The Beatles Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney - biography, information, personal life

This great musician is addressed only as sir. The whole world knows him as the founder of the Fab Four - the Beatles, and this is McCartney James Paul. Their group's albums sold millions of copies all over the world. They brought a new inspired movement to music and drove all the girls crazy.

short biography

Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool. His parents were Scots. His mother's name was Mary, she was a Catholic and worked at a local clinic as a midwife and nurse. Paul's father, James McCartney, was a trumpeter and pianist before the war and even had his own small jazz band, but the war ruined all his plans. After the war he worked at a mechanical engine plant and at a cotton exchange. He began to raise his son without involving religion, since he himself had once turned from a Protestant into an agnostic. The McCartney family lived modestly. Paul also had a brother, Michael.

In 1947, James Paul McCartney studied at primary school J. Williams in Belle Vale. After graduating from school in 1954, he went to study at high school for boys, which was called the Liverpool Institute.

In 1956, Paul was shocked by the death of his mother, who died of breast cancer. Subsequently, this loss brought him closer to John Lennon, whose mother died when he was 17 years old.

Paul had an old trumpet given by his father, but he traded it for acoustic guitar Framus Zenith. James Paul McCartney was left-handed and learned to play it using the principle of Slim Whitman, who arranged the strings in reverse order. Paul began to skillfully imitate such world stars as Elvis Presley and Little Richard.

Creative inspiration

One day in Walton, Paul was invited to see John's band perform. Lennon The Quarrymen in the hall of St. Peter's Church. There, on July 6, 1957, McCartney met Lennon for the first time. John was tipsy, but he really liked Paul's guitar playing. Subsequently, McCartney began tuning Lennon's guitar.

Father Paul and Aunt Mimi were wary of this friendship; they believed that Lennon came from “the lower classes” and expected trouble from him. But the guys got along very quickly and already in 1957 they began writing songs together in McCartney’s father’s house on Forthlin Road.

Paul once, while still at school in 1954, accidentally met George Harris, who became his friend, and so he invited John Lennon to take him into his band.

The Beatles and Paul McCartney

And already in 1960 in Hamburg their group performed for the first time under called The Beatles. There they found themselves under the tutelage of entrepreneur Bruno Koschmider (a former clown).

After some time, Paul turned from an ordinary musician into a real professional. It is believed that 800 concert hours spent on the stages of clubs in this city made The Beatles group with a worldwide reputation.

In the early winter of 1960, the Beatles gave a concert at Litherland Town Hall, which became a turning point in their future fate. The boom of Beatlemania began.

Until 1961, Paul played rhythm guitar, then, after being fired as a musician due to a scandal, he became a bass guitarist.

Albums, concerts and hits

The megahit that opened wide doors for them was the song She Loves You. The group then performed on television in the Royal Variety Show, a program that was viewed by 26 million people. This was the trigger for their enormous fame.

Lennon's death

After death famous singer Lew Grade offered Lennon's wife Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney to buy the rights to the Lennon-McCartney songs, since they were owned by the publishing company Northern Songs, for 20 million, but Yoko refused due to the very high price.

In 1983, McCartney became friends with Michael Jackson, who eventually bought the rights to their group's songs for 47.5 million. Paul considered this a betrayal. Now he had to pay for the performance of his own songs on tour.

Many agree that the 2000s finally brought revival, stability and success to Paul's life. Sir James Paul McCartney gives concerts, shoots videos and writes albums, and is widely involved in charitable activities. His name has long become a classic brand that cannot be compared with anything.

From The Beatles to solo career- Paul McCartney stays afloat in musical world more than 60 years. In addition to such an exciting career, he experienced many adventures and full of events life. And his birthday is an excellent occasion to once again admire this talented man.

For Paul McCartney it all started in Liverpool in 1942. His father was a professional musician and helped his son learn to play the guitar. Paul also learned to play the piano.

Paul McCartney, his father James and brother Michael at home in Liverpool in 1961.

By the age of 15, McCartney met John Lennon, who had already formed a group called The Quarrymen. Paul and George Harrison joined Lennon's band in 1958.

After trying out several titles, they settled on The Beatles and began touring as their success grew.

They also have a new drummer - Ringo Starr. This is how the famous Fab Four were born.

The Beatles in June 1963.

With their memorable ballads, the Beatles gathered a whole army of fans who, by the early 60s, became real crazy fans of the group. This is how Beatlemania began. Wherever the group went, crowds of female fans immediately followed them. People were so obsessed with the band that John Lennon once said, "We're more popular than Jesus."

Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison fool around with Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, Miami Beach, Florida, 1964.

The Beatles also appeared in films starting in 1964. In total, they released four films: “A Hard Day’s Night,” “To the Rescue!”, “Magical Mystery Journey” and “Let It Be.” During shooting last movie in 1969, a film crew followed the band around for four weeks to film documentary, which ended with problems for the group that was just arriving.

The Beatles at the release of their album Sgt. Pepper in 1967.

After for long years Recording non-stop, touring and spending time together, the Beatles began to wear out. Finally, the group gave their last concert together in 1966, after which they decided to take a break. By 1970, The Beatles had broken up.

Paul McCartney seemed to have found his destiny when he met Linda Eastman. Their romance was like a scene from the movie Almost Famous, only with true love. Linda met Paul at a concert in London, which she was photographing as a photographer. A few days later they went to a party together, and a year later they indulged in passion in New York. On March 12, 1969 they got married. They had four children - Mary, Stella, James and Linda's daughter from a previous relationship - Heather.

Paul and Linda McCartney on their wedding day in 1969.

After having four children, Linda focused on her music career with the band Wings. The original lineup of the group included Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell, and later Henry McCullough. Over the years, various members of the group have appeared and disappeared.

Paul McCartney performing with Wings in 1979.

Paul McCartney with his wife Linda and daughter Stella at Heathrow Airport in London in 1979.

Paul won 15 (!) Grammys, as in composition of The The Beatles and for his solo career. He received his first award in 1965 with the group as “Best new artist", and the last - in 2012 as a producer for Band on the Run. In 1990, he received a Grammy for his achievements in the music world. History has a habit of repeating itself, so don't be surprised if this isn't Paul's last award.

The McCartney family in Tokyo in 1980.

Paul and Linda McCartney support demonstrators who staged a protest against the demolition of a hospital near Paul's home (1990).

Paul and Linda McCartney at a fashion show in Paris, 1997. They spent 30 years together. Linda died from complications after a battle with breast cancer in 1998.

Knighting is the highest honor. In March 1997, Paul McCartney officially became Sir due to his contributions to music industry. Sir Paul helped revolutionize modern music.

Paul McCartney and Madonna at the MTV Music Awards in New York, 1999.

Paul's second wife was Heather Mills. In the spring of 1999, Paul and Heather experienced an unusual and fleeting romance. They met at a charity event and got engaged two years later. After the wedding, which cost $3.2 million and took place on June 11, 2002, Heather became pregnant with her daughter Beatrice. But by 2006, their marriage fell apart and they went through a very ugly and public divorce. After months of drama in court, Paul agreed to pay Mills $48.6 million and take joint custody of her daughter.

2005 was a great year for Paul, who played in the Super Bowl.

Even though The Beatles disbanded in 1970, in 2007, the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas hosted a show called "Love" inspired by the band's music. The Cirque du Soleil production depicted the rise and fall of the group, with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney watching from the audience. Since its debut, this show has been a huge success so far.

They got married at London City Hall, with Paul's 7-year-old daughter Beatrice carrying a basket of flowers. Among the 30 invited guests were Barbara Walters and Ringo Starr. Since then, the couple have lived happily either in New York or in England.

Paul actively supports his daughter Stella, he and his wife Nancy always sit in the front row at almost all of her shows.

Despite such amazing life, Paul looks great for his age.

