Malcolm Frederick 'Mal' Evans (27 May 1935 – 5 January 1976) was best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of The Beatles.

In the early 1960s, Evans was employed as a telephone engineer, and also worked part-time as a bouncer at the Cavern Club, where The Beatles performed. Manager Brian Epstein later hired Evans as their assistant road manager, in tandem with Neil Aspinall. Evans was tall and heavily-built, and Peter Brown (one of Epstein's staff) later wrote of Evans as "a kindly, but menacing-looking young man". Evans contributed to many Beatle recordings, and appeared in some of the films they made. Although The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, Evans carried on assisting the band until their 1970 break-up. From 1969 forward, Evans had also found work as a record producer (most notably with Badfinger's top 10 hit "No Matter What"), and as an occasional songwriter.

Evans was killed by police on 5 January 1976 at his home in Los Angeles. Officers were called when his girlfriend phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused and had a gun. The police believed that the air rifle Evans was holding was a rifle and shot him dead.

Early life[link]

Details of Evans’ early life are unknown, apart from his birth date. No book has been written about him although he wrote his memoirs, Living The Beatles' Legend, from which extracts were released on 20 March 2005.^[1][2] Anything known about him starts in 1961, when Evans married a Liverpool girl, Lily, after meeting her at a funfair in New Brighton, Merseyside, and their first child, Gary, was born in the same year.^[3] The Beatles were the house band at Liverpool's Cavern Club when Evans first heard them perform during his lunch break. He was then living in Hillside Road, Mossley Hill and working as a telephone engineer for the Post Office.^[3][4] He became a committed fan, even though his musical hero at the time was Elvis Presley.^[5]

He first befriended Harrison, who put forward Evans' name to the Cavern Club's manager, Ray McFall, when he needed a doorman.^[3] The 27-year-old Evans was accepted—even though he wore thick-framed glasses—mainly because of his burly 6 ft 6in frame (1.97 m), which was an asset when holding back the numerous fans at the Cavern's door, and later as an unofficial bodyguard for them.^[3] He was later nicknamed the "Gentle Giant" and "Big Mal".^[6][7] In 1962, Evans wrote that it was "a wonderful year", as he had Lily (his wife), his son Gary, a house, a car, and he was working at the Cavern club, which he wrote into a 1963 Post Office Engineering Union diary, which also had information concerning Ohm's law and Post Office pay rates.^[3]

The Beatles[link]

Three months after starting at the Cavern Club, Evans was hired by Brian Epstein as road manager, on 11 August 1962.^[8][9] Evans and Neil Aspinall’s duties were to drive the van while the band was on tour, set up and test the equipment, and then pack it up again.^[10] The Beatles were being driven back to Liverpool from London by Evans through heavy fog on 21 January 1963, when the windscreen was hit by a pebble and cracked, so Evans had to break a large hole in it to see the road ahead.^[3] This was in winter, so The Beatles had to lie one on top of the other in the back with a bottle of whisky and try to stay warm in the freezing temperatures; something McCartney later referred to as a "Beatle sandwich".^[11]

Evans had many other duties. As well as acting as a bodyguard, he was sent to buy anything they needed, such as suits, boots, meals, or drinks.^[12] If Lennon said "Socks, Mal", Evans would have to rush to a local Marks and Spencer store and buy six pairs of cotton socks for him.^[13] In 1967, Evans wrote in his diaries that he "bought Ringo [Starr] some undies for his visit to the doctor".^[2] The Beatles' memorabilia is in continuous demand, but a full set of autographs by all four could be forgeries: Evans and Aspinall used to sign many of them when Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were too busy.^[14]

The Beatles started their first European tour in January 1964, and Evans was allowed to take his wife and son with him, but was involved in a "big punch-up" with photographers in Paris whilst protecting them.^[13] Epstein’s associate, Alistair Taylor, once asked him why he was driving an Austin Princess limousine, rather than a Daimler, a Bentley, or a Rolls-Royce. The Beatles were forced to choose an Austin (as Evans explained) because they had tested every car to see how wide the doors would open as they (literally) had to "dive into the car" to escape their fans.^[15]

America and the Philippines[link]

The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York in 1964, and McCartney remembered asking Evans "again and again" to write down McCartney's newly found cannabis-influenced thoughts about life by repeating "Get [write] it down, Mal, get it down!"^[16] Evans was as affected by the drug as everybody else, so took a very long time to find a pencil and a piece of paper.^[17] The next morning Evans gave the sheet of paper to McCartney, who noted that McCartney had dictated: "There are seven levels!" (of life, as he later explained).^[16] The Beatles attended "The Night of 100 Stars" at the London Palladium on 23 July 1964, and during the show Evans constantly supplied them with whisky and Coca-Cola, which he delivered to them balanced on a wooden oar he had found backstage.^[18]

The Beatles were assisted by Evans on their American tour, and when they played two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1965. Epstein arranged for them all to have a four-day rest in a luxurious horseshoe-shaped house on stilts in Benedict Canyon off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. They spent their time there smoking large marijuana joints, and Evans and Lennon swam in the large outdoor swimming pool with cigarettes in their mouths, to see who could keep them alight the longest.^[19] After recording sessions in London, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr would be chauffeured back to their houses in the “stockbroker belt” of southern England, but Evans, Aspinall, and McCartney would drive to a late-night club to eat steak, chips, and mushy peas.^[20] The Bag O'Nails nightclub was one of their favourites, at 8 Kingly Street in Soho, London, as it also presented live music.^[21][22] In his memoirs Evans wrote: January 19 and 20: "Ended up smashed in Bag O'Nails with Paul [McCartney] and Neil [Aspinall]. Quite a number of people attached themselves, oh that it would happen to me... freak out time baby for Mal."^[13]

