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  • PAUL MCCARTNEY: The Beat(le) Goes On


    Paul McCartney

    Nobody seems to be telling this guy he's 68! Still packing stadiums around the world, Paul McCartney carries the burdens and blessings of a mighty weighty musical pedigree - one upon which he could rest in ease for the rest of his life, if he so chose. Apparently he chooses, not. While his concerts embody a hefty dose of his unique musical heritage, they also showcase his almost supernatural ability to turn out music ranging from burdock- in-the-brain ditties to musically and lyrically profound glimpses of the human condition. And, in case you've never really noticed, he plays the most musical bass you've ever heard. Ed.

    Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942), is an English singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record and film producer, painter, and animal rights and peace activist. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music. McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. He has worked on film scores and classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and taken part in projects to help international charities.

    McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history, with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles. His song "Yesterday" (credited to Lennon/McCartney, but composed entirely by McCartney is listed as the most covered song in history—by over 3,500 artists so far—and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. According to britishhitsongwriters.com he is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history, based on weeks that his compositions have spent on the chart.

    Following the death of his first wife Linda in 1998, McCartney married Heather Mills in 2002. They divorced in 2008. McCartney now has Nancy Shevell as his partner. McCartney practices meditation, sometimes still using the mantra that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave him when The Beatles went to a TM seminar in 1967. McCartney is an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is one of Britain's wealthiest men, with an estimated fortune of £750 million ($1.2 billion) in 2009.

    Paul McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mahon), had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward. He has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944. McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic, and his father, James "Jim" McCartney, was a Protestant turned agnostic.
    In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary school. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School, and passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees and thus gained admission to the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while riding on the bus, from the suburb of Speke, where he lived, to the Institute, he met George Harrison, who lived nearby. Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison could go to a Grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work, but as Grammar school pupils they had to find new friends.

    In 1955, the McCartney family moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily. On 31 October 1956, Mary McCartney, a heavy smoker, died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer. The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, died after being struck by a car when Lennon was 17.

    McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his two sons to be musical. Jim had an upright piano in the front room that he had bought from Brian Epstein's store. McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba. Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts. McCartney's father gave him a nickel-plated trumpet, but when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar. As he was left-handed, McCartney found the guitar difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player. McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon. He later learned to play the piano and wrote his second song, "When I'm Sixty-Four". On his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn 'by ear' he never paid much attention to them.

    Musical Career

    1957–1960
    At the age of 15, McCartney met John Lennon and The Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957. He formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated on many songs. Harrison joined the group as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe, on bass, and Pete Best on the drums. By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "The Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They finally changed the name of the group to The Beatles.

    1960–1970: The Beatles

    From May 1960, The Beatles were managed by Allan Williams, who booked them to perform at a club in Hamburg. For the next two years, The Beatles remained in Hamburg for much of the time, performing as a resident group in a number of Hamburg clubs. During their two-year Hamburg residency they returned to Liverpool from time to time, performing at the Cavern club. Prior to the end of the residency, Sutcliffe left the band, so McCartney, reluctantly, became The Beatles' bass player. The Beatles recorded their first published musical material in Hamburg, performing as the backing group for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie". This recording later brought The Beatles to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their next manager. Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May 1962. After replacing Best with Ringo Starr on drums, The Beatles became popular in the UK in 1963 and in the US in 1964. In 1965, they were each appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). After performing concerts and tours almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than one thousand four hundred live performances internationally, The Beatles gave their last commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour. They continued to work in the recording studio from 1966 until their breakup in 1970. In the eight years from 1962 to 1970, the group had released twenty-four UK singles and twelve studio albums, along with further US releases.

    1970 to Present

    After the breakup of The Beatles, McCartney continued his musical career, in solo work as well as in collaborations with other musicians. After releasing his solo album McCartney in 1970, he worked with Linda McCartney to record the album Ram in 1971. Later the same year, the pair were joined by guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, which was active between 1971 and 1981 and released numerous successful singles and albums (see discography). McCartney also collaborated with a number of other popular artists including Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eric Stewart, and Elvis Costello. In 1985, McCartney played "Let It Be" at the Live Aid concert in London, backed by Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, and Alison Moyet.*

    The 1990s saw McCartney venture into orchestral music, and in 1991 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by McCartney to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio; involving the 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. The Prince of Wales later honoured McCartney as a Fellow of The Royal College of Music. Other forays into classical music included Standing Stone (1997), Working Classical (1999), and "Ecce Cor Meum" (2006). It was announced in the 1997 New Year Honours that McCartney was to be knighted for services to music, becoming Sir Paul McCartney. In 1999, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist and in May 2000, he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. The 1990s also saw McCartney, Harrison and Starr working together on Apple's The Beatles Anthology documentary series.

    Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney took a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City. On the first anniversary of George Harrison's death in November 2002, McCartney performed at the Concert for George. He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.

    McCartney has continued to work in the realms of popular and classical music, touring the world and performing at a large number of concerts and events; on more than one occasion he has performed again with Ringo Starr. In 2008, he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music and an honourary degree, Doctor of Music, from Yale University.The same year, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, he received two nominations for the 51st annual Grammy awards. On 15 July 2009, nearly 45 years after The Beatles first appeared on American television on The Ed Sullivan Show, McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and performed atop the marquee of Late Show with David Letterman.

    Creative Outlets

    During the 1960s, McCartney was often seen at major cultural events, such as the launch party for The International Times and at The Roundhouse (28 January and 4 February 1967 respectively). He also delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists. McCartney later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at the Indica. The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, The International Times, McCartney helped to start. Miles would become de facto manager of the Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label, and wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1997).

