Paul McCartney to Reissue New Editions of 'Band on the Run'

Sir Paul McCartney will officially launch the new 'Paul McCartney Archive Collection' series on Nov. 2 with a reissue of his classic 'Band on the Run' album. To this day, 'Band on the Run' remains McCartney's most successful post-Beatles release, recorded with his post-Beatles band, Wings, in 1973. The new reissue will be available any which way you like -- a single-disc standard edition, a 3-disc special edition, a 4-disc deluxe edition or, finally, a 2-disc 180gm vinyl edition.

After its original release in Dec. 1973, 'Band on the Run' earned all sorts of accolades, including a Grammy Award and a spot on top of the U.S. album charts three different times. It sold more than 7 million copies and landed two chart-topping singles with both the oddly anthemic title track and the runaway hit 'Jet.'

But it's the behind-the-scenes story of how the album got made that catapulted it to mythical status among Macca fans. Recorded on-location in Lagos, Nigeria (due to McCartney's notion that he wanted to record somewhere exotic), half the band quit right before the recording sessions, leaving only the bassist's wife, Linda McCartney, and ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine -- along with longtime Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick -- to accompany McCartney in the foreign land. The sweltering heat and otherwise problematic recording conditions were tolerable, if not ideal, but when they were mugged at knifepoint, the thieves jacked all the demo tapes -- Wings had to record the album working entirely from memory. It was a weird two months.

Some of the extras in the special and deluxe editions include a DVD with footage of the group in Lagos, video of the cover shoot, promotional clips, and 'The One Hand Clapping' television special, which features live performances from Abbey Road Studios in 1974. The deluxe edition comes with a hard bound book containing previously unpublished photos and artwork, and so on and so forth. Ironically, the vinyl will come bundled with MP3 downloads -- because, sometimes, even audiophiles and Beatles purists, need to take their band on the run.