In July 1966, The Beatles toured the Philippines, and unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos.^[23] After the snub was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles' police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd.^[24] Once the group boarded the plane, Tony Barrow and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, "Tell Lil I love her," thinking he was about to be jailed or killed.^[25] Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed on the plane.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Kenya and Sgt. Pepper

The Beatles' last concert was at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, on 29 August 1966, but Evans continued to run errands for them and to work with them in the studio. After recording Revolver in 1966, McCartney went by himself on holiday to France, but arranged to meet Evans in Bordeaux at the Grosse Horloge church, on the corner of cours Victor Hugo and rue St. James.^[26] At exactly the pre-arranged time of one o'clock Evans was standing under the church clock when McCartney arrived.^[27] They later drove to Madrid together, but got bored, and phoned Epstein's office in London and asked to be booked on a safari holiday in Kenya. When they arrived there they visited the Amboseli Reserve at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and also stayed at the exclusive Treetops Hotel, where the rooms are built on the branches of trees.^[27]

They spent their final night in Nairobi at a YMCA, before they returned to London. The Beatles—according to McCartney—needed a new name, and on the flight back to England Evans and McCartney played with words to see if they could come up with something new. Evans innocently asked McCartney what the letters “S” and “P” stood for on the pots on their meal trays, and McCartney explained that it was for salt and pepper, which led to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band name.^[28] They arrived back in London on 19 November 1966.^[29] Before the cover of Sgt. Pepper could be completed by Peter Blake, Evans and Aspinall were sent out to find photographs of all of the people that were to be shown on the front cover.^[30]

In the spring of 1967—as soon as the album was completed—Evans flew with McCartney to Los Angeles to see McCartney's then-fiancée, Jane Asher, who was acting with the Old Vic theatre company. The three of them went on a trip to the Rockies, returning to LA by Frank Sinatra's jet: "We left Denver in Frank Sinatra's Lear Jet, which he very kindly loaned us. A beautiful job with dark black leather upholstery and, to our delight, a well-stocked bar."^[31] When they were back in LA, they were invited to visit the house of Michelle and John Phillips, from the Mamas & the Papas.^[13] Brian Wilson was there later, as he was working on the Beach Boys Smile album. Evans wrote about singing "On Top of Old Smokey" with McCartney and Wilson, but was not impressed by Wilson's avant-garde attitude to music: "Brian [Wilson] then put a damper on the spontaneity of the whole affair by walking in with a tray of water-filled glasses, trying to arrange it into some sort of session."^[31]

[edit] Greece and Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles and Evans flew to Greece in late 1967 with encouragement from Greek-born "Magic Alex", the director of Apple Electronics, to buy an island or a group of islands.^[32] The idea was that the whole Apple entourage would live on the islands in their own separate homes, but would be connected to each other by tunnels leading to a central dome. Evans and his family were included in the plan, but it was abandoned as being unworkable after McCartney refused to participate.^[33] McCartney had no housekeeper in 1967, so Evans moved in with him at 7 Cavendish Avenue, St John's Wood, which is near Abbey Road Studios.^[20] It was at Cavendish Avenue that McCartney bought his first Old English Sheepdog, Martha, although Evans often complained about the dog fouling the beds.^[13] Evans later bought a house in Sunbury-on-Thames, which was between McCartney's house, and Lennon, Harrison, and Starr's houses outside London.^[13]

While working on the Magical Mystery Tour film, Evans wrote about his work duties: "I would get requests from the four of them to do six different things at one time and it was always a case of relying on instinct and experience in awarding priorities. They used to be right sods for the first few days until they realised that everything was going to go smoothly and they could get into the routine of recording... Then I would find time between numerous cups of tea and salad sandwiches and baked beans on toast to listen to the recording in the control room."^[31]

After the Magical Mystery Tour recordings, Evans flew to Nice with McCartney to film The Fool on the Hill clip, although McCartney set off without luggage or a passport.^[31] McCartney got past customs by saying “You know who I am”, but he and Evans were not allowed into the hotel restaurant in Nice because they “didn't look the part”, and had to eat dinner in Evans’ room.^[31] Because the money they had with them had been spent on clothes, and NEMS was supposed to send them more, they arranged for credit over two nights in a nightclub: "We took advantage of our credit standing, as money had still not arrived from England. News about Paul's [McCartney] visit to the club the previous night had spread, and the place was jammed. Now Paul, being a generous sort of person, had built up quite a bar bill, when the manager of the club arrived demanding that we pay immediately. On explaining who Paul was and what had happened, he answered, 'You either pay the bill, or I call the police.' It certainly looked like we were going to get thrown in jail. It was ironical, sitting in a club with a millionaire, unable to pay the bill."^[31]

India and Apple[link]

The Beatles flew to India in February 1968, to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, after meeting him on 24 August 1967 at the London Hilton.^[2] Evans had arrived in India a few days earlier to inspect the ashram, but soon as Starr got off the plane, he demanded that Evans find a doctor, as his inoculation shots were causing him pain: “When we arrived at the local hospital, I tried to get immediate treatment for him [Starr], to be told curtly by the Indian doctor, 'He is not a special case and will have to wait his turn.' So off we go to pay a private doctor ten rupees for the privilege of hearing him say it will be all right."^[31] Evans wrote in his diary on 17 February 1968: "The press really tried kicking down the gates into the Ashram, the Indian people on the Ashram called me half way through, but as soon as an Indian reporter told me "No bloody foreigner is going to stop me in my own country", I cooled it."^[2] Evans’ diary says that he enjoyed his time in India: “It’s hard to believe that a week has already passed. I suppose the peace of mind and the serenity one achieves through meditation makes the time fly," and that he also enjoyed the food, unlike Starr, who had brought a suitcase full of baked beans with him.^[31] After India, Harrison and Evans flew to New York, visiting Bob Dylan and The Band, who were rehearsing at their Big Pink house/studio, in Woodstock.^[34]

