James Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942 in the Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England to Jim and Mary McCartney. The oldest of the two boys, James assumed his middle name early on. He grew up listening to music. His dad used to be the leader of a big band in the 1920s called Jim Mac's Band in Liverpool and made sure that music played an important role in the lives of his two sons. Jim McCartney plated trumpet, clarinet, and most of all, piano. Paul recounts in The Beatles Anthology: "I have some lovely childhood memories of lying on the floor and listening to my dad play "Lullaby of the Leaves"... and music from the Whiteman era ( Paul Whiteman was one of his favorites), old songs like "Stairway to Paradise." Jim insisted that Paul learn an instrument, which Paul did. But soon the trumpet lost its spark and Paul was hit with the "Elvis fever" that hit three other young boys in Liverpool around the same time. Paul asked his dad to buy him a guitar.
Mary McCartney was a nurse, and all accounts that Paul has given of her has been very positive. She passed away from breast cancer when Paul was just twelve (fourteen months before he met John Lennon) and Jim had the responsibility of raising twelve-year-old Paul and ten-year-old Michael. Paul kept on going with the guitar, using it as a channel in which to deal with his grief. Then at a church fete on a sunny summer day in Liverpool, Paul first met John. John was playing with his new skiffle (a British genre of music that combined rock 'n' roll, country, and hillbilly music) group the Quarrymen. Paul tried out for John, who was very much threatened by the younger but more-skillful guitar player, and he was in. To make a long story short, the Quarrymen shrunk and turned into the Beatles. After a few months of playing in German clubs in Hamburg, which very much tightened them as a performing group, the Beatles were signed to NEM Records and Brian Epstein was their manager. "The four lads who shook the world" were poised to take over Britain, France, and then the world.
The Beatles were more than he could have ever hoped. As a main component to the writing of Beatles songs, (he was half of it: Lennon-McCartney) Paul served as one of the leaders of the group, second only to John. He was the most professional of the four, loved performing, and was always able to deal with the press. Of course, he became a bit more than a professional young man from Liverpool to the millions of girls around the world who had every inch of their walls plastered with his face. As the "cute one", Paul was catapulted into superstardom, along with his other three best friends. Together, they faced the tidal wave of hysteria that surrounded them everywhere they went from 1963 (the year Beatlemania hit) to their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966. The touring Beatles ended but a new period of intense spiritual, psychological, intellectual, and musical development began.
Paul began to interest himself in the intellectual life that his girlfriend of 5 years, Jane Asher, led. He read books, classics, philosophy books , and scientific books. It then translated to his music. However, even with the released tension that not touring had given them, the four friends began to grow too different. Each wanted to go in their own personal direction, and the Beatles, the miracle that they hoped for when they were 18, had become a burden. Paul loved the Beatles, but wanted to be able to express himself through his music without John and George. So he officially quit the Beatles in 1970 and sued the other three. It was a very dark period for all of them, but Paul immediately hit a post-Beatles depression that lasted for months. Only a blond American photographer named Linda Eastman could bring him out of that dark time.
Paul married Linda in 1969 and together they raised four children in their almost thirty-year marriage. Heather, Linda's daughter from a former marriage, is now an artist, and has a very solid relationship with her stepfather. Paul and Linda had three other children together: Mary (after his mother) in 1969 is a photographer, Stella (yes, the extremely famous fashion designer that serves her customers like Kate Winslet etc...) in the 1970s, and James in the late 1970s. Sadly, Linda contracted the same disease that had killed Paul's mother and she passed away in 1997.
Paul has married twice since the love of his life died. The disastrous marriage between him and Heather Mills in 2007 ended in a multi-million dollar divorce that was anything but private. Together, they had a daughter named Beatrice. This past October, Paul has married again to Nancy Shevell, another American, who is a businesswoman. They seem to be happy together, but I still believe that Paul would be married to Linda today had she not passed away.
Despite his age, Paul tours today throughout the world. A couple of weeks ago, he played at London's Diamond Jubilee in honor of Queen Elizabeth II's 60th year as queen. In the coming months, he will close the ceremony to the 2012 London Olympics. A 70-year-old rock star (definitely old enough to be my grandfather) is a funny phrase, but no one embodies it better than Paul. Of course, he is more than the Beatles, but no matter what, his role in that monstrously significant band has made him the superstar that he is today. As he closes in The Beatles Anthology: "It were a grand thing, the Beatles."
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