Growing Wings: The Making of a Paul McCartney and Wings Exhibition
How a Lifelong Listener Came to Curate Music History at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
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Written by Andy Leach, Senior Director of Museum & Archival Collections at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, where he leads the museum’s Collections and Library & Archives teams. He curates exhibitions, works with artists, donors, and lenders to expand the museum’s holdings, and hosts public programs. He previously worked at the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago. He is also a guitarist who performs with bands in and around Cleveland.
Many of us feel like certain musical artists have always been part of our lives, and Paul McCartney is one of those for me. Like countless others, I’ve loved the music of the Beatles since a young age. When I was around eight or nine, the first record I ever bought was the double-LP Beatles compilation 1962-1966 (“the Red Album”), not long after being captivated by 1967-1970 (“the Blue Album”) from my parents’ record collection. I absorbed the sounds of both albums and immersed myself in their lyrics. A few years later, after getting my first guitar, many of the earliest songs I learned to play were Beatles songs. My ear was always drawn to Paul’s vocal lines, which taught me how to sing harmonies, and to his melodic bass playing, which has shaped how I’ve approached the instrument ever since.
In high school, I went further — collecting every Beatles album, reading everything I could about the band, listening more closely and appreciating how different each record was from the one before, as well as how innovative and groundbreaking their sounds were. Through the Beatles, I was also introduced to a much broader world of popular music — 1950s R&B and rockabilly, Motown and girl groups, country and soul — and came to understand how interconnected it all is.
These were the beginnings of how I learned to engage deeply with music, understand it, and explore its history. That curiosity soon extended into Paul’s post-Beatles work, beginning with his debut solo album McCartney, whose homegrown, DIY aesthetic resonated with me; then the beautiful and eccentric RAM; and eventually the masterful Band on the Run. In the mid-1990s, the Anthology project — featuring the Beatles’ demos, alternate takes, and abandoned ideas — pushed me to dig deeper into how music is written, recorded, and preserved. Experiences like these led me to pursue a music degree and later move into the archival profession. That path ultimately brought me to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where I now serve as curator of its new major exhibition, Paul McCartney and Wings.
It’s been a genuine honor to work on an exhibition that has brought together the largest collection of artifacts from Paul’s personal archive ever publicly displayed — something that still feels extraordinary to me. Along with items from Wings members and others associated with the band, the exhibition tells the story of Paul and Wings through instruments, clothing, handwritten lyrics, original album artwork, tour memorabilia, previously unseen photography, and archival audio and video — creating an immersive experience of music, film, images, and memory.
It all began in the simplest way possible. In May 2023, I was on a business trip in London, so I reached out to a couple of acquaintances at Paul’s company, MPL, to introduce myself in person and start a conversation about ways we might expand his presence in our museum. As it turned out, the timing was perfect. MPL was already developing several projects centered on Paul and Wings throughout the 1970s, including a new book, a box set, and a documentary — Man on the Run, now streaming on Prime Video. What started as an open exchange of ideas gradually evolved into something much more defined: the first major museum exhibition devoted to Paul McCartney and Wings.
The exhibition opened in May 2026, almost exactly 50 years after Wings’ performance at Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, on May 10, 1976, during the Wings Over America tour. With our museum based in Cleveland, I wanted to include something meaningful for Northeast Ohio music fans, so within the exhibition’s interactive experience, visitors can explore that 1976 concert through rare recordings, photographs, and archival materials tied to the show.
As you might imagine, when you work at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there are moments that feel especially profound as a music fan. I had one of those moments in February 2026, when I found myself back in London, in the space where Paul’s personal archive is stored, helping prepare his artifacts for their journey to Cleveland. I came face to face with objects that have been part of my musical life for decades — guitars used on recordings I’ve heard since childhood, handwritten lyrics that shaped songs I can sing in my sleep, and original artwork accompanied by Paul’s handwritten notes showing creative decisions he made about album covers I’ve lived with for years.
One of the most memorable experiences during that visit was spending time with George Martin’s original handwritten orchestral scores for “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey” and “Live and Let Die.” Seeing how those arrangements were constructed — instrument by instrument, note by note — made it even clearer how central Martin’s musical imagination had been in shaping the Beatles’ sounds, far beyond the role of a traditional record producer. Engaging with these manuscripts also brought back memories of my time as a music student and later as a music archivist, while offering a new perspective on music I thought I already knew intimately.
