Paul McCartney

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Sir James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England on June 18, 1942. He is Britain's most successful musician and composer, and one of the most successful musicians in the world. He was a member of the pop group The Beatles, and with John Lennon wrote most of the group's songs.

McCartney began writing songs before he was sixteen, and has written well over two hundred. His most famous song is "Yesterday", recorded by the Beatles in 1965. Since then around 2000 artists have recorded the song. Other songs written by McCartney for The Beatles are "Can't Buy Me Love", "Hey Jude", "Penny Lane", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Let It Be".

Often Beatles songs would have "Lennon/McCartney" written on the record, and it appeared that they had written it together. In fact, most Lennon/McCartney songs were composed by only one of them, or with one adding only small parts to the other's work. Each counted on the other to help make their songs better, so they agreed to share the credit equally.

McCartney married Linda Eastman, a photographer, in 1969. She had a daughter, Heather, whom he adopted. McCartney and Linda had three more children together, named Mary, Stella and James. Stella became a popular fashion designer after she grew up.

The Beatles stopped working together in 1970, and McCartney started a new band called Wings, with his wife Linda. Wings also had many hit records, including "Band On The Run" and "Mull Of Kintyre". McCartney wrote "Live and Let Die", which became the theme song to a James Bond film with the same title. Wings disbanded in 1980.

Later McCartney recorded "Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder, then "The Girl is Mine" and "Say, Say, Say" with Michael Jackson. He and Jackson became friends, but this ended after Jackson outbid McCartney for ownership of the publishing company which owned most of the Beatles's music.

McCartney had other hit songs, and also appeared in a movie, Give My Regards to Broad Street, with Linda. The theme song from the movie, "No More Lonely Nights", was also a hit, but the movie did poorly, and McCartney's popularity suffered. He had to work hard to prove his talent was still strong. He cowrote new songs with Elvis Costello, and began touring more often than he had in years.

Along with popular music, McCartney also began composing classical music, including an oratorio about Liverpool. McCartney was knighted for his contributions to music and to British culture, and for his charity work. He bought John Lennon's former school, Quarry Bank, which he then turned into a performing arts school.

Linda died in 1998 of breast cancer, which had also taken McCartney's mother years earlier. He remarried a few years later, to a model named Heather Mills, who had a daughter with him named Beatrice. His second marriage wasn't as successful as his first. McCartney and Mills separated in 2006, and planned to divorce.

The Beatles
John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr
Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe
Management and production
Brian Epstein | George Martin | Phil Spector | Abbey Road Studios
Other
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Yoko Ono