Denny Laine, a British singer, songwriter and guitarist, who was Paul McCartney’s longtime sideman in the ex-Beatle’s solo band Wings, has died at age 79.
Laine, inducted five years ago into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Moody Blues, died Tuesday in Naples, Fla.
He had been battling with interstitial lung disease, according to an announcement on Laine’s Instagram page by his wife, Elizabeth Hines.
On Tuesday, McCartney posted a tribute to Laine on his Instagram page.
“We had drifted apart but in recent years managed to reestablish our friendship and share memories of our times together,” McCartney wrote.
Laine worked as a solo artist and with such group’s as Electric String Band and Ginger Baker’s Air Force before he was brought into Wings by McCartney.
McCartney disbanded Wings soon after Laine left in the early 1980s, but Laine contributed to McCartney’s “Tug of War” and “Pipes of Peace” albums and added backing vocals to “All Those Years Ago,” George Harrison’s tribute to the late John Lennon.