UK, Liverpool

Sir James Paul McCartney - genius, author of half best songs last century, born June 18, 1942 in Liverpool. When Paul was thirteen, his family moved from the working-class area of ​​Enfield to the more presentable Ollerton - and it was there that fifteen-year-old McCartney, who attended a concert by the little-known band The Quarrymen, met John Lennon, who a week later invited the boy to join his group...
Paul's relationship with music was like whirlwind romance: one year before fateful meeting he begged his father to give him a guitar (it was then that he “realized that he was left-handed”); in every sense, this year passed under the sign of the guitar neck, which Paul could conjure endlessly. It is not surprising that by the end of 1958, the creative baggage of the Lennon-McCartney duo was measured in dozens of songs (it was then, among others, that Love Me Do was written). It's funny, but until 1961, Paul, like John, played rhythm guitar - and only with the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe did he completely switch to bass.
Then there were The Beatles, but this is completely special story, which requires hundreds of pages and epithets and definitions that do not exist in the human language. Let's leave this difficult work to more courageous people, noting only that McCartney's desire for independence manifested itself even before the black spring of the seventies: in '66 he wrote music for the film The Family Way, and in November '69 he made rough sketches of the McCartney album.
Also in 1969, he married American journalist Linda Eastman. Their relationship immediately went beyond ordinary ideas about marriage (and how could it have been otherwise!): first, Linda helped her husband with McCartney (vocal parts), then, in ’71, she recorded an excellent record with him, Ram, and joined the lineup (in as keyboardist and vocalist) of another great group of Paul - Wings. The first Wings album, Wild Life, was more than moderately received by critics, but this did not bother fans: the Wings tour in the early seventies was one of the brightest moments in Sir Paul’s biography. Wings existed until the spring of 1981, recording a dozen albums - each more beautiful than the other. This was not a “backing band”, as McCartney himself repeatedly emphasized: “Wings” were a unique living organism, equally comfortable both in the studio and in open areas.
Over the next fifteen years, McCartney released a dozen and a half albums (the press winced, the fans were delighted). In the nineties he turns to classical music: in 91 the “Liverpool Oratorio” was published, written for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society; in '95 - the piano piece A Leaf; The musician recorded another classic disc, Standing Stone, in 1997.
On April 17, 1998, Linda dies in Tuscon, Arizona. The most difficult test for any person, especially for Paul, whose mother died from the same disease in 1956. McCartney answered all questions from journalists like this: “This is the end”... And yet this was just another beginning. In 1998, he was nominated for a Grammy, and Queen Elizabeth II knighted the musician. In '99, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland, Ohio). At the same time, Paul released a collection in an orchestral arrangement (Paul McCartney’s Working Classical); the dedication album ends with the minute-long piece The Lovely Linda, first heard on McCartney's 1970 disc, one of the most poignant and airy ballads ever composed by a musician.
The next three solo records - Run Devil Run (1999), Driving Rain (2001) and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005) - became a kind of musical rethinking of the last four decades and naturally led Sir Paul to the deliberately minimalist, very traditional classic Ecce Cor Meum (2006) - correspondence dialogue between the great composer of the present and greatest composers of the past. This disc became the fourth (and, by all accounts, the best) full-fledged part of the classic series.
Released in June 2007 new job McCartney's album Memory Almost Full, which was released by the artist's new label Hear Music. It includes songs recorded between 2003 and 2007 in five different studios - including the inevitable Abbey Road...

Discography
McCartney (1970)
Ram (1971)
Wild Life (1971)
Red Rose Speedway (1973)
Band on the Run (1973)
Venus and Mars (1975)
Wings at the Speed ​​of Sound (1976)
Wings over America (1976)
London Town (1978)
Wings Greatest (1978)
Back to the Egg (1979)
McCartney II (1980)
Tug of War (1982)
Pipes of Peace (1983)
Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)
Press to Play (1986)
All the Best! (1987)
"Back in the USSR" (1991)
Flowers in the Dirt (1989)
Tripping the Live Fantastic (1990)
Tripping the Live Fantastic: Highlights! (1990)
Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) (1991)
Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (1991)
Off the Ground (1993)
Paul is Live (1993)
Flaming Pie (1997)
Paul McCartney's Standing Stone (1997)
Band on the Run: 25th Anniversary Edition (1999)
Run Devil Run (1999)
Paul McCartney's Working Classical (1999)
Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)
Wingspan: Hits and History (2001)
Driving Rain (2001)
Back in the U.S. (2002)
Back in the World (2003)
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
Ecce Cor Meum (2006)
Memory Almost Full (2007)

Genre: Rock
Subgenres: Pop rock, classical

Links
Official website of Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney on Wikipedia
Paul McCartney on MySpace
Paul McCartney discography on Wikipedia
Official forum for the album Memory Almost Full
Album Memory Almost Full on Wikipedia
Hear Music Official Website
Paul McCartney video on YouTube
Russian fan site of The Beatles

UK, Liverpool

Sir James Paul McCartney, a genius, author of half the best songs of the last century, was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool. When Paul was thirteen, his family moved from the working-class area of ​​Enfield to the more presentable Ollerton - and it was there that fifteen-year-old McCartney, who dropped in on a concert of the little-known band The Quarrymen, met John Lennon, who... Read all

UK, Liverpool

Sir James Paul McCartney, a genius, author of half the best songs of the last century, was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool. When Paul was thirteen, his family moved from the working-class area of ​​Enfield to the more presentable Ollerton - and it was there that fifteen-year-old McCartney, who attended a concert by the little-known band The Quarrymen, met John Lennon, who a week later invited the boy to join his group...