    While living at the Asher house, McCartney took piano lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which The Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended. McCartney studied composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.[62] McCartney later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, besides writing poetry and painting. 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. The 1837 building, which McCartney attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s. On 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.

    Electronic Music

    After the recording of "Yesterday" in 1965, McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale, London, to see if they could record an electronic version of the song, but never followed it up. When visiting John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would take along tapes he had compiled at Jane Asher's house. The tapes were mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that he had Dick James make into a demo record for him. Heavily influenced by John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars and bongoes on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows". McCartney referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".

    In the spring of 1966 McCartney rented a ground floor and basement flat from Ringo Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small demo studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately result as Apple and The Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.

    In 1995, McCartney recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu" for the American network Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio". During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the name of the Fireman, and released two ambient electronic albums: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998). In 2000, he released an album titled Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilizing the sound collage and musique concrete techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s. In 2005, he worked on a project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career which were released under the title Twin Freaks. The Fireman's third album Electric Arguments was released on November 25, 2008.

    In January 2009 interview with L.A. Weekly newspaper, McCartney explained what he saw as the most significant difference between the music he creates as The Fireman and the rest of his catalogue. "Fireman is improvisational theatre," McCartney said. "When I sit down to write a song, it’s a kind of improvisation, but I formalise it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do. I usually have a song, and I know the melody and lyrics, and my performance is the only unknown. In this case, I had neither lyrics nor melody to go on—and it felt great."

    Critique, Recognition and Achievements

    McCartney is listed in The Guinness Book Of Records as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history, with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold discs. McCartney has achieved twenty-nine number-one singles in the US, twenty of them with The Beatles, the rest with Wings and as a solo artist. McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles in the United Kingdom than any other artist under a variety of credits, although Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has achieved 24 number-ones in the UK: solo (1), Wings (1), with Stevie Wonder (1), Ferry Aid (1), Band Aid (1), Band Aid 20 (1) and The Beatles (17). McCartney is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie 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). McCartney's song "Yesterday" is the most covered song in history with more than 3,500 recorded versions and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American TV and radio, for which McCartney was given an award. After its 1977 release the Wings single "Mull of Kintyre" became the highest-selling record in British chart history, and remained so until 1984. (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so, in 1984, was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?", whose participants included McCartney.)

    The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named 'McCartney' in his honour.

    On 2 July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history. His performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released only 45 minutes after it was performed, before the end of the concert. The single reached number six on the Billboard charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world. McCartney played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on 21 April 1990, and he played his 3,000th concert in front of 60,000 fans in St Petersburg, Russia, on 20 June 2004. Over his career, McCartney has played 2,523 gigs with The Beatles, 140 with Wings, and 325 as a solo artist.

    In the run up to his concert in St Petersburg in 2004, McCartney hired 3 jets, at a reported cost of £28,000, to spray dry ice in the clouds above St Petersburg Palace Square in an attempt to prevent rain.

    In the concert programme for his 1989 world tour, McCartney wrote that Lennon received all the credit for being the avant-garde Beatle, and McCartney was known as 'baby-faced', which he disagreed with. People also assumed that Lennon was the 'hard-edged one', and McCartney was the 'soft-edged' Beatle, although McCartney admitted to 'bossing Lennon around.'* Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a 'hard-edge'—and not just on the surface—which admitted to 'bossing Lennon around.' Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a 'hard-edge'—and not just on the surface—which she knew about after all the years she had spent living with him. McCartney seemed to confirm this edge when he commented that he sometimes meditates, which he said is better than "sleeping, eating, or shouting at someone".

    On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, the human milestone that was the subject of one of the first songs he ever wrote, at the age of sixteen, the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four." Paul Vallely noted in The Independent:

    "Paul McCartney’s 64th birthday is not merely a personal event. It is a cultural milestone for a generation. Such is the nature of celebrity, McCartney is one of those people who has represented the hopes and aspirations of those born in the baby-boom era, which had its awakening in the Sixties."

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    Comments 7 Comments
    1. Elmeaux's Avatar
      Elmeaux -
      :::applause:::

      Outstanding article!!!
    1. slejhamer's Avatar
      slejhamer -
      That was a good read.

      I got his Live in New York City DVD/CD set last year; it's really fun. My friend and I were discussing his bass tone on that particular recording, and we're convinced the whole thing was overdubbed, probably by some studio guy. No way that little violin bass sounds so punchy and monstrous. Paul really is AMAZING though.
    1. SilverFlame46's Avatar
      SilverFlame46 -
      What a GREAT article!!!
    1. TLDTR's Avatar
      TLDTR -
      A little curiosity for you. Listen carefully to the bass line on "I Will" from the White album. You'll discover something interesting...Ed.
    1. Kegs's Avatar
      Kegs -
      Quote Originally Posted by TLDTR View Post
      A little curiosity for you. Listen carefully to the bass line on "I Will" from the White album. You'll discover something interesting...Ed.
      The bass lines are actually sung by Paul McCartney, right?

      What do I win?
    1. TLDTR's Avatar
      TLDTR -
      You get a Danish! And our hearty congratulations. I love that song and had listened to it for, oh, twenty years or so, before I realized the bass line was being sung! (It's got some great riffs, too!)Well done, Kegs! (P.S. the Danish is on its way. Freshness may be an issue...)Ed.
    1. Kegs's Avatar
      Kegs -
      Quote Originally Posted by TLDTR View Post
      You get a Danish! And our hearty congratulations. I love that song and had listened to it for, oh, twenty years or so, before I realized the bass line was being sung! (It's got some great riffs, too!)Well done, Kegs! (P.S. the Danish is on its way. Freshness may be an issue...)Ed.
      A Danish, woo hoo, thanks, I'll 'Finnish' it as soon as it arrives! Cheers......Kegs.
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