Paul McCartney's First Three Solo Albums

In the spring of 1970, it was already a turmoil-filled, depressing time in my life, at the time thirteen years old and suffering the pangs of early adolescence. I certainly didn't need to hear that my favorite band, the Beatles, were breaking up...but they did, with Paul McCartney releasing his self-titled first solo album and declaring their end.  Even though the Fab Four would still release their Let It Be album (ironically dubbing it as a "new phase Beatles album"), there would be no more new, highly anticipated material produced.  Instead, John, Paul, George and Ringo would be producing stuff on their own...although they would still be getting by "with a little help from their friends".  It took me a while to get a copy of McCartney...my first solo album of his was his 1971 second album Ram.  It had been foreshadowed for weeks by the radio play of one of its tracks Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, a rambling light-hearted childlike medley of Paul singing with his wife Linda.  I listened to Ram repeatedly and got to seriously like it, with tracks like Too Many People, Ram On, Smile Away and Eat at Home becoming my favorites on it...even today some 52 years later.  Back then I just had a phonograph in my room with no earphones, so I probably drove others in my house crazy...especially my mother...as I cranked up the volume.  Other notable tracks on Ram are Heart of the Country, Dear Boy, Long Haired Lady (a favorite of my sister) and Back Seat of My Car...Monkberry Moon Delight, on the other hand, was (and still is) utterly horrendous.  Later I would pick up a copy of the debut 1970 album McCartney and, while not liking it as much as Ram, I did gravitate to the songs That Would be Something and Every Night, the latter I already knew from radio play as well as Maybe I'm Amazed, Paul's ode to Linda.  Paul recorded McCartney by multitracking his own instrument play (he played all of them) with Linda's singing being his only collaboration with others.  By the time in late 1971 he came out with his third non-Beatles album, Wild Life, he had formed a subservient band Wings around himself and his wife...but Paul McCartney was always the boss pure and simple, and the backing crew either followed his lead or they left.  Back in 1971, although I had liked Ram, something within me had changed and I didn't even want to give Wild Life a listen...it wouldn't be until just recently in 2023 when I listened to the album, largely panned by critics, in its entirety.  I would hear over the years radio play of two of its Side One tracks: Love is Strange (a cover of an old Mickey and Sylvia hit) and the title track, in which McCartney wails and loses his composure...not very pretty.  Now I kind of like the whole album, including the two aforementioned songs that I used to hate.  My favorite tracks are Bip-Bop...which Paul himself has later criticized...and the opening, rousing piece Mumbo.  I also like Side Two's Tomorrow a lot.  It's funny what a half century of living in the intervening years can do with one's musical tastes...I'm looking forward to hearing the next three Paul McCartney albums he did with Linda and his band Wings back in the early-to-mid 1970s.  For the purposes of this blog, I will refer to everything McCartney did under the name "Wings" as solo work, since after all he was the one running the show...