Laurence Juber

Daytrippin’: Agreed. I’ve always felt that was a major mistake on his part and the difference between going platinum and triple platinum had he included “Goodnight Tonight” (a Top 5 hit in America) and “Daytime Nightime Suffering” on the album.

Juber: Absolutely, it would have made a significant difference. But that goes back to the Beatles and the mentality about singles and albums. The Beatles deal with EMI was two albums a year and and four singles, A and B sides. So, with very few exceptions, in the UK you didn’t get the singles on the albums. But we had talked about it…he said, “They want to do this but I’d rather give more value for money…” So it didn’t get put on the album.

Daytrippin’: And the same thing happened again with “Coming Up,” which Paul was later forced to put on McCartney II as a 7-inch single.

Juber: That was interesting, too, because what happened with Back to the Egg, and continued through the UK tour was that we kind of forged ourselves as a rock band. You can hear it on the Last Flight CD (a bootleg CD from their last live show) from Glasgow, Scotland, and the released live version of “Coming Up” came from that show. There was a dichotomy going on where we were a tight rock band and Paul had just done the solo album McCartney II, which was kind of quirky and a bit left-field. And quite truthfully, Columbia didn’t know how to market Paul’s music like Capitol did. But they did take notice when US rock radio started playing the live B-side of the single and it went to No. 1 for three weeks in the Summer of 1980. Columbia were obliged to add the 7-inch single to the McCartney II album as people were expecting the single to be on there. Paul’s video was cool though.

We did the UK tour with the Japanese tour lined up right behind it, and the intention to tour the US in the summer of 1980. So when you listen to the live stuff, there’s this rock band, a certain kind of heaviness that evolved out of the Back to the Egg sessions. The problem was that where Paul was going in terms of his writing was a different direction, which ultimately turned out to be Tug of War and Pipes of Peace. It was a body of material that wasn’t as well suited to a rock band, and neither of those are rock albums. Tunes like “Ballroom Dancing” and “Average Person” are coming from a different place. It’s more of a mature sound and it’s an artist who is settling down into a true solo career, who has his kids settled in school and has moved out of London. After John Lennon died, which had to play some role in all of this, Paul didn’t tour again until 1989.

Daytrippin’: So Wings had actually rehearsed the material for the Tug of War sessions?

Juber: Yes, but most of those sessions were unproductive because we were working on songs that were more mature and not reflective of Wings. We had evolved a band identity and this was feeling more like a Macca solo project; I would have been happier developing the tunes in the studio rather than rehearsals. It was a step back in a way for me, because, working within the band context, Paul gave me a great deal of latitude on Back to the Egg. There I’d offer up an idea and he’d either nod or he’d kind of raise an eyebrow and then I’d tweak it. I remember very specifically when we were mixing “After the Ball,” I’d played an acoustic slide part and sat there just thinking, “I’d like to get my hand on that fader.” I’d never been an engineer at that point and Paul noticed my discomfort and said, “Laurence, you run that fader.” Not only did he accept my contribution but encouraged me to put it to the forefront.

Daytrippin’: Your personality certainly shows on Back to the Egg, which is interesting given your versatility and adaptability.

Juber: It’s interesting because at the time I was being my chameleon self as a studio player. In the course of time, and this is something you don’t recognize at the time, I can listen back and say with some objectivity, “Hey, I had a sound and style back then.”

Daytrippin’: And it was a nice fit in that particular incarnation of the band – each of you had roles within the band and you not only played them perfectly, but there was room enough for everyone to shine and let your personality show through.

Juber: I think so, certainly in the musical sense. Obviously there were other dynamics going on within the band in terms of where Paul and Linda were at in their lives, what was going on with Denny in his life, the more personality-driven aspects of the band.

Daytrippin’: You’ve stated before that watching Paul in the studio was an eye-opening experience because you were able to see him as a composer and how he fleshed out songs. So with that said, did he come into the studio with the finished song in his head and you just laid down the tracks, or was it a situation that he fleshed them out with your help?

Juber: A lot of the time it was a finished song, but not always. In the case of “Old Siam, Sir,” we were jamming one day and Steve Holly was playing keyboards and had this chord sequence. I’m not sure if Paul was playing drums or if it was Linda because we’d trade off in a jamming situation, but what ended up happening was that ended up in the instrumental section of the song. I always felt that Steve should have received some sort of nod for that. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of the process in that you don’t always get full credit for what you contribute as a musician, especially as the song-writing is traditionally words and melody, not chords, licks and grooves. If you could copyright a rhythm, Bo Diddley would have been very happy.

Daytrippin’: But was there a time when you did see Paul flesh out a song that was half-finished or not a full idea?

