“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” was Paul McCartney’s first number one after the breakup of the Beatles. Obviously, it would not be his last. We will have ample opportunity to see many more number ones from this giant of a musician. The single comes from the album Ram which was released in May of 1971 and was Paul’s second solo album. The single, “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”, was released on August 2.

Paul said later that there really is an Uncle Albert. He is Paul’s uncle and Paul was very fond of him. Admiral Halsey is also named after a real person, American Fleet Admiral, William “Bull” Halsey who died in 1959. The song is composed of several unfinished pieces from songs that came from the album Abbey Road.

Writing credit is given on the record to both Paul and Linda McCartney. Linda was Linda Louise Eastman. An American, she was born on September 24, 1941, the second of four children, to a Jewish family in New York City. This would make her not quite a year older than Paul. Her parents were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner. Her father was an attorney. A piece of trivia that I didn’t know was that one of his clients was the songwriter Jack Lawrence who wrote many songs during the Forties. One song he wrote was called “Linda” which is named after Linda Eastman. The song was a number one hit for the Ray Noble Orchestra with Buddy Clark on vocals.

There was some controversy as to whether Linda actually did write part of “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.” Paul says absolutely she did, but others, particularly Lew Grade, who owned Northern Songs, the publishing company that published Paul’s songs, said that Linda couldn’t write her way out of a paper bag. She was incapable of writing a song. So, who knows. I guess, since Linda has passed on, having died in 1998, we have to believe Paul.

Linda and Paul were married in 1969 and stayed married until her death in 1998. She was a lifelong animal activist and sang on many of the Wings albums during the Seventies and Eighties. Paul McCartney won a Grammy for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocals and the record sold over a million copies.

“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” entered the American charts on August 21, 1971 and spent just one week at number one. It was never released in Britain, so did not chart there at all.