Paul's relationship with music was like a whirlwind romance: a year before the fateful meeting, he begged his father to give him a guitar (it was then that he “realized that he was left-handed”); in every sense, this year passed under the sign of the guitar neck, which Paul could conjure endlessly. It is not surprising that by the end of 1958, the creative baggage of the Lennon-McCartney duo was measured in dozens of songs (it was then, among others, that Love Me Do was written). It's funny, but until 1961, Paul, like John, played rhythm guitar - and only with the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe did he completely switch to bass.

Then there were The Beatles, but this is a completely special story that requires hundreds of pages and epithets and definitions that do not exist in the human language. Let's leave this difficult work to more courageous people, noting only that McCartney's desire for independence manifested itself even before the black spring of the seventies: in '66 he wrote music for the film The Family Way, and in November '69 he made rough sketches of the McCartney album.

Also in 1969, he married American journalist Linda Eastman. Their relationship immediately went beyond ordinary ideas about marriage (and how could it have been otherwise!): first, Linda helped her husband with McCartney (vocal parts), then, in ’71, she recorded an excellent record with him, Ram, and joined the lineup (in as keyboardist and vocalist) of another great group of Paul - Wings. The first Wings album, Wild Life, was more than moderately received by critics, but this did not bother fans: the Wings tour in the early seventies was one of the brightest moments in Sir Paul’s biography. Wings existed until the spring of 1981, recording a dozen albums - each more beautiful than the other. This was not a “backing band”, as McCartney himself repeatedly emphasized: “Wings” were a unique living organism, equally comfortable both in the studio and in open areas.

Over the next fifteen years, McCartney released a dozen and a half albums (the press winced, the fans were delighted). In the nineties, he turned to classical music: in 1991, the “Liverpool Oratorio” was published, written for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Philharmonic Society of Liverpool; in '95 - the piano piece A Leaf; The musician recorded another classic disc, Standing Stone, in 1997.

On April 17, 1998, Linda dies in Tuscon, Arizona. The most difficult test for any person, especially for Paul, whose mother died from the same disease in 1956. McCartney answered all questions from journalists like this: “This is the end”... And yet this was just another beginning. In 1998, he was nominated for a Grammy, and Queen Elizabeth II knighted the musician. In '99, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland, Ohio). At the same time, Paul released a collection in an orchestral arrangement (Paul McCartney’s Working Classical); the dedication album ends with the minute-long piece The Lovely Linda, first heard on McCartney's 1970 disc, one of the most poignant and airy ballads ever composed by a musician.

The next three solo records - Run Devil Run (1999), Driving Rain (2001) and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005) - became a kind of musical rethinking of the last four decades and naturally led Sir Paul to the deliberately minimalist, very traditional classic Ecce Cor Meum (2006) - an correspondence dialogue between the great composer of the present and the greatest composers of the past. This disc became the fourth (and, by all accounts, the best) full-fledged part of the classic series.

In June 2007, McCartney's new work was released - the album Memory Almost Full, which was published by the Hear Music label, which was new to the artist. It includes songs recorded between 2003 and 2007 in five different studios - including the inevitable Abbey Road...

Discography

McCartney (1970)

Wild Life (1971)

Red Rose Speedway (1973)

Band on the Run (1973)

Venus and Mars (1975)

Wings at the Speed ​​of Sound (1976)

Wings over America (1976)

London Town (1978)

Wings Greatest (1978)

Back to the Egg (1979)

McCartney II (1980)

Tug of War (1982)

Pipes of Peace (1983)

Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)

Press to Play (1986)

All the Best! (1987)

"Back in the USSR" (1991)

Flowers in the Dirt (1989)

Tripping the Live Fantastic (1990)

Tripping the Live Fantastic: Highlights! (1990)

Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) (1991)

Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (1991)

Off the Ground (1993)

Paul is Live (1993)

Flaming Pie (1997)

Paul McCartney's Standing Stone (1997)

Band on the Run: 25th Anniversary Edition (1999)

Run Devil Run (1999)

Paul McCartney's Working Classical (1999)

Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)

Wingspan: Hits and History (2001)

Driving Rain (2001)

Back in the U.S. (2002)

Back in the World (2003)

Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)

Ecce Cor Meum (2006)

Memory Almost Full (2007)

Genre: Rock

Subgenres: Pop rock, classical

Official website of Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney on Wikipedia