Juber: Yes, Denny had written two incomplete songs and Paul suggested he merge the two, and that turned out to be “Again and Again and Again.” That was Paul kind of wearing his producer hat at the time, but to the best of my recollection, most of the songs he brought in for Back to the Egg were complete to the extent where there might be a minor change to a lyric, but the song itself was pretty much there.

“Getting Closer” and the unreleased song “Cage” were off of demos, the latter being one that Paul and Denny did together. There were times when there was a demo aspect to the sessions, and in some cases we created demos to see how the tune was shaping up. We did a version of “Love Awake” that wasn’t a final version, as well as a demo of “Rockestra Theme” with just Wings so that everybody else could hear before the big session. Typically the song was there, but in terms of production, getting the sound and arrangements right, that mostly took place in the studio. I remember “Daytime Nightime Suffering”, which he composed over the weekend and came in with that on a Monday morning and we went right to work on it. Paul was always very concise with his writing and was usually complete by the time we came to record it. So the fleshing out was always on the production end of things, and occasionally we’d hear something that he was working on and then the next time he played it you could hear the progression. “Ebony and Ivory” comes to mind.

Daytrippin’: The group recorded “Back to the Egg” in several different places – McCartney’s farm in Scotland; Lympne Castle in Kent and Replica and EMI Studios in London. In your opinion, did your surroundings have any influence on how you played or recorded a song?

Juber: I certainly think the surroundings impacted the sound of the record. For example, we were recording “We’re Open Tonight” at Lympne Castle and I was sitting in the middle of a spiral staircase in a 13th Century castle with a 12-string acoustic guitar. There’s certainly something to be said for the ambient aspect of your surroundings. Being on the farm in Scotland definitely added to the rawness of “Spin It On” “Old Siam, Sir” and “To You”.

Daytrippin’: Wouldn’t it be fair to say that Back to the Egg is a British-sounding album?

Juber: It is very British. Other than the Fender, Gibson and Martin guitars, there’s nothing American about the sound of it and some of that is purely technical. Amplifiers sound different at 50 cycles than they do at 60 cycles. Just the AC power makes a difference to the sound of the equipment, the way the record was produced, the way the drums were miked, was more English than American; the players were English. Look at Ram…it sounds so much like a New York album. It was recorded in there and the players were all from the area, and there’s kind of a New York energy to it. Denny Seiwell shines on that record.

Conversely, we did a lot of stuff at Abbey Road, which is about as English as it gets. We created Replica Studio in the basement of Paul’s office Soho Square primarily for mixing, but we did some recording there too. The track for “Daytime Nightime Suffering” was all recorded there. The drums were placed in a room where the coffee machine was. That’s where I also did the acoustic solo for “Goodnight Tonight.” It’s a different kind of vibe.

Daytrippin’: Back to the Egg was not only a big and powerful album, but it was eclectic. The range of songs from full on rockers (“Rockestra Theme”; “Spin it On”; “So Glad to See You Here; “Old Siam, Sir”) to mid-tempo (“Arrow Through Me”; “Again and Again and Again”) to ballads (“Winter Rose/Love Awake”) to original standards (“Baby’s Request”) to instrumentals (“Reception” and “Rockestra Theme”). I recall seeing a Brian Wilson interview on television saying how much fun and wild Wings were because he never knew what to expect.

Juber: I had no idea he said that…that’s great because, if anyone is equally eclectic to Paul in terms of the production process, it’s Brian Wilson. And, of course, Brian was revered in England. Pet Sounds was not a huge hit in America but it was the Sergeant Pepper precursor in England. I’d have to say Paul was the most eclectic artist I’ve ever worked with. It’s in his nature. This goes back to the Beatles. They were a very eclectic band. How many bands can you look at and say this was an incredible live rock ‘n’ roll band, before they ever made a record! They were also an incredible R & B band…look at their R & B influences, especially John. “All I’ve Got to Do” is proto-Al Green. Take that song and look at it, it’s in that Smokey Robinson kind of area. In fact, it was one of the songs I did for LJ Plays the Beatles Vol. 2. It was so cool to do because it had such an immediate vibe about it. Their version of the Shirelles “Baby, It’s You” is as good, if not better than the original version. Fantastic R & B group, but you add that to the fact they were the most phenomenal pop group and the greatest bunch of studio musicians. What they did in the studio as musicians was amazing, beyond the obvious progression as recording artists and songwriters.

It really hit home when I listened to Let It Be…Naked a few years back and what was going on in terms of the guitar parts. Quite often John and George would really work out these cool two-guitar parts – “And Your Bird Can Sing” for example – sometimes you don’t even realize that it’s two guitars, but they were very much into that. Paul was always eclectic because he was so versatile. I believe Back to the Egg exemplifies a rock album, a folk album, a pop album, and certainly less geared to an American consciousness by comparison let’s say to Venus and Mars. It was also a blessing and a curse. At the time, that eclecticism wasn’t appreciated. It was a two-star album in 1979 and it’s a four-star album in 2010. As time has gone on, I think people have come to re-evaluate it in terms of Paul’s body of work and what was going on at the time in the music scene.