When Apple was formed in 1968, Evans was promoted from road manager to personal assistant, although his weekly £38 salary remained the same: "January 13, 1969: Paul [McCartney] is really cutting down on the Apple staff members. I was elevated to office boy [Evans was made MD of Apple, very briefly] and I feel very hurt and sad inside—only big boys don't cry. Why I should feel hurt and reason for writing this is ego... I thought I was different from other people in my relationship with The Beatles and being loved by them and treated so nice, I felt like one of the family. Seems I fetch and carry. I find it difficult to live on the £38 I take home each week and would love to be like their other friends who buy fantastic homes and have all the alterations done by them, and are still going to ask for a rise. I always tell myself—look, everybody wants to take from, be satisfied, try to give and you will receive. After all this time I have about £70 to my name, but was content and happy. Loving them as I do, nothing is too much trouble, because I want to serve them. Feel a bit better now—EGO?"^[34] Evans' financial problems started to become such a problem that he had to ask Harrison for money: "April 24: "Had to tell George [Harrison]—'I'm broke'. Really miserable and down because I'm in the red, and the bills are coming in, poor old Lil [his wife] suffers as I don't want to get a rise. Not really true don't want to ask for a rise, fellows are having a pretty tough time as it is."^[35]

Evans was the only member of the Apple entourage to be invited to attend (and be a witness) when McCartney and Linda Eastman were married at Marylebone Registry Office on 12 March 1969.^[36] Evans wrote in his diary that he was due to be there at 9.45am but McCartney's brother, Michael McCartney's train from Birmingham was delayed. Peter Brown and Evans passed the register office at 9.15 and saw that there were only a few photographers and ardent fans standing in the rain, but when they left after the wedding at 11.30am they were mobbed by a crowd of about 1,000 people.^[2] When the Beatles played on the roof of Apple's offices in Savile Row, Evans was given the job of setting up the equipment (as always) and was then told to delay the policemen as long as possible.^[34]

Allen Klein[link]

Evans enjoyed an executive position at Apple until 1969, when Allen Klein was hired as a manager to reorganise the whole company. Evans was fired by Klein the next year, because Klein complained to Lennon that Aspinall and Evans were "living like kings—like fucking emperors", although Evans was later reinstated after McCartney, Harrison and Starr complained.^[37][38] On 13 September 1969, Evans accompanied Lennon, Yoko Ono, Klaus Voorman, Alan White and Eric Clapton to Toronto, Canada, for the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Concert. He later commented about the concert: "I was really enjoying myself. It was the first show I had roadied for three years and I was really loving every minute of plugging the amps in and setting them up on stage, making sure that everything was right. Everyone wanted the show to go particularly well because Allen Klein, who had flown over, had organised for the whole of John's performance to be filmed. This was on top of it being video-taped by Dan Richter."^[39]

Musical contributions[link]

Evans contributed to many recordings,^[3] including lending his voice to "Yellow Submarine". Evans played single organ notes on "You Won't See Me",^[3] and harmonica, kazoo, and organ on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!".^[40] McCartney explained that he showed Evans where the notes were on the organ, and then nodded his head when he wanted Evans to play, and shook it when he wanted him to stop.^[41]

On "A Day in the Life", Evans controlled an alarm clock, counted the measures in the original 24-bar break^[13] and was one of the five piano players simultaneously hitting the last chord of the song.^[41] Evans played tambourine on "Dear Prudence" and saxophone on "Helter Skelter". He played a double solo with Lennon, although neither of them were proficient on the instrument.^[42] Evans contributed background vocals and shovelled a bucket of gravel (as part of the rhythm) on "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)".^[41] Evans also contributed to the White Album outtake "What's the New Mary Jane", and hit an anvil on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer",^[3][41][43] because Starr could not lift the hammer high enough to get the right sound and keep in time with the song.^[43]

According to his diaries, Evans helped to compose songs on the Sgt. Pepper album.^[2] Evans wrote, on 27 January 1967: "Sgt Pepper. Started writing song with Paul [McCartney] upstairs in his room, he on piano" and "Did a lot more of "where the rain comes in" [a lyric from "Fixing a Hole"]. Hope people like it. Started Sergeant Pepper".^[2] On 1 February: "Sergeant Pepper sounds good. Paul tells me that I will get royalties on the song—great news, now perhaps a new home.^[2][40] On 2 February: "Recording voices on Captain [sic] Pepper. All six of us doing the chorus in the middle, worked until about midnight."^[2]

Keith Badman—author of The Beatles off the Record—referred to a tape recording of Evans speaking shortly before his death, on which Evans reiterated some of the statements made in the diary. According to Badman, Evans was asked at the time if it would be a problem that he was not credited, as the Lennon–McCartney writing name was "a really hot item".^[40] Evans did not receive any royalties and stayed at his £38-a-week pay (equivalent to £514 today).^[40]

On film[link]

Evans appeared in three (out of five) Beatles' films.^[3] In Help!, Evans played a confused channel swimmer who pops up through an ice-hole in Austria, and on a beach in the Bahamas.^[44] The Beatles asked Evans and Aspinall to find and hire the actors they wanted to perform in the Magical Mystery Tour film, and to hire an old 60-seater coach, on which they were told to paint the Magical Mystery Tour logo which McCartney had designed.^[31] Evans later appeared in the film as one of the magicians who cast mysterious spells on the passengers of the bus.^[45]

In the Let It Be film, Evans can be seen playing the anvil during early versions of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", and can be seen talking to police officers on the Savile Row rooftop when they came to stop the live performance.^[41] Before the rooftop concert, Evans placed a camera and a microphone in a corner of Apple's reception area, so that when the police came in to complain about the noise—which was expected—they could be filmed and recorded.^[46][47] The Beatles were often filmed by Evans during his time with them (without sound) and a collection of his recordings was later released on DVD.^[48]

After The Beatles[link]

