Sir James Paul McCartney MBE, often affectionally nicknamed Macca, is a very well known singer/songwriter and rock and roll star. He is a former member of The Beatles, the 1960s group which to many is considered the best and most influentual band of all time. Although it is somewhat little known he is also an animal rights activist, has composed large-scale musical works, written poetry, painted artpieces and written children's picture books. He is often largely credited with the transformation of 1950s rock and roll into the modern rock and pop genres.

Childhood and Youth

Paul McCartney was born on 18 June, 1942 in Liverpool. He was the only of the four Beatles to be born in a hospital, because his mother Mary McCartney worked there a nurse. His brother ¹ was born the following year. Paul’s mother died due to breast cancer in 1956 when Paul was just 14. Paul's father Jim McCartney, a self taught pianist and trombonist and clarinet player was first musical influence and bought Paul his first guitar.

Although Paul McCartney and fellow Beatle George Harrison attended Liverpool Institute School, Paul was two year older than George and they only knew each other because they caught the same school bus together. George looked up to and admired the older McCartney very much, and their friendship grew gradually until Paul asked to George to join The Beatles.

According to Sir Paul, the music lessons he attended at the school did nothing to help him become the legend he is today:

"The music lessons were awful, they consisted solely of the teacher leaving us in a room to listen to music. The students used to turn it down and tell jokes".

Today Paul McCartney owns the site where he and Harrison went to school and as lead patron has transformed what became a derelict building into the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. McCartney hopes to give the students there a better musical education than he had and sometimes visits them to teach songwriting skills.

In 1957 McCartney met John Lennon at a church fete in Liverpool. This was the beginning of a strong friendship and songwriting partnership. Soon after they met they began writing with each other and the partnership produced some of popular music's best known songs.

Beatles (1960-1970)

John was so impressed by the skills Paul showed the first time that they met that he asked Paul to join his skiffle band, at that time named The Quarrymen. McCartney joined the group and later introduced George Harrison to the band. The Quarry Men originally consisted of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and Ken Brown. When Ken Brown left, Pete Best replaced him, and The Quarry Men changed their name a number of times, eventually settling on The Beatles, most likely to be a reference to Buddy Holly's backing group, the Crickets. In 1960, Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr.

After changeing their name to The Beatles and making their sound more rock and rollish than skiffleish, the Beatles played regularly at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and visited Hamburg a number of times.

Stuart Sutcliffe left the band in the early 60s and died soon after, leaving the Beatles without a bass player. Neither Lennon nor Harrison was willing to play bass, so McCartney took it on and played the bass guitar left-handed and upside down.

McCartney also sang and wrote many of The Beatles' songs. It is generally easy to determine which are Paul's songs, as most Beatles songs are sung by the band member who wrote them, but there are exceptions. Some of Paul's best known Beatles songs were Yesterday, Hey Jude and Let it Be.

The Beatles went on to become the most successfull band of the 60s the world over, and had 27 number one UK or US singles. In 1965 McCartney and the other members of the Beatles received MBEs.

A rumor arose in around 1967 that Paul McCartney had died in a car accident and was replaced by Billy Shears. Many people suggested that the lyrics of the songs the Beatles wrote were the key to acknowledging that this was true. There are other 'clues' on the album covers of 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' and 'Abbey Road'. There is some basis to the myth, McCartney was indeed involved in a motorcycle accident on Wednesday 9 November, 1966.

In 1969, despite obvious signs that the band was falling apart, he attempted to convince The Beatles to return to the stage, suggesting the Get Back project, which evolved into their valedictory film and album 'Let It Be'. Although McCartney hoped it might revive them, the film made it obvious that the band was done as a creative force and that bickering, jealousy and the pressures of being The Beatles had driven the four musicians apart.