Paul McCartney on MySpace

Paul McCartney discography on Wikipedia

Official forum for the album Memory Almost Full

Album Memory Almost Full on Wikipedia

Hear Music Official Website

Paul McCartney video on YouTube

Russian fan site of The Beatles

Paul McCartney's childhood

Since 1947, Mary began working as an on-call midwife. The work of a midwife, already difficult, was further complicated by the fact that a woman could be called to give birth at any time of the day. However, this was paid accordingly, and so the family could afford to move to a more comfortable area in Everton. Paul's father worked at a weapons factory during the war, and after the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, he got a job at the cotton exchange, where his weekly earnings were 6 pounds. Mary earned more per week, which gave James great anxiety. The family as a whole did not live in poverty, but the McCartneys lived extremely modestly. A television, for example, appeared in the apartment only in 1953.

Artemy Troitsky. A story about Paul McCartney's concert on Red Square

In 1954, Paul's family moved from Everton to Wallasey and from there to Speke. The McCartneys stayed briefly in both Wallasey and Speke, eventually settling in Allerton in 1955, and less than a year later Paul lost his mother to breast cancer. This subsequently became one of the reasons for getting closer to another Beatle member, John Lennon, who also lost his mother, barely reaching adulthood.

At the age of 14, Paul's father gave him a used trumpet, which the teenager swapped with a friend for an acoustic guitar. Since Paul was left-handed, he, like Slim Whitman, arranged the strings in reverse order. From that moment, McCartney's passion for music began; it was this passion that helped him survive the shock associated with the death of his mother.

After the death of their mother, three men - their father, Paul and his brother Michael - were left alone. Despite his father's modest earnings - by that time he was earning 10 pounds a week - James devoted a lot of time to the cultural education of his children, taking them to concerts and playing the piano at home. Resorting to a regime of strict economy, the father, nevertheless, managed to create an atmosphere of comfort for the brothers; poverty did not give rise to any complexes for either Paul or Michael. After the death of their mother, the brothers began to actively earn money; Paul very quickly learned to communicate with people and became a small traveling salesman. Thanks to his father's upbringing, Paul has always been extremely economical and balanced, not losing his head in the world of show business, practically not using drugs and not making mistakes.

"The Quarrymen" by Paul McCartney

The early years of The Beatles and Paul McCartney

Since December 1960, the group has been performing in Liverpool, gradually gaining popularity. Since April 1961, the Beatles come to Hamburg again, where they begin work on their own material (before that, the musicians played covers).

The growing popularity of Paul McCartney

The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released on October 5, 1962. The album soon reached number 17 in the English charts, and a couple of years later in the United States it reached the top of the charts. At the same time, the group changes its image and dresses in its famous costumes.

In February 1963, the group recorded material for their first album, Please Please Me, in London in one day. Most of the album's songs were co-written by Lennon and McCartney, although several compositions were entirely McCartney's.

In May 1963, after a concert in London, Paul McCartney met seventeen-year-old actress Jane Asher. A romance begins between them that lasts more than five years. Jane had a huge influence on the formation of McCartney's cultural tastes and on his work. It was Escher who aroused the musician’s interest in classical music and provoked the Beatles’ transition from pop rock to art rock. Paul dedicated the songs “We Can Work It Out” and “Here, There and Everywhere” to Jane.

Beatlemania

The group's second album was released just in time, in the wake of the emerging Beatlemania. The album "With The Beatles" became a British hit. The group gives concerts in Paris, and in January 1964 flies to the Beatlemania-ridden States. Having performed a concert on the Ed Sullivan Show, broadcast on television, the Beatles conquered America - the program was watched by more than 73 million television viewers.

In the summer of 1965, the group was awarded the Order of the British Empire. The same year, the album “Help!” was released, the central composition of which was the song “Yesterday”, recorded by McCartney without the participation of the rest of the group. Two months later, the single “Yesterday” reached the top of the American charts. In December 1965, the album “Rubber Soul” was released, which marked new stage in the creativity of the team.

Avant-garde

Thanks to Barry Miles, Paul became interested in experimental jazz and symphonic music, Dunbar enlightened Paul in the areas of modern poetry and literature, in particular, he introduced the musician to the features of psychedelic culture. Jane soon introduced Paul to experimental director Michelangelo Antonioni and London underground leader Robert Fraser. At Fraser's house, Paul meets Andy Warhol, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Allen Ginsberg. The latter had a strong influence on Paul's poetic work, as a result of which the Beatles' songs radically changed their semantic content. In the theatrical and literary circles of those years, Paul had great authority and wrote music for plays.

