 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 ] Next Last |
The early death of his mother Mary (from breast cancer) was a formative influence on his life and created an additional bond between him and John Lennon, whose mother had also died prematurely.
McCartney first rose to fame as the bassist, pianist, guitarist, singer and songwriter for the Beatles. He was initially invited to join John Lennon's band the Quarrymen as a guitarist, but he eventually took over bass guitar duties in the early Sixties, after the group's formative stint at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, replacing original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, who remained in Hamburg when the rest of the group returned to Liverpool. Sutcliffe died tragically from a brain hemorrhage on April 10April 10 is the 100th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (101st in leap years). There are 265 days remaining. April Tenth" is also a song by the band Garbage. It was released on the B-side of the "Shut Your Mouth" single from the beautifulgarbage a 1962Events January January 1 Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand January 3 Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro January 4 New York City introduces a train that operates without a crew on-board January 8 Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is e, only two days before The Beatles returned for their third trip to Hamburg.
McCartney formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated on many songs, although (excepting some of their very early works) they rarely wrote a complete song together. Typically, one of them would write most or part of a song and the other would finish it, incorporate it into another song or suggest useful changes; their partnership was as much competitive as it was collaborative. Due to an early agreement between the two, all Beatles songs written by either of them are credited to both. On Beatles records, the credit was " Lennon-McCartneyThe songwriting credit Lennon-McCartney appears on all Beatles songs that were written by John Lennon and/or Paul McCartney, thanks to a mutual agreement which they made in the band's early days. As a result, royalties were shared equally between the two.", on his own records it was "Paul McCartney and John Lennon".
One of McCartney's greatest songs, covered by a record number of artists, is the poignant ballad " YesterdayCapitol Records released "Yesterday" as a single in the United States in 1965, and it topped the charts for a month. It took five weeks to sell a million copies. Yesterday is a song by Paul McCartney and originally recorded by The Beatles for their album". McCartney conceived the melody in a dream, (coupled with the lyric "Scrambled Eggs / Oh my darling you've got lovely legs") and was not sure for some time that it was original.
During the early years of the Beatles' recording career, McCartney developed rapidly as a musician, singer and songwriter. He was heavily influenced by Buddy HollyCharles Hardin Holley ( September 7, 1936 February 3, 1959), better known as Buddy Holly was an American singer, songwriter, and a pioneer of Rock and Roll. Biography Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas. The Holleys were a musical family and as a young boy H and Little RichardLittle Richard (born Richard Wayne Penniman December 5, 1932 in Macon, Georgia) is a pioneer of rock and roll though he says (quoted in Hamm 1979, p. 391) he "came from a faimly where my people didn't like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby "Pennies from Heave and famously appropriated of Little Richard's trademark high-pitched 'wooo', which he used prominently as a musical punctuation on early songs like "From Me To You".
The left-handed McCartney also became arguably the most creative and influential rock bassist of his time, elevating the electric bass from back-row obscurity to starring prominence, inspiring countless players to take up the instrument and creating a worldwide demand for the previously little-known German Hofner 'Violin' model semi-acoustic bass. McCartney still owns and uses the original Hofner bass that he purchased in Hamburg in the early Sixties and which features on all their early recordings.
By 1965 McCartney was pressuring the engineers at EMI to get a better bass sound on The Beatles' recordings, frustrated by the relatively weak sound on their earlier records and keen to emulate the powerful, booming bass sounds that he was hearing on recent MotownMotown also known as Tamla-Motown outside the U. is a record label founded on December 14 1959 by Berry Gordy, Jr. in Motor Town Detroit, Michigan, and named for the city's association with the automobile industry. In the 1960s it was the most successful and Atlantic soul recordings from America. Another step forward was his purchase of a radical new American-made solid body bass, the Rickenbacker 4001; according to Yes bassist Chris Squire, McCartney bought the very first model 4001 bass ever imported into England.
Several other important technical advances aided him in his development as a recording artist. He began to regularly use a new technique known as direct injection or "DI", which allowed him to plug his bass straight into the recording console, resulting in vastly improved presence and fidelity. He also took a keen interest in the engineering, mixing and mastering of the Beatles' records, ensuring that his bass tracks were not subjected to the heavy audio limitation and compression that was commonly applied in those days.
