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Smarmy as all this may sound to any fan used to high-voltage tales about the profligate life of rock stars, McCartney draws enough sustenance from his rigorously imposed family structure to have it re-created for the current Wings tour. Houses and an apartment are rented in four cities—New York, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. The McCartneys, the boys in the band and assorted advisers and technicians then fly to each gig in a private plane. There is a nanny in attendance, and a "smoothie girl," who packs her blender, fruits and assorted organic goodies and can whip up a quick-energy smoothie drink. A special advance man, Orrin Bartlett, formerly of the FBI, scouts out each concert venue and makes inquiries about bomb threats and grudge calls. Paul worries about snipers.
It is Linda, however, who catches most of the flack. When she first hooked up with Paul, she had been on the rock scene, snapping photos, for a few years, and had been involved in affairs with prominent musicians. Born in Scarsdale, raised to wealth, Linda was considered by many just a high-flown groupie. But according to Journalist Robin Richman, she had "a sense of breeding and culture that all these guys responded to. Linda's place in Manhattan was like home for some rock stars, a place they could crash if they didn't feel like a hotel."
Attacks—similar to the ones on Yoko Ono—reached a fever pitch when Linda began chipping in on the music. According to her husband, it was all his idea. He started her at the keyboard by pointing out middle C. "I could have done a smart bit of p.r. during the time she was being criticized," Paul told Beatles Biographer Hunter Davies. "But I thought, 'Sod 'em.' I don't have to explain her away. She's my wife and I want her to play with the group. She'll improve. She's an innocent talent. That's all rock 'n' roll music is. Innocent music."
Unlike most rock superstars, the McCartneys try to stay in touch with reality. A couple of years ago, after Paul complained about not meeting people on a personal level, Wings toured rural England for a month, stopping each night to play at friendly-looking pubs. The isolated feeling popped up again a few months after a concert in Berlin. This time the solution was quicker and zanier. Paul and Linda painted the lyrics of Silly Love Songs on a bed sheet and paraded it along the Berlin Wall. The trek ended at Checkpoint Charlie.
Like the rest of rock's nobility, the McCartneys can indulge any generous or acquisitive whim. Linda has sponsored a couple of struggling artists. On the current tour, the family got off a Texas freeway at the wrong exit, spotted an Appaloosa grazing in his pasture and bought the animal there and then.
Any tour brings unwelcome questions about a Beatles reunion. Paul and John—"They talk a lot now," says a friend of Lennon's. "All the guys do"—got together with their wives recently in New York and discussed not reunion, but how to field questions about it. "You're really going to get all that," Lennon reminded McCartney. The requisite denials come from the McCartneys with weary certitude whenever a journalist raises the subject.