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George Gershwin (/ˈɡɜːrʃ.wɪn/; born Jacob Bruskin Gershowitz; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer, pianist and painter whose compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and An American in Paris (1928), the songs “Swanee” (1919) and “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924), the jazz standard “I Got Rhythm” (1930), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935) which gave birth to the hit “Summertime”. 

Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him. He subsequently composed An American in Paris, returned to New York City and wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, it came to be considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century and an American cultural classic.

Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores. He died in 1937 of a malignant brain tumor.  His compositions have been adapted for use in film and television, with several becoming jazz standards recorded and covered in many variations.

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Biography

Ancestors

Gershwin was of Russian-Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, was born in Odessa and had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew; finally retiring near Saint Petersburg. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a leather cutter for women’s shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the teenage daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York because of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women’s shoe factory. He married Rose on July 21, 1895, and Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment on Snediker Avenue in Brooklyn.

Early life

On September 26, 1898, George was born as second son to Morris and Rose Bruskin Gershwin in their second-floor apartment at 242 Snediker Avenue in Brooklyn. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwin, with the surname pronounced ‘Gersh-vin’ in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He had just one given name, contrary to the American practice of giving children both a first and a middle name. He was named after his grandfather, the army mechanic. He soon became known as George, and changed the spelling of his surname to ‘Gershwin’ around the time he became a professional musician; other family members followed suit.[8] After Ira and George, another boy, Arthur Gershwin (1900–1981), and a girl, Frances Gershwin (1906–1999), were born into the family.

The family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. They grew up mostly in the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra.

George lived a boyhood not unusual in New York tenements, which included running around with his friends, roller-skating and misbehaving in the streets. Until 1908, he cared nothing about music. Then as a ten-year-old, he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig’s violin recital. The sound, and the way his friend played, captivated him. At about the same time, George’s parents had bought a piano for his older brother Ira. To his parents’ surprise, though, and to Ira’s relief, it was George who spent more time playing it as he continued to enjoy it.

Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young and devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus precluding spending any serious time on musical endeavors. Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, which had also been a hobby George briefly pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira, also becoming a composer of songs, musicals, and short piano works.

With a degree of frustration, George tried various piano teachers for about two years (circa 1911) before finally being introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller (circa 1913), the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Until his death in 1918, Hambitzer remained Gershwin’s musical mentor, taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts.

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1913–1923

In 1913, Gershwin left school at the age of 15 and found his first job as a “song plugger”. His employer was Jerome H. Remick and Company, a Detroit-based publishing firm with a branch office on New York City’s Tin Pan Alley, and he earned $15 a week.

His first published song was “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em, When You’ve Got ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em” in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old. It earned him 50 cents.

In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and a*sumed names (pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn). He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville, accompanying both Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser on the piano. His 1917 novelty ragtime, “Rialto Ripples”, was a commercial success.

In 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song “Swanee,” with words by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson, a famous Broadway singer of the day, heard Gershwin perform “Swanee” at a party and decided to sing it in one of his shows.

In the late 1910s, Gershwin met songwriter and music director William Daly. The two collaborated on the Broadway musicals Piccadilly to Broadway (1920) and For Goodness’ Sake (1922), and jointly composed the score for Our Nell (1923). This was the beginning of a long friendship. Daly was a frequent arranger, orchestrator and conductor of Gershwin’s music, and Gershwin periodically turned to him for musical advice.

Musical, Europe and classical music, 1924–1928

In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue, for orchestra and piano. It was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and premiered by Paul Whiteman’s Concert Band, in New York. It subsequently went on to be his most popular work, and established Gershwin’s signature style and genius in blending vastly different musical styles in revolutionary ways.

Since the early 1920s Gershwin had frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. In 1924, George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a stage musical comedy Lady Be Good, which included such future standards as “Fascinating Rhythm” and “Oh, Lady Be Good!”. They followed this with Oh, Kay! (1926),[19] Funny Face (1927) and Strike Up the Band (1927 and 1930). Gershwin allowed the song, with a modified title, to be used as a football fight song, “Strike Up The Band for UCLA”.

In the mid-1920s, Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period of time, during which he applied to study composition with the noted Nadia Boulanger, who, along with several other prospective tutors such as Maurice Ravel, turned him down, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style. Maurice Ravel’s rejection letter to Gershwin told him, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?” While there, Gershwin wrote An American in Paris. This work received mixed reviews upon its first performance at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928, but it quickly became part of the standard repertoire in Europe and the United States.

New York, 1929–1935

In 1929, the Gershwin brothers created Show Girl; The following year brought Girl Crazy, which introduced the standards “Embraceable You”, debuted by Ginger Rogers, and “I Got Rhythm”. 1931’s Of Thee I Sing became the first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; the winners were George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, and Ira Gershwin.

Gershwin spent the summer of 1934 on Folly Island in South Carolina after he was invited to visit by the author of the novel Porgy, DuBose Heyward. He was inspired to write the music to his opera Porgy and Bess while on this working vacation. Porgy and Bess was considered another American classic by the composer of Rhapsody in Blue — even if critics could not quite figure out how to evaluate it, or decide whether it was opera or simply an ambitious Broadway musical. “It crossed the barriers,” per theater historian Robert Kimball. “It wasn’t a musical work per se, and it wasn’t a drama per se – it elicited response from both music and drama critics. But the work has sort of always been outside category.”

Last years, 1936–37

After the commercial failure of Porgy and Bess, Gershwin moved to Hollywood, California. In 1936, he was commissioned by RKO Pictures to write the music for the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gershwin’s extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length. It took Gershwin several months to compose and orchestrate.

Gershwin had a ten-year affair with composer Kay Swift, whom he frequently consulted about his music. The two never married, although she eventually divorced her husband James Warburg in order to commit to the relationship. Swift’s granddaughter, Katharine Weber, has suggested that the pair were not married because George’s mother Rose was “unhappy that Kay Swift wasn’t Jewish”. The Gershwins’ 1926 musical Oh, Kay was named for her. After Gershwin’s death, Swift arranged some of his music, transcribed several of his recordings, and collaborated with his brother Ira on several projects.

Illness and death

Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. On February 11, 1937, he performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux.[31] Gershwin, normally a superb pianist in his own compositions, suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance. He was at the time working on other Hollywood film projects while living with Ira and his wife Leonore in their rented house in Beverly Hills. Leonore Gershwin began to be disturbed by George’s mood swings and his seeming inability to eat without spilling food at the dinner table. She suspected mental illness and insisted he be moved out of their house to lyricist Yip Harburg’s empty quarters nearby, where he was placed in the care of his valet, Paul Mueller. The headaches and olfactory hallucinations continued.

On the night of July 9, 1937 Gershwin collapsed in Harburg’s house, where he had been working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was rushed back to Cedars of Lebanon,  and fell into a coma. Only then did his doctors come to believe that he was suffering from a brain tumor. Leonore called George’s close friend Emil Mosbacher and explained the dire need to find a neurosurgeon. Mosbacher immediately called pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in Boston, who, retired for several years by then, recommended Dr. Walter Dandy, who was on a boat fishing in Chesapeake Bay with the governor of Maryland. Mosbacher called the White House and had a Coast Guard cutter sent to find the governor’s yacht and bring Dandy quickly to shore. Mosbacher then chartered a plane and flew Dandy to Newark Airport, where he was to catch a plane to Los Angeles; however, by that time, Gershwin’s condition was critical and the need for surgery was immediate. In the early hours of July 11, doctors at Cedars removed a large brain tumor, believed to have been a glioblastoma, but Gershwin died on the morning of Sunday, July 11, 1937, at the age of 38.  The fact that he had suddenly collapsed and become comatose after he stood up on July 9, has been interpreted as brain herniation with Duret haemorrhages.

Gershwin’s friends and fans were shocked and devastated. John O’Hara remarked: “George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A memorial concert was held at the Hollywood Bowl on September 8, 1937, at which Otto Klemperer conducted his own orchestration of the second of Gershwin’s Three Preludes.

Musical style and influence

Gershwin was influenced by French composers of the early twentieth century. In turn Maurice Ravel was impressed with Gershwin’s abilities, commenting, “Personally I find jazz most interesting: the rhythms, the way the melodies are handled, the melodies themselves. I have heard of George Gershwin’s works and I find them intriguing.” The orchestrations in Gershwin’s symphonic works often seem similar to those of Ravel; likewise, Ravel’s two piano concertos evince an influence of Gershwin.

George Gershwin asked to study with Ravel. When Ravel heard how much Gershwin earned, Ravel replied with words to the effect of, “You should give me lessons.” (Some versions of this story feature Igor Stravinsky rather than Ravel as the composer; however Stravinsky confirmed that he originally heard the story from Ravel.)

Gershwin’s own Concerto in F was criticized for being related to the work of Claude Debussy, more so than to the expected jazz style. The comparison did not deter him from continuing to explore French styles. The title of An American in Paris reflects the very journey that he had consciously taken as a composer: “The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and Les Six, though the tunes are original.”

Gershwin was intrigued by the works of Alban Berg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, and Arnold Schoenberg. He also asked Schoenberg for composition lessons. Schoenberg refused, saying “I would only make you a bad Schoenberg, and you’re such a good Gershwin already.” (This quote is similar to one credited to Maurice Ravel during Gershwin’s 1928 visit to France – “Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you are a first-rate Gershwin?”) Gershwin was particularly impressed by the music of Berg, who gave him a score of the Lyric Suite. He attended the American premiere of Wozzeck, conducted by Leopold Stokowski in 1931, and was “thrilled and deeply impressed”.

Russian Joseph Schillinger’s influence as Gershwin’s teacher of composition (1932–1936) was substantial in providing him with a method of composition. There has been some disagreement about the nature of Schillinger’s influence on Gershwin. After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, Schillinger claimed he had a large and direct influence in overseeing the creation of the opera; Ira completely denied that his brother had any such a*sistance for this work. A third account of Gershwin’s musical relationship with his teacher was written by Gershwin’s close friend Vernon Duke, also a Schillinger student, in an article for the Musical Quarterly in 1947.

What set Gershwin apart was his ability to manipulate forms of music into his own unique voice. He took the jazz he discovered on Tin Pan Alley into the mainstream by splicing its rhythms and tonality with that of the popular songs of his era. Although George Gershwin would seldom make grand statements about his music, he believed that “true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today.”

In 2007, the Library of Congress named its Prize for Popular Song after George and Ira Gershwin. Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on culture, the prize is given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence a*sociated with the Gershwins. On March 1, 2007, the first Gershwin Prize was awarded to Paul Simon.

Recordings and film

Early in his career, under both his own name and pseudonyms, Gershwin recorded more than one hundred and forty player piano rolls which were a main source of his income. The majority were popular music of the period and a smaller proportion were of his own works. Once his musical theatre-writing income became substantial, his regular roll-recording career became superfluous. He did record additional rolls throughout the 1920s of his main hits for the Aeolian Company’s reproducing piano, including a complete version of his Rhapsody in Blue.

Compared to the piano rolls, there are few accessible audio recordings of Gershwin’s playing. His first recording was his own “Swanee” with the Fred Van Eps Trio in 1919. The recorded balance highlights the banjo playing of Van Eps, and the piano is overshadowed. The recording took place before “Swanee” became famous as an Al Jolson specialty in early 1920.

Gershwin recorded an abridged version of Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1924, soon after the world premiere. Gershwin and the same orchestra made an electrical recording of the abridged version for Victor in 1927. However, a dispute in the studio over interpretation angered Whiteman and he left. The conductor’s baton was taken over by Victor’s staff conductor Nathaniel Shilkret.

Gershwin made a number of solo piano recordings of tunes from his musicals, some including the vocals of Fred and Adele Astaire, as well as his Three Preludes for piano. In 1929, Gershwin “supervised” the world premiere recording of An American in Paris with Nathaniel Shilkret and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin’s role in the recording was rather limited, particularly because Shilkret was conducting and had his own ideas about the music. When it was realized that no one had been hired to play the brief celeste solo, Gershwin was asked if he could and would play the instrument, and he agreed. Gershwin can be heard, rather briefly, on the recording during the slow section.

Gershwin appeared on several radio programs, including Rudy Vallee’s, and played some of his compositions. This included the third movement of the Concerto in F with Vallee conducting the studio orchestra. Some of these performances were preserved on transcription discs and have been released on LP and CD.

