Scotsman Obituaries: Denny Laine, singer and guitarist best known for Wings

The former song was originally a Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller-produced heartbreaker, astutely appropriated by Laine at a time when British beat groups were in thrall to US R&B; the latter a chart behemoth, shifting two million copies (more than any Beatles track) to become the biggest selling British single until Band Aid.

Conceived one whisky-fuelled night at High Park farm and described by McCartney as a love song to his Kintyre bolthole, it colonised the Christmas charts over 1977/78 with its misty-eyed romanticism and the rousing skirls of the Campbeltown Pipe Band.

Along with Paul and Linda McCartney, Laine was the only other constant member of Wings, appearing on albums such as Band on the Run and Venus and Mars.

He first crossed paths with McCartney in the early Sixties when his teenage band, Denny Laine and the Diplomats, played on the same bill as the Beatles. It was to be a fateful encounter. Eight years later, following stints as the original lead singer of The Moody Blues and in Ginger Baker’s Air Force supergroup, he received a call from McCartney to join his back-to-basics post-Beatles rock’n’roll band – it was an offer worth the demotion to backing vocalist, as his harmonies and multi-instrumental contributions were crucial in propelling the band towards credibility.

Post-Wings, Laine pursued his own solo career but continued his association with McCartney, playing on his solo albums Tug of War and Pipes of Peace. With bittersweet synchronicity he died, aged 79, on the 50th anniversary of the US release of Band on the Run.

“He was an outstanding vocalist and guitar player,” said McCartney. “We had drifted apart but in recent years managed to re-establish our friendship and share memories of our times together.”

Laine was born Brian Frederick Hines in the Channel Islands but grew up in Birmingham where music loomed large from a young age. Inspired by his own Romani background, he gravitated to the gypsy guitar style of Django Reinhardt but was also a fan of the nascent rock’n’roll, especially Buddy Holly.

The teenage Hines formed his first band, Denny Laine and the Diplomats, with future ELO drummer Bev Bevan, while working in a local department store. His pop star alias was a composite of a childhood nickname pertaining to the den in his backyard and the surname of his sister’s favourite singer Frankie.

He was next approached to join R&B band the M&B Five, who changed their name to The Moody Blues in 1964. That same year they scored their first big hit, Go Now!, adding an exclamation mark to the Bessie Banks original. Laine’s plaintive vocal delivery helped take the song to the top of the UK charts and into the US Top Ten.

He stuck around for debut album The Magnificent Moodies but the band were unable to follow up their initial splash. Laine quit in 1966 to be replaced by Justin Hayward and The Moody Blues rebooted their career as pseudo-psychedelic mystics.

Laine, meanwhile, had formed the Denny Laine String Band with Trevor Burton of The Move and Pretty Things drummer Viv Prince. They gigged with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Procol Harum but their amplified symphonic pop failed to take off, leaving that runway clear for fellow Brummies the Electric Light Orchestra some years later.

Laine was similarly ahead of his time with his sublime but unsuccessful solo single Say You Don’t Mind, which was later a Top 20 hit for Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone.

He formed his next outfit, Balls, with Burton in early 1969, recording an album which was never released. Teaming up with Ginger Baker in jazz fusion supergroup Air Force was more of a sure thing – Laine contributed vocals and guitar alongside Steve Winwood and Graham Bond, playing the Royal Albert Hall and Wembley Stadium in a short-lived but high-flying adventure. His next move was to prove his most enduring. Laine was a pivotal member of Wings from 1971 until the band’s split in 1981, singing lead vocals on Time to Hide and The Note You Never Wrote on 1976 album Wings at the Speed of Sound.

However, his favourite Wings album was Band on the Run, which he recorded with the McCartneys in Lagos following the departure of guitarist Henry McCullough and drummer Denny Seiwell. “The input I had on that album made it special to me,” he recalled.

During the Seventies, he also recorded two solo albums, 1973’s Aah…Laine and 1977’s Holly Days, the latter made with the McCartneys.

Laine enjoyed the deluxe lifestyle with his new wife Jo Jo. Their home in Sussex became a party pad but there were financial difficulties on the horizon. McCartney’s marijuana bust in Japan was the start of the end for Wings and Laine’s steady income stream. He left the band under a cloud and did not reconcile with McCartney until the late Nineties, at which point he was touring with World Classic Rockers, a Las Vegas heritage rock act featuring members of Toto, Steppenwolf and Badfinger.

In 2018, Laine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Moody Blues and had announced tour dates for 2023 – instead, his fellow musicians played a benefit concert for him at LA’s Troubadour as he underwent various surgeries before succumbing to lung disease.

Denny Laine is survived by his wife Elizabeth Hines, son Laine Hines and daughter Heido Jo from his first marriage, and three children from other relationships.

Obituaries

If you would like to submit an obituary (800-1000 words preferred, with jpeg image), or have a suggestion for a subject, contact [email protected]

​