Paul McCartney

Sir Paul McCartney MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM
McCartney performing in England, 2010
Background information
Birth name	James Paul McCartney
Born	(1942-06-18) 18 June 1942 Liverpool, England, UK
Genres	Rock, pop, classical, electronica
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, music producer, film producer, businessman
Instrument(s)	Vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, drums
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Apple, Capitol, Columbia, Decca, Hear, Parlophone, Polydor, Swan, Vee-Jay
Website	www.paulmccartney.com

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and his collaboration with Lennon is one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. Following the band's break-up, he pursued a solo career and formed the group Wings with his first wife Linda Eastman and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.

McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as both the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles, and "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history. His Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song in the history of recorded music. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre", co-written with Laine, is one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA-certified units in the US.

McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, and has released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist. He has taken part in projects to promote international charities, been an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism and music education, campaigned against landmines and seal hunting, and supported efforts such as Make Poverty History. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 25,000 songs, including those written by Buddy Holly, as well as the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, Annie and Grease. He is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010. He has been married three times and is the father of five children.

Childhood

Main article: Jim and Mary McCartney

McCartney was born on 18 June 1942, in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had qualified to practise as a nurse. His father, James ("Jim") McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. Paul has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944. Though Paul and Michael were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, religion was not emphasised in their household; Jim was a Protestant turned agnostic who felt Catholic schools sacrificed the education of their students for the sake of their religious teachings.

McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School from 1947 to 1949, when he was transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School due to overcrowding at Stockton. The following year, he passed the 11-plus exam with three others out of ninety examinees and gained admission to the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while taking the bus to the Institute from his home in the suburb of Speke, he met fellow schoolmate George Harrison, who had also passed the exam, meaning he could go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work. The two soon became friends, though McCartney admits: "I tended to talk down to him, because he was a year younger."

McCartney's former home, 20 Forthlin Road

Mary was the McCartney family's primary wage earner, and her job as a midwife allowed them to move into 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived until 1964. Paul was the first member of his family to own a car, and his mother rode a bicycle to homes where she worked; he describes an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning [the] streets ... thick with snow". On 31 October 1956, when he was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer, diagnosed several years prior. McCartney's loss of his mother was later a point of relation with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, died when he was seventeen.

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s. He kept an upright piano, purchased from Harry Epstein's North End Music Stores, in the front room of their home, and he encouraged his sons to be musical. Jim's father, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba. Jim used to point out the bass parts in songs on the radio, and often took his sons to local brass band concerts. He gave Paul a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, Paul traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, rationalising that it would be too difficult to sing while playing a trumpet. Being left-handed, he found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his right-handed guitar strung the opposite way. He then restrung his guitar and found it easier to play. McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on the Zenith. When he composed an early tune that would later become "When I'm Sixty-Four", he used a piano, for which, despite his father's advice, he took only a couple of lessons, preferring instead to learn by ear. He was heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues music, and Little Richard was his idol when he was in school. The first song McCartney performed in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.

Musical career

Main article: Paul McCartney's musical career

1957–1960: The Quarrymen

Main article: The Quarrymen

At the age of fifteen, McCartney met Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957. The Quarrymen played an even mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz, blues and folk influences. McCartney joined the group soon after and formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in 1960 by Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass. By May 1960 they had tried several names, including Beatals, Johnny and the Moondogs and the Silver Beetles, touring Scotland under the last name as a supporting act for fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. The name of the group was changed to the Beatles in mid August 1960, and drummer Pete Best was recruited before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg, Germany.

1960–1970: The Beatles

Main article: The Beatles

McCartney with Beatles bandmates Lennon, Harrison and Starr, 1964

In 1960, the Beatles were being informally represented by Allan Williams. His first booking for them was a series of performances in Hamburg. During their extended stays there over the next two years, they performed as the resident group at two of Bruno Koschmider's clubs, the Indra, then the Kaiserkeller. Periodically, the band received breaks from playing in Hamburg, and would return to Liverpool, performing regularly at the Cavern Club. In 1961, Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player. The Beatles recorded professionally for the first time while in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie". This brought them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962. Epstein negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone that May, Ringo Starr replaced Best in August, they had their first hit, "Love Me Do", in October, and were suddenly immensely popular in the UK in 1963 and in the US a year later. Their fans' frenetic glorification became known as "Beatlemania", during which McCartney was sometimes referred to by the press as the "cute Beatle". In 1963, the band released two studio LPs: Please Please Me and With the Beatles, and in 1964, two more followed: A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale. McCartney contributed to several of their early hits including "I Saw Her Standing There", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (1963), "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964), and "We Can Work It Out" (1965), all of which were co-written with Lennon.

In 1965, the Beatles released the McCartney composition "Yesterday", featuring a string quartet. Included on the Help! LP, the song was the group's first recorded use of classical music elements and their first recording that involved only a single band member. "Yesterday" became the most covered song in popular music history. Later that year, during recording sessions for the album Rubber Soul, McCartney began to supplant Lennon as the dominant musical force within the band. Musicologist Ian MacDonald writes, "from [1965] ... [McCartney] would be in the ascendant not only as a songwriter, but also as instrumentalist, arranger, producer, and de facto musical director of the Beatles." Rubber Soul is described by critics as a significant advancement in the refinement, and thematic profundity of the band's music, which was beginning to broaden, as they explored increasingly complicated facets of romance and philosophy in their lyrics. The song "In My Life", of which both Lennon and McCartney claimed lead authorship, is widely considered a high point in the Beatles catalogue. McCartney says of the album, "we'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand." Recording engineer Norman Smith states that the Rubber Soul sessions exposed indications of increasing contention within the band, "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious ... [and] as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right—Paul was absolutely finicky."

In 1966, the Beatles released Revolver. Featuring sophisticated lyrics, studio experimentation, and an expanded repertoire of musical genres ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelic rock, the album marked an artistic leap forward for the Beatles. The LP's release was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", the first of three consecutive McCartney A-sides. The Beatles produced a short promotional film for the song, and for its B-side, "Rain". The films, described by Harrison as "the forerunner of videos", aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops, in June 1966. Revolver also featured the McCartney song "Eleanor Rigby", which included a string octet. "A neoclassical tour de force ... a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song", writes Gould. With the exception of some backing vocals, the song included only McCartney's lead vocal and the strings arranged by producer George Martin. Included on the LP were, "Here, There and Everywhere", a McCartney composition which after "Yesterday", he considers his finest, and "For No One", a song MacDonald considers "one of McCartney's most perfect pieces".

After touring almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than 1,400 live performances internationally, the group gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour. Later that year, McCartney was commissioned for what would be his first musical project apart from the Beatles, a film score for the UK production, The Family Way. The score was a collaboration with Martin, who used two McCartney themes to write thirteen variations. The soundtrack failed to chart, but it won McCartney an Ivor Novello Award for Best Instrumental Theme.

Front cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "the most famous cover of any music album", writes Beatles biographer Bill Harry.

McCartney, sensing unease upon the end of the band's performing career, and wanting them to maintain creative productivity, pressured the other Beatles to start a new project, which eventually became Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Widely regarded as rock's first concept album, McCartney was inspired to create a new persona for the Beatles, a vehicle for experimentation, and to demonstrate to their fans that the band had matured as musicians. McCartney explains, "we were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys, we were men ... and [we] thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers."

In November 1966, the band adopted an experimental attitude during recording sessions for the album. Engineer Geoff Emerick explains, "the Beatles were looking to go out on a limb, both musically and sonically ... we were utilising a lot of tape varispeeding and other manipulation techniques ... limiters and ... effects like flanging and ADT." Their recording of "A Day in the Life" required a forty-piece orchestra, which Martin and McCartney took turns conducting. The sessions produced the double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967, and the LP followed in June. Written by McCartney as a commentary on his childhood in Liverpool, "Penny Lane" featured a piccolo trumpet solo inspired by Bach's second Brandenburg concerto. Also included on the album was "She's Leaving Home", an orchestral based pop song written by McCartney. MacDonald describes the track as, "[among] the finest work on Sgt. Pepper — imperishable popular art of its time."