In 1934, in an effort to earn money to finance his planned folk opera, Gershwin hosted his own radio program titled Music by Gershwin. The show was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network from February to May and again in September through the final show on December 23, 1934. He presented his own work as well as the work of other composers. Recordings from this and other radio broadcasts include his Variations on I Got Rhythm, portions of the Concerto in F, and numerous songs from his musical comedies. He also recorded a run-through of his Second Rhapsody, conducting the orchestra and playing the piano solos. Gershwin recorded excerpts from Porgy and Bess with members of the original cast, conducting the orchestra from the keyboard; he even announced the selections and the names of the performers. In 1935 RCA Victor asked him to supervise recordings of highlights from Porgy and Bess; these were his last recordings.

A 74-second newsreel film clip of Gershwin playing I Got Rhythm has survived, filmed at the opening of the Manhattan Theater (now The Ed Sullivan Theater) in August 1931.[  There are also silent home movies of Gershwin, some of them shot on Kodachrome color film stock, which have been featured in tributes to the composer. In addition, there is newsreel footage of Gershwin playing “Mademoiselle from New Rochelle” and “Strike Up the Band” on the piano during a Broadway rehearsal of the 1930 production of Strike Up the Band. In the mid-30s, “Strike Up The Band” was given to UCLA to be used as a football fight song, “Strike Up The Band for UCLA”. The comedy team of Clark and McCullough are seen conversing with Gershwin, then singing as he plays.

In 1945, the film biography Rhapsody in Blue was made, starring Robert Alda as George Gershwin. The film contains many factual errors about Gershwin’s life, but also features many examples of his music, including an almost complete performance of Rhapsody in Blue.

In 1965, Movietone Records released an album MTM 1009 featuring Gershwin’s piano rolls of the titled George Gershwin plays RHAPSODY IN BLUE and his other favorite compositions. The B-side of the LP featured nine other recordings.

In 1975, Columbia Records released an album featuring Gershwin’s piano rolls of Rhapsody In Blue, accompanied by the Columbia Jazz Band playing the original jazz band accompaniment, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The B-side of the Columbia Masterworks release features Tilson Thomas leading the New York Philharmonic in An American In Paris.

In 1976, RCA Records, as part of its “Victrola Americana” line, released a collection of Gershwin recordings taken from 78s recorded in the 1920s and called the LP “Gershwin plays Gershwin, Historic First Recordings” (RCA Victrola AVM1-1740). Included were recordings of “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and Gershwin on piano; “An American in Paris”, from 1927 with Gershwin on celesta; and “Three Preludes”, “Clap Yo’ Hands” and Someone to Watch Over Me”, among others. There are a total of ten recordings on the album. At the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, “Rhapsody in Blue” was performed in spectacular fashion by many pianists.

The soundtrack to Woody Allen’s 1979 film Manhattan is composed entirely of Gershwin’s compositions, including Rhapsody in Blue, “Love is Sweeping the Country”, and “But Not for Me”, performed by both the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the Buffalo Philharmonic under Michael Tilson Thomas. The film begins with a monologue by Allen: “He adored New York City … To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.”

In 1993, two audio CDs featuring piano rolls recorded by Gershwin were issued by Nonesuch Records through the efforts of Artis Wodehouse, and entitled Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls.

In October 2009, it was reported by Rolling Stone that Brian Wilson was completing two unfinished compositions by George Gershwin,[51] released as Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin on August 17, 2010, consisting of ten George and Ira Gershwin songs, bookended by passages from “Rhapsody in Blue”, with two new songs completed from unfinished Gershwin fragments by Wilson and band member Scott Bennett.

Compositions

Orchestral

• Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra (1924)
• Concerto in F for piano and orchestra (1925)
• An American in Paris for orchestra (1928)
• Dream Sequence/The Melting Pot for chorus and orchestra (1931)
• Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1931), originally titled Rhapsody in Rivets
• Cuban Overture for orchestra (1932), originally entitled Rumba
• March from “Strike Up the Band” for orchestra (1934)
• Variations on “I Got Rhythm” for piano and orchestra (1934)
• Catfish Row for orchestra (1936), a suite based on music from Porgy and Bess
• Shall We Dance (1937), a movie score feature-length ballet

Solo piano

• Three Preludes (1926)
• George Gershwin’s Song-book (1932), solo piano arrangements of 18 songs

Operas

• Blue Monday (1922), one-act opera
• Porgy and Bess (1935) at the Colonial Theatre in Boston

London musicals

• Primrose (1924)

Broadway musicals

• George White’s Scandals (1920–1924), featuring, at one point, the 1922 one-act opera Blue Monday)
• Lady, Be Good (1924)
• Tip-Toes (1925)
• Tell Me More! (1925)
• Oh, Kay! (1926)
• Strike Up the Band (1927)
• Funny Face (1927)
• Rosalie (1928)
• Treasure Girl (1928)
• Show Girl (1929)
• Girl Crazy (1930)
• Of Thee I Sing (1931)
• Pardon My English (1933)
• Let ‘Em Eat Cake (1933)
• My One and Only (1983), an original 1983 musical using previously written Gershwin songs
• Crazy for You (1992), a revised version of Girl Crazy
• Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), a musical with a score by George and Ira Gershwin
• An American in Paris, a musical that ran on Broadway from April 2015 to October 2016

Films for which Gershwin wrote original scores

• Delicious (1931), an early version of the Second Rhapsody and one other musical sequence was used in this film, the rest were rejected by the studio
• Shall We Dance (1937), original orchestral score by Gershwin, no recordings available in modern stereo, some sections have never been recorded (Nominated- Academy Award for Best Original Song: They Can’t Take That Away from Me)
• A Damsel in Distress (1937)
• The Goldwyn Follies (1938), posthumously released
• The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947), uses previously unpublished songs

Legacy

Estate

Gershwin died intestate, and his estate passed to his mother. The estate continues to collect significant royalties from licensing the copyrights on his work. The estate supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because its 1923 cutoff date was shortly before Gershwin had begun to create his most popular works. The copyrights on all Gershwin’s solo works expired at the end of 2007 in the European Union, based on its life-plus-70-years rule.

In 2005, The Guardian determined using “estimates of earnings accrued in a composer’s lifetime” that George Gershwin was the wealthiest composer of all time.

The George and Ira Gershwin Collection, much of which was donated by Ira and the Gershwin family estates, resides at the Library of Congress.

In September 2013, a partnership between the estates of Ira and George Gershwin and the University of Michigan was created and will provide the university’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance access to Gershwin’s entire body of work, which includes all of Gershwin’s papers, compositional drafts, and scores.[ This direct access to all of his works will provide opportunities to musicians, composers, and scholars to analyze and reinterpret his work with the goal of accurately reflecting the composers’ vision in order to preserve his legacy. The first fascicles of The Gershwin Critical Edition, edited by Mark Clague, are expected in 2017; they will cover the 1924 jazz band version of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess.

Awards and honors

• In 1937, Gershwin received his sole Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 1937 Oscars for “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”, written with his brother Ira for the 1937 film Shall We Dance. The nomination was posthumous; Gershwin died two months after the film’s release.
• In 1985, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to George and Ira Gershwin. Only three other songwriters, George M. Cohan, Harry Chapin and Irving Berlin, have had the honor of receiving this award.
• In 1998 a special Pulitzer Prize was posthumously awarded to Gershwin “commemorating the centennial year of his birth, for his distinguished and enduring contributions to American music.”
• The George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Musical Achievement Award was established by UCLA to honor the brothers for their contribution to music and for their gift to UCLA of the fight song “Strike Up the Band for UCLA”.
• In 2006, Gershwin was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

Namesakes

• The Gershwin Theatre on Broadway is named after George and Ira.
• The Gershwin Hotel in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City was named after George and Ira.
• In Brooklyn, George Gershwin Junior High School 166 is named after him.
• One of Holland America Line’s ships, MS Koningsdam has a Gershwin Deck (Deck 5)
• The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song

Biopics

• The 1945 biographical film Rhapsody in Blue starred Robert Alda as George Gershwin.
• Director Steven Spielberg planned a Biopic film in 2010 based of the life of Gershwin, casting Zachary Quinto as Gershwin.

Portrayals in other media

• Since 1999, Hershey Felder has produced a one-man show with him portraying George Gershwin Alone, which has played over 3,000 performances and was winner of two 2007 Ovation Awards. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Felder launched a global live-streaming Hershey Felder Presents: Live from Florence featuring a performance of “Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone” in September 2020.
• Paul Rudd portrays an imaginary friend based on George Gershwin, said to be his creator’s favorite composer, in the 2015 series finale of the Irish sitcom Moone Boy, “Gershwin’s Bucket List”.

Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. He was the lead vocalist and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, and was also a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.

Petty recorded a number of hit singles with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist. His hit singles with the Heartbreakers include “Don’t Do Me Like That” (1979), “Refugee” (1980), “The Waiting” (1981), “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985) and “Learning to Fly” (1991). Petty’s hit singles as a solo act include “I Won’t Back Down” (1989), “Free Fallin’” (1989), and “You Don’t Know How It Feels” (1994). In his career, he sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Petty died of an accidental drug overdose on October 2, 2017, one week after the end of the Heartbreakers’ 40th Anniversary Tour.

Early life

Petty was born October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida, the first of two sons of Kitty (Katherine) Petty, a local tax office worker, and Earl Petty, who was a traveling salesman. He had a brother, Bruce, who was seven years younger. His interest in rock and roll music began at age ten when he met Elvis Presley. In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley’s film Follow That Dream, in nearby Ocala, and invited Petty to watch the shoot. He instantly became a Presley fan, and when he returned that Saturday, he was greeted by his friend Keith Harben, and soon traded his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis 45’s. Of that meeting with Presley, Petty said, “Elvis glowed.”[8] In a 2006 interview, Petty said he knew he wanted to be in a band the moment he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. “The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show—and it’s true of thousands of guys—there was the way out. There was the way to do it. You get your friends and you’re a self-contained unit. And you make the music. And it looked like so much fun. It was something I identified with. I had never been hugely into sports. … I had been a big fan of Elvis. But I really saw in the Beatles that here’s something I could do. I knew I could do it. It wasn’t long before there were groups springing up in garages all over the place.” He dropped out of high school at age 17 to play bass with his newly formed band.

In an interview with the CBC in 2014, Petty stated that the Rolling Stones were “my punk music”. He credited the group with inspiring him by demonstrating that he and musicians like him could make it in rock and roll.

Don Felder, a fellow Gainesville resident, who later joined the Eagles, claimed in his autobiography that he was one of his first guitar teachers although Petty said that Felder taught him to play piano instead. As a young man, Petty worked briefly on the grounds crew of the University of Florida, but never attended as a student. An Ogeechee lime tree that he purportedly planted while employed at the university is now called the Tom Petty tree (Petty stated that he did not recall planting any trees). He also worked briefly as a gravedigger.

Petty also overcame a difficult relationship with his father. According to Petty, his father found it difficult to accept that Petty was “a mild-mannered kid who was interested in the arts” and subjected him to verbal and physical abuse on a regular basis. Petty has described his father as a “wild, gambling drinker guy”. Petty was close to his mother and remained close to his brother, Bruce.

Career

1976–1987: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Shortly after embracing his musical aspirations, Petty started a band known as the Epics, later to evolve into Mudcrutch. The band included future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and was popular in Gainesville, but their recordings went unnoticed by a mainstream audience. Their only single, “Depot Street”, released in 1975 by Shelter Records, failed to chart.

After Mudcrutch split up, Petty reluctantly agreed to pursue a solo career. Tench decided to form his own group, whose sound Petty appreciated. Eventually, Petty and Campbell collaborated with Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch, forming the first lineup of the Heartbreakers. Their eponymous debut album gained minute popularity amongst American audiences, achieving greater success in Britain. The singles “American Girl” and “Breakdown” (re-released in 1977) peaked at No. 40 after the band toured in the United Kingdom in support of Nils Lofgren. The debut album was released by Shelter Records, which at that time was distributed by ABC Records.

Their second album, You’re Gonna Get It!, was the band’s first Top 40 album,[22] featuring the singles “I Need to Know” and “Listen to Her Heart”. Their third album, Damn the Torpedoes, quickly went platinum, selling nearly two million copies; it includes their breakthrough singles “Don’t Do Me Like That”, “Here Comes My Girl”, “Even the Losers” and “Refugee”.

In September 1979, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed at a Musicians United for Safe Energy concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. Their rendition of “Cry to Me” was featured on the resulting album, No Nukes.

The 4th album Hard Promises, released in 1981, became a top-ten hit, going platinum and spawning the hit single “The Waiting”. The album also featured Petty’s first duet, “Insider” with Stevie Nicks.

