Classic Tracks: Paul McCartney's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"

Bach, Beethoven — those guys may edge a legendary musician or group out over the long haul, but will any musician ever have a more explosive short-term impact on the world than The Beatles did during their great run that ended with the release of Abbey Road in 1969? After the group splintered and each bandmember was left to his own devices, it came as no surprise that the prolific Paul McCartney, whose cherubic smile masked a flinty resolve, was first out of the gate. McCartney, released in 1970, yielded the hit “Maybe I'm Amazed” and remained on the charts for nearly a year. Not bad for an album recorded entirely at home.

Always a workhorse, McCartney began writing material for his next album, Ram, while the first album was still sailing on the charts. Although some critics fault Ram, which was released on May 17, 1971, as the saccharine effort that began a slide into camp from which McCartney has never fully recovered, McCartney's hauntingly beautiful touch can be heard throughout the album and is particularly evident in “Back Seat of My Car” and “Ram On.” Ram also produced the smash single “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” which combines McCartney's knack for memorable melodies with some of that theatricality he was always prone to.

Rhythm tracks for “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” were cut in Studio B at CBS Studios on East 52nd Street in Manhattan, with CBS staff engineer Tim Geelan at the desk. Now semi-retired and living in a house that he built into the side of a mountain in Virginia, Geelan cut 22 songs with McCartney during a six-week period in 1971.

“Working on ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ was one of the highlights of my career,” says Geelan, whose long list of credits includes engineering for Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Billy Cobham, The Dictators, Blue Öyster Cult and many others. “Paul was a great producer: thorough, businesslike and loose at the same time. They were very comfortable sessions that followed a pattern. We'd start working at nine or 10 in the morning. Paul would show Denny Seiwell, the drummer [who would later become an original member of Wings], and David Spinozza and Hugh McCracken, the guitar players who split the date, the song we'd be tracking that day. After rehearsing for several hours, we'd cut a version of the tune and then have a lunch break. After lunch, we'd listen to what we had and then record another couple of takes if it was necessary.

“We had a 3M MM-1000 16-track recorder and a homemade console at CBS. Studio B was a big room, about 40 or 50 feet long and 50 feet wide with a 40-foot-high ceiling. We didn't worry about bleeding at all. The setup was real tight and everyone had headsets. Paul was absolutely the best. I was impressed with his musicianship and command of the studio.”

Dixon Van Winkle remembers the Ram sessions well. A young staff member at A&R Recording in New York City at the time, Van Winkle had been on the job for about six months when McCartney and his wife, Linda, showed up after scheduling conflicts forced them out of CBS. “I was a setup man in those days,” says Van Winkle. “Phil Ramone was the king of large orchestral recordings in New York at the time. He didn't have that many guys around who had gone to music school and could read scores, which I was able to do. So I had some value to Phil, who asked me to work with him on the Ram sessions.”

A&R had four studios in Manhattan; A1 was located in the penthouse at 799 7th Ave. “A1 was one of those magical New York rooms — arguably the best of them all,” Van Winkle says. “Originally a CBS studio, it was large enough to handle a full orchestra and it sounded great. We had a warm, fat vacuum tube Altec console that had been custom-built with handmade sidecars and four Altec 604E speakers across the front room, each powered by a 75-watt McIntosh tube amplifier.

“Paul came over to A&R to track the orchestra, vocals and some other overdubs with Phil. But Phil had a scheduling conflict one day and Paul asked me to take over. Things went well, and then Paul asked me if I'd finish the record with him.

“Security was tight, and each day Paul and Linda would come up the back elevator with their kids and a playpen, which we set up in the front of the control room. I was a part-time nanny since Mary would often be crawling around the console and sitting on my lap! The interplay between Paul and Linda was sweet, especially when they were on-mic. Linda actually came up with some parts on her own — the entire backing vocals on ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ consists of the two of them — but when she needed a hand, Paul was great with her. We used a combination of U87s — if we were working on something smooth — and Shure SM57s for the rockier stuff throughout the album. Paul didn't care what mic you put on him, although he did like the U87. He's such a great singer. I know that the vocals they cut over at CBS are Paul singing live right off the floor with the rhythm section into an Electro-Voice RE20, which was a relatively new mic at the time. They recorded the telephone section [of the song] over at CBS, as well. That character voice was also Paul, with a simple highpass filter engaged to give the telephone effect.”