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Paul was born at Walton Road Hospital in Rice Lane, Liverpool, on 18 June 1942, the first son of Mary and James McCartney. His brother Michael was born eighteen months later.
Mary McCartney was a midwife and the family moved to various addresses in Liverpool before settling in 20 Forthlin Road in 1955, where Mary died the following year due to breast cancer.
When Paul passed his 11-Plus examination in 1957 he entered the Liverpool Institute, a popular high school near the city center. While travelling to school on the bus, he met with a younger student, George Harrison. Another student was Ivan Vaughan who invited Paul to a fete at St. Peter's Church in Woolton where he introduced him to John Lennon, who was playing in a skiffle group he formed, called The Quarry Men.
Paul had been interested in music due to the influence of his father, who had once led his own jazz band locally. Paul was able to play some songs to John and wrote down the lyrics which led John to inviting Paul to join the group.
The Quarry Men underwent changes and when the residency at The Casbah Club began, they comprised of John, Paul, George, and Ken Brown. By that time they had introduced more rock n' roll numbers into their repertoire and Paul had been encouraging the group to perform their own original compositions. He began writing songs with John at Forthlin Road.
Although John was the leader of the group, Paul was the one who seemed to have the greatest appetite for success and worked hard to achieve it. He developed a healthy respect for the media and became an ideal spokesman. He was also full of ideas which he was to continue to introduce to the group throughout the sixties, wether it was through his designs of album sleeves or scripts for a TV special such as Magical Mystery Tour. He was also the member most keen on public performances.
The left-handed McCartney became the group's bass guitarist when Stuart Sutcliffe left the band in 1961. The majority of songs John and Paul wrote together were composed early on in their career, but they became established, the two songwriters generally wrote their numbers individually, although they agreed to credit all songs as "Lennon & McCartney" numbers. Paul, who had introduced numbers such as ,"Till There Was You","Besame Mucho", and "Falling In Love Again" to the early repertoire, veered toward romantic numbers and songs which indicated the influence of Hollywood musicals. Songs such as "Yesterday","Michelle","When I'm Sixty Four" and "Lovely Rita" are typical of McCartney compositions, while Lennon opted for more biting compositions, harder, more experimental and rockier numbers than Paul. Paul's interest in the traditional musical was evident in the hour-long TV special 'James Paul McCartney', in 1973 when Paul performed numbers such as "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance".
When the Beatles moved to London, Paul preferred to remain in the city center, while his fellow Beatles opted for houses in the outer suburbs. Paul always seemed the 'culture vulture' of the quartet, attending the theatre and acquiring paintings by artists such as Magritte. His longtime girlfriend, Jane Asher, aided him in cultivating his artistic tastes. To the media they seemed the perfect couple, but their five-romance came to an end because Paul continued to have affairs. Oddly enough, it was Paul rather than John who first began to experiment with avant-garde film-making.
After Brian Epstein was found dead in August 1967, Paul was determined to prevent the group from losing interest in their career and encouraged them to film Magical Mystery Tour; he even directed their promotional film for "Hello Goodbye" that same year.
Jane Asher suggested that he buy a farm in Scotland which could act as a retreat and he purchased property near Campbeltown. He'd also purchased a house in St. John's Wood, quite close to Abbey Road Studios.
Paul was the first Beatle to become involved in a major solo venture when he composed the music for the feature film, The Family Way in 1967. His interest in movies continued and he composed the title song for the James Bond film, Live and Let Die in 1973. The following year he composed the theme for the TV series 'The Zoo Gang' and in 1983 composed the theme music for the Michael Caine film, The Honorary Consul, while his biggest screen venture was the feature film Give My Regards To Broad Street in 1984.
In 1968 he began dating Linda Eastman and the couple were married in March 1969. Paul adopted Linda's daughter Heather and the couple had three children together, Mary, Stella, and James.
During the filming and the recording of the Let It Be project, tempers became frayed and George walked out of the project after an argument with Paul. He returned, but The Beatles were no longer the close team they used to be. A major split had developed between Paul and his three partners over the decision they made to appoint Allen Klein as manager, against Paul's wishes.