Bass player Ron Blair quit the group and was replaced on the fifth album, Long After Dark (1982), by Howie Epstein; the resulting lineup lasted until 1994. The album contained the hit “You Got Lucky”. In 1985, the band participated in Live Aid, playing four songs at John F. Kennedy Stadium, in Philadelphia. Southern Accents was also released in 1985. This album included the hit single “Don’t Come Around Here No More”, which was produced by Dave Stewart. The song’s video featured Petty dressed as the Mad Hatter, mocking and chasing Alice from the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, then cutting and eating her as if she were a cake. The ensuing tour led to the live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live! and an invitation from Bob Dylan—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers joined him on his True Confessions Tour. They also played some dates with the Grateful Dead in 1986 and 1987. Also in 1987, the group released Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) which includes “Jammin’ Me” which Petty wrote with Dylan.

1988–1991: Traveling Wilburys and solo career

In 1988, Petty joined George Harrison’s group, the Traveling Wilburys, which also included Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. The band’s first song, “Handle with Care”, was intended as a B-side of one of Harrison’s singles, but was judged too good for that purpose and the group decided to record a full album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. A second Wilburys album, mischievously titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 and recorded without the recently deceased Orbison, followed in 1990. The album was named Vol. 3 as a response to a series of bootlegged studio sessions being sold as Travelling Wilburys Vol. 2. Petty incorporated Traveling Wilburys songs into his live shows, consistently playing “Handle with Care” in shows from 2003 to 2006, and for his 2008 tour adding “surprises” such as “End of the Line” to the set list.

In 1989, Petty released Full Moon Fever, which featured hits “I Won’t Back Down”, “Free Fallin’” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”. It was nominally his first solo album, although several Heartbreakers and other well-known musicians participated: Mike Campbell co-produced the album with Petty and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, and backing musicians included Campbell, Lynne, and fellow Wilburys Roy Orbison and George Harrison (Ringo Starr appears on drums in the video for “I Won’t Back Down”, but they were actually performed by Phil Jones).

Petty and the Heartbreakers reformed in 1991 and released Into the Great Wide Open, which was co-produced by Lynne and included the hit singles “Learning To Fly” and “Into the Great Wide Open”, the latter featuring Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway in the music video.

Before leaving MCA Records, Petty and the Heartbreakers got together to record, live in the studio, two new songs for a Greatest Hits package: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” and Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air”. This was Stan Lynch’s last recorded performance with the Heartbreakers. Petty commented “He left right after the session without really saying goodbye.” The package went on to sell over ten million copies, therefore receiving diamond certification by the RIAA.

1991–2017: Move to Warner Bros. Records

In 1989, while still under contract to MCA, Petty secretly signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros. Records, to which the Traveling Wilburys had been signed. His first album on his new label, 1994’s Wildflowers (Petty’s second of three solo albums), included the highly beloved title track[33], as well as the singles “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, “You Wreck Me”, “It’s Good to Be King”, and “A Higher Place”. The album, produced by Rick Rubin, sold over three million copies in the United States.

In 1996, Petty, with the Heartbreakers, released a soundtrack to the movie She’s the One, starring Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston (see Songs and Music from “She’s the One”). The album’s singles were “Walls (Circus)” (featuring Lindsey Buckingham), “Climb that Hill”, and a song written by Lucinda Williams, “Change the Locks”. The album also included a cover of “Asshole”, a song by Beck. The same year, the band accompanied Johnny Cash on Unchained (provisionally entitled “Petty Cash”), for which Cash would win a Grammy for Best Country Album (Cash would later cover Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” on American III: Solitary Man).

In 1999, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their last album with Rubin at the helm, Echo. Two songs were released as singles in the U.S., “Room at the Top” and “Free Girl Now”. The album reached number 10 in the U.S. album charts.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played “I Won’t Back Down” at the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The following year, they played “Taxman”, “I Need You” and “Handle with Care” (joined for the last by Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison, and Jim Keltner) at the Concert for George in honor of Petty’s friend and former bandmate George Harrison.

Petty’s 2002 release, The Last DJ, was an album-length critique of the practices within the music industry. The title track, inspired by Los Angeles radio personality Jim Ladd, bemoaned the end of the freedom that radio DJs once had to personally select songs for their station’s playlists. The album peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States.

In 2005, Petty began hosting his own show “Buried Treasure” on XM Satellite Radio, on which he shared selections from his personal record collection.

In 2006, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers headlined the fifth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival as part of their “30th Anniversary Tour”. Special guests included Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers Band, Trey Anastasio, the Derek Trucks Band, and the Black Crowes. Nicks joined Petty and the Heartbreakers on stage for “a selection of songs” including “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”.

In July 2006, Petty released a solo album titled Highway Companion, which included the hit “Saving Grace”. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, which was Petty’s highest chart position since the introduction of the Nielsen SoundScan system for tracking album sales in 1991. Highway Companion was briefly promoted on the tour with the Heartbreakers in 2006, with performances of “Saving Grace”, “Square One”, “Down South” and “Flirting with Time”.

During the summer of 2007, Petty reunited with his old bandmates Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh along with Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell to reform his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch. The quintet recorded an album of 14 songs that was released on April 29, 2008 (on iTunes, an additional song “Special Place” was available if the album was pre-ordered). The band supported the album with a brief tour of California in the spring of 2008.

In 2007, Petty and the Heartbreakers’ contributed a cover of “I’m Walkin’” to the album Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino. The album’s sales helped buy instruments for students in New Orleans public schools and they contributed to the building of a community center in the city’s Hurricane Katrina-damaged Ninth Ward.

On February 3, 2008, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed during the halftime-show of Super Bowl XLII at the University of Phoenix Stadium. They played “American Girl”, “I Won’t Back Down”, “Free Fallin’” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”. That summer, the band toured North America with Steve Winwood as the opening act. Winwood joined Petty and the Heartbreakers on stage at select shows and performed his Spencer Davis Group hit “Gimme Some Lovin’”, and occasionally he performed his Blind Faith hit “Can’t Find My Way Home”. In November 2009 the boxed set The Live Anthology, a compilation of live recordings from 1978 to 2006, was released.

The band’s twelfth album Mojo was released on June 15, 2010, and reached number two on the Billboard 200 album chart. Petty described the album as “Blues-based. Some of the tunes are longer, more jam-y kind of music. A couple of tracks really sound like the Allman Brothers—not the songs but the atmosphere of the band.” To promote the record, the band appeared as the musical guests on Saturday Night Live on May 15, 2010.  The release of Mojo was followed by a North American summer tour. Prior to the tour, five of the band’s guitars, including two owned by Petty, were stolen from their practice space in Culver City, California in April 2010. The items were recovered by Los Angeles police the next week.

In 2012, the band went on a world tour that included their first European dates in 20 years and their first ever concerts in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

On July 28, 2014, Reprise Records released Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ thirteenth studio album, Hypnotic Eye. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album to ever top the chart. On November 20, 2015, the Tom Petty Radio channel debuted on SiriusXM.

In 2017, the Heartbreakers embarked on a 40th Anniversary Tour of the United States. The tour began on April 20 in Oklahoma City and ended on September 25 with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. The Hollywood Bowl concert, which would ultimately be the Heartbreakers’ final show, ended with a performance of “American Girl”.

On September 28, 2018, Reprise Records released An American Treasure, a 60-track career-spanning box set featuring dozens of previously unreleased recordings, alternate versions of classic songs, rarities, historic live performances and deep tracks. The box set was preceded by the first single, “Keep A Little Soul”, in July 2018. The song is an unreleased outtake originally recorded in 1982 during the Long After Dark sessions.

Acting

Petty’s first appearance in film took place in 1978, when he had a cameo in FM. He later had a small part in 1987’s Made in Heaven and appeared in several episodes of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show between 1987 and 1990, playing himself as one of Garry Shandling’s neighbors.  Petty was also featured in Shandling’s other show, The Larry Sanders Show, as one of the Story within a story final guests. In the episode, Petty gets bumped from the show and nearly comes to blows with Greg Kinnear.

Petty appeared in the 1997 film The Postman, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, as the Bridge City Mayor (from the dialogue it is implied that he is playing a future history version of himself).  In 2002, he appeared on The Simpsons in the episode “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation”, along with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, and Brian Setzer. In it, Petty spoofed himself as a tutor to Homer Simpson on the art of lyric writing, composing a brief song about a drunk girl driving down the road while concerned with the state of public schools. Later in the episode, he loses a toe during a riot.

Petty had a recurring role as the voice of Elroy “Lucky” Kleinschmidt in the animated comedy series King of the Hill from 2004 to 2009. In 2010, Petty made a five-second cameo appearance with comedian Andy Samberg in a musical video titled “Great Day” featured on the bonus DVD as part of The Lonely Island’s new album Turtleneck & Chain.

Views on artistic control

Petty was known as a staunch guardian of his artistic control and artistic freedom. In 1979, he was involved in a legal dispute when ABC Records was sold to MCA Records. He refused to be transferred to another record label without his consent. In May 1979, he filed for bankruptcy and was signed to the new MCA subsidiary Backstreet Records.

In early 1981, the upcoming Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, which would become Hard Promises, was slated to be the next MCA release with the new list price of $9.98, following Steely Dan’s Gaucho and the Olivia Newton-John/Electric Light Orchestra Xanadu soundtrack. This so-called “superstar pricing” was $1.00 more than the usual list price of $8.98.  Petty voiced his objections to the price hike in the press and the issue became a popular cause among music fans. Non-delivery of the album and naming it Eight Ninety-Eight were considered, but eventually MCA decided against the price increase.

In 1987, Petty sued tire company B.F. Goodrich for $1 million for using a song very similar to his song “Mary’s New Car” in a TV commercial. The ad agency that produced the commercial had previously sought permission to use Petty’s song but was refused. A judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting further use of the ad and the suit was later settled out of court.

Some have claimed that the Red Hot Chili Peppers single “Dani California”, released in May 2006, is very similar to Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”.[ Petty told Rolling Stone Magazine, “I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock ‘n’ roll songs sound alike. Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took ‘American Girl’ for their song ‘Last Nite’, and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you’ … If someone took my song note for note and stole it maliciously, then maybe [I’d sue]. But I don’t believe in lawsuits much. I think there are enough frivolous lawsuits in this country without people fighting over pop songs.”

In January 2015, it was revealed that Petty and Jeff Lynne would receive royalties from Sam Smith’s song “Stay with Me” after its writers acknowledged similarities between it and “I Won’t Back Down”. Petty and co-composer Lynne were each awarded 12.5% of the royalties from “Stay with Me”, and their names were added to the ASCAP song credit. Petty clarified that he did not believe Smith plagiarized him, saying, “All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by. Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement”.

Personal life

Petty married Jane Benyo in 1974, and they divorced in 1996. Benyo once told mutual friend Stevie Nicks that she had met Petty at “the age of seventeen”. Nicks misheard Benyo’s North Florida accent, inspiring the title of her song “Edge of Seventeen”. Petty and Benyo had two daughters: Adria, a director, and Annakim, an artist. On June 3, 2001, Petty married Dana York, who had a son, Dylan, from an earlier marriage.

In May 1987, an arsonist set fire to Petty’s house in Encino, California. Firefighters were able to salvage the basement recording studio and the original tapes stored there, as well as his Gibson Dove acoustic guitar. His signature gray top hat, however, was destroyed.

Petty struggled with heroin addiction from roughly 1996 through 1999. He credited the emotional pain from the dissolution of his marriage to Benyo as a major contributing cause. He later said that “using heroin went against my grain. I didn’t want to be enslaved to anything.”  He eventually went to a treatment center, and was able to successfully treat his addiction before the tour for Echo in mid-1999.

Petty spoke in 2014 of the benefits from his practice of Transcendental Meditation.

Death

Petty was found unconscious at his home, not breathing and in cardiac arrest, in the early morning of October 2, 2017. He was resuscitated and taken to the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, where he died at 8:40 pm PDT[82] after premature reports of his death throughout the day. A memorial service was held at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles on October 16, 2017.

On January 19, 2018, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner announced that Petty had died accidentally from mixed drug toxicity,[ a combination of fentanyl, oxycodone, acetylfentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl (all opioids); temazepam and alprazolam (both sedatives); and citalopram (an antidepressant). In a statement on his official website, Petty’s wife and daughter said he had multiple medical problems, including emphysema, knee difficulties “and most significantly a fractured hip”. He was prescribed pain medication for these problems and informed on the day of his death that his hip injury had worsened. The statement read, “[it] is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his overuse of medication.[..] We feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.”

