McCartney, Paul

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PAUL McCARTNEY

Born: James Paul McCartney; Liverpool, England, 18 June 1942

Genre: Rock, Pop

Best-selling album since 1990: Flaming Pie (1997)

Hit songs since 1990: "Freedom"

Paul McCartney was the bassist and one of the two principal singers and songwriters of the British pop innovators the Beatles. When the group disbanded in 1970, he kicked off a solo career and became the most commercially successful solo Beatle. As a solo artist, McCartney released more than twenty albums, numerous best-of collections, several movie soundtrack songs, and occasional oddities. He enjoyed many hit singles and embarked on several stadium world tours. His album sales dwindled in the 1990s, but he remained a top box office ticket on tour. With George Harrison living in seclusion and Ringo Starr not a major player, McCartney became the public face of the Beatles. He spent the 1990s anthologizing the band's legacy for future generations. He also dodged his reputation as a soft rock hit-maker by returning to the classic rock and R&B that influenced him as a teenager. At the same time he turned heads by making two ambient techno albums under a pseudonym. McCartney was highly visible after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He wrote "Freedom," an anthem to lift American spirits, and then he embarked on a world tour that was highly praised by critics and broke box office records.

Beginnings

McCartney was born in Liverpool, England, to a father who played in a local jazz band. His mother, who died of breast cancer in 1956, would figure into many of his future songs. Growing up in the 1950s, McCartney was greatly influenced by the New Orleans piano R&B of Fats Domino, the guitar rock of Eddie Cochran, and the gospel singing style of early rock hit-maker Little Richard. McCartney met John Lennon in 1956 and they soon formed the Beatles together. He married his future musical collaborator Linda Eastman in 1969.

McCartney released his first solo album in 1970, the year the Beatles broke up. The following year he formed the group Wings, his effort to continue the splendid harmony and collaborative spirit of the Beatles. Until the band's break-up in 1981, Wings enjoyed several Top 10 hits, performed stadium tours, and recorded Band on the Run (1973), which remains McCartney's solo masterpiece. The songs within songs are reminiscent of his Beatles work as are the accessible hooks—from the "ho, hey-ho" chorus of "Mrs. Vanderbilt" and the shout-outs in "Jet" and "Helen Wheels" to the soulful gospel sway of "Let Me Roll It." Most critics agree Band on the Run is the only solo McCartney album at the level of his best Beatles work.

Experimentation

In the 1980s McCartney experimented with funk and reggae. He collaborated with an array of artists including Motown legend Stevie Wonder, pop superstar Michael Jackson, and New Wave songwriter Elvis Costello. His album sales failed to meet the expectations of a McCartney album even though he found success with his 1989 world tour.

McCartney started writing classical music at the dawn of the 1990s but it received middling reviews throughout the decade. The pop album Off the Ground (1993) did not yield any hit singles. In the years to come McCartney concentrated on organizing the Beatles Anthology project—a video documentary series, compact disc series, and hard-cover book—as well as 1, a collection of Beatles hits which became an instant best-seller.

Despite his colossal responsibility as the public face of the Beatles, McCartney managed an almost subversive flair for unpredictability. In 1994 he released an ambient techno album under the pseudonym Fireman and later collaborated with the Welsh psychedelic pop band Super Furry Animals for a collection of oddball Beatles remixes. He also made a cameo on their album chomping vegetables.

Getting Back to Where He Once Belonged

McCartney's renewed spontaneity surfaced on Run Devil Run (1999), in which he returns to the rock classics of his youth. He sounds the most invigorated in years singing the collection of carefree covers (plus one original) of vintage rock nuggets by Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry.

Critics speculated that McCartney's back-to-basics drive was inspired by the death of Linda, his wife and long-time musical collaborator, to breast cancer in 1998. He weeded the production down on his follow-up album, Driving Rain (2001). Although his sunny sentimentality surfaces at times, it is a deceptively dark collection of mostly sparse and quiet songs that grapple with sadness and loss. It projects the idol as just another man who lost his wife. In 2000 he released A Garland for Linda, a collection of modern classical originals written in Linda's honor.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, McCartney rose to the occasion with the song "Freedom," and it became the centerpiece of a tour which grossed $70 million in the United States. The tour broke box office records and made him the highest-earning celebrity in the world. During the concert—which featured many Beatles songs—he paid separate tributes to Lennon and Harrison, who died in 2001.

Following the tour, McCartney sought to change the publishing credit he and John Lennon shared during their Beatles days. Although "Lennon/McCartney" reflected their early partnership, McCartney asserted the songwriters later wrote independently. McCartney lobbied Lennon's widow Yoko Ono to change the historical record. So no one would mistake Lennon as the writer of the McCartney ballad "Yesterday," he argued, the needed to be credited as "McCartney/Lennon." Ono refused. "I tried to ignore it, but it built into an insecurity. It became a major issue," McCartney told Rolling Stone magazine. On his two-disc live album, Back in the U.S. (2002), he switched the Beatles song credit to "Paul McCartney & John Lennon," which prompted Ono to consider legal action.

McCartney is a pioneer whose profuse songbook influenced generations of songwriters. He composes in many genres, from reggae to R&B to classical, and his music maintains an accessibility and upbeat sentimentality that are hallmarks of pop music.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

McCartney (Apple, 1970); Pipes of Peace (Columbia, 1983); Press to Play (Capitol, 1986); Off the Ground (Capitol, 1993); Flaming Pie (Capitol, 1997); Run Devil Run (Capitol, 1999); Driving Rain (Capitol, 2001). With Wings: Band on the Run (Apple, 1973); Venus and Mars (Apple, 1975). Soundtracks: Give My Regards to Broad Street (EMI, 1984); Spies Like Us (Capitol, 1985); Live and Let Die (Capitol, 1990); Jerry Maguire (Sony, 1996); Vanilla Sky (Sony, 2001); The Family Way (XXI, 2003).