Paul recorded a solo album titled McCartney (1970), and had to argue with the other members and Allen Klein regarding its release date. He was to form his own rock group called Wings, which had several changes in personnel, but whose lineup always included his wife Linda on keyboards. His solo albums and those with Wings have included: Ram (1971); Wild Life (1971); Red Rose Speedway (1973); Band On The Run (1974); Venus and Mars (1975); Wings At The Speed Of Sound (1976); Wings Over America (1976); London Town (1978); Wings Greatest (1978); Back To The Egg (1979); McCartney II (1980); Tug Of War (1982); Pipes Of Peace (1983); Give My Regards To Broad Street (1984); Press To Play (1986); All The Best (1987); Flowers in The Dirt (1989); Tripping The Live Fantastic (1990); Unplugged: The Official Bootleg (1991); CHOBA B CCCP the russian album (1991); Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (1991); Off The Ground (1993); Paul Is Live (1993); Flaming Pie (1997); Standing Stone (1997). That is a total of 26 albums, in the past 28 years making Paul the hardest working man in the business, and that isn't even counting his Beatles work.
His singles have included: 'Another Day'/'Oh Woman Oh Why' (1971); 'Uncle Albert Admiral Halsey'/'Too Many People' (1971); 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish' (1972); 'Mary Had A Little Lamb'/'Little Woman Love' (1972); 'Hi, Hi, Hi'/'C Moon' (1972); 'My Love'/'The Mess' (1973); 'Live and Let Die'/'I Lie Around' (1973); 'Helen Wheels'/'Country Dreamer' (1973); 'Jet'/'Let Me Roll It' (1974); 'Band On The Run'/'Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five' (1974); 'Junior's Farm'/'Sally G' (1974); 'Listen to What The Man Said'/'Love In Song' (1975); 'Letting Go'/ 'You Gave Me The Answer' (1975); 'Venus and Mars Rock Show'/'Magneto and Titanium Man' (1975); 'Silly Love Songs'/'Cook Of The House' (1976); 'Let em' in'/'Beware My Love' (1976); 'Maybe I'm Amazed'/'Soily' (1977); 'Seaside Woman'/'B-side to Seaside' (1977); 'Mull of Kintyre'/'Girl's School' (1977); 'With A Little Luck'/'Backwards Traveller' (1978); 'I've Had Enough'/'Deliver Your Children' (1978); 'London Town'/'I'm Carrying' (1978); 'Good Night Tonight'/'Daytime Nightime Suffering' (1979); 'Getting Closer'/'Spin It On' (1979); 'Arrow Through Me'/'Old Siam Sir' (1979); 'Wonderful Christmastime'/'Rudolph The Red Nosed Raggae' (1979); 'Coming Up'/'Lunchbox-Odd Sox' (1980); 'Waterfalls'/'Check My Machine' (1980); 'Ebony and Ivory'/'Rainclouds' (1982); 'Take It Away'/'I'll Give You A Ring' (1982); 'So Bad'/'Pipes Of Peace' (1983); 'No More Lonely Nights'/'Lonely Nights (Disco)' (1984); 'Spies Like Us'/'Carnival' (1985); 'Press'/'It's Not True' (1986); 'Stranglehold'/'Angry' (1986); 'Only Love Remains'/'Tough On A Tightrope' (1987); 'My Brave Face'/'Flying To My Home' (1989); 'This One'/'The First Stone' (1989); 'Figure Of Eight'/'Ou Est Le Soleil' (1989); 'Birthday'/'Good Day Sunshine' (1990); 'Save The Child'/'The Drinking Song' (1991); 'Hope Of Deliverance'/'Long Leather Coat' (1993); 'Off The Ground' (1993); 'Biker Like An Icon'/'Biker (Live)' (1993); 'The World Tonight' (1997).
Paul has sold more records than any other artist in history. His achievements of late have included two classical compositions, a Grammy nomination for 1997's Album Of The Year for 'Flaming Pie', and a knighthood from Her Royal Highness The Queen for his contribution to music.
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