On September 28, 2018, Petty’s wife Dana gave an interview to Billboard saying that Petty put off hip surgery his doctors had recommended for some time. “He’d had it in mind it was his last tour and he owed it to his long-time crew, from decades some of them, and his fans.” Dana said that Petty was in a good mood the day before his death: “He had those three shows in L.A. Never had he been so proud of himself, so happy, so looking forward to the future – and then he’s gone.”

Equipment

Petty owned and used a number of guitars over the years. From 1976 to 1982, his main instrument was a sunburst 1964 Fender Stratocaster. He also used a number of Rickenbacker guitars from 1979 onward. The Rickenbacker 660/12TP was designed by Petty (specifically the neck) and featured his signature from 1991 to 1997. He also extensively played several Fender Telecasters.

As a bassist, Petty played a Fender Jazz Bass, Rickenbacker 4003, Höfner Club Bass and Danelectro Longhorn among others. A black Danelectro U2 of Petty can be found in a Hard Rock Cafe.

For acoustic guitars, Petty had a signature C.F. Martin HD-40, and wrote virtually all of his songs on a Gibson Dove acoustic saved from his 1987 house fire. He also used a Gibson J-200 in a natural finish and a late 1970s Guild D25 12-string acoustic.

Petty’s later amplifier setup featured two Fender Vibro-King 60-watt combos.

Awards and honors

In 1994, You Got Lucky, a Petty tribute album featuring such bands as Everclear and Silkworm was released

In April 1996, Petty received UCLA’s George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement.  The next month, Petty won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ Golden Note Award.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999, for their contribution to the recording industry.

In December 2001, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame[103], which further honored Petty with an exhibit of his items from July 2006 until 2007.

Petty received the Billboard Century Award, the organization’s highest honor for creative achievement on December 6, 2005.

In September 2006, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received the keys to the city of Gainesville, Florida, where he and his bandmates either lived or grew up.

Peter Bogdanovich’s documentary film on Petty’s career titled Runnin’ Down a Dream premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2007.

Petty was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in February 2017 for his contributions to music and for his philanthropy.

A week after his death in 2017, a tribute to Petty was painted on Gainesville’s Southwest 34th Street Wall. It reads “Love you always, Gainesville No. 1 Son, Thanks, Tommy”.

In October 2018, on what would have been the singer’s 68th birthday, the city of Gainesville renamed the former Northeast Park, a park where a young Petty had often visited, as Tom Petty Park.

Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and record and film producer who gained worldwide fame as co-lead vocalist and bassist for the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history.[4] After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine.

A self-taught musician, McCartney is proficient on bass, guitar, keyboards, and drums. He is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing (mainly playing with a plectrum), his versatile and wide tenor vocal range (spanning over four octaves), and his eclecticism (exploring styles ranging from pre-rock and roll pop to classical and electronica). McCartney began his career as a member of the Quarrymen in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the Beatles’ de facto leader, providing the creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. His Beatles songs “And I Love Her” (1964), “Yesterday” (1965), “Eleanor Rigby” (1966) and “Blackbird” (1968) rank among the most covered songs in history.[5][6]

In 1970, McCartney debuted as a solo artist with the album McCartney. Throughout the 1970s, he led Wings, one of the most successful bands of the decade, with more than a dozen international top 10 singles and albums. McCartney resumed his solo career in 1980. Since 1989, he has toured consistently as a solo artist. In 1993, he formed the music duo the Fireman with Youth of Killing Joke. Beyond music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty, and music education.

McCartney is one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2009, had sales of 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. His honours include two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999), 18 Grammy Awards, an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965, and a knighthood in 1997 for services to music. As of 2020, he is also one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated fortune of £800 million.

Early life

James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool, where his mother, Mary Patricia (née Mohin), had qualified to practise as a nurse. His father, James (“Jim”) McCartney, was absent from his son’s birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II.[8] McCartney has a younger brother named Michael and a stepsister named Ruth. The children were baptised in their mother’s Catholic faith, even though their father was a former Protestant who had turned agnostic. Religion was not emphasised in the household.[9]

McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton.[10] In 1953, he was one of only three students out of 90 to pass the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school.[11] In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his suburban home in Speke. The two quickly became friends; McCartney later admitted: “I tended to talk down to him because he was a year younger.”

Career

1957–1960: The Quarrymen

At the age of fifteen on 6 July 1957, McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter’s Church Hall fête in Woolton.[26] The Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz, blues and folk influences.[27] Soon afterwards, the members of the band invited McCartney to join as a rhythm guitarist, and he formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon’s art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, in 1960.[28] By May 1960, the band had tried several names, including Johnny and the Moondogs, Beatals and the Silver Beetles.[29] They adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg.

1960–1970: The Beatles

In 1961, Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.[31] While in Hamburg, they recorded professionally for the first time and were credited as the Beat Brothers, who were the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single “My Bonnie”.[32] This resulted in attention from Brian Epstein, who was a key figure in their subsequent development and success. He became their manager in January 1962.[33] Ringo Starr replaced Best in August, and the band had their first hit, “Love Me Do”, in October, becoming popular in the UK in 1963, and in the US a year later. The fan hysteria became known as “Beatlemania”, and the press sometimes referred to McCartney as the “cute Beatle”.[34][nb 2] McCartney co-wrote (with Lennon) several of their early hits, including “I Saw Her Standing There”, “She Loves You”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (1963) and “Can’t Buy Me Love” (1964).[36]

In August 1965, the Beatles released the McCartney composition “Yesterday”, featuring a string quartet. Included on the Help! LP, the song was the group’s first recorded use of classical music elements and their first recording that involved only a single band member.[37] “Yesterday” became one of the most covered songs in popular music history.[38] Later that year, during recording sessions for the album Rubber Soul, McCartney began to supplant Lennon as the dominant musical force in the band. Musicologist Ian MacDonald wrote, “from [1965] … [McCartney] would be in the ascendant not only as a songwriter, but also as instrumentalist, arranger, producer, and de facto musical director of the Beatles.”[39] Critics described Rubber Soul as a significant advance in the refinement and profundity of the band’s music and lyrics.[40] Considered a high point in the Beatles catalogue, both Lennon and McCartney said they had written the music for the song “In My Life”.[41] McCartney said of the album, “we’d had our cute period, and now it was time to expand.”[42] Recording engineer Norman Smith stated that the Rubber Soul sessions exposed indications of increasing contention within the band: “the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious … [and] as far as Paul was concerned, George [Harrison] could do no right—Paul was absolutely finicky.”[43]

In 1966, the Beatles released the album Revolver. Featuring sophisticated lyrics, studio experimentation, and an expanded repertoire of musical genres ranging from innovative string arrangements to psychedelic rock, the album marked an artistic leap for the Beatles.[44] The first of three consecutive McCartney A-sides, the single “Paperback Writer” preceded the LP’s release.[45] The Beatles produced a short promotional film for the song, and another for its B-side, “Rain”. The films, described by Harrison as “the forerunner of videos”, aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops in June 1966.[46] Revolver also included McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby”, which featured a string octet. According to Gould, the song is “a neoclassical tour de force … a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song”.[47] Except for some backing vocals, the song included only McCartney’s lead vocal and the strings arranged by producer George Martin.

The band gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.[50] Later that year, McCartney completed his first musical project independently of the group—a film score for the UK production The Family Way. The score was a collaboration with Martin, who used two McCartney themes to write thirteen variations. The soundtrack failed to chart, but it won McCartney an Ivor Novello Award for Best Instrumental Theme.[51]

Upon the end of the Beatles’ performing career, McCartney sensed unease in the band and wanted them to maintain creative productivity. He pressed them to start a new project, which became Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, widely regarded as rock’s first concept album.[52] McCartney was inspired to create a new persona for the group, to serve as a vehicle for experimentation and to demonstrate to their fans that they had musically matured. He invented the fictional band of the album’s title track.[53] As McCartney explained, “We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that f*cking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys we were men … and [we] thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers.”[54]

Starting in November 1966, the band adopted an experimental attitude during recording sessions for the album.[55] Their recording of “A Day in the Life” required a forty-piece orchestra, which Martin and McCartney took turns conducting.[56] The sessions produced the double A-side single “Strawberry Fields Forever”/”Penny Lane” in February 1967, and the LP followed in June.[35][nb 4] Based on an ink drawing by McCartney, the LP’s cover included a collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, featuring the Beatles in costume as the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, standing with a host of celebrities.[58] The cover piqued a frenzy of analysis.Epstein’s death in August 1967 created a void, which left the Beatles perplexed and concerned about their future.[61] McCartney stepped in to fill that void and gradually became the de facto leader and business manager of the group that Lennon had once led.[62][dubious – discuss] In his first creative suggestion after this change of leadership, McCartney proposed that the band move forward on their plans to produce a film for television, which was to become Magical Mystery Tour. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, the project was “an administrative nightmare throughout”.[63] McCartney largely directed the film, which brought the group their first unfavourable critical response.[64] However, the film’s soundtrack was more successful. It was released in the UK as a six-track double extended play disc (EP), and as an identically titled LP in the US, filled out with five songs from the band’s recent singles.[35] The only Capitol compilation later included in the group’s official canon of studio albums, the Magical Mystery Tour LP achieved $8 million in sales within three weeks of its release, higher initial sales than any other Capitol LP up to that point.

The Beatles’ animated film Yellow Submarine, loosely based on the imaginary world evoked by McCartney’s 1966 composition, premiered in July 1968. Though critics admired the film for its visual style, humour and music, the soundtrack album issued six months later received a less enthusiastic response.[66] By late 1968, relations within the band were deteriorating. The tension grew during the recording of their eponymous double album, also known as the “White Album”.[67][nb 5] Matters worsened the following year during the Let It Be sessions, when a camera crew filmed McCartney lecturing the group: “We’ve been very negative since Mr. Epstein passed away … we were always fighting [his] discipline a bit, but it’s silly to fight that discipline if it’s our own”.[69]

In March 1969, McCartney married his first wife, Linda Eastman, and in August, the couple had their first child, Mary, named after his late mother.[70] Abbey Road was the band’s last recorded album, and Martin suggested “a continuously moving piece of music”, urging the group to think symphonically.[71] McCartney agreed, but Lennon did not. They eventually compromised, agreeing to McCartney’s suggestion: an LP featuring individual songs on side one, and a long medley on side two.[71] In October 1969, a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, but this was quickly refuted when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family, accompanied by the caption “Paul is still with us”.[72]

McCartney was in the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates when he announced his departure from the group on 10 April 1970.[73] He filed a suit for the band’s formal dissolution on 31 December 1970, and in March 1971 the court appointed a receiver to oversee Apple’s finances. An English court legally dissolved the Beatles’ partnership on 9 January 1975, though sporadic lawsuits against their record company EMI, Klein, and each other persisted until 1989.

1970–1981: Wings

As the Beatles were breaking up in 1969–70, McCartney fell into a depression. His wife helped him pull out of that condition by praising his work as a songwriter and convincing him to continue writing and recording. In her honour, he wrote “Maybe I’m Amazed”, explaining that with the Beatles breaking up, “that was my feeling: Maybe I’m amazed at what’s going on … Maybe I’m a man and maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me; Baby won’t you help me understand … Maybe I’m amazed at the way you pulled me out of time, hung me on the line, Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you.” He added that “every love song I write is for Linda.”[79][80]

In 1970, McCartney continued his musical career with his first solo release, McCartney, a US number-one album. Apart from some vocal contributions from Linda, McCartney is a one-man album, with McCartney providing compositions, instrumentation and vocals.[81][nb 8] In 1971, he collaborated with Linda and drummer Denny Seiwell on a second album, Ram. A UK number one and a US top five, Ram included the co-written US number-one hit single “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”.[83] Later that year, ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine joined the McCartneys and Seiwell to form the band Wings. McCartney had this to say on the group’s formation: “Wings were always a difficult idea … any group having to follow [the Beatles’] success would have a hard job … I found myself in that very position. However, it was a choice between going on or finishing, and I loved music too much to think of stopping.”[84][nb 9] In September 1971, the McCartneys’ daughter Stella was born, named in honour of Linda’s grandmothers, both of whom were named Stella.[86]

Following the addition of guitarist Henry McCullough, Wings’ first concert tour began in 1972 with a debut performance in front of an audience of seven hundred at the University of Nottingham. Ten more gigs followed as they travelled across the UK in a van during an unannounced tour of universities, during which the band stayed in modest accommodation and received pay in coinage collected from students, while avoiding Beatles songs during their performances.[87] McCartney later said, “The main thing I didn’t want was to come on stage, faced with the whole torment of five rows of press people with little pads, all looking at me and saying, ‘Oh well, he is not as good as he was.’ So we decided to go out on that university tour which made me less nervous … by the end of that tour I felt ready for something else, so we went into Europe.”[88] During the seven-week, 25-show Wings Over Europe Tour, the band played almost solely Wings and McCartney solo material: the Little Richard cover “Long Tall Sally” was the only song that had previously been recorded by the Beatles. McCartney wanted the tour to avoid large venues; most of the small halls they played had capacities of fewer than 3,000 people.[89]

In March 1973, Wings achieved their first US number-one single, “My Love”, included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, a US number one and UK top five.[90][nb 10] McCartney’s collaboration with Linda and former Beatles producer Martin resulted in the song “Live and Let Die”, which was the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name. Nominated for an Academy Award, the song reached number two in the US and number nine in the UK. It also earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.[91] Music professor and author Vincent Benitez described the track as “symphonic rock at its best”.