Paul rents an apartment in Montagu Square, equips it as a studio and, in collaboration with sound engineer Ian Sommerville, begins experimenting with music. Ian introduces Paul to his ex-boyfriend William Burroughs, who becomes a frequent visitor to McCartney's studio apartment. The ideas of the American beatnik interested Paul, and he turned the apartment into a kind of artistic laboratory, where, together with Burroughs, he created sound effects that later became the basis for the sound of The Beatles records in the second half of the sixties. Most of the sound experiments associated with Lennon were actually created by Paul McCartney in collaboration with Burroughs and Sommerville.

Paul McCartney sang with Nirvana

Beatles breakup

In January 1969, during the filming of the film “Let It Be,” disagreements began in the group due to Paul’s absolute dominance in all areas of the group’s activities. John Lennon said that his creative duo with McCartney had exhausted itself. On the last day of February 1969, relations in the group became tense, and the group actually ceased to exist. In a similar atmosphere, the Beatles completed work on the Abbey Road album, essentially last album group (the “Let It Be” record, released in 1970, was mixed from material recorded in parallel with the “White Album”). On December 31, 1969, McCartney began legal proceedings to end the existence of the Beatles.

Paul McCartney's solo career

After this, Paul created the group “Wings”, with which he performed until 1980. The group, which was created by the ambitious Paul in the hope of “outdoing” the Beatles, was received by the public rather restrainedly. In 1974, for the first time since the Beatles broke up, McCartney and Lennon played on the same stage, performing “Midnight Special.” In 1977, the single "Mull of Kintyre" became the commercial peak of Paul McCartney's solo career. In the UK, the record broke absolutely all records, including the Beatles' records. The single topped the British chart for nine weeks and sold 2.5 million copies in England. At the same time, McCartney became the highest paid musician on the planet.

December 1979 was marked charity concerts Paul McCartney in support of the people of Kampuchea affected by drought. The concerts were organized at the personal request of UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.

Wings break up after John Lennon's death

In August 1980, in a conversation between the musicians, the idea of ​​reuniting, if not the Beatles, then at least the McCartney-Lennon duo, was floating around. But the meeting, which could have radically changed the destinies of the two legendary musicians, never took place.

Last phone conversation between former friends occurred in September 1980. Paul and John did not quarrel; the conversation was calm and relatively friendly.

On the day of Lennon's murder, McCartney was working on his song "Rainclouds". The news of John's death shook him to the core. During an interview that day, when asked by a reporter, “What do you think of John’s death?” Paul could only respond: “It’s so sad.”

After Lennon's death, Wings did not last long. Paul disbanded the band on April 27, 1981.

Conflict with Michael Jackson

In 1983, Paul collaborated with Michael Jackson. While working on singing together Paul gives Michael a lot of show business advice, including this careless point: “Buy the rights to someone’s songs.” Two years later, Michael Jackson, using this advice, bought the copyrights to the Beatles' songs for $47.5 million. Paul called this act a betrayal and broke off relations with Jackson. Commenting on this act of Michael, Paul said: “It’s not very nice to go on tour knowing that you have to pay someone to perform your own songs.”

Paul McCartney now

Sir Paul McCartney's wedding

In 1997, the album “Flaming Pie” was nominated for a Grammy, and Paul himself received a knighthood as Sir “for his contribution to the development of music.” In 1999, McCartney (as solo artist) was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2001, McCartney composed the soundtrack for the film Vanilla Sky. A year later, as part of the world tour “Back In” The World“The musician visits Russia for the first time and performs a concert on Red Square. Until now, this concert is the only concert of a Western rock star on the central square of Moscow (all other concerts announced as concerts on Red Square were held on Vasilyevsky Spusk).

On June 20, 2004, Paul performed at Palace Square St. Petersburg. It was estimated that this was the three thousandth concert of McCartney's career. In June 2008, on the Kiev Independence Square, a free concert McCartney, which attracted more than 250 thousand people.

During his solo career, Paul McCartney became widely known as an animal rights activist and promoter of vegetarianism.

In August 2012, McCartney defended the Russian punk band " Pussy Riot", posting on the official website an appeal to the group members, which, among other things, included the words: "I really hope that Russian authorities will respect the principle of freedom of speech for all citizens of your country and will not punish you for your protest.” The reaction to this letter from Vladimir Putin, who is on friendly terms with Paul McCartney, is unknown.