Based on an ink drawing by McCartney, which depicted the Beatles standing in front of a wall featuring framed images of their heroes, the Sgt. Pepper cover piqued intellectual curiosity and analysis. A collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, it featured the Beatles in costume, as the imaginary band alluded to in the album's title track, standing with a host of celebrities. The Beatles' heavy moustaches reflected the growing influence of hippie style trends on the band, while their clothing "spoofed the vogue in Britain for military fashions", writes Gould. Scholar David Scott Kastan describes Sgt. Pepper as, "the most important and influential rock-and-roll album ever recorded."

"After Brian died ... Paul took over and supposedly led us you know ... we went round in circles ... We broke up then. That was the disintegration. I thought, 'we've fuckin' had it.'"

~ John Lennon, Rolling Stone magazine, 1970

Epstein's death in August 1967 created a void, and the group was left perplexed and concerned about their future. McCartney, stepping in to fill that void, gradually became the de facto leader and business manager of the group Lennon had once led. McCartney's first creative suggestion after this change of leadership, was to propose that the band move forward on their plans to produce a film intended for television, which was to become Magical Mystery Tour. The project was "an administrative nightmare throughout", writes Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn. The film was largely directed by McCartney, and it garnered the group's first significant antagonistic critical response. However, the film's soundtrack was more successful. Released in the UK as a six-track double extended play disc (EP), the material was issued as an identically titled LP in the US, filled out with five of the band's recent singles. The only Capitol compilation later included in the group's official canon of studio albums, the Magical Mystery Tour LP achieved $8 million in sales within three weeks of the release, setting a record for the highest initial sales of any Capitol LP up to that point.

In January 1968, the group were filmed for a promotional trailer for the animated movie Yellow Submarine, a production based loosely on the imaginary world evoked by McCartney's 1966 composition. Though the animated film was generally admired by critics for its visual style, humour and music, the movie's soundtrack album was issued seven months later to a less enthusiastic response. By late 1968, relations within the band were deteriorating. The situation became strenuous during the recording of The Beatles, commonly known as the White Album. It was the band's first Apple Records LP release, and the new label was a subsidiary of Apple Corps, formed as part of Epstein's business plan to provide the group tax relief. Tensions increased the following year during the Let It Be sessions, when McCartney was filmed lecturing the group: "We've been very negative since Mr. Epstein passed away ... we were always fighting [his] discipline a bit, but it's silly to fight that discipline if it's our own". In March 1969, McCartney married Linda Eastman, and in August, the couple had their first child together, Mary, named after Paul's late mother. For Abbey Road, which was to become the band's last recorded album, George Martin had suggested "a continuously moving piece of music", urging the group to think symphonically. McCartney concurred, but Lennon opposed the idea. They eventually agreed upon McCartney's suggested compromise, featuring individual songs on side one, with side two including a long medley. In October 1969, a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966 and been replaced by a look-alike, but this was quickly proven false when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family with the caption, "Paul is still with us".

By 1970, following business disagreements over the group's management, McCartney found himself pitted against his bandmates, leading him to announce his departure from the Beatles on 10 April. He filed suit for the group's formal dissolution on 31 December 1970. More legal disputes followed, as McCartney's representation, his in-laws John and Lee Eastman, fought Lennon, Harrison and Starr's business manager Allen Klein over royalties and creative control of musical projects. The band was formally dissolved in an English court on 9 January 1975, though sporadic lawsuits against their record company EMI, Klein and each other persisted until 1989. When the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, their first year of eligibility, McCartney did not attend, stating that unresolved legal disputes would make him "feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with [Harrison and Starr] at a fake reunion."

The Beatles released twenty-two UK singles and twelve LPs, of which seventeen of the singles and eleven of the LPs became number ones. The band topped the US Billboard Hot 100 twenty times, and recorded fourteen number-one albums as Lennon and McCartney became one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. McCartney was the primary writer of five of their last six US number-one singles: "Hello, Goodbye" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), "Get Back (1969)", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" (1970).

1970–1981: Wings

Main article: Wings (band)

"I didn't really want to keep going as a solo artist ... so it became obvious that I had to get a band together ... Linda and I talked it through and it was like, 'Yeah, but let's not put together a supergroup, let's go back to square one.'"

~ McCartney

After the Beatles' break-up in 1970, McCartney continued his musical career, releasing his first solo album, McCartney, a US number-one which contained the stand-out track "Maybe I'm Amazed", written for Linda. With the exception of some vocal contributions from her, it is a one-man album, with Paul providing all the instrumentation himself. McCartney peaked in the UK at number two, spending thirty-two weeks on the charts. In 1971, Paul collaborated with Linda and drummer Denny Seiwell on a second album, Ram, a UK number-one, and a US top-five, it included the co-written US number-one hit single "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". Later that year, the McCartneys and Seiwell were joined by ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine to form the group Wings and release their first album together, Wild Life, a US top-ten, and a UK top-twenty. Wild Life stayed on the UK charts for nine weeks. On the band's formation, McCartney comments: "Wings was always a difficult idea ... any group having to follow [the Beatles'] success would have a hard job ... I found myself in that very position. However, it was a choice between going on or finishing, and I loved music too much to think of stopping." In September 1971, the McCartney family welcomed a second child, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers, who were both named Stella.

Following the addition of guitarist Henry McCullough, Wings' first concert tour began in 1972, with a début performance in front of an audience of seven hundred at the University of Nottingham. Ten more dates followed as they travelled across the UK in a van during an unannounced tour of universities, which had the band staying in modest accommodation and receiving pay in coinage collected from students, while conscientiously avoiding playing any Beatles songs during their performances. A seven-week, 25-show tour of Europe followed, during which the band played solely Wings and McCartney solo material, with the exception of a few covers, including the Little Richard hit, "Long Tall Sally", the only song McCartney played during the tour that had previously been recorded by the Beatles. McCartney wanted the tour to avoid large venues; most of the small halls they played had capacities of fewer than 3,000 people. Of his first two post-Beatles tours, McCartney said, "The main thing I didn't want was to come on stage, faced with the whole torment of five rows of press people with little pads, all looking at me and saying, 'Oh well, he is not as good as he was.' So we decided to go out on that university tour which made me less nervous ... by the end of that tour I felt ready for something else, so we went into Europe."

In March 1973, Wings achieved their first US number-one single, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, a US number-one, and a UK top-five. In May, they began a 21-show tour of the UK, this time along with supporting act Brinsley Schwarz. Paul's collaboration with Linda and former Beatles producer George Martin resulted in the James Bond theme song and Wings top-ten hit, "Live and Let Die". The song was nominated for an Academy Award, and it earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement. Music professor and author Vincent Benitez describes the track as "symphonic rock at its best". The song became a staple of McCartney's live show, its modern sound well-suited for the pyrotechnics and laser light displays Wings employed during their 1970s stadium performances.

After the departure of McCullough and Seiwell in 1973, Paul, Linda, and Laine recorded Band on the Run. The widely acclaimed album was a massive success that became the first of seven platinum Wings' LPs. It was a US and UK number-one, the band's first to top the charts in both countries and the first ever to reach Billboard magazine's charts on three separate occasions. One of the best-selling releases of the decade, it remained on the UK charts for 124 weeks. Rolling Stone named it Album of the Year for 1974, and in 1975 it won Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary/Pop Vocal and Best Engineered Album. Band on the Run became the UK's first platinum LP. In 1974, Wings achieved a second US number-one single with the release's title track. The recording also included the top-ten hits "Jet" and "Helen Wheels" and is regarded by some as McCartney's finest post-Beatles work, earning the 413th spot on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 1974, as the LP was enjoying widespread success, McCartney hired guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton to replace McCullough and Seiwell. Britton subsequently quit during recording sessions in 1975 and was replaced by Joe English.