After the departure of McCullough and Seiwell in 1973, the McCartneys and Laine recorded Band on the Run. The album was the first of seven platinum Wings LPs.[94] It was a US and UK number one, the band’s first to top the charts in both countries and the first ever to reach Billboard magazine’s charts on three separate occasions. One of the best-selling releases of the decade, it remained on the UK charts for 124 weeks. Rolling Stone named it one of the Best Albums of the Year for 1973, and in 1975, Paul McCartney and Wings won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance for the song “Band on the Run” and Geoff Emerick won the Grammy for Best Engineered Recording for the album.[95][nb 12] In 1974, Wings achieved a second US number-one single with the title track.[97] The album also included the top-ten hits “Jet” and “Helen Wheels”, and earned the 413th spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[98][nb 13]

Wings followed Band on the Run with the chart-topping albums Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).[100][nb 14] In 1975, they began the fourteen-month Wings Over the World Tour, which included stops in the UK, Australia, Europe and the US. The tour marked the first time McCartney performed Beatles songs live with Wings, with five in the two-hour set list: “I’ve Just Seen a Face”, “Yesterday”, “Blackbird”, “Lady Madonna” and “The Long and Winding Road”.[102] Following the second European leg of the tour and extensive rehearsals in London, the group undertook an ambitious US arena tour that yielded the US number-one live triple LP Wings over America.[103]

In September 1977, the McCartneys had a third child, a son they named James. In November, the Wings song “Mull of Kintyre”, co-written with Laine, was quickly becoming one of the best-selling singles in UK chart history.[104] The most successful single of McCartney’s solo career, it achieved double the sales of the previous record holder, “She Loves You”, and went on to sell 2.5 million copies and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

London Town (1978) spawned a US number-one single (“With a Little Luck”), and continued Wings’ string of commercial successes, making the top five in both the US and the UK. Critical reception was unfavourable, and McCartney expressed disappointment with the album.[107][nb 16] Back to the Egg (1979) featured McCartney’s a*semblage of a rock supergroup dubbed “Rockestra” on two tracks. The band included Wings along with Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and others. Though certified platinum, critics panned the album.[109] Wings completed their final concert tour in 1979, with twenty shows in the UK that included the live debut of the Beatles songs “Got to Get You into My Life”, “The Fool on the Hill” and “Let it Be”.[110]

In 1980, McCartney released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, which peaked at number one in the UK and number three in the US. As with his first album, he composed and performed it alone.[111] The album contained the song “Coming Up”, the live version of which, recorded in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1979 by Wings, became the group’s last number-one hit.[112] By 1981, McCartney felt he had accomplished all he could creatively with Wings and decided he needed a change. The group discontinued in April 1981 after Laine quit following disagreements over royalties and salaries.

1982–1990

In 1982, McCartney collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin-produced number-one hit “Ebony and Ivory”, included on McCartney’s Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on “The Girl Is Mine” from Thriller.[117][nb 19] “Ebony and Ivory” was McCartney’s record 28th single to hit number one on the Billboard 100.[119] The following year, he and Jackson worked on “Say Say Say”, McCartney’s most recent US number one as of 2014. McCartney earned his latest UK number one as of 2014 with the title track of his LP release that year, “Pipes of Peace”.[120][nb 20]

In 1984, McCartney starred in the musical Give My Regards to Broad Street, a feature film he also wrote and produced which included Starr in an acting role. It was disparaged by critics: Variety described the film as “characterless, bloodless, and pointless”;[122] while Roger Ebert awarded it a single star, writing, “you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the soundtrack”.[123] The album fared much better, reaching number one in the UK and producing the US top-ten hit single “No More Lonely Nights”, featuring David Gilmour on lead guitar.[124] In 1985, Warner Brothers commissioned McCartney to write a song for the comedic feature film Spies Like Us. He composed and recorded the track in four days, with Phil Ramone co-producing.[125][nb 21] McCartney participated in Live Aid, performing “Let it Be”, but technical difficulties rendered his vocals and piano barely audible for the first two verses, punctuated by squeals of feedback. Equipment technicians resolved the problems and David Bowie, Alison Moyet, Pete Townshend and Bob Geldof joined McCartney on stage, receiving an enthusiastic crowd reaction.[127]

McCartney collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), with Stewart co-writing more than half the songs on the LP.[128][nb 22] In 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, initially available only in the Soviet Union, which contained eighteen covers; recorded over the course of two days.[130] In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders Gerry Marsden and Holly Johnson to record an updated version of “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, for the Hillsborough disaster appeal fund.[131][nb 23] That same year, he released Flowers in the Dirt; a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello that included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins.[133][nb 24] McCartney then formed a band consisting of himself and Linda, with Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh on guitars, Paul “Wix” Wickens on keyboards and Chris Whitten on drums.[135] In September 1989, they launched the Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade. During the tour, McCartney performed for the largest paying stadium audience in history on 21 April 1990, when 184,000 people attended his concert at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[136] That year, he released the triple album Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained selected performances from the tour.

1991–1999

McCartney ventured into orchestral music in 1991 when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with composer Carl Davis, producing Liverpool Oratorio. The performance featured opera singers Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral.[140] Reviews were negative. The Guardian was especially critical, describing the music as “afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo”, and adding that the piece has “little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole”.[141] The paper published a letter McCartney submitted in response in which he noted several of the work’s faster tempos and added, “happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to … let people judge for themselves the merits of the work.”[141] The New York Times was slightly more generous, stating, “There are moments of beauty and pleasure in this dramatic miscellany … the music’s innocent sincerity makes it difficult to be put off by its ambitions”.[142] Performed around the world after its London premiere, the Liverpool Oratorio reached number one on the UK classical chart, Music Week.[143]

In 1991, McCartney performed a selection of acoustic-only songs on MTV Unplugged and released a live album of the performance titled Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).[144][nb 27] During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated twice with Youth of Killing Joke as the musical duo “the Fireman”. The two released their first electronica album together, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, in 1993.[146] McCartney released the rock album Off the Ground in 1993.[147][nb 28] The subsequent New World Tour followed, which led to the release of the Paul Is Live album later that year.[149][nb 29][nb 30]

Starting in 1994, McCartney took a four-year break from his solo career to work on Apple’s Beatles Anthology project with Harrison, Starr and Martin. He recorded a radio series called Oobu Joobu in 1995 for the American network Westwood One, which he described as “widescreen radio”.[153] Also in 1995, Prince Charles presented him with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Music—”kind of amazing for somebody who doesn’t read a note of music”, commented McCartney.[154]

In 1997, McCartney released the rock album Flaming Pie. Starr appeared on drums and backing vocals in “Beautiful Night”.[155][nb 31] Later that year, he released the classical work Standing Stone, which topped the UK and US classical charts.[157] In 1998, he released Rushes, the second electronica album by the Fireman.[158] In 1999, McCartney released Run Devil Run.[159][nb 32] Recorded in one week, and featuring Ian Paice and David Gilmour, it was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals. He had been planning such an album for years, having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died of cancer in April 1998.[160]

McCartney did an unannounced performance at the benefit tribute, “Concert for Linda,” his wife of 29 years who died a year earlier. It was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 10 April 1999, and was organised by two of her close friends, Chrissie Hynde and Carla Lane. Also during 1999, he continued his experimentation with orchestral music on Working Classical.

2000–2009

In 2000, he released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, using the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that had fascinated him in the mid-1960s.[162] He contributed the song “Nova” to a tribute album of classical, choral music called A Garland for Linda (2000), dedicated to his late wife.[163]

Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney was inspired to take a leading role in organising the Concert for New York City. His studio album release in November that year, Driving Rain, included the song “Freedom”, written in response to the attacks.[164][nb 33] The following year, McCartney went out on tour with a band that included guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, accompanied by Paul “Wix” Wickens on keyboards and Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums.[166] They began the Driving World Tour in April 2002, which included stops in the US, Mexico and Japan. The tour resulted in the double live album Back in the US, released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World.[167][nb 34][nb 35] The tour earned a reported $126.2 million, an average of over $2 million per night, and Billboard named it the top tour of the year.[169] The group continues to play together; McCartney has played live with Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson, Abe Laboriel Jr. and Wix Wickens longer than he played live with the Beatles.[170]

In July 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills. In November, on the first anniversary of George Harrison’s death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.[171] He participated in the National Football League’s Super Bowl, performing “Freedom” during the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.[172] The English College of Arms honoured McCartney in 2002 by granting him a coat of arms. His crest, featuring a Liver bird holding an acoustic guitar in its claw, reflects his background in Liverpool and his musical career. The shield includes four curved emblems which resemble beetles’ backs. The arms’ motto is Ecce Cor Meum, Latin for “Behold My Heart”.[173] In 2003, the McCartneys had a child, Beatrice Milly.

In July 2005, he performed at the Live 8 event in Hyde Park, London, opening the show with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (with U2) and closing it with “Drive My Car” (with George Michael), “Helter Skelter”, and “The Long and Winding Road”.[175][nb 36] In September, he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, for which he provided most of the instrumentation.[177][nb 37][nb 38] In 2006, McCartney released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum.[180][nb 39] The rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007.[181][nb 40] In 2008, he released his third Fireman album, Electric Arguments.[183][nb 41] Also in 2008, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city’s year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, after a four-year break, he returned to touring and has since performed over 80 shows.[185] More than forty-five years after the Beatles first appeared on American television during The Ed Sullivan Show, he returned to the same New York theatre to perform on Late Show with David Letterman.[186] On 9 September 2009, EMI reissued the Beatles catalogue following a four-year digital remastering effort, releasing a music video game called The Beatles: Rock Band the same day.[187]

McCartney’s enduring fame has made him a popular choice to open new venues. In 2009, he played to three sold-out concerts at the newly built Citi Field, a venue constructed to replace Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. These performances yielded the double live album Good Evening New York City later that year.

2010–present

In 2010, McCartney opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; it was his first concert in Pittsburgh since 1990 due to the old Civic Arena being deemed unsuitable for McCartney’s logistical needs.[189][nb 42] In July 2011, McCartney performed at two sold-out concerts at the new Yankee Stadium. A New York Times review of the first concert reported that McCartney was “not saying goodbye but touring stadiums and playing marathon concerts”.[191] McCartney was commissioned by the New York City Ballet, and in September 2011, he released his first score for dance, a collaboration with Peter Martins called Ocean’s Kingdom.[192] Also in 2011, McCartney married Nancy Shevell.[193] He released Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, in February 2012, the same month that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honoured him as the MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.[194]

McCartney remains one of the world’s top draws. He played to over 100,000 people during two performances in Mexico City in May, with the shows grossing nearly $6 million.[195][nb 43] In June 2012, McCartney closed Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace, performing a set that included “Let It Be” and “Live and Let Die”.[197] He closed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on 27 July, singing “The End” and “Hey Jude” and inviting the audience to join in on the coda.[198] Having donated his time, he received £1 from the Olympic organisers.[199]

On 12 December 2012, McCartney performed with three former members of Nirvana (Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, and Pat Smear) during the closing act of 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, seen by approximately two billion people worldwide.[200] On 28 August 2013, McCartney released the title track of his upcoming studio album New, which came out in October 2013.[201] A primetime entertainment special was taped on 27 January 2014 at the Ed Sullivan Theater with a 9 February 2014 CBS airing. The show featured McCartney and Ringo Starr, and celebrated the legacy of the Beatles and their groundbreaking 1964 performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show, titled The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles, featured 22 classic Beatles songs as performed by various artists, including McCartney and Starr.[202]

On 19 May 2014, it was reported that McCartney was bedridden on doctor’s orders due to an unspecified virus, which forced him to cancel a sold-out concert tour of Japan that was scheduled to begin later in the week. The tour would have included a stop at the famed Budokan Hall. McCartney also had to move his June US dates to October, as part of his doctor’s order to rest to make a full recovery.[203] However, he resumed the tour with a high-energy three hour appearance in Albany, New York on 5 July 2014.[204] On 14 August 2014, McCartney performed in the final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California before its demolition. It was the same venue that the Beatles played their final concert in 1966.[205] In 2014, McCartney wrote and performed “Hope for the Future,” the ending song for the video game Destiny.[206][207] In November 2014, a 42-song tribute album titled The Art of McCartney was released, which features a wide range of artists covering McCartney’s solo and Beatles work.[208] Also that year, McCartney collaborated with American recording artist Kanye West on the single “Only One”, released on 31 December.[209] In January 2015, McCartney collaborated with West and Barbadian singer Rihanna on the single “FourFiveSeconds”.[210] They released a music video for the song in January[211] and performed it live at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on 8 February 2015.[212] McCartney is a featured guest on West’s 2015 single “All Day”, which also features Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom.