In 1968, Evans had discovered the band Badfinger (then known as The Iveys) and suggested that they be signed to Apple. Although not trained as a studio technician, Evans produced several songs recorded by The Iveys/Badfinger in 1969 and 1970. The most notable of these is "No Matter What", which charted on Billboard's Top 10 in December 1970.^[49] Evans also discovered the group Splinter and brought them to the label, although they would subsequently move to George Harrison's Dark Horse Records when Apple began to fold.^[50] Evans' other production credits include Jackie Lomax's 1969 single "New Day" (also on Apple) and some of the tracks on Keith Moon's only solo album, Two Sides of the Moon (1975).^[51]

Evans separated from his wife Lil in 1973, and subsequently moved from the UK to Los Angeles (where Lennon had moved to live with May Pang after his own separation from Yoko Ono). Evans is credited on Harrison's All Things Must Pass and the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album as providing "tea and sympathy".^[52] Evans co-wrote "You and Me (Babe)" with Harrison, which appeared on Starr's 1973 solo album Ringo.^[53] He also co-wrote the Splinter song "Lonely Man", the musical centrepiece of Little Malcolm, an Apple feature film produced by Harrison.

Evans was asked to produce the group Natural Gas,^[54] and was working on a book of memoirs called Living The Beatles' Legend, which he was due to deliver to his publishers, Grosset & Dunlap, on 12 January 1976. Evans was depressed about his separation from his wife—who had asked for a divorce before Christmas—although he was then living with new girlfriend Fran Hughes in a rented motel apartment at 8122 West 4th Street in Los Angeles.^[1][55]

Death[link]

On 5 January 1976, Evans was so despondent that Hughes phoned his collaborator on his book, John Hoernie, and asked him to visit them. Hoernie saw Evans "really doped-up and groggy", and Evans told Hoernie to make sure that he finished Living The Beatles' Legend.^[1] Hoernie helped Evans up to an upstairs bedroom, but during an incoherent conversation Evans picked up a 30.30 air rifle. Hoernie struggled with Evans, but Evans, being much stronger, held onto the weapon.^[1]

Hughes then phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused, had a rifle,^[40] and was on valium. Four policemen arrived and three of them, David D. Krempa, Robert E. Brannon and Lieutenant Higbie, went up to the bedroom.^[56] They later reported that as soon as Evans saw the three policemen he pointed a rifle at them.^[57] The officers repeatedly told Evans to put down the rifle (which they did not know at the time was an air rifle) but Evans constantly refused.^[58] The police fired six shots, of which four struck Evans, killing him instantly.^[59] Evans had previously been awarded the badge of "Honorary Sheriff of Los Angeles County",^[1] but in the Los Angeles Times, he was referred to as a “jobless former road manager for The Beatles”.^[58]

Evans was cremated on 7 January 1976, in Los Angeles. None of the former Beatles attended his funeral, but Harry Nilsson and other friends did, and Harrison arranged for Evans' family to receive £5,000, as Evans had not maintained his life insurance premiums, and was not entitled to a pension.^[35]

Aftermath[link]

In 1986, a trunk containing Evans' diaries and other effects was found in the basement of a New York publisher and sent to his family in London.^[3] In 1992, Lennon's original pages of lyrics to "A Day in the Life" were sold by the Evans estate for £56,600 at Sotheby's, in London, to an unknown collector.^[60] In 2010 the double-sided sheet of paper containing the hand-written lyrics and notes to "A Day in the Life" were sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York to an anonymous American buyer for $1.2m (£810,000).^[61] Other lyrics collected by Evans have been subject to legal action over the years: In 1996, McCartney went to the High Court in England and prevented the sale of the original lyrics to "With a Little Help from My Friends" that Evans' widow Lily had tried to sell, by claiming that the lyrics were collected by Evans as a part of his duties and belonged to the individual Beatles.^[62] A 2004 report of the discovery of a further collection of Evans's Beatles memorabilia proved to be false.^[63]

A notebook in which McCartney wrote the lyrics for "Hey Jude" was sold in 1998 at an auction for £111,500. The notebook also contains lyrics for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "All You Need Is Love". It also contains lyrics, notes, drawings and poems by Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, as well as by Evans.^[64]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Badman, Keith (2000). Beatles: Off the Record. Music Sales Corporation. ISBN 978-0-7119-7985-7. 
• Brown, Peter; Gaines, Steven (2002). The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles. New York: New American Library. ISBN 978-0-451-20735-7. 
• Huntley, Elliot J. (2004). Mystical One: George Harrison: After the Breakup of the Beatles. Guernica Editions Inc.. ISBN 978-1-55071-197-4. 
• Ingham, Chris (2003). The rough guide to the Beatles. Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-84353-140-1. 
• Leng, Simon (2002). The Music of George Harrison: While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Firefly Publishing. ISBN 978-0-946719-50-1. 
• Lennon, Cynthia (2005). John. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-89512-2. 
• Miles, Barry (1997). Many Years From Now. Vintage-Random House. ISBN 978-0-7493-8658-0. 
• Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-80352-6. 
• The Beatles (2003). The Beatles Anthology (DVD). Apple records. ASIN: B00008GKEG. 

External links[link]

• Times online, Here, There, and Everywhere
• Mal Evans at the Harry Nilsson Web Pages
• The Dutch “mal evans memorial band”
• Timesonline: Evans' diaries say that he co-wrote the Sgt Pepper song and others

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 (age 70) Liverpool, England, UK
Genres	Rock, pop, classical, electronica
Occupations	Musician, composer, music producer, film producer, businessman
Instruments	Vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Hear, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay
Associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine
Website	www.paulmccartney.com
Notable instruments
Höfner 500/1 Rickenbacker 4001S Epiphone Texan Gibson Les Paul Epiphone Casino Martin D-28

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he 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 over 100 million albums and 100 million singles.^[1] With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.