McCartney during a Wings concert, 1976

Wings followed Band on the Run with the chart-topping albums Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976). In 1975, they began a fourteen-month excursion, Wings Over the World Tour, which included stops in the UK, Australia, Europe and the US. The tour marked the first time McCartney was willing to perform Beatles songs live, and he included five in their two-hour set list, which were "I've Just Seen a Face", "Yesterday", "Blackbird", "Lady Madonna" and "The Long and Winding Road". Following the second European leg of the tour and extensive rehearsals in London, they undertook an ambitious US arena tour that yielded the US number-one live triple LP Wings over America.

In September 1977, a third child was born to the McCartneys, a son they named James. In November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre", co-written with Laine, was fast becoming one of the best-selling singles in UK chart history. The most successful single of McCartney's solo career, achieving double the sales of previous record holder "She Loves You", the track went on to sell 2.5 million copies and hold the UK sales record until it was displaced in 1984 by the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?". In 1977, McCartney released the album Thrillington, an orchestral arrangement of Ram, under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington, with a cover designed by Hipgnosis.

London Town (1978) spawned a US number-one single, "With a Little Luck", made the top five in both the US and the UK, and was Wings' best-selling LP since Band on the Run, but critical reception was unfavourable, and McCartney expressed disappointment with it. Though the certified platinum LP, Back to the Egg (1979), passed with little critical acclaim, it involved McCartney's collaboration with a rock supergroup dubbed "the Rockestra". Though credited to Wings, the band included Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. During the recording of London Town, McCulloch and English quit Wings; they were replaced by guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holly. Wings completed their final concert tour in 1979, with twenty shows in the UK that included the live début of the Beatles songs "Got to Get You into My Life", "The Fool on the Hill" and "Let it Be".

In 1980, McCartney released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II. A UK number-one, and a US top-five; as with his first album, he composed all the music and performed the instrumentation himself. The album contained the song "Coming Up", the live version of which, recorded in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1979 by Wings, would become the group's last number-one hit.

By 1981, McCartney felt he had accomplished all he could creatively with Wings and decided he needed a change. The group disbanded in April 1981 following disagreements over royalties and salaries; tension caused by the critical, artistic and relative commercial disappointment of their last effort, Back to the Egg; and McCartney's 1980 marijuana bust in Japan, which resulted in the cancelling of the tour and caused a massive loss of wages for the group. Laine claimed that a significant cause of their dissolution was McCartney's reluctance to tour, fearing for his personal safety after the 1980 murder of Lennon. McCartney's then-spokesman said, "Paul is doing other things, that's all".

Wings produced a total of seven studio albums, two of which topped the UK charts and four the US charts; their live triple LP, Wings over America, was one of a few live albums ever to achieve the top spot in America. They also recorded six US Billboard number-one singles, including "Listen to What the Man Said", and "Silly Love Songs" as well as eight top-ten singles. They achieved eight RIAA certified platinum singles and six platinum albums in the US. In the UK, they achieved one number-one and twelve top-ten singles, as well as two number-one LPs.

1982–1990

In 1982, following the dissolution of Wings, McCartney collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin-produced number-one hit, "Ebony and Ivory", included on McCartney's Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller. Tug of War was a number-one album in both the UK and the US. The following year, he worked with Jackson on what would be McCartney's most recent US number-one as of 2012, "Say Say Say". McCartney earned his latest UK number one, as of 2012, with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace". The Pipes of Peace LP is McCartney's most recently recorded RIAA certified platinum studio album, as of 2012, a top-five in the UK, and a top-twenty in the US.

In 1984, McCartney starred in Give My Regards to Broad Street, a feature film he also wrote and produced. A musical that included Ringo Starr in an acting role, it was widely disparaged by critics. Variety described the film as "characterless, bloodless, and pointless". Roger Ebert awarded it a single star and wrote, "you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the soundtrack", and indeed the album fared much better, reaching number one in the UK and producing the US top-ten hit single "No More Lonely Nights", featuring David Gilmour on lead guitar. In 1985, McCartney was commissioned to write a song for the comedic feature film Spies Like Us. He composed and recorded the title track in four days with Phil Ramone co-producing; the song is McCartney's most recent US top-ten single as of 2012. Also that year McCartney participated in Live Aid, performing "Let it Be", though technical difficulties meant his vocals were barely audible for the first eight verses, and his piano, though audible, was punctuated by squeals of feedback. The problems were resolved by the end of the song and McCartney was joined on stage by David Bowie, Townshend, Bob Geldof and Alison Moyet, receiving an ethusiastic crowd reaction.

McCartney collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), and Stewart co-wrote more than half the songs on the LP. Press to Play was a top-ten hit in the UK, and it reached #30 in the US. In 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, an album released only in the Soviet Union that contained eighteen covers that he recorded over the course of two days. In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders Gerry Marsden and Holly Johnson to record an updated version of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, when ninety-five Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries. The recording was a number-one hit in the UK. That same year, he released Flowers in the Dirt, a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello that included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins. It is McCartney's most recent UK number-one album as of 2012; it reached #21 in the US.

Later that year, McCartney formed a band consisting of him and Linda, with Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh on guitars, Paul Wickens on keyboards and Chris Whitten on drums. In September 1989, they launched the Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade, which yielded the triple album Tripping the Live Fantastic, a UK top-twenty, it reached #26 in the US. During the ten-month, 104-show tour, the most ambitious ever for an ex-Beatle, he played as many as fourteen Beatles songs a night; nearly half the performance. In 1990, the US publication Amusement Business presented McCartney with an award for the highest grossing show of the year; his two performances at Berkeley earned over $3.5 million. He performed for the largest paying stadium audience in history when 184,000 people attended his concert at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 21 April 1990.

1991–2000

McCartney ventured into orchestral music in 1991, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with composer Carl Davis to produce Liverpool Oratorio. The performance featured opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral. Reviews were generally poor. The Guardian was especially critical of the work, describing the music as "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo", and stating that the piece has "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole". The paper published a letter McCartney submitted in response in which he stated: "Happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to ... let people judge for themselves the merits of the work." The New York Times was slightly more generous, stating, "There are moments of beauty and pleasure in this dramatic miscellany ... [t]he music's innocent sincerity makes it difficult to be put off by its ambitions". After its premiere in London, the Liverpool Oratorio was performed around the world. It gained popularity among classical music audiences, and it reached number-one on the UK classical chart, Music Week.

In 1991, McCartney performed acoustic-only songs on MTV Unplugged and released a live album of the performance called Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). The LP was a top-ten in the UK, and a top-twenty in the US. During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated twice with Youth of Killing Joke as the musical duo "the Fireman", which released their first electronica album together, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, in 1993. Released in 1993, the rock album Off the Ground, a top-five in the UK, and a top-twenty in the US, was followed by the New World Tour, which resulted in the UK top-forty LP, Paul Is Live, later that year. For the tour, Whitten was replaced by drummer Blair Cunningham. His 1993 tour of the US was the second highest grossing effort of the year in America, bringing in $32.3 million from twenty-four shows.

Starting in 1994, he took a four-year hiatus from his solo career to work on Apple's Beatles Anthology project with Harrison, Starr and Martin. He recorded a radio series called Oobu Joobu in 1995 for the American network Westwood One, which he described as "wide-screen radio". Also in 1995, Prince Charles presented him with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Music—"kind of amazing for somebody who doesn't read a note of music", commented McCartney. In March 1997, he was knighted for services to music.

