth into a family man with young children. Wings represented this personal evolution, according to Andy Leach, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s senior director of museum and archival collections.
The band’s integration of family life — including bringing children on concert tours, featuring a married couple performing together, and creating music inspired by his spouse who was also a band member — was “remarkable and unusual” for that time period, when rock music was predominantly male-centered and family elements were seldom so prominently featured in a group’s public persona, Leach explained.
“What’s interesting about Wings is that they were formed around the idea of reinvention, renewal, risk-taking, experimentation, but collaboration,” Leach said. “And family was at the center of it, too.”
Leach journeyed to London to collaborate with McCartney and his team in selecting and shipping guitars and performance attire to Cleveland. Most of the displayed items come from McCartney’s private collection.
According to Leach, Wings helped establish the grand-scale productions that became synonymous with 1970s arena rock, employing progressively sophisticated lighting and stage designs for tours like Wings Over the World and Wings Over America.
Leach described his amazement at seeing and touching guitars that “I’ve heard on record my whole life.”
The exhibition includes a reconstructed version of McCartney’s Scottish farmhouse, which he continues to own, where Paul and Linda withdrew following The Beatles’ 1970 split and established a recording facility.
Inside the recreated residence, photographs of Paul and Linda McCartney with their children cover the walls, while Linda’s camera is displayed in a case on the improvised kitchen table.
The photographs captured by Linda, a distinguished artist who became the first woman photographer to have her work featured on Rolling Stone’s cover in 1968, demonstrate her position “at the center of the family, and in some ways, at the center of the band,” Leach noted.
Linda McCartney shared three decades of marriage with Paul, who instructed her in keyboard playing after The Beatles ended. She passed away from breast cancer in 1998.
Among Leach’s preferred pieces are the handwritten musical arrangements by renowned Beatles producer George Martin for “Uncle Albert” and the James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” which became one of Wings’ most lasting compositions.
Additional pieces were contributed by longtime Wings roadie John Hamill, former band members, and the widow of Denny Laine, Wings’ co-founder who also helped establish The Moody Blues and performed guitar, bass, keyboards, and both lead and backing vocals.
The Hall of Fame announced the exhibition will remain open for a minimum of one year, with hopes of extending it through summer 2027.
Leach characterized the exhibit as having “perfect timing” due to what he called “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.
He referenced the debut of the Amazon Prime documentary Man on the Run, a new box set, and the upcoming 2025 publication Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, co-authored by Paul McCartney and historian Ted Widmer.