His bass playing and writing during the Beatles' most creative phase in 1965-67 was heavily influenced by the work of American producer-composer Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, whose classic album Pet Sounds set new standards for recording and featured bass parts that were unprecedented in pop music for their imaginative melodic style. As a result of hearing Wilson's work, McCartney began to pay increasing attention to both the sound and arrangement of his bass lines, often taking advantage of Abbey Road's new multi-track tape decks to re-record more complex parts after the basic tracks had been laid down.
During the years of the Beatles' greatest popularity, Paul was generally regarded as the best-looking and aroused most interest in female audiences. Ironically, he was the last to marry and the only one never to divorce. Towards the end of his relationship with actress Jane Asher, McCartney met Linda Eastman, a American photographer. They first met at the June 1, 1967 launch party for Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the relationship blossomed over the next two years. He and Linda married at a small civil ceremony at Marylebone Registry Office in 1969, while he was still a member of the Beatles. He adopted Linda's daughter (from her first marriage), and they went on to have three other children together. They remained happily married and utterly devoted to each other until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998. The couple reportedly spent less than a week apart during their entire marriage.
In the latter part of the Beatles' reign over pop-culture, Lennon's influence over the band waned and his output lessened but McCartney's continued undimished and he wrote several universal ballads including " Hey Jude", " Let It Be", and " The Long and Winding Road".
It is now generally accepted that McCartney was the main motivator for much of The Beatles' later work. After they retired from touring in mid-1966, Lennon and Harrison retreated to secure country estates in the so-called 'stockbroker belt', well outside London. But McCartney continued to live in the city, first in a mews house in the centre of town, then at a larger property in St John's Wood, a short distance from Abbey Road Studios. He was often seen at major cultural events such as the International Times launch party at The Roundhouse (which he attended in disguise). He also avidly delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealer and gallery owner Robert Fraser; he also explored experimental film and avant-garde music and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances.
Although he was not the first in the group to take LSD, McCartney was the first British pop star to openly admit to using it, and his frank revelation during a newspaper interview in early summer 1967 made headlines around the world. In a famous BBC TV interview broadcast nationally on 19 June 1967, McCartney was again asked about his LSD use and his answer was impressive for its clarity:
"I was asked a question by a newspaper, and the decision was whether to tell a lie or tell him the truth. I decided to tell him the truth ... but I really didn't want to say anything, you know, because if I had my way I wouldn't have told anyone. I'm not trying to spread the word about this. But the man from the newspaper is the man from the mass medium. I'll keep it a personal thing if he does too you know ... if he keeps it quiet. But he wanted to spread it so it's his responsibility, you know, for spreading it, not mine."
Interestingly, in spite of his statements then, and later admission that he also used cocaine regularly at that time, McCartney was fortunate to be one of the few leading British pop stars who did not fall foul of the Drug Squad, as did Lennon, Starr and many other friends including The Rolling Stones and Donovan.
On the musical side, Paul was the first Beatle to record an outside project, composing (with George Martin) a fine score for the 1966 feature film The Family Way, for which he won a prestigious Ivor Novello Award. He also wrote and produced several successful recordings for other artists and on some of these outside productions he worked under a pseudonym, reflecting his enduring fascination with disguises and aliases. His non-Beatles credits in the Sixties include Cilla Black's "Step Inside Love", the Mary Hopkin hit "Those Were The Days" (adapted from an old Russian folk song) and production on The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band single "I'm The Urban Spaceman", on which he was credited as "Apollo C. Vermouth".
McCartney devised many of their most important late Sixties projects including the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band concept, the Magical Mystery Tour film and record, and the suite of songs that closes the Abbey Road LP.
In 1969, despite obvious signs that the band was falling apart, he bravely attempted to convince The Beatles to return to the stage, suggesting the Get Back project, which evolved (or, perhaps more accurately, devolved) into their valedictory film and album Let It Be. Although McCartney hoped it might revive them, the film made it obvious that that the band was spent as a creative force and that bickering, jealousy and the immense pressures of being The Beatles had driven the four musicians apart irrevocably.
Although Ringo Starr had briefly quit the band during 1968 and Lennon had pre-empted a final parting with his solo singles of 1969, it was McCartney who formally initiated the dissolution of the band by filing a lawsuit to break up their partnership on 31 December 1969.
By this time, Lennon and McCartney's friendship had been eroded by years of friction and rivalry, and it was only a short time before Lennon's death that they were fully reconciled. In the early Seventies, Lennon was highly critical of his former partner, both in song and in print, and he made a famously scathing attack on McCartney in the song " How Do You Sleep? ".
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|