In 1997, McCartney released the rock album Flaming Pie. A UK and US #2 LP, it also yielded his highest charting UK top-twenty hit song as of 2012, "Young Boy", which reached #19. Starr was featured on drums and backing vocals the track, "Beautiful Night". Later that year, he released the classical work Standing Stone, which topped the UK and US classical charts. In 1998, Rushes, the second electronica album by the Fireman was released. In 1999, he released Run Devil Run. The LP reached #12 in the UK, and #27 in the US. Recorded in one week, and featuring Ian Paice and David Gilmour, it was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals, something he had been planning for years, having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died in April 1998, seventeen months after being diagnosed with cancer. He contributed the song "Nova" to a tribute album of classical choral music dedicated to her called A Garland for Linda (2000).

He continued his experimentation with orchestral music on Working Classical (1999) and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in March of the same year. In May 2000, he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. In August, he released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s.

2001–present

After witnessing the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney was inspired to take a lead role in organising the Concert for New York City. His studio album release in November of that year, Driving Rain, included the song "Freedom", written in response to the tragedy. The LP reached #26 in the US, and #46 in the UK. The following year, McCartney formed a band with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and Abe Laboriel, Jr. on drums. They began the Driving World Tour later that year, which included stops in the US, Mexico and Japan. The tour resulted in the double live album Back in the U.S., released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World. Back in the U.S. reached was a top-ten in the US, and Back in the World was a top-five in the UK. He performed twenty-three Beatles songs in a thirty-six song set, including an all-Beatles encore. The tour earned a reported $126.2 million, an average of over $2 million per night and was named top tour of the year by Billboard and Pollstar. In November 2002, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George. He participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing "Freedom" in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. The English College of Arms honoured McCartney in 2002, by granting him a coat of arms. His crest reflects his background in Liverpool, and his musical career, featuring a Liver Bird holding an acoustic guitar in its claw. The shield includes four curved emblems which resemble beetles' backs. The arms' motto is Ecce Cor Meum, Latin for "Behold My Heart".

McCartney and Starr standing on a stage facing each other both with microphones help up to their mouths. Both men are wearing dark suits, McCartney is wearing a pink shirt, and Starr a black-and-white print.

McCartney and Starr promoting The Beatles: Rock Band in 2009

In June 2005, McCartney released the electronica offering Twin Freaks, a collaborative project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career. In July, he performed at the Live 8 event in Hyde Park, London, opening the show with, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and closing it with, "The Long and Winding Road".

In September, he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, on which he provided most of the instrumentation himself. His most recent top-ten album as of 2012, the LP reached #6 in the US, and #10 in the UK. It was supported by a UK top-twenty hit single, his most recent as of 2012, "Fine Line", which failed to chart in the US, and "Jenny Wren", which reached #22 in the UK. He followed the album's release with the 'US' Tour, the tenth top earning act of 2005 in the US, which took in over $17 million in ticket sales for eight shows. During the opening performance of the tour he played a setlist consisting of thirty-five songs, of which twenty-three were Beatles tracks.

In 2006, McCartney released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum. The album reached #2 on the classical charts in both the UK and the US. The rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007. The LP reached #3 in the US, spending fifteen weeks on the chart. As of 2012, it remains his most recent top-five album. In 2008, he released his third Fireman album, Electric Arguments, which reached #67 on the Billboad 200, and #1 on the Independant Albums chart. Also in 2008, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, after a four-year break, he returned to touring and has since performed over 80 shows. More than forty-five years after the Beatles first appeared on American television during the Ed Sullivan Show, he returned to the same New York theatre to perform on Late Show with David Letterman. Later that year, on 9 September 2009, the Beatles catalogue was reissued following a four-year digital remastering process. A music video game called The Beatles: Rock Band was released the same day.

McCartney's enduring fame has made him a popular choice to open new venues. In 2009, he played three sold-out concerts at the newly built Citi Field in Queens, New York, constructed to replace Shea Stadium, which yielded the double live album Good Evening New York City, released later that year. In 2010, he opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Among the last of the great classic rock artists to make their catalogue available online, in November 2010 the Beatles released the official canon of thirteen Beatles studio albums, Past Masters, and the 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 greatest-hits compilations on iTunes.

In 2011, McCartney released Ocean's Kingdom, a collaboration with Peter Martins and McCartney's first score for dance; the work was commissioned by the New York City Ballet. Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, was released in February 2012; that same month he was honoured as MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Grammy Awards.

As of 2012, McCartney remains one of the world's top draws. Playing to over 100,000 people total during two performances in Mexico City in May, the shows grossed nearly $6 million. The band performed thirty-seven songs during the 8 May performance, twenty-three of which were Beatles tracks. In June 2012, McCartney closed the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace, performing a set that included "Let It Be" and "Live and Let Die". He confirmed he would close the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London in July.

Musicianship

As a musician McCartney is largely self-taught. Musicologist Ian MacDonald describes his approach as, "by nature drawn to music's formal aspects yet wholly untutored ... [he] produced technically 'finished' work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears ... [A] natural melodist—a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony". McCartney comments: "I prefer to think of my approach to music as ... rather like the primitive cave artists, who drew without training."

Bass guitar

McCartney's skill as a bass player has been acknowledged by a diverse group of bass players including Sting, long-time Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo and Colin Moulding of XTC. McCartney is known to play using a plectrum or pick almost exclusively, but he occasionally plays fingerstyle as well. He does not use slapping or muting techniques while playing bass. He was strongly influenced by Motown, in particular by James Jamerson, whom McCartney calls a hero, and praises for his melodic style. He was also influenced by Brian Wilson, "because he went to very unusual places", comments McCartney. Another favourite bassist is Stanley Clarke.

"Paul is one of the most innovative bass players ... half the stuff that's going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period ... He's an egomaniac about everything else, but his bass playing he'd always been a bit coy about."

~ Lennon, Playboy magazine, January 1981

During McCartney's early years with the Beatles he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass, though in 1965 he began sporadically using a Rickenbacker 4001s for recording. While typically using Vox amplifiers, by 1967 he had also began using a Fender Bassman for amplification. During the late 1980s and early 1990s he used a Wal 5-String, which he said made him play more thick sounding basslines, in contrast to the much lighter Höfner, which inspired him to play more sensitively, something he considers fundamental to his playing style. He switched back to the Höfner around 1990 for that reason. He uses Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers while performing live.

Whereas MacDonald identifies "She's a Woman", as the point when McCartney's bass playing began to evolve dramatically, Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singles out Rubber Soul, as the moment when McCartney's playing exhibited significant progress, particularly on "The Word". Authors Tony Bacon and Gareth Morgan agree, calling McCartney's groove on the track "a high point in pop bass playing and ... the first proof on a recording of his serious technical ability on the instrument." MacDonald infers the influence of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour", American soul tracks from which McCartney absorbed elements and drew inspiration as he "delivers his most spontaneous bass-part to date".

Bacon and Morgan describe his bassline for the Beatles' song "Rain" as "an astonishing piece of playing ... [McCartney] thinking in terms of both rhythm and 'lead bass' ... [choosing] the area of the neck ... he correctly perceives will give him clarity for melody without rendering his sound too thin for groove." MacDonald considers the track the Beatles' best B-side, stating that its "clangorously saturated texture resonates around McCartney's [bassline]", which MacDonald describes as "so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track". MacDonald also draws attention to the influence of Indian classical music in "exotic melismas in the bass part". McCartney indentifies Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as containing his strongest, and most inventive bass playing, particularly on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

Acoustic guitar

"If I couldn't have any other instrument, I would have to have an acoustic guitar."