In February 2015, McCartney appeared and performed with Paul Simon for the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special. McCartney and Simon performed the first verse of “I’ve Just Seen a Face” on acoustic guitars, and McCartney later performed “Maybe I’m Amazed”.[214] McCartney shared lead vocals on the Alice Cooper-led Hollywood Vampires supergroup’s cover of his song “Come and Get It”, which appears on their debut album, released on 11 September 2015.[215] On 10 June 2016, McCartney released the career-spanning collection Pure McCartney.[216] The set includes songs from throughout McCartney’s solo career and his work with Wings and the Fireman, and is available in three different formats (2-CD, 4-CD, 4-LP and Digital). The 4-CD version includes 67 tracks, the majority of which were top 40 hits.[217][218] McCartney appeared in the adventure film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which was released in 2017.[219]

In January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights a*signed to a publisher after 56 years.[220][221] McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017.[222][223] On 20 June 2018, McCartney released two songs, “I Don’t Know” and “Come On to Me”, from his album Egypt Station, which was released on 7 September through Capitol Records.[224] Egypt Station became McCartney’s first album in 36 years to top the Billboard 200, and his first to debut at number one.[225]

In October 2020, McCartney announced his new album McCartney III, which is set to be released on 11 December via Capitol Records.

Musicianship

McCartney was largely a self-taught musician, and his approach was described by musicologist Ian MacDonald as “by nature drawn to music’s formal aspects yet wholly untutored … [he] produced technically ‘finished’ work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears … [A] natural melodist—a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony”. McCartney commented, “I prefer to think of my approach to music as … rather like the primitive cave artists, who drew without training.”

Early influences

McCartney’s earliest musical influences include Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and Chuck Berry.[230] When asked why the Beatles did not include Presley on the Sgt. Pepper cover, McCartney replied, “Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention … so we didn’t put him on the list because he was more than merely a … pop singer, he was Elvis the King.”[231] McCartney stated that for his bassline for “I Saw Her Standing There”, he directly quoted Berry’s “I’m Talking About You”.[232]

McCartney called Little Richard an idol, whose falsetto vocalisations inspired McCartney’s own vocal technique.[233] McCartney said he wrote “I’m Down” as a vehicle for his Little Richard impersonation.[234] In 1971, McCartney bought the publishing rights to Holly’s catalogue, and in 1976, on the fortieth anniversary of Holly’s birth, McCartney inaugurated the annual “Buddy Holly Week” in England. The festival has included guest performances by famous musicians, songwriting competitions, drawing contests and special events featuring performances by the Crickets.

Bass guitar

Best known for primarily using a plectrum or pick, McCartney occasionally plays fingerstyle.[236] He does not use slapping techniques.[237] He was strongly influenced by Motown artists, in particular James Jamerson, whom McCartney called a hero for his melodic style. He was also influenced by Brian Wilson, as he commented: “because he went to very unusual places”.[238] Another favourite bassist of his is Stanley Clarke.[239] McCartney’s skill as a bass player has been acknowledged by bassists including Sting, Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo, and Colin Moulding of XTC.

During McCartney’s early years with the Beatles, he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass, although from 1965, he favoured his Rickenbacker 4001S for recording. While typically using Vox amplifiers, by 1967, he had also begun using a Fender Bassman for amplification.[242] During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he used a Wal 5-String, which he said made him play more thick-sounding basslines, in contrast to the much lighter Höfner, which inspired him to play more sensitively, something he considers fundamental to his playing style.[237] He changed back to the Höfner around 1990 for that reason.[237] He uses Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers while performing live.[243]

MacDonald identified “She’s a Woman” as the turning point when McCartney’s bass playing began to evolve dramatically, and Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singled out Rubber Soul as the moment when McCartney’s playing exhibited significant progress, particularly on “The Word”.[244] Bacon and Morgan agreed, calling McCartney’s groove on the track “a high point in pop bass playing and … the first proof on a recording of his serious technical ability on the instrument.”[245] MacDonald inferred the influence of James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour”, American soul tracks from which McCartney absorbed elements and drew inspiration as he “delivered his most spontaneous bass-part to date”.[246]

Bacon and Morgan described his bassline for the Beatles song “Rain” as “an astonishing piece of playing … [McCartney] thinking in terms of both rhythm and ‘lead bass’ … [choosing] the area of the neck … he correctly perceives will give him clarity for melody without rendering his sound too thin for groove.”[247] MacDonald identified the influence of Indian classical music in “exotic melismas in the bass part” on “Rain” and described the playing as “so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track”.[248] By contrast, he recognised McCartney’s bass part on the Harrison-composed “Something” as creative but overly busy and “too fussily extemporised”.[249] McCartney identified Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as containing his strongest and most inventive bass playing, particularly on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

Acoustic guitar

McCartney primarily flatpicks while playing acoustic guitar, though he also uses elements of fingerpicking.[251] Examples of his acoustic guitar playing on Beatles tracks include “Yesterday”, “I’m Looking Through You”, “Michelle”, “Blackbird”, “I Will”, “Mother Nature’s Son” and “Rocky Raccoon”.[252] McCartney singled out “Blackbird” as a personal favourite and described his technique for the guitar part in the following way: “I got my own little sort of cheating way of [fingerpicking] … I’m actually sort of pulling two strings at a time … I was trying to emulate those folk players.”[251] He employed a similar technique for “Jenny Wren”.[253] He played an Epiphone Texan on many of his acoustic recordings, but also used a Martin D-28.

Electric guitar

McCartney played lead guitar on several Beatles recordings, including what MacDonald described as a “fiercely angular slide guitar solo” on “Drive My Car”, which McCartney played on an Epiphone Casino. McCartney said of the instrument: “if I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this.”[256] He contributed what MacDonald described as “a startling guitar solo” on the Harrison composition “Taxman” and the “shrieking” guitar on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Helter Skelter”. MacDonald also praised McCartney’s “coruscating pseudo-Indian” guitar solo on “Good Morning Good Morning”.[257] McCartney also played lead guitar on “Another Girl”.[258]

During his years with Wings, McCartney tended to leave electric guitar work to other group members,[259] though he played most of the lead guitar on Band on the Run.[260] In 1990, when asked who his favourite guitar players were he included Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour, stating, “but I still like Hendrix the best”.[251] He has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly during live performances.

Vocals

McCartney is known for his belting power, versatility and wide tenor vocal range, spanning over four octaves.[261][262] He was ranked the 11th greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone,[263] voted the 8th greatest singer ever by NME readers[264] and number 10 by Music Radar readers in the list of “the 30 greatest lead singers of all time”.[265] Over the years, McCartney has been named a significant vocal influence by Chris Cornell,[266] Billy Joel,[267] Steven Tyler,[268] Brad Delp,[269] and Axl Rose.[270]

McCartney’s vocals have crossed several music genres throughout his career. On “Call Me Back Again”, according to Benitez, “McCartney shines as a bluesy solo vocalist”, while MacDonald called “I’m Down” “a rock-and-roll classic” that “illustrates McCartney’s vocal and stylistic versatility”.[271] MacDonald described “Helter Skelter” as an early attempt at heavy metal, and “Hey Jude” as a “pop/rock hybrid”, pointing out McCartney’s “use of gospel-style melismas” in the song and his “pseudo-soul shrieking in the fade-out”.[272] Benitez identified “Hope of Deliverance” and “Put It There” as examples of McCartney’s folk music efforts while musicologist Walter Everett considered “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “Honey Pie” attempts at vaudeville.[273] MacDonald praised the “swinging beat” of the Beatles’ twenty-four bar blues song, “She’s a Woman” as “the most extreme sound they had manufactured to date”, with McCartney’s voice “at the edge, squeezed to the upper limit of his chest register and threatening to crack at any moment.”[274] MacDonald described “I’ve Got a Feeling” as a “raunchy, mid-tempo rocker” with a “robust and soulful” vocal performance and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” as “the last of [the Beatles’] up-tempo rockers”, McCartney’s “belting” vocals among his best since “Drive My Car”, recorded three years earlier.[275]

McCartney also teasingly tried out classical singing, namely singing various renditions of “Besame Mucho” with the Beatles. He continued experimenting with various musical and vocal styles throughout his post-Beatles career.[276][277][278][text–source integrity?] “Monkberry Moon Delight” was described by Pitchfork’s Jayson Greene as “an absolutely unhinged vocal take, Paul gulping and sobbing right next to your inner ear”, adding that “it could be a latter-day Tom Waits performance”.

Keyboards

McCartney played piano on several Beatles songs, including “She’s a Woman”, “For No One”, “A Day in the Life”, “Hello, Goodbye”, “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude”, “Martha My Dear”, “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road”.[280] MacDonald considered the piano part in “Lady Madonna” as reminiscent of Fats Domino, and “Let It Be” as having a gospel rhythm.[281] MacDonald called McCartney’s Mellotron intro on “Strawberry Fields Forever” an integral feature of the song’s character.[282] McCartney played a Moog synthesizer on the Beatles song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and the Wings track “Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)”.[283] Ingham described the Wings songs “With a Little Luck” and “London Town” as being “full of the most sensitive pop synthesizer touches”.

Drums

McCartney played drums on the Beatles’ songs “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, “Dear Prudence”, “Martha My Dear”, “Wild Honey Pie” and “The Ballad of John and Yoko”.[285] He also played all the drum parts on his first and second solo albums McCartney and McCartney II, as well as on the Wings album Band on the Run and most of the drums on his solo LP Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.[286] His other drumming contributions include Paul Jones’ rendition of “And the Sun Will Shine” (1968),[287] Steve Miller Band’s 1969 tracks “Celebration Song” and “My Dark Hour”,[288][289] and “Sunday Rain” from the Foo Fighters’ 2017 album Concrete and Gold.

Tape loops

In the mid-1960s, when visiting artist friend John Dunbar’s flat in London, McCartney brought tapes he had compiled at then-girlfriend Jane Asher’s home. They included mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.[291] Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, McCartney made tape loops by recording voices, guitars and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder and splicing the various loops. He referred to the finished product as “electronic symphonies”.[292] He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the desired effects, some of which the Beatles later used on the songs “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “The Fool on the Hill”.

Personal life

Creative outlets

While at school during the 1950s, McCartney thrived at art a*signments, often earning top accolades for his visual work. However, his lack of discipline negatively affected his academic grades, preventing him from earning admission to art college.[294] During the 1960s, he delved into the visual arts, explored experimental cinema, and regularly attended film, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through artist John Dunbar, who introduced McCartney to art dealer Robert Fraser.[295] At Fraser’s flat he first learned about art appreciation and met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton.[296] McCartney later purchased works by Magritte, whose painting of an apple had inspired the Apple Records logo.[297] McCartney became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason’s Yard, London, which Barry Miles had co-founded and where Lennon first met Yoko Ono. Miles also co-founded International Times, an underground paper that McCartney helped to start with direct financial support and by providing interviews to attract advertiser income. Miles later wrote McCartney’s official biography, Many Years from Now (1997).[298]

McCartney became interested in painting after watching artist Willem de Kooning work in de Kooning’s Long Island studio.[299] McCartney took up painting in 1983, and he first exhibited his work in Siegen, Germany, in 1999. The 70-painting show featured portraits of Lennon, Andy Warhol and David Bowie.[300] Though initially reluctant to display his paintings publicly, McCartney chose the gallery because events organiser Wolfgang Suttner showed genuine interest in McCartney’s art.[301] In September 2000, the first UK exhibition of McCartney’s paintings opened, featuring 500 canvases at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, England.[302] In October 2000, McCartney’s art debuted in his hometown of Liverpool. McCartney said, “I’ve been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery … where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I’m really excited about it. I didn’t tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I’m out of the closet”.[303] McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys.[304]

When McCartney was a child, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. His father invited Paul and his brother Michael to solve crosswords with him, to increase their “word power”, as McCartney said.[305] In 2001, McCartney published Blackbird Singing, a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.[306] In the foreword of the book, he explains: “When I was a teenager … I had an overwhelming desire to have a poem published in the school magazine. I wrote something deep and meaningful—which was promptly rejected—and I suppose I have been trying to get my own back ever since”.[307] His first children’s book was published by Faber & Faber in 2005, High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, a collaboration with writer Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar. Featuring a squirrel whose woodland home is razed by developers, it had been scripted and sketched by McCartney and Dunbar over several years, as an animated film. The Observer labelled it an “anti-capitalist children’s book”.[308] In 2018, he wrote the children’s book Hey Grandude! together with illustrator Kathryn Durst, which was published by Random House Books in September 2019. The book is about a grandpa and his three grandchildren with a magic compass on an adventure.