When you deconstruct the music, for example “Arrow Through Me”, harmonically it is almost like Duke Ellington could have had written it. I think “Again and Again and Again” was one of Denny’s more immediate and interesting contributions…

Daytrippin’: And speaking of Denny, I know it’s a rather obvious thing to say, but in doing my research for this interview, including watching a lot of videos, it really hit home for me that Denny was quite visible and a major presence in this band. I know there are reports from him that he felt like a sideman at times, but his face was out there front and center.

Juber: Absolutely. There is no question that Wings as a core group is the Paul, Linda and Denny ensemble. This is where it carries over into getting Wings into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wings was not just Paul McCartney post-Beatles. Wings was Paul McCartney’s group post Beatles, if that makes sense. If you go see Paul now and when he does a Wings song in his set, it’s great but there is something missing. You’re not hearing Linda’s voice; you’re not hearing Denny’s voice; you’re not getting the qualities that they brought to Paul’s work. It was a tempering. I think Paul recognized that he needed a foil, without John being around. Obviously, no one could fill in for John Lennon but Denny has his own eclecticism with his gypsy/folk sensibilities with an R & B voice and rock guitar prowess. And Linda was kinda the glue. Things just worked better with Linda there in the room because she was Paul’s soulmate and the female balancing part of his creative energy. There was a dynamic that happened and, as much as Paul will perform a Wings song and you tap your foot and sing along with it and think, “What a great song,” it doesn’t sound like Wings. I do appreciate the fact that he plays some of those tunes though.

Daytrippin’: I’ve always felt that he personally never gave Wings enough credit despite the fact they had 14 Top Ten hits in America (six of those going to No. 1) and eight Top Ten albums (five of those at No. 1). Today they’d be considered a supergroup.

Juber: Well, Wings was a supergroup. I remember listening to Kasey Casem’s American Top 40 on the radio and they had the top groups of all-time. The Beatles were No. 1 and Wings was something like No. 3. I had no idea we were quite that big.

Daytrippin’: I guess my point is that I get the feeling that Paul never viewed them as a supergroup…that they were just his little band and they were forced to live in the shadow of the Beatles. Wings’ music was the soundtrack of many young lives in the 1970s, including mine, and I don’t believe he’s ever reconciled that part of his musical career. Look at Wingspan (the CD) – he padded it out with solo material that simply didn’t belong on there.

Juber: Wings were simply above and beyond Paul’s solo career. But I think Paul, in the nature of writing his own legacy, he’s certainly entitled to write his version of history or how he perceived it, but the fact is there are other factors in the scenario and other people have their opinions, too. I too was a little disappointed with Wingspan (the documentary) that so much time was devoted to the breakup of the Beatles and not enough time was spent on Wings and the progression of the band and what it really represented from a musical point of view. But that’s just water under the bridge. For me, Wings was a great experience and anything that happens in the history books is sort of a bonus thing. I got my Master’s degree from McCartney University and that’s good enough for me.

Laurence Juber has no need to rely on his past, therefore, he isn’t afraid to revisit it every now and then.

Often considered most famous for playing lead guitar in Wings from 1978 to 1981, he has since had a distinguished career as a solo finger-style guitarist.

The two-time Grammy award-winning artist has developed a reputation as a world-class guitar virtuoso solo artist, composer and arranger, and released 15 critically acclaimed solo albums since Wings folded. His latest, LJ Plays The Beatles Vol. 2 (Solid Air, 2010), is a solo acoustic guitar arrangement of 15 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It is also the long-awaited sequel to LJ Plays the Beatles (Solid Air, 2000), which was voted one of Acoustic Guitar magazine’s top 10 all-time acoustic albums.

In part two of this candid and definitive interview, Juber discusses McCartney’s reputation for treating musicians like sidemen, how Wings went out with a whimper rather than a bang, his new Beatles tribute CD and his busy life today.

Daytrippin’: Let’s address the reputation Paul McCartney had at the time for treating members of Wings like “sidemen”, a charge that was leveled by other Wings members and played up quite a bit in the 1970s.

Juber: A sideman is a typically a musician that is hired to play a role on stage and/or in the studio. For me specifically, to deliver a guitar solo, some groove and texture, a cool rhythm guitar part or whatever was appropriate. For example during the Back to the Egg period, as well as playing the obvious lead guitar stuff, I played bass guitar on “Love Awake,” slide acoustic on “After the Ball,” the Flamenco lead acoustic solo on “Goodnight Tonight.”