~ McCartney, Guitar Player, July 1990

McCartney primarily flatpicks while playing acoustic guitar, though he also uses elements of fingerpicking. Examples of his acoustic guitar playing on Beatles tracks include "Yesterday", "I'm Looking Through You", "Michelle", "Blackbird", "I Will", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Rocky Raccoon". McCartney singled out "Blackbird" as a personal favourite and describes his technique for the guitar part in the following way: "I got my own little sort of cheating way of [fingerpicking] ... I'm actually sort of pulling two strings at a time ... I was trying to emulate those folk players." He employed a similar technique for "Jenny Wren". He played an Epiphone Texan on many of his acoustic recordings over the years, but he has also used a Martin D-28.

Electric guitar

"Linda was a big fan of my guitar playing, whereas I've got my doubts. I think there are proper guitar players and then there are guys like me who love playing it".

~ McCartney, Guitar Player, July 1990

McCartney played lead electric guitar on several Beatles recordings, including what MacDonald describes as a "fiercely angular slide guitar solo" on "Drive My Car", which he played on an Epiphone Casino. McCartney says of the instrument: "If I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this." He contributed what MacDonald describes as "a startling guitar solo" on the Harrison composition "Taxman" and the "shrieking" guitar on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Helter Skelter". MacDonald also praises McCartney's "coruscating pseudo-Indian" guitar solo on "Good Morning Good Morning". On his "Taxman" solo, McCartney commented: "I was very inspired by Jimi Hendrix. It was really my first voyage into feedback." In 1990, when asked who his favourite guitar players were, he included Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour, stating: "But I still like Hendrix the best." He has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly while performing live.

Vocals

McCartney's vocal ability crosses several musical genres; for example on "Call Me Back Again", according to Benitez, "McCartney shines as a bluesy solo vocalist" while MacDonald calls "I'm Down" "a rock-and-roll classic" that "illustrates McCartney's vocal and stylistic versatility". MacDonald describes "Helter Skelter" as an early attempt at heavy metal, and "Hey Jude" as a "pop/rock hybrid", pointing out McCartney's "use of gospel-style melismas" in the song and his "pseudo-soul shrieking in the fade-out". Benitez identifies "Hope of Deliverance" and "Put It There" as examples of McCartney's folk music efforts while musicologist Walter Everett considers "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Honey Pie" attempts at vaudeville. "Yesterday" is widely considered to be one of the greatest ballads ever recorded, and MacDonald praises the "swinging beat" of the Beatles' twenty-four bar blues song, "She's a Woman"; "the most extreme sound they had manufactured to date", with McCartney's voice "at the edge, squeezed to the upper limit of his chest register and threatening to crack at any moment." MacDonald describes "I've Got a Feeling" as a "raunchy, mid-tempo rocker" with a "robust and soulful" vocal performance" and "Back in the U.S.S.R". as "the last of [the Beatles'] up-tempo rockers", McCartney's "belting" vocals among his best since "Drive My Car", recorded three years earlier.

Keyboards

McCartney played piano on several Beatles songs including "Every Little Thing", "She's a Woman", "For No One", "A Day in the Life", "Hello, Goodbye", "Hey Jude", "Lady Madonna", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road". MacDonald considers the piano part in "Lady Madonna" as reminiscent of Fats Domino, and "Let It Be" as having a gospel rhythm. MacDonald calls McCartney's Mellotron intro on "Strawberry Fields Forever" an integral feature of the song's character. McCartney played a Moog synthesizer on the Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and the Wings track "Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)". Ingham describes the Wings songs "With a Little Luck" and "London Town" as "full of the most sensitive pop synthesizer touches". McCartney also played a synthesizer on the song "Wonderful Christmastime", a perennial holiday favourite.

Drums

McCartney played drums on the Beatles songs "Back in the U.S.S.R"., "Dear Prudence", "Wild Honey Pie" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko". He also played all the drum parts on his first and second solo albums McCartney and McCartney II, as well as on the Wings album Band On The Run and most of the drums on his solo LP Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.

Tape loops

In the mid 1960s, when visiting artist friend John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would bring along tapes he had compiled at then girlfriend Jane Asher's home. They included mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him. Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, McCartney made tape loops by recording voices, guitars and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder and splicing the various loops together. He referred to the finished product as "electronic symphonies". He reversed the tapes, sped them up and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on the Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows".

Early Influences

"The Messiah has arrived!"

~ McCartney on Presley, the Beatles Anthology, 2000

McCartney's earliest musical influences include Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. When asked why Presley was not included on the Beatles Sgt. Pepper cover, McCartney replied: "Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention ... so we didn't put him on the list because he was more than merely a ... pop singer, he was Elvis the King." McCartney has stated that his bassline for "I Saw Her Standing There" was taken directly from Berry's "I'm Talking About You".

McCartney calls Little Richard an idol whose falsetto vocalizations inspired McCartney's own vocal technique. McCartney says he wrote "I'm Down" as a vehicle for his Little Richard impersonation. In 1971 McCartney purchased the publishing rights to Holly's catalogue, and in 1976, on the fortieth anniversary of Holly's birth, McCartney inaugurated the annual "Buddy Holly Week" in England, which has included guest performances by famous musicians, songwriting competitions, drawing contests and special events featuring performances by The Crickets.

Creative outlets

While at school during the 1950s, McCartney thrived at art assignments, often earning top academic accolades for his inspired visual work. His lack of discipline however, prevented him from achieving the proper grades and test results necessary to earn addmission to art college. During the 1960s, he delved into the visual arts, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through artist John Dunbar, who introduced McCartney to art dealer Robert Fraser. It was at Fraser's flat where he first learned about art appreciation, and during visits at Fraser's home, McCartney met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton. McCartney later purchased works by Magritte, using his painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo. McCartney was involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—where Lennon first met Yoko Ono. McCartney's involvement with the gallery brought him into contact with Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, the International Times, McCartney helped to start. Miles later wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1997).

"I think there's an urge in us to stop the terrible fleetingness of time. Music. Paintings ... Try and capture one bloody moment please."

~ McCartney

McCartney became interested in painting after watching artist Willem de Kooning work in Kooning's Long Island studio. McCartney took up painting in 1983, and he first exhibited his work in Siegen, Germany, in 1999. The 70-painting show featured portraits of Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie. McCartney, initially reluctant to display his paintings publicly, chose the gallery because events organiser Wolfgang Suttner showed genuine interest in McCartney's art. In September 2000, the first UK exhibition of McCartney's paintings opened, featuring 500 canvases at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, England. In October 2000, McCartney's art was débuted in his hometown of Liverpool. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery ... where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet". McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys.

When McCartney was a child, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books, and his father was interested in crosswords and invited Paul and his brother Michael to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power", says McCartney. In 2001, McCartney published Blackbird Singing, a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City. In the foreword of the book, he explains: "When I was a teenager ... I had an overwhelming desire to have a poem published in the school magazine. I wrote something deep and meaningful—which was promptly rejected—and I suppose I have been trying to get my own back ever since". In 2005, he collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, which the Guardian labelled an "anti-capitalist children's book".

In 1981, McCartney asked Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song. McCartney was the writer and producer and he also added some of the character voices. In 1992, he worked with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, which won both of them a BAFTA award. In 2004, they worked together on the animated short film Tropic Island Hum. The accompanying single, "Tropic Island Hum"/"We All Stand Together", reached #21 in the UK. In 1995 he made a guest appearance in the "Lisa the Vegetarian" episode of The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about the Grateful Dead.

Lifestyle

Drugs

McCartney live in Dublin, Ireland, 2010

McCartney's was introduced to drugs in Hamburg, Germany; when the Beatles would often use Preludin to maintain their energy when performing for long periods of time. McCartney recalls getting "very high" and "giggling uncontrollably" when the Beatles were introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in a New York hotel room in 1964. McCartney's use of the drug soon after became habitual, and according to Miles, McCartney's Beatles lyrics "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis. During the filming of Help!, McCartney occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines. Director Richard Lester overheard two physically attractive women trying to cajole McCartney into using heroin, but McCartney refused. He was introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, and it was readily available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney used the drug for about a year but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt after it wore off.

