name | Sir Paul McCartneyMBE |
---|---|
birth name | James Paul McCartney |
background | solo_singer |
alt | Black-and-white image of McCartney, in his sixties, holding an electric bass. He wears a black buttoned-up suit jacket with black pants. |
birth name | James Paul McCartney |
born | June 18, 1942Liverpool, England |
instrument | Vocals,Bass guitar,guitar, piano, organ, mellotron, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder |
genre | Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, experimental rock, rock and roll, hard rock, classical music |
occupation | Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, film producer, painter, activist, businessman |
years active | 1957–present |
label | Hear Music, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord Music Group, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay |
associated acts | The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, John Lennon, Denny Laine |
website | |
notable instruments | Höfner 500/1Rickenbacker 4001SGibson Les PaulEpiphone TexanEpiphone CasinoFender EsquireFender Jazz BassYamaha BB1200 BassWal 5-String BassMartin D-28 }} |
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. 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 in the United Kingdom.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. 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. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 31 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.
McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for 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 the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.
McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohan), 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, or "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, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke 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 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 Epstein's North End Music Stores. 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 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 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.
McCartney was heavily influenced by American Rhythm and Blues music. He has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school and that the first song he ever sang in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.
In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders including Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood to record a new version of Ferry Cross the Mersey (originally recorded 25 years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers) to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred on 15 April that year and in which 96 Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries.
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 and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (2008). 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. In November 2002, on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death, 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 honorary 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, while in October of the same year he was named songwriter of the year at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Awards. On 15 July 2009, more than 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. McCartney was portrayed in the 2009 film Nowhere Boy, about Lennon's teenage years, by Thomas Sangster.
On 2 June 2010, McCartney was honoured by 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 many others.
McCartney's enduring popularity has helped him schedule performances in new venues. He played three sold out concerts at newly-built Citi Field in Queens, New York (built to replace the Shea Stadium) in July 2009. On 18 August 2010, McCartney opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
McCartney has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr.
There are plans for an upcoming Paul McCartney tribute album with recordings of McCartney songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, B.B. King and others.
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 such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio. 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.
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 S. 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 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, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète 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 25 November 2008. Unlike the first two Fireman albums, this one was more song-based in its structure. McCartney told L.A. Weekly in a January 2009, "Fireman is improvisational theatre ... 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 May 2000, McCartney released Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes films and photographs that Paul and Linda McCartney (who had died in 1998) took of their family and bands. Interspersed throughout the 88 minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, McCartney, and was one of the producers of the documentary.
McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio. McCartney took up painting in 1983. In 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries. The first UK exhibition of McCartney's work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint"—as Lennon had.
In October 2000, Yoko Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool 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."
As an artist, Paul McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post on 1 July 2002. According to BBC News, McCartney seems to be the first major rock star in the world who is also known as a stamp designer.
In 2001 McCartney published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems, some of which were lyrics to his songs, and gave readings in Liverpool and New York City. Some of them were serious: "Here Today" (about Lennon) and some humorous ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer"). In the foreword of the book, McCartney explained that when he was a teenager, he had "an overwhelming desire" to have a poem of his published in the school magazine. He wrote something "deep and meaningful", but it was rejected, and he feels that he has been trying to get some kind of revenge ever since. His first "real poem" was about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.
In October 2005, McCartney released a children's book called High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail. In a press release publicising the book, McCartney said, "I have loved reading for as long as I can remember", singling out Treasure Island as a childhood favourite. McCartney collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write the book.
In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that the last time he had seen McCartney was when they had watched the episode of Saturday Night Live (May 1976) in which Lorne Michaels had made his $3,000 cash offer to get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to reunite on the show. McCartney and Lennon had seriously considered going to the studio, but were too tired. This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us. His last telephone call to Lennon, which was just before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!" which referred to Lennon's househusband years, while looking after Sean Lennon. In 1984, McCartney said this about the phone call: "Yes. That is a nice thing, 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." Linda McCartney, speaking in the same 1984 interview stated: "I know that Paul was desperate to write with John again. And I know John was desperate to write. Desperate. People thought, well, he's taking care of Sean, he's a househusband and all that, but he wasn't happy. He couldn't write and it drove him crazy. And Paul could have helped him... easily."
;Reaction to Lennon's murder On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in the Dakota building in New York. Lennon's death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles. On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death. He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be an utterly superficial response: "It's a drag". McCartney 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." McCartney was also to recall: }} In 1983, McCartney said: }} In a Playboy interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—while sitting with all his children—and cried all evening.
McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered. This led to a disagreement with Denny Laine, who wanted to continue touring and subsequently left Wings, which McCartney disbanded in 1981. Also in June 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, "All Those Years Ago", which also featured Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney would go on to record "Here Today", a tribute song to Lennon.
In 1977, Harrison had this to say about working with McCartney: "There were a lot of tracks though where I played bass...because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. 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." While being interviewed circa 1988, Harrison said McCartney had recently mentioned the possibility of the two of them writing together, to which Harrison laughed, "I've only been there about 30 years in Paul's life and it's like now he wants to write with me."
In September 1980, Lennon said of Harrison and McCartney's working relationship: "I remember the day [Harrison] called to ask for help on "Taxman", one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he could not go to Paul, because Paul would not have helped him at that period." Despite this statement, McCartney did contribute to the song, playing the track's guitar solo.
In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on 29 November 2001, McCartney told Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, Good Morning America, The Early Show, MTV, VH1 and Today that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney. On the day Harrison died, McCartney said, "George was a fantastic guy...still laughing and joking...a very brave man...and I love him like...he's my brother." While guesting on Larry King Live alongside Ringo Starr, McCartney said of the last time he saw Harrison, "We just sat there stroking hands. And this is a guy, and, you know, you don't stroke hands with guys, like that, you know it was just beautiful. We just spent a couple of hours and it was really lovely it was like...a favourite memory of mine." On the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.
One of McCartney's first girlfriends, in 1959, was called Layla, a name he remembers being unusual in Liverpool at the time. Layla was slightly older than McCartney and used to ask him to baby-sit with her. Julie Arthur, another girlfriend, was Ted Ray's niece.
McCartney remembered getting "very high" and giggling when The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York, in 1964. McCartney's use of cannabis became regular, and he was quoted as saying that any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life". John Dunbar's flat at 29 Lennox Gardens, in London, became a regular hang-out for McCartney, where he talked to musicians, writers and artists, and smoked cannabis. In 1965, Barry Miles introduced McCartney to hash brownies by using a recipe for hash fudge he found in the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. During the filming of Help!, he occasionally smoked a spliff in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines. Help! director Dick Lester said that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into taking heroin, but he refused.
McCartney's attitude about cannabis was made public in the 1960s, when he added his name to an advertisement in The Times, on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, 15 doctors, and two MPs.
McCartney was introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, and it was available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He admitted that he used the drug multiple times for about a year but stopped because of the unpleasant comedown.
In 1967, on a sailing trip to Greece (with the idea of buying an island for the whole group) McCartney said everybody sat around and took LSD, although McCartney had first taken it with Tara Browne, in 1966. He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a studio session. McCartney was the first British pop star to openly admit using LSD, in an interview in the now-defunct "Queen" magazine. His admission was followed by a TV interview in the UK on ITN on 19 June 1967, and when McCartney was asked about his admission of LSD use, he said:
McCartney was not arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as had been Donovan, and several members of the Rolling Stones. In 1972, however, police found cannabis plants growing on his Scottish farm.
On 16 January 1980, Wings went to Tokyo for 11 concerts in Japan. As McCartney was going through customs, officials found 7.7 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage. He was arrested and taken to a Tokyo prison while the Japanese government decided what to do. McCartney had been previously denied a visa to Japan (in 1975) because he had been convicted twice in Europe for possession of cannabis. Public figures called for McCartney to be put on trial for drug-smuggling. Had he been convicted, he would have faced up to seven years in prison. The Wings Japanese tour was cancelled and the other members of Wings left Japan. After ten days in jail, McCartney was released and deported. He was told that he would not be welcome in Japan again, although a decade later he played a concert in Tokyo. In 1984, Paul and Linda McCartney were both arrested for possession of cannabis.
In an interview in 2004 he stated the he no longer smoked marijuana, He also admitted to taking Heroin, LSD and Cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive.
In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt (their final public appearance together). Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance. The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show Larry King Live. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business. McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.
McCartney has been involved with a number of charity recordings and performances. 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 he had previously been involved in the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (released 8 May 1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.
In a December 2008 interview with Prospect Magazine, McCartney mentioned that he tried to convince the Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian. In a letter to the Dalai Lama, McCartney took issue with Buddhism and meat-eating being considered compatible, saying, "Forgive me for pointing this out, but if you eat animals then there is some suffering somewhere along the line." The Dalai Lama replied to McCartney by saying his doctors advised him to eat meat for health reasons. In the interview McCartney said, "I wrote back saying they were wrong."