So yes, I was a sideman, but the job assignment very much included considering myself a part of the band. I’m a bit of a chameleon stylistically and I think that I got the gig because I could play the bluesy lead stuff, but also other styles like the jazzy intro on “Baby’s Request.” What’s on the recordings represents the creative opportunities that Paul afforded me and he gave me a lot of leeway. The only times he ever told me what to specifically play was when he had a particular lick, like on “Daytime Nighttime Suffering.”

Addressing the question in financial terms it was still a ‘work for hire’ and a reasonable improvement from what I was making as a studio musician. I’ve never had any complaints about the financial end of the arrangement. Early on, Paul had a bit of a reputation for not paying his bandmates well. This really goes back to when Wings first started and Paul had limited cash flow. There were financial issues because of the way the Beatles broke up and it took a while for those to be solved. Part of it was also Paul’s idea of creating Wings essentially from scratch. When the band first started, Paul told me that he [basically only] had an office and a phone, and got to work. I think he wanted to know the basic functions of the business end before he would hand it over to someone else. So basically the attitude was, “This is a small band and we’re going to get in a bus and go to a college and play at lunch time and share whatever money goes into the hat.” It’s a nice utopian kind of vision, but it became hard on the other guys as time wore on and didn’t quite fit with the fact that Paul was a still a megastar. By the time I joined the band things had changed, although the ‘esprit de corps’ was still there.

In all its incarnations Wings sounded like a band, not like a solo McCartney project and I think that reflects well not only on Paul’s ability to share in the creative process, but also on the importance of Denny and Linda’s contributions, too. The other players brought their own personalities to the scene.

Daytrippin’: And from what little you’ve stated here, it sounds as if he gave you a lot more leeway creatively than Denny Seiwell, Henry or say Jimmy McCullough?

Juber: I can’t speak for Jimmy McCullough. Regarding the others, you’d have to ask Denny Seiwell, but he’s not expressed any reservations about being creatively inhibited. I do know that Henry McCullough’s solo on “My Love” has his own voice. I’ve heard a couple of different stories about what went on there – according to Paul in Wingspan, Henry recorded it live with the orchestra. According to Trevor Jones (the late Wings roadie), it was an overdub that took all night to record and Henry was pretty much in tears by the time they finished recording. So I don’t know who to believe on that. It’s a very passionate solo and there’s a lot of emotion in there and I’d probably be reduced to tears, too.

Daytrippin’: What are your favorite songs on Back to the Egg and why?

Juber: I keep rediscovering tracks. I like “Baby’s Request”; “Arrow Through Me”; “Spin it On”…

Daytrippin’: For me, “Spin it On” embodies that particular incarnation of Wings. Like the band, the song has this incredible energy and sense of fun.

Juber: Yes, agreed…it’s like punk-rockabilly and has this really cool relentless vibe. I did all the guitar solo stuff on that song in about 20 minutes. At least that’s how long it felt. It was me sitting next to Paul in the control room, just playing for him. I was just bringing my own personality to it. Steve Holly came up with the double speed drum overdub on “Arrow Through Me.” There’s two drum tracks on that song and almost nothing else, other than the horn lick and the electric piano. I remember Paul Simon came into the studio and listened to the song and said, “Wow, how did you get that incredible bass sound?” When we told him it was the left hand of the electric piano he was truly surprised.

Daytrippin’: What do you recall of the studio Rockestra lineup (David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, John Bonham, Kenny Jones, John Paul Jones, Ronnie Laine, to name but a few) when you recorded “Rockestra Theme” and “So Glad to See You Here”?

Juber: It was an amazing session. We did those two songs in an afternoon. These were all seasoned musicians, so they didn’t need much time to learn the tunes. The technical aspect was a bit challenging because the engineers were running two 24-track machines linked together, which was a fairly new thing to do. There were dozens of mic channels all going at once with three drum kits, six guitars, three basses and keyboards, horns and percussion. But everybody checked their egos at the door and played great, and it was such a wonderful experience. Listening to those tracks now, they are huge, although I don’t know that many people have heard the ‘real deal’. The ’90s-era CD master was only adequate and the download version that was available for a while was still a compressed format. Hopefully the Concord release, when it comes, will be an improvement. I’ve got some great unpublished photos of that session. I remember Linda taking a bunch, too.

Daytrippin’: Speaking of Linda’s photography, she took some great photos of you…she is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated rock photographers of all-time. What made her a great photographer?