Initially reluctant to try LSD, McCartney eventually did so in the fall of 1966, and he took his second "acid trip" in March 1967, with Lennon, after a Sgt. Pepper studio session. McCartney later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring: "It opened my eyes... [and] made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society". He made his attitude about cannabis public in 1967, when he, along with the other Beatles and Epstein, added his name to a July advertisement in The Times, which called for its legalisation, the release of those imprisoned for possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses.

In 1972, McCartney was fined £1,000 by a Swedish court for cannabis possession, and soon after Scottish police found marijuana plants growing on his farm, leading to his 1973 conviction for illegal cultivation resulting in a £100 fine. Due to his drug convictions he was repeatedly denied a US visa until December 1973. He was again arrested for marijuana possession in 1975 in Los Angeles. Linda took the blame,and the charges were soon dismissed. In January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for a tour of Japan, as McCartney was going through customs, officials found approximately 8 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage, and he was arrested and taken to a local jail while the Japanese government decided what to do. After ten days, he was released without charge and deported. In 1984, while vacationing in Barbados, he was arrested for possession of marijuana and fined $200. Upon his return to England, he stated that cannabis is "less harmful than rum punch, whiskey, nicotine and glue, all of which are perfectly legal ... I don't think ... I was doing anyone any harm whatsoever". In 1997 he spoke out in support of decriminalisation of the drug: "People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong".

Activism

Paul and Linda became outspoken animal rights activists after their vegetarianism was realised when Paul happened to notice, through a window, lambs in a field, as they ate a meal of lamb. In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights, and in 1999 he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.

McCartney in Prague, 2004

Following McCartney's marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against landmines, becoming a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield. He wore an anti-landmines T-shirt during some of the Back in the World tour shows. In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to raise international awareness of seal hunting. The couple debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on Larry King Live, stating that the fishermen should stop hunting seals, and start seal watching businesses instead. McCartney also supports the Make Poverty History campaign.

McCartney has been involved with several charity recordings and performances, such as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey". In 2004 he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and in 2008 he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 tsunami.

In 2009, McCartney wrote to the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, asking him why he wasn't a vegetarian. McCartney explains: "He wrote back very kindly, saying, my doctors tell me that I must eat meat. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don't think that's right ... I think he's now being told ... that he can get his protein somewhere else ... It just doesn't seem right – the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, 'Hey guys, don't harm sentient beings ... Oh, and by the way, I'm having a steak.'"

Meditation

In August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend initiation conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned the basics of Transcendental Meditation. He explains: "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra ... I find it soothing". In 2009, McCartney and Starr headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.

Football

McCartney is an avid fan of the sport, and though he has publicly professed support for Everton, he has also shown favour for Liverpool. In 2008, he ended speculation about his allegiance when he said: "Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool.'"

Personal relationships

Main article: Personal relationships of Paul McCartney

Girlfriends

Dot Rhone

McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959. According to Spitz, Rhone felt McCartney had a compulsion to control situations, choosing clothes and make-up for Rhone, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot's, and at least once insisting she have it re-styled, to disappointing effect. When he first went to Hamburg with the Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when they played there again in 1962. The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage; according to Spitz, McCartney, now "free of obligation", ended the engagement.

Jane Asher

McCartney first met British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The two began a relationship, and in November of that year he took up residence with Asher at her parents' home at 57 Wimpole Street, London. They lived there for more than two years before the couple moved to McCartney's own home in St. John's Wood, in March 1966. He wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You". They had a five-year relationship, and planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement after she discovered he had become involved with another woman, Francie Schwartz.

Wives

Linda Eastman

McCartney performing with wife Linda in 1976

Linda Eastman was a music fan who once commented, "All my teen years were spent with an ear to the radio". At times, she would play truant from school to see artists such as Fabian, Bobby Darin and Chuck Berry. She was a popular photographer with several rock groups, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Grateful Dead, the Doors and the Beatles, whom she first met at Shea Stadium in 1966, about which she commented, "It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the fascination faded fast and I found it was Paul I liked". The pair first properly met in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club, during her UK assignment to photograph rock musicians in London. As Paul remembers, "The night Linda and I met, I spotted her across a crowded club, and although I would normally have been nervous chatting her up, I realised I had to ... Pushiness worked for me that night!" Linda said this about their meeting: "I was quite shameless really. I was with somebody else [that night] ... and I saw Paul at the other side of the room. He looked so beautiful that I made up my mind I would have to pick him up". The pair were married in 1969. Paul had this to say about their relationship: "We had a lot of fun together ... just the nature of how we are, our favourite thing really is to just hang, to have fun. And Linda's very big on just following the moment". He added, "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married and it was nearly called off ... [it's] miraculous that we made it. But we did".

The two collaborated musically after the break-up of the Beatles, and later formed Wings together in 1971, a commercially successful band that was active until 1981. They faced derision from some fans and critics who questioned her inclusion in Wings, and she was nervous about performing with Paul, who explained, "she conquered those nerves, got on with it and was really gutsy". Paul defended her musical ability: "I taught Linda the basics of the keyboard ... She took a couple lessons and learned some bluesy things ... she did very well and made it look easier than it was ... The critics would say, 'She's not really playing' or 'Look at her—she's playing with one finger.' But what they didn't know is that sometimes she was playing a thing called a Minimoog, which could only be played with one finger. It was monophonic". He went on to say, "We thought we were in it for the fun ... it was just something we wanted to do, so if we got it wrong – big deal. We didn't have to justify ourselves". However, former Wings guitarist McCullough said of collaborating with Linda, "Trying to get things together with a learner in the group didn't work as far as I was concerned".

Both Paul and Linda were vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation PETA. They had four children—Linda's daughter Heather (legally adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James—and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998. After her death, Paul stated in The Daily Mail, "I got a counsellor because I knew that I would need some help. He was great, particularly in helping me get rid of my guilt [about wishing I'd been] perfect all the time ... a real bugger. But then I thought, hang on a minute. We're just human. That was the beautiful thing about our marriage. We were just a boyfriend and girlfriend having babies".

Heather Mills

In 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner. In 2003, the couple had a child, Beatrice Milly, the first name in honour of Heather's late mother, the second for one of Paul's aunts. They separated in April 2006 and suffered an acrimonious divorce in March 2008. In 2004 he commented on media animosity toward his partners: "[the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher" ... "I married [Linda], a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that".

Nancy Shevell

McCartney married New Yorker Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London, on 9 October 2011. The wedding was a low-key affair attended by a group of about 30 relatives and friends. The couple had been dating since November 2007. A breast cancer survivor, she is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight.

Beatles

John Lennon

Despite a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in 1974, and played music together on two occasions, the only times since the Beatles' break-up in 1970. In later years, however, the two grew apart. While McCartney would often phone, he was apprehensive about the reception he would receive, as during one call when he was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!" In an effort to avoid talking only about business, they often spoke of cats, babies or baking bread.

On 24 April 1976, the two were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live together at Lennon's home in New York City, during which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer for the Beatles to reunite. While they seriously considered going to the SNL studio just a few blocks away, they decided it was too late. This was the last time Lennon and McCartney ever spent time together. This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us. His last telephone call to Lennon, just days before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly; he said this about the phone call: "[It is] a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up".

Reaction to Lennon's murder

Main article: Death of John Lennon

"John is kinda like a constant ... always there in my being ... in my soul, so I always think of him".