According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness.^[2] As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.

He has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, and released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist. He has taken part in projects to help international charities, and has been an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he has been active in campaigns 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, 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[link]

McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had twelve years earlier, "satisfied her state registry requirements" for nursing, writes Beatles biographer Bob Spitz.^[3] His father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was absent at his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer fire fighter during World War II.^[3] McCartney has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944, and though they were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, "religion did not play a part in their upbringing" according to biographer Barry Miles, as McCartney's father was a Protestant turned agnostic.^[4]

In 1947 he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School, by 1952 Joseph Williams Junior School,^[5] where he passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of ninety examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute.^[6] However, when he took his A-level exams at age nineteen, he passed only one subject – Art.^[7] In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison,^[8] who had also passed the exam, meaning they could both go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work.^[9]

20 Forthlin Road now attracts large numbers of tourists.

In 1955 the McCartneys moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived through 1964.^[10] Paul was the first member of his family to own a car and his mother rode a bicycle to houses where she worked as a midwife; he describes an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning" the "streets ... thick with snow".^[11] 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.^[12] The loss of his mother at fourteen was later a point of relation with John Lennon, whose mother Julia also died when he was young, after being struck by a car when he was seventeen.^[13]

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his son to be musical. He kept an upright piano in the front room that he purchased from Epstein's North End Music Stores.^[14] His father, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.^[15] Jim McCartney used to point out the bass parts in songs on the radio, and often took his son to local brass band concerts.^[16] Jim gave his son a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday,^[17] but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg,^[18] Paul traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, realising it would be too difficult to sing, "with a trumpet stuck in your mouth."^[17] 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 after some adjustments, found it easier to play.^[17] McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and an early tune which became, "When I'm Sixty-Four", on the piano, for which, despite his father's advice, he took only a couple of lessons for, preferring instead he says, to learn "by ear."^[14] He was heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues music, and has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school. The first song he ever sang on a stage in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.^[19]

Musical career[link]

1957–1960: The Quarrymen[link]

McCartney met Lennon and the Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957, when he was fifteen years old.^[20] He 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.^[21] By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "the Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They changed the name of the group to "the Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best on drums prior to the first of what would be five engagements in Hamburg, Germany.^[22]

1960–1970: The Beatles[link]

McCartney (left) in 1964 with Beatles bandmates Harrison and Lennon

From August 1960 the Beatles were booked by Allan Williams to perform in Hamburg, and 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, and upon returns to Liverpool, at the Cavern Club.^[23] In 1961 Sutcliffe left the band, and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.^[24] The Beatles recorded their first published music in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".^[25] The recording would later bring them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962.^[26] Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May of that year.^[27] After replacing Best with Ringo Starr in August, they became increasingly popular in the UK during 1963 and in the US in 1964, in a frenzied adolation that became known as "Beatlemania",^[28] during which McCartney was dubbed, "the cute Beatle", according to Miles.^[29] In 1965 they were each appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).^[30]

After the recording of the Beatles hit "Yesterday" (1965), McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale London, to ask if they would record an electronic version of the song, but he never followed up.^[31] When visiting artist John Dunbar's flat in London, he would bring along tapes he had compiled at then girlfriend Jane Asher's home,^[32] mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.^[33] Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongos 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" (1966). He referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".^[34] In 1966 he rented a ground floor and basement flat from Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.^[35] 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 come of the endeavour as Apple and the Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.^[35] After touring almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than 1,400 live performances internationally,^[36] the group gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.^[37]

They continued to work in the recording studio and before their break-up in 1970 produced what some critics consider to be their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968) and Abbey Road (1969).^[38] Between 1963 and 1970 the group released twenty-two UK singles and twelve LPs, of which seventeen of the singles and eleven of the LPs became number ones.^[39] The band topped the US Billboard Hot 100 twenty times, and recorded fourteen number one albums.^[40] Lennon and McCartney became one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.^[41] McCartney's contributions to the band's hit song's include: "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964), "Yesterday" (1965), Paperback Writer" and "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Hello, Goodbye" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), "Get Back (1969)", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" (1970).^[42]

In March 1969 he married Linda Eastman, whom he first met in May 1967. The couple had their first child together, Mary, named after Paul's late mother, in August 1969.^[43] In October 1969 a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash, but it was quickly proven false when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family with the caption, "Paul is Still With Us."^[44]

1970–1981: Wings[link]

McCartney during a Wings concert, 1976

After the Beatles break-up in 1970 McCartney continued his musical career, releasing his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970, which contained the stand-out track "Maybe I'm Amazed", written for Linda.^[45] With the exception of some vocal contributions from her, it is a "one-man album with Paul playing all the instruments" himself, writes Beatles biographer Bill Harry.^[46] In 1971 Paul collaborated with Linda on a second album, Ram, a UK number one which included the co-written US number one hit song, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".^[47] Later that year, the pair were joined by ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, and release their first album together, Wild Life. In September 1971 the McCartney family added a second child, Stella, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers.^[48]

In 1973 McCartney wrote Wings' first US number one, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, and his collaboration with Linda and former Beatles' producer George Martin resulted in the James Bond theme song and Wings hit, "Live and Let Die", which was nominated for an Oscar, and earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.^[49] In 1974 Paul wrote a second US number one for Wings, "Band on the Run"; the acclaimed album of the same name, Wings' third, was a massive success that became their first platinum LP.^[50] They followed with the chart topping LPs, Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).^[51] In September 1977 a third child was born to the McCartneys, a son they named James,^[52] and in November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre" was fast becoming "the best-selling single in UK history", writes Beatles biographer Peter Doggett.^[53] Achieving double the sales of the previous record holder, "She Loves You", the track would go on to sell 2.5 million copies, and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?".^[54] In 1977 he released Thrillington, an orchestral arrangement of Ram, under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington^[55], with a cover designed by Hipgnosis.^[56]