Juber: She was completely unpretentious. She wasn’t about people posing for pictures. It was all candid stuff. A lot of time she shot Polaroids or 35mm using high-speed B&W film in low-light scenarios. She would use Kodak recording film and run it at 3200 and not use flash. So a lot of time you wouldn’t even be aware she was snapping photos. There’s got to be hundreds, if not thousands of photos she took of Wings on stage. I’m sure there’s lot of interesting photos of us in her archives. And yes, I think she should be recognized along with Jim Marshall, Henry Diltz and other rock photographers of that ilk. Her pictures are amazing.

Daytrippin’: Most of the songs from Back to the Egg had a music video shot for them, which was an uncommon thing for artists back in the pre-MTV era. What stands out in your mind about making those videos?

Juber: What really stands out was the fact that there was no MTV. Those videos ended up as a half-hour syndicated TV special that I think was sponsored by Coca-Cola. They were state of the art at the time…look at the editing techniques on “Spin it On”- it was sped up in sections to give a special effect. We’re talking 1979, when answering machines were a new-fangled item. Fax machines were just coming into existence; there were no cell phones and a single VHS tape would set you back about $25.

MTV didn’t go on the air until 1981. So in a way, it felt kind of pioneering, but the real pioneers were the Beatles, weren’t they? “Paperback Writer”; “Rain”; “Penny Lane”; “A Day in the Life”; “Hello Goodbye.” Those were all done in the sixties. The Beatles really created the whole original MTV-style with A Hard Day’s Night. I’m sure there was a certain kind of continuity in Paul’s mind to do promo videos. And I must say this: even though I was out of my adolescence, there was still a self-consciousness I had about myself. “I’m a lead guitarist and a serious musician,” and so I had to loosen up a bit to get into the spirit of some of those videos. The video for “Wonderful Christmastime” was great because we got to hang out at the pub and have a bonfire outside. I definitely remember the “Spin it On” video, because we were wearing these fake fur-lined leather flight jackets (this was before the veggie philosophy had really kicked-in). We’re filming in a aircraft hangar in the cool English Spring, but we had massive amounts of lights behind us, so we were roasting. When I got home that day, I hung that jacket up and it was still dripping days later because it was so hot on stage.

Daytrippin’: The 19-date UK Tour kicked off with a series of concerts in Liverpool in November 1979. Obviously Liverpool has a special place in Paul’s heart. Any special memories for you regarding Liverpool?

Juber: It is certainly an appropriate place to start a Macca tour. We did some kind of press event on a boat on the Mersey. I remember the free warm-up show we did at the Liverpool Institute, which was Paul’s old school. If memory serves me correctly, on the opening night all the taxi drivers went on strike in Liverpool. They deliberately picked that night because the show was such a big deal.

When you’re on tour, you have your priorities and have to focus on playing for those two hours onstage. It was all a grand experience and I was still in the learning mode. One of the great regrets I have from that period was that by the time we got to Japan, we had worked out the kinks in our show and things were starting to gel. Listen to the Glasgow show, and you’ll hear a real band. The 1979 tour was still thought of as the promotional tour for Back to the Egg, even though it took place almost six months after the album came out. But the repertoire was moving beyond that. We had “Another Day,” “Let ‘Em In”, “Live and Let Die” worked up for that Japanese tour. It was fun playing Beatle tunes, too.

Daytrippin’: Two songs that were originally recorded by Paul as a solo artist but certainly played in concert by Wings on that tour were “Wonderful Christmastime” and “Coming Up.” Did you learn them in the studio or live?

Juber: We learned both of those songs to play live. When I first heard the solo version of “Coming Up,” I thought it was a bit fast and quirky. I preferred what we did with it as a band. It had this rock and R&B sensibility to it and it just felt cool when we were doing it. “Wonderful Christmastime” was kind of a novelty number. It’s a nice, jolly tune and is still one of the all-time Top 25 Christmas records. I almost wish Paul had written another classic in the vein of “White Christmas.” Nonetheless, it was an original take on the Yuletide theme. I sang backing vocals on stage and would invariably get a mouthful of the fake snow that they dropped on the stage during that song.

Daytrippin’: The fact that “Coming Up” and the entire concert in Glasgow, Scotland, were recorded live leads me to believe there was a live album in the works?

Juber: We were just documenting what we were doing. Paul has subsequently recorded and released a live album of just about every tour. At that time, not much time had passed since Wings Over America was released and it was still too early in the game to determine if he was going to release a live album of this particular tour. “Coming Up” as a live single ended up being a No.1 record in the summer of 1980, because it really ‘hit the spot’ in what radio was looking for from Paul McCartney. Had that song been on Back to the Egg, both it and the album would have been much bigger. It’s a nice piece of classic rock because it had that nice combination of hook, riff and vibe.

Daytrippin’: I assume the highlight of that tour for you was the “Concert For Kampuchea” when you played the guitar solo for “Let It Be” in front of a ‘Who’s Who of Rock Royalty’?