~ McCartney, Guitar World, January 2000

On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered the previous night, his death creating a media frenzy around the surviving members of the band. That evening, as he was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters who asked him for a reaction. He responded "It's a drag", and was later criticised for what appeared to be a superficial response. He later explained, "When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: 'What do you think about it?' I said, 'It's a dra-a-ag' and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, 'McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, "It's a drag".' It seemed a very flippant comment to make". He described his first exchange with Ono after the murder, and his last conversation with Lennon:

I talked to Yoko the day after he was killed and the first thing she said was, "John was really fond of you". The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, "It's only me". They were like a wall, you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure.

In 1983, McCartney said, "I would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his "mask" and have a better relationship with him". He said that he went home that night and watched the news on television – while sitting with his children – crying most of the evening. In 1997, he admitted the ex-Beatles were nervous at the time that they might be the "next" one murdered. He told Mojo magazine in 2002 that Lennon was his greatest "hero". In June 1981, six months after the murder, McCartney sang backup on Harrison's tribute to their ex-bandmate, "All Those Years Ago", which also featured Starr on drums. McCartney released "Here Today" in 1982, a song Everett describes as "a haunting tribute" to their friendship.

George Harrison

Discussing his relationship with McCartney, Harrison said, "Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs—then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually ... There were a lot of tracks, though, where I played bass ... because what Paul would do—if he'd written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say (sometimes he was very difficult): "Do this". He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something".

In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was dying of cancer, and upon his death in November issued a statement outside his home in St. John's Wood, calling him "a lovely guy and a very brave man who had a wonderful sense of humour". He went on to say, "We grew up together and we just had so many beautiful times together – that's what I am going to remember. I'll always love him, he's my baby brother". On the first anniversary of his death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George. He also performed "For You Blue" and "All Things Must Pass", and played the piano on Eric Clapton's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Ringo Starr

Starr once described McCartney as "pleasantly insincere", though the two generally enjoy each other's company, and at least once vacationed together in Greece, including stops in Athens and on the islands Corfu and Rhodes. Starr recalled, "We couldn't understand a word of the songs the hotel band were playing, so on the last night Paul and I did a few rockers like "What'd I Say". There was at times discord between them as well, particularly during sessions for The White Album. As Apple's Peter Brown recalled, "It was a poorly kept secret among Beatle intimates that after Ringo left the studio Paul would often dub in the drum tracks himself ... [Starr] would pretend not to notice". In August 1968, the two got into an argument over McCartney's critique of Starr's drum part for "Back in the U.S.S.R.", which contributed to Starr temporarily leaving the band. He returned in September to find bouquets of flowers on his drum kit. Starr commented on working with McCartney: "Paul is the greatest bass player in the world. But he is also very determined ... [to] get his own way ... [thus] musical disagreements inevitably arose from time to time".

McCartney and Starr collaborated on several post-Beatles projects starting in 1973, when McCartney contributed instrumentation and backing vocals for "Six O'Clock", a song McCartney wrote for Starr's album Ringo. McCartney played a kazoo solo on another track from the album "You're Sixteen". In 1976, McCartney sang backing vocals on another song he wrote for Starr, "Pure Gold", from Ringo's Rotogravure. In 1981, McCartney produced and performed on three songs from Starr's Stop and Smell the Roses, two of which McCartney composed. Starr played drums and sang backing vocals on a song from McCartney's 1997 album, Flaming Pie. The pair collaborated again in 1998, on Starr's Vertical Man, which featured McCartney's backing vocals on three songs, and instrumentation on one. In 2009, the pair performed "With a Little Help From My Friends" at a benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation. They collaborated on Starr's album, Y Not, in 2010. McCartney played bass on a track, and sang a duet with Starr on another.

Recognition and achievements

Main article: List of awards received by Paul McCartney

McCartney performing in Prague, June 2004

McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as "the Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million albums, 100 million singles, and a writer's credit on forty-three songs that have sold over one million copies each. According to Guinness, he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK singles chart history, and has written or co-written "188 charted records, of which 129 are different songs. Of these records, 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1. In total, the songs have spent 1,662 weeks on the chart (up to the beginning of 2007)". In 1986, he received acclaim from the Guinness Book of Records Hall of Fame, which presented him with a rhodium disk to commemorate his standing "as the most successful musician of all time".

In the US, McCartney is included on 32 number-one singles as a songwriter or co-writer on the Billboard Hot 100: twenty with the Beatles; nine solo and/or with Wings; one as a co-writer of "A World Without Love", a number-one single for Peter and Gordon; one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; and one as a co-writer with Jackson on "Say Say Say". As of 2012, he has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.

McCartney has been involved in more number ones in the UK than any other artist under a variety of credits, totalling twenty-four singles: seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings, Stevie Wonder, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and one with "The Christians et all". He is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Wonder), trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", the Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", the Beatles with Billy Preston) and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (Ferry Aid).

"Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered song in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions, and according to the BBC, "the track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list ... [and] is the most played song by a British writer [last] century in the US". His 1968 Beatles composition, "Hey Jude", is also a career highlight. It achieved the highest sales in the UK that year, and topped the US charts for nine weeks, longer than any other Beatles single. It was also the longest single ever released by the band, and at seven minutes eleven seconds was the longest ever of any number one to that point. "Hey Jude" was covered by several prominent artists, including Presley, Bing Crosby, Count Basie and Wilson Pickett. It is the best-selling Beatles single, achieving sales of over five million copies soon after its release.

In 1990, the minor planet 4148 was named "McCartney" in his honour. In July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history, when his performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released within forty-five minutes of its recording. Within hours of the single's release, it achieved number one on the UK Official Download Chart. In 2008, he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, as well as an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University. In 2010, he was honoured by President Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and others. He returned to the White House later that year as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2012, he became the last of the Fab Four to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Business

Main articles: Apple Corps, MPL Communications, and Northern Songs

McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, possessing an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010. In addition to an interest in Apple Corps and MPL Communications, an umbrella company for his business interests, he owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights, including the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, Annie and Grease. He earned £40 million in 2003, the highest income that year within media professions in the UK. This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.

Record labels

McCartney's music has appeared on a number of different record labels. In January 1962, the Beatles' first commercially released recording, "My Bonnie", credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, was issued in the UK by Polydor Records and in April of the same year in the US by Decca Records. The following year, the band's singles "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why" and "From Me to You"/"Thank You Girl" were released in the UK by Parlophone and in the US by Vee-Jay Records. Also that year, Swan Records released the group's UK Parlophone single "She Loves You"/"I'll Get You" in the US. From then until July 1968, the band's music was released on EMI's Capitol (US) and Parlophone (UK) labels. Starting with the August 1968 release "Hey Jude"/"Revolution", their new material was issued with Apple labels, logos and sleeves, but with Parlophone or Capitol serial numbers.

Following the break-up of the Beatles, McCartney's music continued to be released by Apple Records until Wings' "Listen to What the Man Said"/"Love in Song" single, issued by Capitol in May 1975. The following year, he moved back to Parlophone, which he left again in 1977 for Capitol before returning the next year. In 1978, McCartney signed with Columbia Records for his US releases, leaving EMI's Capitol after fifteen years with the record company. From 1985 until 2006, McCartney's music was released by Parlophone in the UK and Capitol in the US. In 2007, McCartney signed with Hear Music, becoming the label's first artist. He remains with Hear as of 2012's Kisses on the Bottom.

Northern Songs

Northern Songs was established in 1963 by Dick James to publish the songs of Lennon–McCartney. The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by the jointly held company, Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests. Northern Songs was purchased by Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to Michael Jackson. In 1995, Jackson merged his catalogue with Sony for a reported £59,052,000 ($95 million), establishing Sony/ATV Music Publishing, in which he retained half-ownership. For many years, McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs, which was formally dissolved in 1995 when it became absorbed in the Sony/ATV catalog.

Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of his Beatles songs, McCartney continues to receive his respective share of the writers' royalties, which together are 33⅓ percent of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere between 50 and 55 percent. Two of the Beatles' earliest songs—"Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You"—were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before signing with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in the mid 1980s, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by MPL Communications.

Discography

Main articles: Paul McCartney discography, Wings discography, and The Beatles discography

Solo

Rock, pop

• McCartney (1970)
• Ram (1971)
  (Paul & Linda McCartney)
• McCartney II (1980)
• Tug of War (1982)
• Pipes of Peace (1983)
• Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)
• Press to Play (1986)
• Снова в СССР (1988)
• Flowers in the Dirt (1989)
• Off the Ground (1993)
• Flaming Pie (1997)
• Run Devil Run (1999)
• Driving Rain (2001)
• Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
• Memory Almost Full (2007)
• Kisses on the Bottom (2012)

Classical

• The Family Way (1966)
  (film score with George Martin)
• Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (1991)
  (with Carl Davis)
• Standing Stone (1997)
• Working Classical (1999)
• A Garland for Linda (2000)
  (Various Artists)
• Ecce Cor Meum (2006)
• Ocean's Kingdom (2011)
  (dance score with Peter Martins)

Electronica

• Thrillington (1977)
  (Percy "Thrills" Thrillington)
• Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993)
  (The Fireman)
• Rushes (1998)
  (The Fireman)
• Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)
  (re-mix album)
• Twin Freaks (2005)
  (with the Freelance Hellraiser)
• Electric Arguments (2008)
  (The Fireman)

Wings, live, and compilations

Wings

• Wild Life (1971)
• Red Rose Speedway (1973)
• Band on the Run (1973)
• Venus and Mars (1975)
• Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976)
• London Town (1978)
• Back to the Egg (1979)

Live

• Wings over America (1976)
• Tripping the Live Fantastic (1990)
• Tripping the Live Fantastic: Highlights! (1990)
• Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) (1991)
• Paul Is Live (1993)
• Back in the U.S. (2002)
• Back in the World (2003)
• Good Evening New York City (2009)

Compilations

• Wings Greatest (1978)
• All the Best! (1987)
• Wingspan: Hits and History (2001)

Tours

Main articles: List of Paul McCartney concert tours and List of The Beatles' live performances

Wings

• Wings University Tour – 11 shows in the UK, 1972
• Wings Over Europe Tour – 25 shows, 1972
• Wings 1973 UK Tour – 21 shows, 1973
• Wings Over the World Tour – 66 shows, 1975–1976
• Wings UK Tour 1979 – 20 shows, 1979

Solo

• The Paul McCartney World Tour – 104 shows, 1989–1990
• Unplugged Tour – 6 worldwide shows, 1992
• The New World Tour – 79 shows, 1993
• Driving World Tour – 55 shows, 2002
• Back in the World tour – 33 shows, 2003
• '04 Summer Tour – 14 shows worldwide, 2004
• The 'US' Tour – 37 shows, 2005
• Summer Live '09 – 10 shows in North America, 2009
• Good Evening Europe Tour – 8 shows, 2009
• Up and Coming Tour – 38 shows worldwide, 2010–2011
• On the Run Tour – 30 shows worldwide, 2011–2012

Sources

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• Bacon, Tony; Morgan, Gareth (2006). Paul McCartney – Bass Master – Playing the Great Beatles Basslines (1st ed.). Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-884-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Brown, Peter; Gaines, Steven (2002). The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles. New American Library. ISBN 978-0-451-20735-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Buk, Askold (1996). "Strum Together". Guitar World: Acoustic (17). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Carlin, Peter Ames (2009). Paul McCartney: A Life. Touchstone. ISBN 978-1-4165-6209-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Doggett, Peter (2009). You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup (1st US hardcover ed.). Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-177446-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Emerick, Geoff; Massey, Howard (2006). Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. Gotham. ISBN 978-1-592-40269-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Everett, Walter (1999). The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• George-Warren, Holly (editor) (2001). The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (2005 revised and updated ed.). Fireside. ISBN 978-0-7432-9201-6. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gould, Jonathan (2007). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America (First Paperback ed.). Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-307-35338-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Graff, Gary (January 2000). "Yesterday & Today". Guitar World. 20 (1). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Glenday, Craig (editor) (2008). Guinness World Records 2009. ISBN 978-1-904994-37-4. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |work= ignored (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harry, Bill (2000a). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0481-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harry, Bill (2003). The George Harrison Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0822-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harry, Bill (2000b). The John Lennon Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0404-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harry, Bill (2002). The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0716-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ingham, Chris (2009). The Rough Guide to The Beatles (3rd ed.). Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-84836-525-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jisi, Chris (October 2005). "He Can Work It Out". Bass Player. 16 (10). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Levy, Joe (editor) (2005). Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (First Paperback ed.). Wenner Books. ISBN 978-1-932958-61-4. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lewisohn, Mark (1992). The Complete Beatles Chronicle:The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To The Beatles' Entire Career (2010 ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-56976-534-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lewisohn, Mark (editor) (2002). Wingspan: Paul McCartney's Band on the Run. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-86032-1. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (3rd (2007) ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-733-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McCartney, Paul; Mitchell, Adrian (editor) (2001). Blackbird singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965–1999. W.W. Norton and Company Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-02049-6. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McGee, Garry (2003). Band on the Run: A History of Paul McCartney and Wings. Taylor Trade. ISBN 978-0-87833-304-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1st Hardcover ed.). Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-5248-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miles, Barry (1998). The Beatles: A Diary—An Intimate Day by Day History (2009 ed.). JG Press. ISBN 978-1-57215-010-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miles, Barry (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years. Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-8308-3.
• Molenda, Michael (November 2005). "Here, There, and Everywhere". Guitar Player. 39 (11). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Mulhern, Tom (July 1990). "Paul McCartney". Guitar Player. 24, No.7 (246). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Raymer, Miles (2010). How to Analyze the Music of Paul McCartney. Abdo Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-61613-531-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Roberts, David (editor) (2005). British Hit Singles & Albums (18 ed.). Guinness World Records Limited. ISBN 978-1-904994-00-8. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sandford, Christopher (2006). McCartney. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-1614-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sheff, David; Golson, G. Barry (editor) (1981). The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Playboy Press. ISBN 978-0-87223-705-2. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sounes, Howard (2010). Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81783-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Southall, Brian; Perry, Rupert (contributor) (2006). Northern Songs: The True Story of the Beatles Song Publishing Empire. Omnibus. ISBN 978-1-84609-237-4. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-80352-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-3636-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wenner, Jann; George-Warren, Holly (editor) (2000). Lennon Remembers. Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-600-9. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Barrow, Tony (2005). John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story. Thunder's Mouth. ISBN 1-56025-882-9.
• Barrow, Tony (2004). Paul McCartney. Carlton Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84442-822-9.
• Davies, Hunter (2009). The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (3rd revised ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-33874-4.
• Gambaccini, Paul (1993). Paul McCartney: In His Own Words. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-86001-239-9.
• Gambaccini, Paul (1996). The McCartney Interviews: After the Break-Up (2 ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-7119-5494-6.
• Gracen, Jorie B. (2000). Paul McCartney: I Saw Him Standing There. Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 978-0-8230-8372-5.
• Kirchherr, Astrid; Voormann, Klaus (1999). Hamburg Days. Guildford, Surrey: Genesis Publications. ISBN 978-0-904351-73-6.
• Martin, George (1979). All You Need Is Ears. New York: St. Marten's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-11482-4.
• Martin, George; Pearson, William (1994). Summer of Love: The Making of Sgt. Pepper. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-60398-2.
• Peel, Ian (2002). The Unknown Paul McCartney: McCartney and the avant-garde. Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 978-1-903111-36-9.

External links

• Official website
• Paul McCartney's Animation Website
• Paul McCartney at IMDb