Today McCartney is recognised as one of the most creative and influential rock bassists of his time and is seen as a promoter of the electric bass. In particular, his mid and late 1960s and early 1970s basslines, initially inspired by Brian Wilson's work on the Pet Sounds album, venture out of the stereotypical root bass-playing standard and often act as a counter-melody in their own right - occasionally challenging the lead guitar work - and have influenced countless musicians. Paul has never learnt to read sheet music. He is considered one of the most talented members of the rock scene and is self-taught on a wide variety of instruments including the piano, trumpet, flugelhorn, glockenspiel and drums. Sir Paul is sometimes cited as one of rock and roll's best guitarists.

Going Solo

At around the same time as the bitter break up of the Beatles in 1970, Paul launched his solo album 'McCartney' playing all the instruments and doing all the singing, except for the backing vocals by his wife Linda, who also toured with McCartney. she was greatly criticised for this, especially by the press.

The 'McCartney' album featured two big hits for Paul; Maybe I’m Amazed and Every Night.

A year later, Paul put out the stand-alone single Another Day/Oh Woman, Oh Why and the album 'Ram'. 'Ram' featured the song 'Too Many People', a stab at former band-mate Jonh Lennon, who retaliated with the brutally cruel 'How Do You Sleep'.

Wings (1971-1980)

McCartney soon got lonely as a solo artist and found himself desiring to put together a band of his own. In his own words:

"I didn’t really want to keep on going as a solo artist, just me and my guitar, so it became obvious that I had to get a band together. Johnny Cash had just come back, and he had a band and was touring. Linda and I talked it through and it was like, ‘Yeah, but let’s not put together a super group, let’s go back to square one'."

According to Paul the band remained nameless until one evening he was praying for his wife and their baby when an image of wings came into his head and so he named the band Wings. The line-up changed a number of times, but originally consisted of Paul (Bass, Lead Vocals), Linda (Piano, Vocals), Denny Laine (Guitar) and Denny Seiwell (Drums).

During Wing’s time the band toured universities and small European venues. They had phenomenal success with the album 'Band on the Run' in 1973. Even John Lennon, who rarely complimented McCartney reviewed the album saying "It says 'Wings' but it's Paul McCartney music - which is great stuff." The band had several other hit songs including the James Bond theme tune Live or Let Die, Silly Love Songs, and most famously Mull of Kintyre.

In 1980 Wings disintegrated and McCartney was a solo artist once more. In that same year John Lennon was famously assassinated,

Lennon and McCartney never did see eye to eye after the break up of The Beatles although relationships seemed to have softened for some years before John's death. Lennon and McCartney played and sang together in a March 1974 jam session. John once said he was proud to have been associated with an artist of McCartney's calibre, and there were strong suspicions in his final year that the two of them were planning to collaborate once more.

Going Solo (Again)(1981-2005)

During McCartney’s lifetime he's had the privilege of working with some other top artists beside Lennon, such as Stevie Wonder on the classic song Ebony and Ivory and Michael Jackson with the hit tunes The Girl is Mine and Say Say Say.

In 1984 the much-criticised film 'Give My Regards to Broadstreet', which Paul wrote and starred in, premiered in New York.

In 1984 McCartney attained the Freedom of the City Of Liverpool award.

Also in the late 1980s, McCartney started composing music with Elvis Costello. The most well known of the Costello-McCartney relationship being the 1989 hit Veronica and My Brave Face. Soon after this, McCartney got together a new band with his former wife Linda McCartney, featuring Hamish Stuart, Robbie McIntosh, Paul 'Wix' Wickens and Chris Whitten and together they made the number one album Flowers In The Dirt.

McCartney is also capable of composing and playing classical music. His first full-length work, Liverpool Oratorio, which he co-wrote with Carl Davis, premiered at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral in 1991. Today Liverpool Oratorio has played over 100 performances and has even been released on album.

Liverpool Oratorio also featured on MTV and in memory of that performance McCartney released the limited edition album Unplugged: The Official Bootleg before launching a new MTV series called Up Close in 1992.

1992 also saw McCartney achieve the world's first Swedish Polar Music Award, a Nobel-prize for music and reveal his animated short film Daumier's Law, at the Cannes Film Festival, which he co-produced and composed the score for. Daumier's Law received a BAFTA award for the best short animated film at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards.