Juber: No, no. The highlight for me was the whole second Glasgow concert. Kampuchea was a stage highlight in terms of getting to play with all the rock luminaries and (laughs) having Pete Townsend looking over my shoulder on “Let It Be.” At a certain point, I realized no one out of this huge band was going to step forward to play that solo and I’d been doing it for the whole tour, so I just went for it. It was one of those moments in my career where I was able to say, “Well, I got to do that…” It was a magical moment, but the highlight of the tour from a musical point of view was that last Glasgow concert. That was the point on the tour when we were really cooking as a band. It was also a more complete set than Kampuchea. And to be honest, if you listen to the Last Flight bootleg CD, the version we did of “Let It Be” in Glasgow was even better. I’ll never forget the audience reaction to the bagpipe band marching through the audience that night.

Daytrippin’: Paul McCartney’s marijuana bust in Japan meant the tour had to be canceled and appears to have led to Wings’ demise. Had Paul not been busted, were there definitive plans for Wings to tour the United States and other countries in 1980?

Juber: Yes, there were plans but I don’t know how definitive they were. We certainly had meetings about it and looked at designs for staging the show in the US. I also remember all of us watching a news report on Israel with promoter Harvey Goldsmith, who said, “See that area? We could put a stage there for you.” He was suggesting that we should hold a concert in Israel. Back to your question – there was certainly discussion about touring the US in the summer of 1980. In fact, had we done it, we would have been on tour with the No. 1 single (“Coming Up”) and then Wings could have potentially gone out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Daytrippin’: Wings officially folded in April 1981. How were you given the news?

Juber: We knew before then that it was over. In fact, I moved to New York at the end of January 1981, so that tells you that, for me, the writing was clearly on the wall. I didn’t want to hang around when I knew there was other work to be done. How was I told? Paul called in November and he was very nice and said, “Listen, I’m doing this album (Tug of War) and George Martin doesn’t want it be a Wings record, but we’re still going to be working as a band in January.” And we indeed were working in January 1981 on the Cold Cuts collection. Things like, “A Love For You” – there ‘s some of me in there. But there was no real reason for there to be another Wings record and why wait around if there was no tour to do. It was also coincidental with John Lennon’s death, but the process was already underway. When John died, it reinforced the insecurity of being a former Beatle and being out in public at that point.

Daytrippin’: It also seems like it was fated that Wings broke up the same month you met your wife Hope?

Juber: Listen, you have no idea how fated it was…the whole story of why Hope was in New York in the first place started because of John Lennon’s death.

She is, and always has been, a big Beatles fan and, after John died, she became very depressed. She didn’t seem to be getting over it, and her parents were worried. Her mom called and said, “I know what will make you feel better – you’re going to get your hair done at my hairdresser.” Hope wasn’t crazy about the idea, but she went anyway. So she goes to the Beverly Hills salon, and the hairdresser recognized her sadness and tells her, “You really don’t seem happy, so why don’t we have a cup of coffee. I’ll finish with my next client and you go take a walk around the block, by the time you’re done I’ll be done.” So, she walks around not really looking where she’s going and she bumps straight into somebody. She is actually standing on a pair of boots. She looks up and it’s Ringo! Hope apologizes for bumping into him and mentions how sorry she was about John’s death and he starts to talk to her. He tells her how he’s getting on with his life, making a new record – which, by coincidence, was the record I was playing on (Stop and Smell the Roses) – and that focusing on work at times like these is really important. The next day, her dad (famous TV producer Sherwood Schwartz) called her and said, “I’m doing a show at Paramount and I’d like you to work on it as a writer.” She had not been willing to write for her dad before. It was only because of her encounter with Ringo that she accepted the offer. Subsequently she went to New York with an actor friend she met while working at that studio. They had arranged to to meet at a comedy club. She and I met there and the universe shifted.

Daytrippin’: I’ve always felt Paul and Linda McCartney were role models for you and Hope in that rock’n’roll and family can be blended successfully. Were they role models?

Juber: Absolutely! They were a wonderful example of how a husband and wife can work together. Linda was very much the Earth Mother; extremely unpretentious. The McCartneys were, as a couple, very grounded and truly in love with each other. None of the game-playing and complications that often go with the entertainment business. Compare with what happened in Paul’s subsequent marriage with Heather Mills. He and Linda were a definite influence on my life and marriage.

Daytrippin’: In July 1980 you recorded “Private Property” and “Attention” with Paul and Linda McCartney for Ringo Starr’s Stop and Smell the Roses. What was it like watching Paul and Ringo interact and work together?

Juber: Simply amazing. The fact that I’m sitting there in the studio watching Paul and Ringo work and I say to myself, “Wow, there’s half of the Beatles. How cool is this?” They had a sixth sense about each other and where to go musically. It was magical to watch the two interact. We also did “Sure to Fall” and Linda’s tune “Love’s Full Glory” that ended up on Wide Prairie.