In 1981, McCartney asked Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song; McCartney was the writer and producer, and he also added some of the character voices.[311] His song “We All Stand Together” from the film’s soundtrack reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart. In 1992, he worked with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, which won them a BAFTA award.[312] In 2004, they worked together on the animated short film Tropic Island Hum.[313] The accompanying single, “Tropic Island Hum”/”We All Stand Together”, reached number 21 in the UK.[314]

McCartney also produced and hosted The Real Buddy Holly Story, a 1985 documentary featuring interviews with Keith Richards, Phil and Don Everly, the Holly family, and others.[315] In 1995, he made a guest appearance on the Simpsons episode “Lisa the Vegetarian” and directed a short documentary about the Grateful Dead.

Business

Since the Rich List began in 1989, McCartney has been the UK’s wealthiest musician, with an estimated fortune of £730 million in 2015.[317] In addition to an interest in Apple Corps and MPL Communications, an umbrella company for his business interests, he owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights, including the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, Annie and Grease.[318] He earned £40 million in 2003, the highest income that year within media professions in the UK.[319] This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.[320] McCartney’s 18-date On the Run Tour grossed £37 million in 2012.[321]

McCartney signed his first recording contract, as a member of the Beatles, with Parlophone Records, an EMI subsidiary, in June 1962. In the United States, the Beatles recordings were distributed by EMI subsidiary Capitol Records. The Beatles re-signed with EMI for another nine years in 1967. After forming their own record label, Apple Records, in 1968, the Beatles’ recordings would be released through Apple although the masters were still owned by EMI.[35] Following the break-up of the Beatles, McCartney’s music continued to be released by Apple Records under the Beatles’ 1967 recording contract with EMI which ran until 1976. Following the formal dissolution of the Beatles’ partnership in 1975, McCartney re-signed with EMI worldwide and Capitol in the US, Canada and Japan, acquiring ownership of his solo catalogue from EMI as part of the deal. In 1979, McCartney signed with Columbia Records in the US and Canada—reportedly receiving the industry’s most lucrative recording contract to date, while remaining with EMI for distribution throughout the rest of the world.[322] As part of the deal, CBS offered McCartney ownership of Frank Music, publisher of the catalogue of American songwriter Frank Loesser. McCartney’s album sales were below CBS’ expectations and reportedly the company lost at least $9 million on the contract.[323] McCartney returned to Capitol in the US in 1985, remaining with EMI until 2006.[324] In 2007, McCartney signed with Hear Music, becoming the label’s first artist. He remains there as of 2012’s Kisses on the Bottom.[325]

In 1963, Dick James established Northern Songs to publish the songs of Lennon–McCartney.[326] McCartney initially owned 20% of Northern Songs, which became 15% after a public stock offering in 1965. In 1969, James sold a controlling interest in Northern Songs to Lew Grade’s Associated Television (ATV) after which McCartney and John Lennon sold their remaining shares although they remained under contract to ATV until 1973. In 1972, McCartney re-signed with ATV for seven years in a joint publishing agreement between ATV and McCartney Music. Since 1979, MPL Communications has published McCartney’s songs.

McCartney and Yoko Ono attempted to purchase the Northern Songs catalogue in 1981, but Grade declined their offer. Soon afterward, ATV Music’s parent company, Associated Communications Corp., was acquired in a takeover by businessman Robert Holmes à Court, who later sold ATV Music to Michael Jackson in 1985. McCartney has criticised Jackson’s purchase and handling of Northern Songs over the years. In 1995, Jackson merged his catalogue with Sony for a reported £59,052,000 ($95 million), establishing Sony/ATV Music Publishing, in which he retained half-ownership.[327] Northern Songs was formally dissolved in 1995, and absorbed into the Sony/ATV catalogue.[328] McCartney receives writers’ royalties which together are 33⅓ percent of total commercial proceeds in the US, and which vary elsewhere between 50 and 55 percent.[329] Two of the Beatles’ earliest songs—”Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”—were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before signing with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in 1978, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by MPL Communications.

Drugs

McCartney first used drugs in the Beatles’ Hamburg days when they often used Preludin to maintain their energy while performing for long periods.[331] Bob Dylan introduced them to marijuana in a New York hotel room in 1964; McCartney recalls getting “very high” and “giggling uncontrollably”.[332] His use of the drug soon became habitual, and according to Miles, McCartney wrote the lyrics “another kind of mind” in “Got to Get You into My Life” specifically as a reference to cannabis.[333] During the filming of Help!, McCartney occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, and often forgot his lines.[334] Director Richard Lester overheard two physically attractive women trying to persuade McCartney to use heroin, but he refused.[334] Introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, McCartney used the drug regularly during the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and for about a year in total but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt afterwards.[335]

Initially reluctant to try LSD, McCartney eventually did so in late 1966, and took his second “acid trip” in March 1967 with Lennon after a Sgt. Pepper studio session.[336] He later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring: “It opened my eyes … [and] made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society.”[337] He made his attitude about cannabis public in 1967, when he, along with the other Beatles and Epstein, added his name to a July advertisement in The Times, which called for its legalisation, the release of those imprisoned for possession, and research into marijuana’s medical uses.[338]

In 1972, a Swedish court fined McCartney £1,000 for cannabis possession. Soon after, Scottish police found marijuana plants growing on his farm, leading to his 1973 conviction for illegal cultivation and a £100 fine. As a result of his drug convictions, the US government repeatedly denied him a visa until December 1973.[339] Arrested again for marijuana possession in 1975 in Los Angeles, Linda took the blame, and the court soon dismissed the charges. In January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for a tour of Japan, customs officials found approximately 8 ounces (200 g) of cannabis in his luggage. They arrested McCartney and brought him to a local jail while the Japanese government decided what to do. After ten days, they released and deported him without charge.[340] In 1984, while McCartney was on holiday in Barbados, authorities arrested him for possession of marijuana and fined him $200.[341] Upon his return to England, he stated: “cannabis is … less harmful than rum punch, whiskey, nicotine and glue, all of which are perfectly legal … I don’t think … I was doing anyone any harm whatsoever.”[342] In 1997, he spoke out in support of decriminalisation of the drug: “People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong.”[295] He did, however, decide to quit cannabis in 2015, citing a desire to set a good example for his grandchildren.

Vegetarianism and activism

Since 1975, McCartney has been a vegetarian.[344][345] He and his wife Linda were vegetarians for most of their 29-year marriage. They decided to stop consuming meat after Paul saw lambs in a field as they were eating a meal of lamb. Soon after, the couple became outspoken animal rights activists.[346] In his first interview after Linda’s death, he promised to continue working for animal rights, and in 1999, he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.[347] In 1995, he narrated the documentary Devour the Earth, written by Tony Wardle.[348] McCartney is a supporter of the animal-rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He has appeared in the group’s campaigns, and in 2009, McCartney narrated a video for them titled “Glass Walls”, which was harshly critical of slaughterhouses, the meat industry, and their effect on animal welfare.[349][350][351] McCartney has also supported campaigns headed by the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, World Animal Protection, and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.[352][353]

Following McCartney’s marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against land mines, becoming a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield.[354] In a 2003 meeting at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin, ahead of a concert in Red Square, McCartney and Mills urged Russia to join the anti-landmine campaign.[355] In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to raise international awareness of seal hunting. The couple debated with Danny Williams, Newfoundland’s then Premier, on Larry King Live, stating that fishermen should stop hunting seals and start seal-watching businesses instead.[356] McCartney also supports the Make Poverty History campaign.[357]

McCartney has participated in several charity recordings and performances, including the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, Live 8, and the recording of “Ferry Cross the Mersey”.[358] In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the “US Campaign for Burma”, in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. In 2008, he donated a song to Aid Still Required’s CD, organised as an effort to raise funds to a*sist with the recovery from the devastation caused in Southeast Asia by the 2004 tsunami.[359]

In 2009, McCartney wrote to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, asking him why he was not a vegetarian. As McCartney explained, “He wrote back very kindly, saying, ‘my doctors tell me that I must eat meat’. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don’t think that’s right … I think he’s now being told … that he can get his protein somewhere else … It just doesn’t seem right—the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, ‘Hey guys, don’t harm sentient beings … Oh, and by the way, I’m having a steak.’”[360] In 2012, McCartney joined the anti-fracking campaign Artists Against Fracking.[361]

Save the Arctic is a campaign to protect the Arctic and an international outcry and a renewed focus concern on oil development in the Arctic, attracting the support of more than five million people. This includes McCartney, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners.[362][363] In 2015, following British prime minister David Cameron’s decision to give Members of Parliament a free vote on amending the law against fox hunting, McCartney was quoted: “The people of Britain are behind this Tory government on many things but the vast majority of us will be against them if hunting is reintroduced. It is cruel and unnecessary and will lose them support from ordinary people and animal lovers like myself.”[364] During the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, McCartney called for Chinese wet markets (which sell live animals including wild ones) to be banned. He expressed concern over both the health impacts of the practice as well as its cruelty to animals.

Meditation

In August 1967, McCartney met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton and later went to Bangor in North Wales to attend a weekend initiation conference, where he and the other Beatles learned the basics of Transcendental Meditation.[366] He said, “The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra … I find it soothing.”[367] In 2009, McCartney and Starr headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.

Football

McCartney has publicly professed support for Everton and has also shown favour for Liverpool.[369] In 2008, he ended speculation about his allegiance when he said: “Here’s the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought ‘You know what? I am just going to support them both because it’s all Liverpool.’”[

Relationships

Girlfriends

Dot Rhone

McCartney’s first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.[371] According to Spitz, Rhone felt that McCartney had a compulsion to control situations. He often chose clothes and makeup for her, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot’s, and at least once insisting she have it restyled, to disappointing effect.[372] When McCartney first went to Hamburg with the Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when they played there again in 1962.[373] The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone’s miscarriage. According to Spitz, McCartney, now “free of obligation”, ended the engagement.

Jane Asher

McCartney first met British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963 when a photographer asked them to pose at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[375] The two began a relationship, and in November of that year he took up residence with Asher at her parents’ home at 57 Wimpole Street, London.[376] They had lived there for more than two years before the couple moved to McCartney’s own home in St. John’s Wood in March 1966.[377] He wrote several songs while living at the Ashers’, including “Yesterday”, “And I Love Her”, “You Won’t See Me” and “I’m Looking Through You”, the latter three having been inspired by their romance.[378] They had a five-year relationship and planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement after she discovered he had become involved with Francie Schwartz,[379] an American screenwriter who moved to London at age 23 thinking she could sell a script to the Beatles. She met McCartney and he invited her to move into his London house, where events ensued that possibly broke up him and Asher.