In 1993 McCartney embarked on 'The New World Tour' and during this tour he set a few more world records to go alongside the 1990s world record of the biggest stadium crowd in history (184,000), in Rio. These world records were for 20,000 tickets for two arena shows sell out in eight minutes; and Broadcast Music Inc. officially announces that 'Yesterday' has passed its six millionth USA airplay, making it the most-played song on radio.

The remaining Beatles joined forces again in 1994 to release their Anthology of Beatles songs. There were three albums all together that were released over the years and although Lennon was missing from the line up he was still very much alive through the music. Sadly McCartney and Lennon’s later wife Yoko Ono were brought into a feud over the Anthology for McCartney desired to change the credits from the traditional 'Lennon-McCartney' to 'Paul McCartney and John Lennon' as he believed he did the most work. Finally, McCartney had to back down as his fellow Beatles members agreed with Yoko in keeping the traditional.

During the following year McCartney was again kept busy with his appearance on The Simpsons, with his former wife Linda, trying to convince Lisa Simpson to take up being a vegetarian. He also appeared in Remember Live Aid a BBC radio play and took part in a 15 part series radio show in America called Oobu Joobu. As if this wasn’t enough, Paul’s solo piano piece A Leaf is composed which world premiered at a charity concert organised by him. After seeing McCartney’s musical talent for himself the Prince of Wales awarded McCartney with the title Fellow Of The Royal College Of Music. He also exhibited his film Grateful Dead: A Photofilm at the London Film Festival.

With the arrival of 1996, the McCartney’s (Paul and Linda) achieve a special award for their work in promoting animal care by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Before McCartney became Sir Paul McCartney on New Years Eve as he is knighted by HM The Queen for services to music.

1997 also was a hectic year for McCartney with interviews with Oprah and Sir David Frost, recording a public service announcement against drink-driving and headlining a charity concert in order to benefit people in Montserat. That same year McCartney also achieved the prestigious Q Magazine award as Songwriter of the Year for 'Flaming Pie'.

Death of Another Legend

Sadly in 1998 McCartney’s former wife Linda (Eastman) McCartney passed away due to breast cancer. McCartney and Linda Eastman first met at the launch party for Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on June 1, 1967 and two years later the singer and American photographer were happily married at Marylebone Registry Office. McCartney adopted Linda’s daughter Heather from her first marriage and the couple went on to have three children together, Mary, Stella and James.² Both of them became vegetarians and animal-rights activists during their lives and Linda McCartney even set up her own vegetarian food range.

During 1999, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, supported the Free Tibet campaign by speaking out in protest against the imprisonment of political prisoners and continues support with other charities. He made an unscheduled performance at the Royal Albert Hall at the rock tribute to Linda McCartney organized by Chrissie Hynde and went back to recording at Abbey Road Studios this time to create a rock and roll album in tribute to all rock and roll heroes. He was also voted ‘The Composer of the Millennium’ in a poll conducted by the BBC and pledged that Linda McCartney products would be free from GM ingredients.

In 2000 McCartney’s vegetarian diet was working wonders, as Little, Brown and Co. publishes Paul McCartney - Paintings, the first book of Paul's paintings and The Beatles Anthology which he wrote with other former Beatles was published in 8 different languages and being sold worldwide. He also achieved the first Fellowship of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters at the annual Ivor Novello Awards in London and picked up the (New Musical Express) NME readers ‘Brat’ award for Best Band Ever.

2001 was especially poignant to McCartney for he and his wife Heather McCartney saw the 9/11 devastation occur. It was because of this that McCartney took a lead role in the organisation of the Concert for New York City which happened on the 20 October, 2001 and celebrated the resilience, and pride of New York and America in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Also during that year McCartney saw his song lyrics and poetry anthology Blackbird Singing published in the UK and America and he threw a tea party at Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew which celebrated the release of scarves with designs made by his former wife in 1998. McCartney also held a few recitals of his anthology, launched the new British charity Adopt a Minefield UK and attended the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of his animated film Tuesday. While also scooping up the prize for TOTP Hall of Fame, playing at the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize, giving a performance at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford and receiving the 2001 Arts Award at the Men Against Violence world awards in Vienna.

