Danny Fields:It was at that time, early in 1971, that Linda called me - it was the first time I'd heard her voice since she had left for London in September 1968. 'Hi, it's Linda. We're in town. Can we come over? Paul would love to meet you.' 'Sure.' '7 West 20th Street, right?' 'Right.' 'We'll be right over.' Nothing about 'I missed you', or 'I suppose you're wondering . . .', or anything to indicate that an unusually long period had gone by for two friends who used to talk every day. Linda was now operating on MST, McCartney Standard Time, and she would for the rest of her life. In their own minds, and in their lives, the McCartneys were the Greenwich Meridian. As the Queen is the Fountain of Honour, they were the Fountain of Events - this royal metaphor will be heard many times in this story, and from many sources. Linda wanted her 'new' husband and her old friend to like each other, and there was no problem with that from where I sat; there is no one more charming than Paul, and of course it was exciting to meet him, and great to see Linda again. Except for a certain deference towards her husband in her manner, which was certainly to be expected, she hadn't changed a bit.
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She took control of the situation, because she had to, and Paul offered the obligatory - and he offered it most graciously - 'Linda has told me a lot about you. I'm glad we're getting to meet each other.' One thing about meeting people who are very famous is that you cannot ask them very much about themselves; they have to do virtually all the asking. Otherwise, it's as if you were conducting an interview, and it just doesn't feel right. Besides feeling that it would have been a bit rude to ask a Beatle, 'So, what are you doing these days?', I didn't really want to work very hard at this whole renaissance. That was up to them. She'd turned her back, had found greener pastures, was now trying to re-establish something that once was, God bless her. I still loved her, and there was as always a little protective feeling towards Linda; I wanted to see what she'd brought home, so to speak. And I wanted the Beatle to perform, in my living room, to please his wife by pleasing me. I thought I was entitled to that, and besides, we were all too smart and grown-up for anything to go wrong; we were all going to make sure that everything was hunky-dory. I was working in a dead-end publicity job at Atlantic Records then, and was glad to chatter all about the Rolling Stones, David Crosby, Steven Stills. (Crosby had been a great friend of the Beatles; Stills had been a great friend of Linda's) and my beloved Stooges, whom I was managing on the side. It was very music business, and then it turned into Linda asking me about all our mutual friends; it was instantly clear that I was the only one of the old crowd she had contacted in the course of re-emerging into New York rock and roll society. Steve Paul, the owner of the Scene, was discussed, as was the crowd at Max's Kansas City, the Fillmore, the Chelsea, etc. We shared our devastation at the deaths of Janis and Jimi the previous autumn (Janis' close friend and biographer, Myra Friedman, would have appreciated hearing from Linda at the time Janis OD'd in LA; it was known that Paul and Linda had been in New York when it happened, but there was not a word of sympathy offered - the Fountain of Events syndrome starting to take shape), and of course Lillian's name soon came up. Where I had once described our mutual friend as 'not smiling wildly' at Linda's neglect, this time I just said, 'She's pissed.' 'Uh oh,' Linda acknowledged, but I knew she would do nothing about it. She was afraid to confront a pissed-off Lillian Roxon, as was everybody else. I told her she should call, but she never did. (Naturally, I told Lillian all about it as soon as they left. 'They must have a new record coming out,' she said most disdainfully. 'They need all her friends in the press back on their side. I'm not surprised they called you.' Meaning I was a pussy? I didn't pursue it. Lillian was sliding into deep detestation of her erstwhilebest friend.) Paul was staying out of the sentimental reminiscences, but when I remarked to Linda, 'Gosh, I miss your pictures, I wish there could be a book of them,' he came vividly to stage front. 'That's just what I've been saying!' he said. 'Her pictures are great! There should be a book, more than one, definitely!' 'Well it would be beautiful,' I replied. Linda asked me if I would work on such a project with her, and I said sure. The whole mood of the little get together had changed. If they were asking me to line up support for a forthcoming album or musical project of any kind, they were being so subtle that I didn't notice it. What Paul wanted was the rehabilitation of Linda in the public mind, as a photographer worthy of having her name on a book of her work, and he was really, really into the idea. It occurred to me right then that he thought the world should know that he had married a person who was remarkably talented, an artist in her own right. John Lennon had married a woman who was an artist in her own mind, and his; Paul was convinced that he had done just as well in picking a creative mate, probably better. I thought, 'Way to go!' It was a very good moment. And it was all about Linda. Paul loved her and wanted her to shine. He was proud of her, proud of the choice he had made, proud of the partnership that his fans and all the press had questioned the validity of from the very beginning. They were wrong; he was right; he had done very well, if they only knew ... It was my great pleasure to be an instrument in the campaign to prove that Linda McCartney was no groupie, no dizzy debutante, no destroyer of groups - that she was instead an incredibly smart, loving person with an astonishing gift for photography. Her pictures would speak for themselves, and the contempt would start to lift and vanish. How optimistic we were, and how long the fight was going to take. Because Paul wasn't going to be happy with just a book (or books) of Photographs from a beautiful woman who was a perfect wife and mother - he had to put her in his new band and so subject her to a whole new round of ridicule. In the long run, he was right: she rose to the challenge. In the shorter run, Linda would suffer greatly.
