Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on 18th June 1942. He was raised in the city and educated at the Liverpool Institute.
Since writing his first song at the age of 14, Paul McCartney’s output has been impossibly prolific and singularly influential. In the 1960s, Paul changed the world forever with The Beatles, co-writing, singing and playing indelible songs on legendary albums including Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (a/k/a The White Album), Abbey Road and more—not to mention non-LP singles including “Love Me Do,” “We Can Work It Out,” “Lady Madonna” and “Hey Jude,” which remain staples of Paul’s live performances.
Post Beatles, Paul continued to push boundaries, first as a solo artist in 1970 with the eponymous McCartney (featuring “Maybe I’m Amazed”), then with Linda McCartney on RAM (featuring “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”), and with Wings for a string of classic albums that included Red Rose Speedway (featuring “My Love”), Band On The Run (featuring “Jet” and the title track), Venus and Mars (featuring “Listen to What the Man Said” and “Letting Go”), At The Speed Of Sound (featuring “Let ‘Em In” and “Silly Love Songs”), London Town (featuring “With A Little Luck”), the immortal Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” the record-breaking “Mull of Kintyre” single, the massive live chronicle Wings Over America, and more.
Paul returned to recording as a solo artist with the 1979 holiday classic “Wonderful Christmastime” and 1980’s McCartney II (featuring “Coming Up” and “Temporary Secretary”). His ‘80s output included such essential albums as Tug of War (featuring “Ebony and Ivory,” “Here Today” and “Take It Away”), Pipes of Peace (featuring “Say Say Say”), and Flowers in the Dirt (featuring “My Brave Face” and “Figure of Eight”). The 1990s saw the release of McCartney solo LPs Off The Ground, Flaming Pie and Run Devil Run, while Paul rang in the new millennium with the experimental Liverpool Sound Collage.
The 2000s have seen Paul continue at his customarily indefatigable pace. The first decade of the current century has seen him release solo albums including Driving Rain, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and Memory Almost Full, the Grammy-nominated Amoeba’s Secret live EP, and the Grammy-winning live document of Paul’s inaugural three-night stand at New York’s Citi Field, Good Evening New York City. The same 10-year span also saw Paul release collaborations including Twin Freaks with Freelance Hellraiser, and Electric Arguments, the critically acclaimed third album from The Fireman a/k/a Paul and producer/musician Youth.
More recently, Paul has released 2012’s Grammy winner for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, Kisses on the Bottom (featuring “My Valentine”), joined forces with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear of Nirvana on 2013 Best Rock Song Grammy winner “Cut Me Some Slack” from the feature film Sound City, and released 2013’s global hit album NEW (featuring the title track, “Queenie Eye,” and “Save Us”). 2014 saw Paul release “Hope For the Future,” an original anthem created exclusively for the record-breaking video game Destiny. Following the December 31, 2014 surprise release of “Only One,” recorded by Kanye West and Paul, Paul kicked off 2015 with his biggest single of the century, “FourFiveSeconds,” a collaboration with Rihanna and Kanye that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart and #4 on the Billboard 100.
Paul McCartney is also an accomplished award-winning classical composer. His most recent classical album Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) won the Best Album Award at the Classical Brit Awards. In 2011 Paul composed the score for the New York City Ballet Ocean’s Kingdom.
An 18-time Grammy winner and recipient of The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement and Trustees Awards, McCartney’s list of international accolades reads like no other: 2012 saw Paul adding the MusiCares Person of the Year to this unrivalled list. The award recognized both his incomparable creative achievements and his lifelong commitment to charitable work, which includes decades’ worth of philanthropic activities for PETA, LIPA, One Voice, The Vegetarian Society, Nordoff Robbins and Adopt-A-Minefield—not to mention his participation in historic benefit concerts including Live Aid in 1985, The Concert for New York City in 2001, Live 8 in 2005 and 12-12-12. In 2016 Paul was named as the UK’s most successful album artist of all time.
Paul made two visits to the White House during the Obama administration, receiving singular honors on each trip. In June 2010 he performed in front of President Barack Obama and his family while becoming the first-ever British recipient of the prestigious Gershwin Prize For Popular Song. Paul returned to the White House that December (where even the President joked about Paul becoming a regular) to receive a Kennedy Center Honor.
Equally renowned for his live performances (setting the world record for largest paying concert attendance – 184,000 people - in Rio De Janerio in 1990) as he is for his songwriting, Paul McCartney continues to perform sold-out concerts to millions of people all over the world winning rave reviews along the way. His 2013-2015 Out There! Tour is on record as one of the highest grossing tours of all time, while his One on One tour began in April 2016, and traveled through the United States, Canada, Argentina, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, playing to approximately 2 million fans.
Paul’s most recent album, Egypt Station, was released September 7, 2018 on Capitol Records. Paul’s first solo album to enter the U.S. chart at #1, Egypt Station is the third Non-Beatles/Wings McCartney effort to top the U.S. chart and Paul’s first Stateside #1 since 1982’s Tug Of War.
Explaining the album’s concept, Paul says, “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station’… I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from.” The title is taken from the piece of art featured on the cover, which Paul painted in 1988.
In addition, Paul has embarked on his new Freshen Up tour, which is already selling out shows well into 2019.
A freeman of The City Of Liverpool and Lead Patron of The Liverpool Institute Of Performing Arts, Paul McCartney was appointed Fellow of The Royal College of Music in 1995 by The Prince Of Wales. In 1997 Paul McCartney was knighted by H.M. The Queen for his services to music. In 2017 Paul was made a Companion Of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.