Artist and Fundraiser

McCartney is obviously an artist of words but how many people knew he painted on canvas too? Primarily, his painting skills were for his eyes only, but as of April 1999, McCartney had his work displayed for the first time in Siegen, Germany, where it was greatly admired. Being successful McCartney decided to showcase his work all over the UK and now it can be seen at various exhibitions throughout the UK including the Walker Art Gallery which he opened in 2002 and where he met the Queen after his honeymoon with former Heather Mills. Also in 2002 he was asked by the Isle of Man Post Office to be the first musician to design stamps for them. While his song Vanilla Sky for Cameron Crowe's film of the same name was nominated both for a Golden Globe award and for an Oscar in the best song in a movie category.

That same year, Amnesty International presented Paul with a special award, which recognises his lifetime support for the freedom-fighting organisation and his efforts to try right wrongs through his protest songs such as the 60s black civil rights song 'Blackbird' and Freedom, at a ceremony in New York. Not long after this award McCartney led a post 9/11 tribute to the American heroes at the Super Bowl in New Orleans where he performed ‘Freedom’.

Like many years 2002 was a very hectic year for McCartney career wise, but he also took time out of his busy schedule to marry former model and anti-landmines campaigner, Heather Mills at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, County Monaghan, Ireland. McCartney has always been seen as the best-looking Beatle and ironically was the last Beatle to marry. During his lifetime he has also gone out with actress Jane Asher. Today due to the influence of his present and former wives has become a great campaigner in many different causes and has many children with the latest off spring Beatrice Milly who was born on October 28, 2003.

He is also a fan of animation and in 2004 McCartney created the short animated films Tropic Island Hum, Tuesday and Rupert and the Frog Song. While his talent with words has led him to create a volume of poetry entitled Blackbird Singing as well as a children’s story book called High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, which was released in October 2005.

While many people looked up to him as he performed 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' with U2 in Live 8 on 2 July 2005 before returning on stage later to close the show with 'The Long and Winding Road'. McCartney was the first person on 13 November, 2005 to have a music concert beamed into space. The concert included a new song called 'English Tea' which was produced for McCartney's new album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.

McCartney and the other Beatles all took and experimented with a number of different drugs. The began taking drugs back in their Hamburg days, where they'd take "prellies" to keep them awake, playing long sets at clubs. Bob Dylan introduced the band to marijuana, and they became heavy users. In 1967, McCartney openly admitted to taking LSD. McCartney has admitted to trying cocaine and heroin. In January 1980, Sir Paul was held in a Japanese prison for ten nights before being deported after 225 grams of marijuana was found in his luggage. Later he reflected on the experience by saying "I was in a little cell, on my own. It took me a few days to get used to it...I was like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape-except I didn’t have the baseball to bounce". He says he no longer takes any drugs. If you are interested in finding ot more about Sir Paul and drugs, take a look here.

Over the years McCartney has had many people influence him as a person and his music. Musicians that are particularly note worthy to influencing McCartney have been Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

During McCartney’s lifetime he has tried out various pseudonyms Some of the reasons suggested for this is because he wants to prove that his work is not a success just because he is involved, or because he wants to guage the public reaction before putting his name to something. In 1967 The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's "I'm the Urban Spaceman" was produced by Paul, who was credited as "Apollo C. Vermouth". 1977 an orchestral version of Ram was created under the name Percy 'Thrills' Thrillington and in the 1990’s he used the name The Fireman on various projects. McCartney even tried out the name Paul Ramone while a part of the Beatles before making it clear he was Paul McCartney.

Awards and Acknowledgements

In 1985, McCartney sang 'Let it Be' at Live Aid and the next year received the American Music Awards' Award Of Merit and was inducted into the Guinness Hall Of Fame.

Then in 1988 McCartney was awarded an honorary doctorate by Sussex University and honoured with Music Therapy's Silver Clef award. For which he returned his gratitude by singing to autistic children in the BBC documentary The Power of Music.