Daytrippin’: Six years later you recorded “Shanghai Surprise” with George Harrison. What was it was like working with him and then, of course, his experience with your lovely wife, Hope.

Juber: There was a producer named Bob Rose I had been working with on a few projects, who produced some stuff for Donovan that was released in Japan, plus an album with Michael Des Barres (the singer from Checkered Past and Power Station), who I had written some songs with. George Harrison had asked Bob to help him out with some of the tracks for the Shanghai Surprise soundtrack, so I went into the studio and played acoustic. I loaned George some of my equipment and he played on one of my guitars, and we spent a lot of time talking about the Beatles, because believe it or not, George was a big Beatles fan. He was just a lovely guy and very gentle.

I literally went directly from being with Hope when she gave birth to our second daughter Ilsey, to the studio with George. Hope was upset because she really wanted to meet him, so I got him on the phone to talk to her when she was in the hospital, and he said, “When you’re ready, come on down to the studio.” So a couple of days later I took Hope and Ilsey down to Village Recorders in West LA and George danced around with our new daughter and said some words in Sanskrit, which he told us was a blessing for ‘the gift of music’. It worked! She is extremely musical and now she has her own band called Walking In Space, who are being produced by Randy Jackson.

Daytrippin’: Didn’t Hope push you in the direction of LJ Plays the Beatles Vol.1? Even though you were in Wings, it seems as if playing the Beatles is such a natural fit for you given your analytical mind and adaptability.

Juber: I think that my approach works with tunes from any era and I’ve tackled classical pieces and standards from the 1930s, as well as my own tunes. I tend not to discriminate by decade! The Beatles repertoire is just so rich and resonant to me and my audience.

I had recorded a version of “Rain” on an album of mine called Mosaic. I’d play it in concert and people would say, “Oh, please do an entire album of Beatles.” Well, I was reluctant, because those songs are so iconic and, at that time, I had been focusing on composing rather than arranging. Hope said, “If you won’t do it for them, at least do it for me.” I said, “Well, then you’re going to produce it.” She had already been co-producing with me, but I told her on this one she was totally in charge. And LJ Plays the Beatles turned out well and proved to be quite popular. Acoustic Guitar magazine selected it as one of the top 10 acoustic guitar recordings of all time.

Daytrippin’: And in doing the Beatles, did you have a new appreciation for them as writers, players and their styles of music that they fused together?

Juber: Every time I hear a Beatles record I gain a new appreciation. Above and beyond the analytical part of it and creating the arrangements, when I start deconstructing Beatles songs, I find unexpected things. I can never listen to a Beatles record twice and hear exactly the same thing. There’s always something that I’ve missed, or a new discovery where you say, “Wow, what was that little guitar lick?” Or the way in which the backing vocals come in…there’s always something.

And in a way, it’s a reason why I decided to do LJ Plays the Beatles Vol. 2. In the decade since Vol.1 , I’ve learned a lot in terms of my guitar artistry and was willing to apply that to a fresh batch of Beatles songs. (LJ Plays the Beatles Vol. 2 includes “Penny Lane”; “Eleanor Rigby”; “Drive My Car”; “Here There & Everywhere”; “You Can’t Do That”; “Blackbird”; “I Feel Fine”; “Dear Prudence”; “When I’m Sixty Four”; “Please, Please Me,”; “No Reply”; “I Am The Walrus”; “All I’ve Got to Do”; “Michelle” and “The Long and Winding Road.”)

Daytrippin’: Was there a particular reason why you chose this batch of songs for the second volume?

Juber: For business reasons, it was conceived as a Lennon/McCartney collection. Some of them are favorites; some of them are guitaristic challenges; some of them are Hope’s suggestions. If Paul had George’s Chet Atkins-style picking skills, he could have written “When I’m 64” on the guitar. As it was, he wrote it on the piano, but it fits so neatly onto the fingerboard with minimal adaptation. With “Penny Lane,” I just wanted to tackle the musical complexity of the song; the same goes for “I Am the Walrus.” Having such a positive experience with “Strawberry Fields Forever” on the first album, I felt “Walrus” was a natural musical heir to that song in John’s musical development.

There’s often a clear dividing line in their work, even though they were a partnership. As you know, “Penny Lane”, “Eleanor Rigby”,“Here, There and Everywhere”, “The Long and Winding Road” and “Blackbird” are very Paul. “You Can’t Do That”, “I Feel Fine”, “I Am The Walrus” and “Dear Prudence” are very John. He talked about intending “Please Please Me” to be a Roy Orbison-style song, so I wanted my arrangement of the song to stay true to John’s intention, rather than using the Beatle arrangement as a template. When I started doing it, Hope said, “Yeah, but where’s the urgency?” There’s a primal, sexual energy to the song and she wasn’t happy until I captured that. Then the challenge was to separate the intro harmonica motif from the melody. I dropped to to the lower strings and managed to capture a little of the Orbison ‘twang’ that I was looking for.

