McCartney, Paul (1942-…), is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He first became prominent as a member of the Beatles, the most popular group in the history of rock music . McCartney has won a number of Grammy Awards for his music.
James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on June 18, 1942. He played bass with the Beatles. McCartney and guitarist John Lennon wrote most of the Beatles’ music. With the Beatles, McCartney sang and wrote many of their melodic ballads. These ballads included “Yesterday” (1965), “Hey Jude” (1968), and “Let It Be” (1970). He also contributed some harder rock numbers, such as “I’m Down” (1965) and “Helter Skelter” (1968).
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The Beatles disbanded in 1970. From 1971 to 1981, McCartney led a successful band called Wings that included his wife, Linda Eastman McCartney. With Wings, Paul McCartney recorded several top-selling albums, including Red Rose Speedway and Band on the Run (both 1973), Venus and Mars (1975), Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976), and the live album Wings Over America (1976).
McCartney’s successful solo albums include Tug of War (1982), Pipes of Peace (1983), Flowers in the Dirt (1989), Flaming Pie (1997), Memory Almost Full (2007), Kisses on the Bottom (2012), and Egypt Station (2018); as well as McCartney (1970), McCartney II (1980), and McCartney III (2020), on which he played all the instruments. He also composed the classical choral works Liverpool Oratorio (1991), with the American composer Carl Davis, and Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart, 2006). Since the early 1990’s, McCartney has also collaborated with the British experimental electronic music group The Fireman.
McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1999 as an individual performer. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. Linda McCartney died in 1998. Their daughter Stella McCartney became a successful fashion designer. Paul McCartney was married to Heather Mills from 2002 to 2008. In 2011, he married Nancy Shevell. McCartney’s poems and song lyrics were collected in 2001 as Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999. He also co-wrote a children’s book, High in the Clouds (2005), with Philip Ardagh. McCartney became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2010. In 2021, The Lyrics, a two-volume set pairing McCartney’s lyrics with commentaries on his life and music, was published.
See also Harrison, George ; Starr, Ringo .