While London Town (1978) and Back to the Egg (1979) passed with little critical or commercial notice,^[57] the latter involved McCartney's collaboration with a rock supergroup dubbed, "the Rockestra", though credited to Wings, that included Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham.^[58] Active through 1981, Wings produced seven studio albums, five of which topped the US charts,^[59] as well as their live triple LP, Wings over America,^[60] one of few live albums ever to achieve the top spot in America.^[61] They also recorded six US number one singles including, "Listen to What the Man Said", "Silly Love Songs, "With a Little Luck", and "Coming Up".^[62]

1982–1989[link]

In 1980 he released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, and as with his first, he composed all the music and performed the instrumentation himself. The album contained the hit songs "Coming Up", "Waterfalls", and "Temporary Secretary".^[63] In 1982 he 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.^[64] The following year he worked with Jackson on the US number one, "Say Say Say", and he earned a UK number one with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".^[65]

In 1984 he wrote, produced, and starred in the feature film Give My Regards to Broad Street, a musical which "was savagely panned by the critics" according to Harry; and described by Variety as: "Characterless, bloodless, and pointless."^[66] Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track",^[67] which fared much better, reaching number one in the UK, and producing the hit single, "No More Lonely Nights", featuring Gilmour on lead guitar.^[68]

He collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), who co-wrote more than half the songs on the LP, and in 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, a Russia-only title that contained eighteen covers which he recorded over the course of two days.^[69] 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 twenty-five years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers, to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred in April that year when ninety-five Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries. The recording was a number one hit in the UK.^[70] In 1989 he released Flowers in the Dirt, a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello which included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins.^[71]

1990–2000[link]

In 1990 he released the triple LP, Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained select performances from The Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade.^[72] The following year he ventured into orchestral music, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio; involving 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.^[73] The Guardian was critical of the work stating that the music is, "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo", and the piece has "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole".^[74] In response, McCartney wrote a defensive letter to the paper, which they published, where he states: "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."^[74]

During the 1990s he twice collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the alias the Fireman, and released the electronica albums: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998).^[75] Released in 1993, the rock album Off the Ground was supported by "The New World Tour", which produced the album, Paul Is Live later that year.^[76] Starting in 1994 he took a four-year hiatus from his solo career to work on Apple's the 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 being "wide-screen radio".^[77] 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,^[78] and in December 1996 he was informed that he was to be named in the 1997 New Year Honours and knighted for services to music; his ceremony took place in March 1997.^[79]

In 1997 he released the rock album Flaming Pie, and the classical work Standing Stone; in 1998 Rushes, his second electronica album as the Fireman.^[80] Run Devil Run (1999), featuring Ian Paice and Gilmour, was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals, something he said he had "wanted to do for years", having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died in April 1998 after losing a seventeen-month battle with cancer.^[81] He contributed a song, "Nova", to a tribute album of choral music dedicated to her called, A Garland for Linda (2000).^[82] 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.^[83] In May 2000 he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and 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.^[84]

2001–present[link]

In 2001 McCartney released a live album of acoustic-only performances called, Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).^[85] Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, he was inspired to take a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City, and his studio album release that year Driving Rain included the song "Freedom", written for the event as a response to the tragedy.^[86] He toured in support of Driving Rain and in 2002 released the double live album Back in the U.S. (released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World.^[87] In November 2002, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.^[88] He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing "Freedom" in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI^[89] and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.^[90]

McCartney and Ringo Starr promoting The Beatles: Rock Band in 2009.

In 2005 he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and 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.^[91] In 2006 he released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum; the rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007, and in 2008, his third Fireman release, Electric Arguments. In 2008 he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture.^[92] In 2009, 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.^[93] In 2010 he 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 others.^[94] He returned to the White House later that year as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

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, and he released a double live album culled from those performances called, Good Evening New York City later that year.^[95] In 2010 he opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,^[96] and in 2011 he performed the first concerts at the new Yankee Stadium, and released the classical work, "Ocean's Kingdom". He has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr. An upcoming tribute album is expected in June 2012, to coincide with his 70th birthday, featuring recordings of his songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, Brian Wilson, Willie Nelson, Steve Miller, B.B. King and others.^[97] Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, was released in February 2012,^[98] that same month he was honoured as MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Grammy Awards.^[99]

Musicianship[link]

As a musician, McCartney was largely self-taught, musicologist Ian MacDonald describes his approach as, "by nature drawn to music's formal aspects yet wholly untutoured ... [He] produced technically 'finished' work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears."^[100]

Bass guitar

He has been acknowledged by a diverse group of bass players including, Sting, long-time Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo, and Colin Moulding of XTC.^[101] McCartney is known to play using a plectrum, or pick almost exclusively, but he occasionally plays fingerstyle as well.^[102] During his early years with the Beatles he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass live and when recording, though in 1965 he began using a Rickenbacker 4001s for recording, while consistently using Vox amplifiers.^[103] In recent years he has used Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers live and while recording. McCartney confirms the influence of Motown on his playing, in particular that of James Jamerson, whom he described as a "hero", and included with Brian Wilson as his "two biggest influences".^[104]

Whereas MacDonald identifies "She's a Woman" as the point in time which McCartney's bass playing began to evolve dramatically,^[106] Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singles out Rubber Soul as the time when his bass playing, "began to come into its own", particularly on "The Word".^[105] Authors Tony Bacon and Gareth Morgan agree, calling his "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."^[107] 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". He also played piano on the recording.^[108]

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."^[109] MacDonald calls it the Beatles "finest B-side", its "clangorously saturated texture resona[ting] around McCartney's bass".^[110] He describes the bassline as "so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track", and he draws attention to the influence of Indian classical music in "exotic melismas in the bass part".^[110]

Acoustic guitar

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".^[111] He played an Epiphone Texan on many, if not most of his acoustic recordings, but he has also used a Martin D-28.^[112]

Electric guitar

He played lead electric guitar on several Beatles' recordings, including what MacDonald describes as a "fiercely angular slide guitar solo" on "Drive My Car",^[113] which he played on an Epiphone Casino, about which McCartney said: "If I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this."^[114] He also contributed what MacDonald calls "a startling guitar solo" on the Harrison composition, "Taxman", and the "shrieking" guitar on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Helter Skelter", as well as "a coruscating pseudo-Indian" solo on "Good Morning Good Morning".^[115] In recent years he has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly while performing live.

