McCullough is on the phone from Scotland talking in his soft brogue. He says his career started long before Wings in dance bands.
"I was only young. I only knew about three chords," he says. "I asked the tenor player years later, 'How did I ever get the gig with you guys?' She says, 'Henry, it wasn't what you were playing. It was the noise you were making.
"And that's what it would have sounded like. These guys they used to sit down with little music stands. And you would play for four, five hours, sometimes six hours. You learned how to play old time waltzes and old-time waltz songs and all the rest of it. And it stood me in good stead in that original show band gig. Blues was unheard of, apart from what you could buy, LPs in the music shop. You would never have gotten away with it in the early '60s in Ireland. Ireland was pretty backwards then, as well.
"So it was dances that brought people together and it was a great apprenticeship for me."
McCullough says being at Woodstock was an incredible experience. "Joe Cocker was really shouting out. And, of course, with the Grease Band ... we'd worked together for a few years, so we were a very tight unit. And the only way to get the bands in was to fly them in to the backstage area. The place was just swamped with people. Miles and miles and miles. It was unbelievable. I remember coming into Woodstock over the crowd by helicopter.
"After Woodstock, it was that hippie thing. Peace and light whatever it was that was going on at the time. That changed. You had Altamont and whatever it was. Everybody had a lot of bad energy, compared to the Woodstock days. But I think the Woodstock gig finished all that sort of stuff. But it was magnificient," he says.
"On the day we never got to go and mix with any people apart from the people backstage. You're flown in and you hung around with the people backstage, you did your gig, you hung around for another little while, you got on the helicopter back to the Holiday Inn and you're away off to Atlantis or Georgia for some other gig or festival. It was in and out, but you could not mistake the feeling of peace and love and understanding," he said.
McCullough said he had no idea "Jesus Christ Superstar," on which he played guitar on the original studio release, would become the global sensation it did.
"None whatsoever," he says in answer to a question about its influence today. "It was the Grease Band that did that -- Henry McCullough, Alan Spenner, Bruce Rowland. The Grease Band wasn't doing very much. We were at loose ends. We ended up doing a lot of session work for Donovan, 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' 'Evita,' Eric Burdon. A lot of people. It's what kept the band alive."
He got connected with Wings while he was still involved with the Grease Band. "It was when the Grease Band was doing stuff. And I had known Denny Laine from different places. He asked me if I would be interested in taking a gig with Paul McCartney? And I said, 'Of course.' Who wouldn't have wanted to do it at that particular stage? We got invited out to this show with Paul. And we hadn't met before. And we jammed for three days and played a bit of this and a bit of that and stuff. And after the third day, he says, 'Great, Henry. Do you want to join a band?' And I said, 'Of course, of course.' And that was it.
"We give our hearts to each other. And that's the way it was. It was a very special time. And when you were through that with somebody like Paul, in my case I always felt very protective of him."
McCullough tells a story about a reunion with Denny Laine.
"We were up in Scotland and Denny was playing the night before we due to play. We were staying at the same hotel. The gig was downstairs. And I went down to say hello and it was the first time I'd seen him since 1973, '74. So it was nice to see him. And he says, 'Will you come to play a tune?' And I said, 'Sure.' At the end of his concert, he says, 'There's a man here. We've played together and he's going to come up and join us for this song that Paul and I wrote.' Well, the minute I heard that I was out the door like a rocket. And I went up and actually locked meself in the bedroom. If it's one song I never wanted to play, it was 'Mull of Kintyre.' I know the effect it had on people, but after having left it behind, I just couldn't do it."
Paul McCartney acknowledged Henry's contributions when he was on tour in Dublin.
"It was a very generous thing for him to do. I'd been in touch with the office through Denny Seiwell. And I said to him, 'Can you give Paul a ring and tell him I want to see the gig in Dublin?' And he got back fairly sharp and said, 'It's all arranged, Henry.' And so we went down to Dublin and talked for about 40 minutes.
"And he was due on stage at 8:15. And at five minutes to eight we were still talking. And I said, 'I'm going to go here and give you a minute to yourself.' He says, 'The guitar player in the band is going to be playing the solo in 'My Love.' And he said, 'I want to bring you in and acknowledge you're here.' So he was able to get the numbers of our seat. And halfway through, he said, 'This is a song I'm dedicating to a man in the audience.' He was ever so generous. I took a bow, but I was also waving at the same time. And he was very kind with his words. I think I signed more autographs in the toilet at the 02 in Dublin where Paul played than I done in these last 15 years."
He describes his new album, "Unfinished Business" on the Silverwolf label as the best Sunday morning album ever. It's a album that shows off his musical roots and includes some songs from other artists he's worked with through the years, including a remake of Paul McCartney and Wings' "Big Barn Bed." It also includes a song Ronnie Lane called "Kuschty Rye." The Grease Band played with Lane and the Faces on an American tour.
McCullough says he's a survivor, but he's loved it all.
"Lot of stuff I've done over the years. But I look back at it now and I say, 'Jesus, how did I get through that?' My whole career has been fantastic from the minute I got onstage."
