The Cute Beatle

On June 18, 1942, James Paul McCartney was born at Walton General Hospital in Liverpool, where his mother had previosly worked as a midwife. His brother, Michael, who's full name is Peter Michael McCartney, and who later went by the name of Mike McGear, was born eighteen months later. His family moved a few times, when he was 13, they moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, just across a golf course and a little over one mile away from where John lived with his Aunt Mimi.
    Music was always a part of the McCartney household. Before the war, Paul's father was a Cotton salesman during the day, and a jazz musician with Jim Mac's Jazz Band by night. Both Paul and his brother received piano lessons. His mother Mary died of breast cancer when he was fourteen, while the two brothers were away at Boy Scout camp. The antithesis of John Lennon as a school boy, Paul did very well in school.
    When Lonnie Donnegan appeared in Liverpool and the Skiffle craze hit, Jim McCartney scraped together £15 for a guitar for Paul. Paul's friend Ivan Vaughan invited Paul to Woolton to see the Quarrymen play in Woolton on July 6, 1957, but not really to hear the Quarrymen, it was because Vaughan had promised Paul it would be a great place to pick up girls, which Paul was already very interested in at the age of 14. Later in the afternoon, after hearing the Quarrymen play, Paul borrowed a guitar and impressed the boys with all the chords and the words to "Twenty Flight Rock". Paul's first impression of John was that he was drunk. But Paul wrote down the words for "Twenty Flight Rock" and "Be Bop a Lula" for him so that John could learn them. A few days later Pete Shotten told Paul the others wanted him to join the band.
    Paul switched to the Bass when the Beatles' bass player Stu Sutcliffe left the group in 1961. When all of the Beatles moved to London in 1963, Paul began to see actress Jane Asher on a steady basis.
    In 1963 The Beatles released their first album in the US. They were already extremely popular in England, and now were moving onto America. Just as millions of kids from Liverpool had fallen in love with the music of America, American kids couldn't get enough of The Beatles, and any of the other bands soon following in the British Invasion. John was the "witty" Beatle, George, the "quiet" Beatle, Ringo, the "funny Beatle, and Paul was of course, the "cute" Beatle. The band together made thirteen successful albums, sold out stadiums and other concerts globally, until 1969 when The Beatles broke up. That year, Paul married Linda Eastman, a photographer, and adopted her daughter Heather Eastman.
    After The Beatles broke up, the press were conviced that one Beatle couldn't do anything without the other Beatles. Paul of course, had to be the one to prove this wrong. Together, he and Linda set about the mammoth task of creating a follow up to The Beatles. Eventually they managed it, and, as everyone knows, the new band was called Wings. Henry McCullough, Denny Seiwell and Denny Laine plus the two McCartneys made up the band. The most interesting thing about the situation was that Wings found an audience, their own audience, not Beatles-leftovers, but a new generations of pop fans, and many of them hadn't even heard of The Beatles, they were prepared to accept Wings for what they played, and the past counted for virtually nothing. Paul, by now an expert at this game, decided he wasn't going to unleash the band on the world, before he had broken them in.
    Even after the breaking up of Wings, and the death of his two close friends and fellow-Beatles John Lennon, (1940-1980) George Harrison, (1943-2001) and his wife of nearly 40 years, Linda McCartney, (1941-1998) Paul is still releasing new albums and selling out concerts all over the world. On July 11th, 2002 he married Heather Mills, a model and landmine activistist. They are now expecting their first child, which will be born later this year.