Piano

He played a piano on many Beatles' songs including, "Every Little Thing", "For No One", "A Day in the Life", "Hello, Goodbye", "Hey Jude", "Lady Madonna", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road".^[116]

Creative outlets[link]

During the 1960s, McCartney 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 artist John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists.^[117] He later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London — where Lennon first met Yoko Ono.^[118] The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Miles, whose underground newspaper, the International Times, McCartney helped to start.^[119] Miles would become de facto manager of Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label,^[120] and he wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1997).^[121]

While living at then girlfriend Jane Asher's parent's house, he took piano lessons arranged by Jane's mother, provided by a teacher from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a school Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended.^[122] McCartney studied composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.^[123] He later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, as well as writing poetry and painting. He 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 he attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s, however, on 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.^[124]

Painting

In 1966 he met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists, some of which McCartney met, including; Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton, and it was at Fraser's flat where McCartney first learned about art appreciation.^[125] He later started buying paintings by Magritte, using his painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo, and McCartney now owns one of Magritte's easels and a pair of his spectacles.^[126]

McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio.^[127] He took up painting in 1983,^[128] and 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.^[129] The first UK exhibition of his 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.^[129]

In October 2000, 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."^[130] McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post in 2002, and according to BBC News, he is the first major rock star in the world to do so.^[131]

Writing and poetry

When he was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books, and his father was interested in crosswords and invited he and his brother Michael to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power", says McCartney.^[132] He was later inspired – in his school years – by Alan Durband, an English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute.^[133] Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works.^[134]

In 2001 he published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.^[135] 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."^[136] Years later, he wrote a poem about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.^[136] 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".^[137]

Film

He was interested in animated films as a child, and in 1981 he 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.^[138] 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.^[139] In 2004 they worked together on the animated short film, Tropic Island Hum. 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.^[140]

In May 2000 he released Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes film and photographs that he and Linda took of their family and bands.^[141] Interspersed throughout the eighty-eight 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.^[142]

Lifestyle[link]

Drugs

McCartney live in Dublin, Ireland, 2010

McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany, when the Beatles would play for long hours and were often using Preludin to maintain energy, sometimes supplied by friend Astrid Kirchherr. According to McCartney, he would usually take only one, but Lennon would often take four or five by the end of a night.^[143] He 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.^[144] His use of which soon after became habitual,^[145] and according to Miles, 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".^[146] During the filming of Help!, he claims he occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines.^[147] Director Dick Lester says that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into using heroin, but he refused.^[147] He was introduced to cocaine by art dealer Robert Fraser, and it was readily available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.^[148] McCartney admits that he used the drug for about a year but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt after the drug wore off.^[149]

While initially reluctant to try LSD, he eventually did so in the fall of 1966 with friend Tara Browne.^[150] He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a Sgt. Pepper studio session.^[151] He later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society."^[152] His attitude about cannabis was made public in 1967, when he added his name to a 24 July advertisement in The Times which called for its legalisation, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was produced by a group called Soma and was signed by sixty-five people, including Members of Parliament, the Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, Francis Crick, and Graham Greene.^[153]

Though never arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as Lennon, Harrison, and Mick Jagger had been,^[154] in 1972 Swedish police fined him for cannabis possession, and soon after Scottish police found plants growing on his farm.^[155] He was again arrested for marijuana possession in 1975, and in January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for an eleven concert 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.^[156] He was again arrested for possession of marijuana in 1984 and in 1997, he spoke out in support of decriminalisation, stating "People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong."^[157]

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.^[158] He has also credited the 1942 Disney film Bambi, in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter, as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights.^[159] In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights.^[160] In 1999 he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.^[161]

McCartney wearing a shirt that reads "no more land mines"

Following his marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against landmines, becoming patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield.^[162] In 2003 he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity.^[163] He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt during the Back in the World tour.^[164] In 2006 the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt, this would be their final public appearance together. Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance.^[165] 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.^[166] McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade^[167] and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.^[168]

He 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" (1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.^[169] 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,^[170] 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.^[171]

In 2009, he wrote to the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and asked 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. So we had a little correspondence [and] I think now he's vegetarian most of the time. I think he's now being told ... that he can get his protein somewhere else. It's a little old-fashioned to think that he can only get it from meat [and] 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.'"^[172]

Football

He attended the 1968 FA Cup Final played by West Bromwich Albion against the Everton Football Club, and after the match, shared cigarettes and whisky with other fans.^[173] Though he has publicly professed support for Everton,^[174] he has also shown support for Liverpool F.C., as in 1968 when he was photographed wearing their rosette.^[175] The ex-Liverpool footballer, Albert Stubbins, was shown on the Sgt. Pepper cover,^[176] and the video for his song "Pipes of Peace" (1983) recreated the 1915 Christmas football game played between German and British troops during World War I.^[177] At the end of "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" the crowd chants "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes it to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to then Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player for the 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"^[178]

He attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton,^[173] and performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium in 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.".^[179] Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.^[180] 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."^[181]

Meditation

On 24 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 Transcendental Meditation (TM).^[182] "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra ... I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get."^[183] The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as nearly all of the songs that would later be recorded for The White Album and Abbey Road were composed there.^[184] Although he was told never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he admitted he told Linda, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan.^[185] 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.^[186]