Wives

Linda Eastman

Linda Eastman was a music fan who once commented, “all my teen years were spent with an ear to the radio.”[381] At times, she played hooky to see artists such as Fabian, Bobby Darin and Chuck Berry.[381] She became a popular photographer with several rock groups, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Grateful Dead, the Doors and the Beatles, whom she first met at Shea Stadium in 1966. She commented, “It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the fascination faded fast, and I found it was Paul I liked.”[382] The pair first met properly in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O’Nails club, during her UK a*signment to photograph rock musicians in London. As Paul remembers, “The night Linda and I met, I spotted her across a crowded club, and although I would normally have been nervous chatting her up, I realised I had to … Pushiness worked for me that night!”[383] Linda said this about their meeting: “I was quite shameless really. I was with somebody else [that night] … and I saw Paul at the other side of the room. He looked so beautiful that I made up my mind I would have to pick him up.”[382] The pair married in March 1969. About their relationship, Paul said, “We had a lot of fun together … just the nature of how we aren’t, our favourite thing really is to just hang, to have fun. And Linda’s very big on just following the moment.”[384] He added, “We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married, and it was nearly called off … [it’s] miraculous that we made it. But we did.”[385]

After the break-up of the Beatles, the two collaborated musically and formed Wings in 1971.[386] They faced derision from some fans and critics, who questioned her inclusion. She was nervous about performing with Paul, who explained, “she conquered those nerves, got on with it and was really gutsy.”[387] Paul defended her musical ability: “I taught Linda the basics of the keyboard … She took a couple of lessons and learned some bluesy things … she did very well and made it look easier than it was … The critics would say, ‘She’s not really playing’ or ‘Look at her—she’s playing with one finger.’ But what they didn’t know is that sometimes she was playing a thing called a Minimoog, which could only be played with one finger. It was monophonic.”[387] He went on to say, “We thought we were in it for the fun … it was just something we wanted to do, so if we got it wrong—big deal. We didn’t have to justify ourselves.”[387] Former Wings guitarist McCullough said of collaborating with Linda, “trying to get things together with a learner in the group didn’t work as far as I was concerned.”[388]

They had four children—Linda’s daughter Heather (legally adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James—and remained married until Linda’s death from breast cancer at age 56 in 1998.[389] After Linda died, Paul said, “I got a counsellor because I knew that I would need some help. He was great, particularly in helping me get rid of my guilt [about wishing I’d been] perfect all the time … a real bugger. But then I thought, hang on a minute. We’re just human. That was the beautiful thing about our marriage. We were just a boyfriend and girlfriend having babies.”

Heather Mills

In 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmine campaigner.[391] In 2003, the couple had a child, Beatrice Milly, named in honour of Mills’s late mother and one of McCartney’s aunts.[174] They separated in April 2006 and divorced acrimoniously in March 2008.[392] In 2004, he commented on media animosity toward his partners: “[the British public] didn’t like me giving up on Jane Asher … I married [Linda], a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn’t like that”.

Nancy Shevell

McCartney married New Yorker Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony at Marylebone Town Hall, London, on 9 October 2011. The wedding was a modest event attended by a group of about 30 relatives and friends.[193] The couple had been together since November 2007.[394] Shevell is vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight.[395] She is a former member of the board of the New York area’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.[396] Shevell is about 18 years younger than McCartney.[397] They had known each other for about 20 years prior to marrying, having met because both had homes in the Hamptons.

Beatles

John Lennon

Though McCartney had a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in early 1974, and played music together on one occasion.[398] In later years, the two grew apart.[399] McCartney often phoned Lennon, but was apprehensive about the reception he would receive. During one call, Lennon told him, “You’re all pizza and fairytales!”[400] In an effort to avoid talking only about business, they often spoke of cats, babies, or baking bread.[401]

On 24 April 1976, McCartney and Lennon were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live at Lennon’s home in the Dakota when Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer for the Beatles to reunite. While they seriously considered going to the SNL studio a few blocks away, they decided it was too late. This was their last time together.[402] VH1 fictionalised this event in the 2000 television film Two of Us.[403] McCartney’s last telephone call to Lennon, days before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly: “[It is] a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn’t have any kind of blow-up”, he said.

Reaction to Lennon’s murder

On 9 December 1980, McCartney followed the news that Lennon had been murdered the previous night; Lennon’s death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of the band.[406] McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio that evening when he was surrounded by reporters who asked him for his reaction; he responded: “It’s a drag”. The press quickly criticised him for what appeared to be a superficial response.[407] He later explained, “When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: ‘What do you think about it?’ I said, ‘It’s a dra-a-ag’ and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, ‘McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, “It’s a drag”.’ It seemed a very flippant comment to make.”[407] He described his first exchange with Ono after the murder, and his last conversation with Lennon:

I talked to Yoko the day after he was killed, and the first thing she said was, “John was really fond of you.” The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, “it’s only me.” They were like a wall you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure.

In 1983, McCartney said: “I would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his ‘mask’ and have a better relationship with him.”[407] He said that he went home that night, watched the news on television with his children and cried most of the evening. In 1997, he said that Lennon’s death made the remaining ex-Beatles nervous that they might also be murdered.[408] He told Mojo magazine in 2002 that Lennon was his greatest hero.[409] In 1981, McCartney sang backup on Harrison’s tribute to Lennon, “All Those Years Ago”, which featured Starr on drums.[410] McCartney released “Here Today” in 1982, a song Everett described as “a haunting tribute” to McCartney’s friendship with Lennon

George Harrison

Discussing his relationship with McCartney, Harrison said: “Paul would always help along when you’d done his ten songs—then when he got ’round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually … There were a lot of tracks, though, where I played bass … because what Paul would do—if he’d written a song, he’d learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say (sometimes he was very difficult): ‘Do this’. He’d never give you the opportunity to come out with something.”[412]

After Harrison’s death in November 2001, McCartney said he was “a lovely guy and a very brave man who had a wonderful sense of humour”. He went on to say: “We grew up together and we just had so many beautiful times together – that’s what I am going to remember. I’ll always love him, he’s my baby brother.”[413] On the first anniversary of his death, McCartney played Harrison’s “Something” on a ukulele at the Concert for George; he would perform this rendition of the song on many subsequent solo tours.[414] He also performed “For You Blue” and “All Things Must Pass”, and played the piano on Eric Clapton’s rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Ringo Starr

During a recording session for The Beatles in 1968, the two got into an argument over McCartney’s critique of Starr’s drum part for “Back in the U.S.S.R.”, which contributed to Starr temporarily leaving the band.[416] Starr later commented on working with McCartney: “Paul is the greatest bass player in the world. But he is also very determined … [to] get his own way … [thus] musical disagreements inevitably arose from time to time.”[417]

McCartney and Starr collaborated on several post-Beatles projects, starting in 1973 when McCartney contributed instrumentation and backing vocals for “Six O’Clock”, a song McCartney wrote for Starr’s album Ringo.[418] McCartney played a kazoo solo on “You’re Sixteen” from the same album.[419] Starr appeared (as a fictional version of himself) in McCartney’s 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street, and played drums on most tracks of the soundtrack album, which includes re-recordings of several McCartney-penned Beatles songs. Starr played drums and sang backing vocals on “Beautiful Night” from McCartney’s 1997 album Flaming Pie. The pair collaborated again in 1998, on Starr’s Vertical Man, which featured McCartney’s backing vocals on three songs, and instrumentation on one.[420] In 2009, the pair performed “With a Little Help from My Friends” at a benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation.[421] They collaborated on Starr’s album Y Not in 2010. McCartney played bass on “Peace Dream”, and sang a duet with Starr on “Walk with You”.[422] On 7 July 2010, Starr was performing at Radio City Music Hall in New York with his All-Starr Band in a concert celebrating his seventieth birthday. After the encores, McCartney made a surprise appearance, performing the Beatles’ song “Birthday” with Starr’s band.[423] On 26 January 2014, McCartney and Starr performed “Queenie Eye” from McCartney’s new album New at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.[424] McCartney inducted Starr into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2015, and played bass on his 2017 album Give More Love. On 16 December 2018, Starr and Ronnie Wood joined McCartney onstage to perform “Get Back” at his concert at London’s O2 Arena. Starr also made an appearance on the final day of McCartney’s Freshen Up tour in July 2019, performing “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” and “Helter Skelter”.

Legacy

Achievements

McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and again as a solo artist in 1999. In 1979, the Guinness Book of World Records recognised McCartney as the “most honored composer and performer in music”, with 60 gold discs (43 with the Beatles, 17 with Wings) and, as a member of the Beatles, sales of over 100 million singles and 100 million albums, and as the “most successful song writer”, he wrote jointly or solo 43 songs which sold one million or more records between 1962 and 1978.[426] In 2009, Guinness World Records again recognised McCartney as the “most successful songwriter” having written or co-written 188 charted records in the United Kingdom, of which 91 reached the top 10 and 33 made it to number one.

McCartney has written, or co-written, 32 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100: twenty with the Beatles; seven solo or with Wings; one as a co-writer of “A World Without Love”, a number-one single for Peter and Gordon; one as a co-writer on Elton John’s cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”; one as a co-writer on Stars on 45’s “Medley”; one as a co-writer with Michael Jackson on “Say Say Say”; and one as writer on “Ebony and Ivory” performed with Stevie Wonder.[428] As of 2009, he has 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States as a solo artist plus another 10 million with Wings.[429]

Credited with more number ones in the UK than any other artist, McCartney has participated in twenty-four chart topping singles: seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings, Stevie Wonder, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and “The Christians et al.”[430][nb 44] He is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist (“Pipes of Peace”), duo (“Ebony and Ivory” with Wonder), trio (“Mull of Kintyre”, Wings), quartet (“She Loves You”, the Beatles), quintet (“Get Back”, the Beatles with Billy Preston) and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (Ferry Aid).[432]

“Yesterday” is one of the most covered songs in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions, and according to the BBC, “the track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list … [and] is the most played song by a British writer [last] century in the US”.[433] His 1968 Beatles composition “Hey Jude” achieved the highest sales in the UK that year and topped the US charts for nine weeks, which is longer than any other Beatles single. It was also the longest single released by the band and, at seven minutes eleven seconds, was at that time the longest number one.[434] “Hey Jude” is the best-selling Beatles single, achieving sales of over five million copies soon after its release.[435][nb 45]

In July 2005, McCartney’s performance of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” with U2 at Live 8 became the fastest-released single in history. Available within forty-five minutes of its recording, hours later it had achieved number one on the UK Official Download Chart.

Awards and honours

• 1971: Academy Award winner (as a member of the Beatles)
• 18-time Grammy Award winner:
  • Nine as a member of the Beatles
  • Six as a solo artist
  • Two as a member of Wings
  • One as part of a joint collaboration
• Two-time inductee – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
  • Class of 1988 as a member of the Beatles
  • Class of 1999 as a solo artist
• 1965: Member of the Order of the British Empire
• 1988: Honorary Doctor of the University degree from University of Sussex
• 1997: Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to music
• 2000: Fellowship into the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors
• 2008: BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music
• 2008: Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University
• 2010: Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music
• 2010: Kennedy Center Honors
• 2012: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
• 2012: Légion d’Honneur for his services to music
• 2012: MusiCares Person of the Year
• 2015: 4148 McCartney, asteroid named after him by the (International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center)
• 2017: Appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to music

Made for harmonica in C

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Whoah

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Whoah

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Can’t swim so I took a boat

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To an island so remote

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Only Johnny Depp has ever been to it before

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Stayed there ’til the air was clear

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I was bored and out of tears

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Then I saw you washed up on the shore

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I offered you my coat

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Thank Goddess love can float

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Crazy how that shipwreck meant my ship was coming in

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We talked ’til the sun went down

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Love on the Puget Sound

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My treasure map was on your skin

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Beauty in the water

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Angel on the beach

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Ocean’s daughter

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I thought love was out of reach

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‘Til I got her

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Had I known it could come true’

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I would have wished in ’92’

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For a mermaid just like you

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Whoaaah

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Just like you

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Whoah

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Sharks green with envy

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They wondered what you see in me

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Funny but sometimes can’t help but wonder that as well

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Now life is a holiday

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Making up for the years I paid

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The way to this heavenly bay, it went through hell

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Beauty in the water

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Angel on the beach

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Ocean’s daughter

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I thought love was out of reach

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‘Til I got her

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Had I known it could come true’

6 6 -6 (bes ) -6 6 5

I would have wished in ’92’

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For a mermaid just like you

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Whoaaah

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Just like you

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Whoah

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I rescued you by the banyan tree

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All the girl fish in the sea

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Couldn’t hold a candle to ‘ya, they don’t have a handle on ‘ya

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They don’t have a scandal on ya, I love Ecco sandals on ‘ya

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Saving me was B-I-G

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All the boy fish in the sea

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They all wish that they could be me

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Can’t swim so I took a boat

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To an island so remote

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Only Johnny Depp has ever been to it before

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Whoah
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Beauty in the water

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Angel on the beach

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Ocean’s daughter

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I thought love was out of reach

-7 -7 -8 7
‘Til I got her

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Had I known it could come true’

6 6 -6 (bes ) -6 6 5

I would have wished in ’92’

-5 6 -6 6 -5 5 -4
For a mermaid just like you

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Whoaaah

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Just like you

-4 5 -4
Whoah

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Just like you

-4 5 -5 5
Whoaaah

-5 6 -4
Just like you

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Whoah