What I’ve taken away most from curating this exhibition is just how remarkable the story of Wings is. In the aftermath of the Beatles’ breakup, Paul entered a period of independence, renewal, and evolution. He formed Wings — with his wife Linda McCartney, Denny Seiwell, and Denny Laine — not as a continuation of his past success, but as a reinvention rooted in family, collaboration, and a willingness to take creative risks. Wings blended music and daily life in ways that challenged expectations of what a rock band could be, with Paul asking Linda to join and drawing inspiration from their marriage and their children, who traveled with them on tour. The group also pushed the boundaries of live performance, experimenting with lighting, staging, and presentation that helped define the spectacle of 1970s rock. They continued to evolve in both lineup and sound, leaving a legacy of brilliant songs, originality, and an adventurous spirit.
The deeper I’ve gone into the history, the more I’ve come to appreciate Linda’s role in all of this. Not only did she support Paul in ways that made his work possible and anchor their family life, but she also served as his creative partner, and her vocal harmonies are an integral part of the Wings sound. She shaped the fashion and aesthetic of Paul and Wings in ways that are essential to their story. I was especially glad to be able to include one of Linda’s cameras in the exhibition — a powerful reminder of her work as a photographer and of how much of the band’s visual identity comes through her eye.
A particularly rewarding part of this project has been getting to know people who were part of the story. Conversations with Wings members Denny Seiwell, Steve Holley, and Laurence Juber, among many others, have added depth and dimension to work that a collection of artifacts can’t provide on its own. I was fortunate to meet Denny Laine a few times over the years through his visits to our museum, and reconnecting with his widow during this process has been a meaningful example of how these historical stories are also personal. I truly wish Denny could have seen this exhibition, but I’m grateful that he’s represented in it through guitars, clothing, and other artifacts that help tell the story of an essential member of Wings.
Of course, exhibitions like this don’t arrive fully formed. They develop slowly, through countless hours of work and thousands of discussions, decisions, and revisions. Over the past year, it’s been remarkable to watch this one come together piece by piece. Research is done with archival materials, books, articles, and recordings. Artifacts are selected one by one. Film footage and numerous images are reviewed. The story gradually reveals itself and is shaped into text about the musicians and the artifacts. The objects are arranged in a way that best tells the story, both for longtime fans and for those who don’t yet know it. The whole thing is assembled like a puzzle. And eventually, something that once existed only as an idea becomes something you can walk through and experience.
When the exhibition opened to the public on May 15, 2026, I was standing in the gallery as the first group of fans flooded in. I was surprised at how moving this was for me, as I hadn’t really considered what it would feel like to watch people experience it for the first time. It was powerful to see them flow through the space, swaying and singing along to the music, being drawn in by the films, encountering objects they knew well but had never seen in person, and discovering details they hadn’t known before. There is such a joyous energy when people recognize songs, photographs, artifacts, or film clips and connect them with their own memories. Each time we open a new exhibition at our museum, we’re reminded that the story it tells is never final at the moment of opening — it continues each day as visitors bring their own histories into the space.
After working toward this for a few years, it’s striking to see it now come to fruition, and it feels deeply rewarding in a way that goes beyond just curating a museum exhibition. I’m fortunate to work alongside my colleagues at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as well as my friends at MPL, all of whom have approached this project with exceptional care and shared enthusiasm. In some ways, putting together this exhibition has echoed the spirit of Wings itself — a group defined by collaboration, continual reinvention, and a willingness to keep building something new as it evolves. It’s brought together people with different skills, strengths, and perspectives, all working toward something larger than any one person’s contribution.
Working on an exhibition isn’t so different from making music — there’s inspiration and vision, uncertainty and discovery, finding a common rhythm, learning to communicate in new ways, taking risks, and a lively exchange between individual ideas and the collective. The story of Wings, and this exhibition, is about working together to start again, building something from the ground up, and moving it forward even when the path ahead isn’t always clear. This is what Wings has come to represent to me, and what I’ve learned about curating exhibitions — that creative journeys can unfold in unexpected ways. You begin without knowing exactly where it will lead, and over time, through collaboration and dedication, you make something you’re proud to share — something that grows wings and takes flight.
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What a wonderful piece--and what a remarkable man and band!