Personal relationships[link]

Girlfriends[link]

Dot Rhone

McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.^[187] According to Spitz, Rhone feels McCartney had a compulsion to control situations, chosing clothes and make-up for Rhone, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot's,^[188] and at least once insisting she have it re-styled, to disappointing effect.^[189] 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.^[190] The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage, when according to Spitz, McCartney now "free of obligation", ended the engagement.^[191]

Jane Asher

He first met the 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.^[192] The two began a relationship and he took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in St. John's Wood.^[193] 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".^[194] 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.^[195]

Wives[link]

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", and who would at times be truant from school to instead see artists such as: Fabian, Bobby Darin, and Chuck Berry.^[196] She was a popular photographer with groups such as: 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 facination faded fast and I found it was Paul I liked."^[197] The pair first properly met in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club,^[198] during her UK assignment to take photographs of rock musicians in London,^[199] 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!"^[197] 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."^[197] The pair were married in 1969; he describes 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."^[200] He also added, "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married and it was nearly called off ... [its] miraculous that we made it. But we did."^[201]

They collaborated musically after the break-up of the Beatles, and later formed Wings together in 1971, a commercially successful band that was active through 1981.^[202] They were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation PETA.^[203] 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.^[204] 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."^[205]

Heather Mills

In 2002 he married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner.^[206] 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.^[207] They separated in April 2006 and were divorced in March 2008.^[208] In 2004 he commented on media animosity toward his partners, "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."^[209]

Nancy Shevell

He 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 around 30 family and friends.^[210] The couple had been dating since November 2007.^[211] A breast cancer survivor,^[212] 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.^[213]

Beatles[link]

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.^[214] In later years however, the two grew apart.^[215] 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!"^[216] In McCartney's effort to avoid talking with him only about business, they often spoke of cats, baking bread, or babies.^[217]

On 24 April 1976,^[218] 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, and while they seriously considered going to the SNL studio just a few blocks away, they decided it was "too late" and according to Lennon, this was the last time he and McCartney ever spent time together.^[219] This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us.^[220] 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."^[221]

Reaction to Lennon's murder

On the morning of 9 December 1980, he 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.^[222] During the evening of 9 December, as he was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for a reaction. He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be a superficial response: "It's a drag".^[218] 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."^[218] He describes 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.^[218]

In 1983, he 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."^[218] 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.^[223] In 2002 he told Mojo magazine that Lennon was his greatest "hero".^[224] 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.^[225] In 1982 McCartney released "Here Today", a song musicologist Walter Everett describes as "a haunting tribute" to their friendship.^[226]

George Harrison

Harrison said this about working with McCartney: "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.^[227]

In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer, and upon his death on 29 November 2001, McCartney 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", "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."^[228] Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney.^[229] On the first anniversary of his death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.^[88] He also performed "For You Blue" and "All Things Must Pass", as well as playing the piano on Eric Clapton's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".^[230]

Ringo Starr

Though Starr once described McCartney as "pleasantly insincere", 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.^[231] Starr recalls: "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." ^[231] There was at times discord between them as well, particularly during Beatles' sessions for "The White Album", as Apple's Peter Brown recalls, "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".^[232] In August 1968 the two got into an argument over McCartney's critique of Starr's drum part for "Back in the USSR", which led to Starr temporarily leaving the band.^[232] He returned in September^[233] to find bouquets of flowers on his drum kit. Starr comments 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."^[232]

Recognition and achievements[link]

McCartney performing in Prague, 6 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.^[1] 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)."^[2] In 1986 he received acclaim from the Guinness Book of Records Hall of Fame, "as the most successful musician of all-time."^[234]

In the US, as a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100; including twenty with the Beatles and nine solo and/or with Wings,^[235] one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds",^[236] and one as a co-writer of "A World Without Love", a number one single for Peter and Gordon.^[237] As of 2012, he has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.^[238]

Although Elvis Presley has achieved the most UK number-ones as a solo artist with eighteen,^[239] McCartney has been involved in more number-ones in the UK than any other artist under a variety of credits, totalling twenty-four singles: 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".^[240] 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).^[241]

His song "Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions,^[242] 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 this century in the US."^[243] 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 fifteen seconds was the longest of any number one to that point. Its been covered by several notable artists, including Presley, Bing Crosby, Count Basie, and Wilson Pickett.^[244] It is the best-selling Beatles' single of all-time, with sales of over five million copies achieved soon after its release.^[245]

McCartney receiving the Gershwin Award from President Obama at the White House, June 2010

He 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,^[246] that year the minor planet 4148, was named "McCartney" in his honour.^[247] 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 before the concert was over. 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.^[248]

On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a milestone that was the subject of a tune he wrote at the age of sixteen, which would later become the Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-Four".^[249] In 2008 he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music,^[250] as well as an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University.^[251] In 2012 he became the last of the "Fab Four" to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[252]

Business

McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.^[253] In addition to an interest in Apple Corps, MPL Communications, an umbrella company for his business interests, owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights,^[254] including the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease.^[255] He earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner.^[256] This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.^[257] 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.^[258]

Northern Songs

Northern Songs was established in 1963 by Dick James to publish the songs of Lennon–McCartney.^[259] 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.^[260]

Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of his Beatles' songs, he continues to receive his respective share of the writers' royalties, which together are 33⅓% of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere around the world between 50 and 55%.^[261] 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,^[262] and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by MPL Communications.^[263]

Discography[link]

Solo

Wings, live, and compilations

Tours[link]

Arms[link]

Arms of Paul McCartney Notes Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms Crest On a Wreath of the Colours A Liver Bird calling Sable supporting with the dexter claws a Guitar Or stringed Sable.[266] 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)[266]

Citations[link]