On this date in 1942, future Beatles member James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool, England, to parents of Irish descent, Mary (née Mohin) and James McCartney. His mother was a nurse and midwife who died of an embolism as a complication of breast cancer surgery when Paul was 14, and his father worked in sales for a cotton merchant.
McCartney was baptized in his mother’s Catholic faith. His father was Protestant and later agnostic. Religion was not emphasized in the household. (“Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now” by Barry Miles, 1997) His father had a jazz band, played trumpet and piano and encouraged his sons to do the same.
McCartney learned to play the upright piano in their home but the guitar became his instrument of choice, reversing the order of the strings to accommodate his left-handedness. At age 15 he met John Lennon and before long joined Lennon’s band the Quarrymen. Two years later, in 1960, they renamed themselves the Beatles.
Their debut single was “Love Me Do” with “P.S. I Love You” on the B side. They were two of the 14 songs, all under three minutes, on their debut album “Please Please Me” (1963), led off by “I Saw Her Standing There.” The last of their 13 albums was “Let It Be,” released in 1970 and preceded by “Abbey Road” in 1969, the year McCartney married American photographer and musician Linda Eastman.
The Beatles top the all-time list of record sales as of this writing in 2024, followed in descending order by Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Elton John, Madonna, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Rihanna, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Eminem, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Coldplay and Celine Dion. (Topping the list of singles sales are Irving Berlin‘s “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby at 50 million copies followed by Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997” as a tribute to Princess Diana with 33 million.)
He released his solo album “McCartney” (1970), providing compositions, instrumentation and vocals. He collaborated with Eastman and drummer Denny Seiwell on “Ram” (1971) with its No. 1 single “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.” Later that year, ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine joined the McCartneys and Seiwell to form the band Wings, which went on to record seven albums and play five concert tours during its 10-year existence.
“McCartney III” (2020) was his 18th solo album. His book “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” (2021) was described as a “self-portrait in 154 songs.” The book “1964: Eyes of the Storm” ((2023) is a collection of photos he took at the height of Beatlemania.
Eastman died in 1998 at age 56 of breast cancer. Together 29 years, they had daughters Mary and Stella and a son James. McCartney married former model Heather Mills in 2002. Before divorcing in 2008, they had a daughter Beatrice. He married Nancy Shevell, a transportation company executive and longtime acquaintance 18 years younger than him in 2011. He embarked on a second “Got Back” concert tour in 2024 at age 81. His musicianship and prolific songwriting have earned him numerous honors, including British knighthood (making him Sir Paul McCartney), 18 Grammy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Journalist and Fab Four friend Maureen Cleve, who earlier reported Lennon’s controversial comments about the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus,” wrote this about McCartney. “Baptized a Catholic, his interest in religion is flabby. Indeed, if it were not for his concern with the afterlife he would call himself an atheist. He is no longer, however, obsessed with worry about growing old.
“ ‘That wore off,’ ” McCartney told Cleve. “ ‘If our bodies stayed young, our minds would have to stay young, and nobody wants that. But Bertrand Russell seems all right. I wouldn’t mind being like him at all.’ ” (Evening Standard, March 25, 1966) Russell died four months shy of 98.
PHOTO: McCartney at age 79 in London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2021; Raphael Pour-Hashemi photo under CC 2.0.
