Scottish musician Jimmy McCulloch guitarist was born on June 4th 1953 in Dumbarton.
Jimmy knew he wanted to be a musician from a young age and was in his first band by the time he was 11 in group called the Jaygars, with his older brother Jack. The brothers progressed together to the group later One In A Million, who released two singles, supported The Who and played at the famous 14-Hour Technicolour Dream event at Alexandra Palace in London — still two months before Jim’s 14th birthday.
In 1969, McCulloch joined Thunderclap Newman, whose Andy Newman was friends with the guys out of the Who, Pete Townshend produced and played guitar bass guitar on their only hit, the one hit wonder Something in the Air.
The group didn’t last long but the song remains one that is often heard on the golden oldies shows nowadays, it gave McCulloch a valuable springboard as a guitarist and writer, and in the early 1970s he was an in-demand session player, he later joined the cult Scottish group Stone the Crows
But it was Jimmy’s time in Wings that gave him the biggest global recognition. Recruited by McCartney to play on the Susie and the Red Stripes project for his wife Linda (which produced the single ‘Seaside Woman’), he became an official member of Wings in 1974. He appeared on the ‘Junior’s Farm’ single, a top three hit in the US that made the UK top 20. He stayed with them for around three years, but always a man with itchy feet he jumped ship when the chance to play with the reformed Small Faces came about.
Jimmy died of a drug-related heart attack in north London in September 1979, and we can only wonder about what else he would have gone on to achieve.
“He was always a little dangerous,” Paul McCartney said of the fresh-faced, hard-living guitarist. “In the end, he was just too dangerous for his own good.”