Daytrippin’: “Dear Prudence” seems a natural fit for your finger-picking style of playing. With that said, was it an easy or hard song for you to reproduce?

Juber: It was actually kind of hard. Both that song and “Blackbird” were tricky for that very reason. When I did the first album, I stayed away from the already finger-picked tunes. Sometimes you have songs where the guitar part is so familiar that it’s essential to maintain at least the illusion of the original, while still blending in the melody.

Daytrippin’: And that’s what I thought was really interesting about LJ Plays the Beatles Vol. 2 – you are not only playing the melody and the chords, but your guitar is actually mimicking the vocals and I’ve never heard that in an instrumental album before.

Juber: Well, yes, that’s my job. That’s really what’s it’s all about, to articulate the tune. I don’t think of it as mimicry, however. The process is to represent the melody with a reasonably ‘vocal’ tone and incorporate this other stuff from the record: vocal nuances, guitar parts, bass parts, backing vocals etc.

For a lot of the album I used DADGAD which is my favorite alternate guitar tuning. The original of “Dear Prudence” is in drop D tuning, and it’s interesting because, even though it’s in D, John twists the pattern so that he’s not leading with the bottom string; he’s actually leading with the fifth, the open A string. It ‘floats’ in a way that a normal picking pattern wouldn’t. Incidentally, it’s actually the same right hand pattern he uses on “Julia,” but there it starts on the tonic, the home key note. Using DADGAD, I was able to configure it so I could get the melody as well as all of the other bits. John, Paul and George all picked up some picking tricks from Donovan in India when they were there with Maharishi.

There’s something quite ‘mantra-like’ about repetitive finger-picking patterns. John had this ability to transcend time in some of his songs. Add the two together and the results can be quite potent. When we were recording “Dear Prudence,” it was Hope’s birthday. As part of her present, she insisted I record it that day, and that evening we were going to see Sir Paul at the Hollywood Bowl. The house behind my studio was under construction and, though we recorded a bunch of takes, we couldn’t use them because there was a low frequency rumble. We had about a brief time-window of 15 minutes from the time the noise stopped to the time we had to leave to see Paul. When I listened to the recording the next day, we got everything in that window. On one hand, it felt like we were stopping time, but on the other hand there was a certain urgency, which I think was appropriate creatively.

Daytrippin’: You’re so busy these days with the new CD, the year-round gigs, your web site…what else are you up to?

Juber: The question is what am I not up to? The best thing to do is check my web site at www.laurencejuber.com to find out. There’s always something going on. I recently did a documentary for Dateline NBC called “Children of the Harvest” about children of migrant farm workers. Dennis Murphy, the reporter who did the piece, is a fan and requested me. There’s a CD of that score in the works, also a live CD/DVD from a concert that I did in 2009. I’ve also been doing all the guitar session work on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which is a top show on cable TV. Last year I did a studio album with Barry Manilow, but I don’t know when that’s coming out. It’s a very interesting rock concept album. I played on a Christmas album with Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.

Hope and I have also written a few musicals, one of which was Hope’s creation called It’s The Housewives! The best way I can describe it is Dream Girls meets Spinal Tap. That will get a regional premiere production in Lincoln, Nebraska in March 2011. We also have written the score to Gilligan’s Island, The Musical and just came back looking at a theater in Hawaii for a proposed production.

In early March, I’ll be doing the Eight Days A Week Beatle Cruise, which will be a delightful time. Tony Bramwell, who was with the Beatles almost since the beginning, will be there and, if you’re into in-depth knowledge of the Beatles, Tony is the guy to ask. His book, Magical Mystery Tours is amazing. Plus, the cruise gives me the opportunity to hang out with Beatles fans, particularly guitar-playing Beatles fans. I’m pretty free with the information I put out there and there’s an interesting synergy. This year I’m also doing a lot of live shows. A lot of times my agent emails me and says, “Here’s where you’re playing,” and I just go out and play my ‘guerilla tours‘ where I’ll hit a particular area of the country for a week or so. But then I’ll be back at home for a TV or movie score, some sessions or a production gig. Being a guitarist is what I do, have always done, and the fact that I’m busier than ever is truly a blessing.

LJ Plays the Beatles Vol. 2 is available on http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003U8O2OY/daytrippinmagazi

Marshall Terrill is the author of more than a dozen books. His latest, Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon (Triumph Books, 2010) is available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1600783880/daytrippinmagazi