Lennon and McCartney were present to watch the 1966 FA Cup Final at Wembley, between Everton and Sheffield Wednesday, and McCartney attended the 1968 FA Cup Final (18 May 1968) which was played by West Bromwich Albion against Everton. After the end of the match, McCartney shared cigarettes and whisky with other football fans. The ex-Liverpool player, Albert Stubbins, was the only footballer shown on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. McCartney tried to listen (on a radio) to the Liverpool v Manchester United 1977 FA Cup Final, while sailing in the Caribbean, and the video for McCartney's "Pipes of Peace" (in 1983) recreated the 1915 football game played between German and British troops during World War I, at Christmas.
At the end of the live version of "Coming Up" recorded in Glasgow in 1979 (later to become a US number one single) the crowd begins to sing "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes the chant to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to the current Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player who played for Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish", to which Linda added: "I like Gordon McQueen of Man United", and Smith replied, "I know him too."
McCartney attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton, and in 1989, he contributed to the Ferry Cross the Mersey charity single that was recorded to aid victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, which happened during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. McCartney performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium on 1 June 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on "Band on the Run", and played drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R.". Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.
In an interview in 2008, McCartney 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 and I don't have that Catholic-Protestant thing.' So I did have to get special dispensation from the Pope to do this but that's it, too bad. I support them both. They are both great teams, but if it comes to the crunch, I'm Evertonian."
In 2010, there was heavy speculation surrounding McCartney that he was to head up a consortium launching a take-over bid for struggling Charlton Athletic. Links between the club and the famous musician go a long way back with Charlton's famous supporters anthem – Valley, Floyd Road – using the tune and a number of lyrics from the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre".
The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a 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. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.
MPL Communications is an umbrella company for McCartney's business interests, which owns a wide range of copyrights, as well as the publishing rights to musicals. In 2006, the Trademarks Registry reported that MPL had started a process to secure the protections associated with registering the name "Paul McCartney" as a trademark. The 2005 films, Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck, feature MPL copyrights.
In April 2009, it was revealed that McCartney, in common with other wealthy musicians, had seen a significant decline in his net worth over the preceding year. It was estimated that his fortune had fallen by some £60m, from £238m to £175m. The losses were attributed to the ongoing global recession, and the resultant decline in value of property and stock market holdings.
In the US, McCartney has achieved thirty-two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including twenty-one with The Beatles, one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", nine solo, with Wings or other collaborators, and one as the composer of "A World Without Love", a number one single for Peter and Gordon. In the UK, McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles than any other artist under a variety of credits, although Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has twenty four number-one singles in the UK, including 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". 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 was voted the "Greatest Composer of the Millennium" by BBC News Online readers and McCartney's song "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. Sir Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most played song by a British writer this century in the US." 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?" in which McCartney was a participant.)
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, Brazil on 21 April 1990.
McCartney's scheduled concert in St Petersburg, Russia was his 3,000th concert and took place in front of 60,000 fans in 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. Only his second concert in Russia, with the first just the year before on Moscow's Red Square as the former Communist U.S.S.R. had previously banned music from The Beatles as a "corrupting influence", McCartney hired 3 jets, at a reported cost of $36,000 (€29,800) (£28,000), to spray dry ice in the clouds above Saint Petersburg's Winter Palace Square in a successful attempt to prevent rain.
The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to RIA Novosti news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday. 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 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".
The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour.
On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a 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: }}
Notes | Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms |
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Crest | On a Wreath of the Colours A Liver Bird calling Sable supporting with the dexter claws a Guitar Or stringed Sable. |
Escutcheon | Or between two Flaunches fracted fesswise two Roundels Sable over all six Guitar Strings palewise throughout counterchanged. |
Motto | ECCE COR MEUM (Behold my heart) |
Previous versions | }} |
;Bibliography
Category:1942 births Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English pop singers Category:English rock bass guitarists Category:English rock guitarists Category:English rock pianists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English vegetarians Category:Backing vocalists Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Apple Records artists Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Music from Liverpool Category:Parlophone artists Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People convicted of drug offenses Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:The Beatles members Category:The Quarrymen members Category:Wings members Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Living people Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners Category:People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys Category:Silver Clef Awards winners Category:Animal rights advocates
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