On June 18, 1942, James Paul McCartney was born at Walton General Hospital in , where his mother had previosly worked as a midwife. His brother, Michael, who's full name is Peter Michael McCartney, and who later went by the name of Mike McGear, was born eighteen months later. His family moved a few times, when he was 13, they moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, just across a golf course and a little over one mile away from where John lived with his Aunt Mimi.

Music was always a part of the McCartney household. Before the war, Paul's father was a Cotton salesman during the day, and a jazz musician with Jim Mac's Jazz Band by night. Both Paul and his brother received lessons. His mother Mary died of breast cancer when he was fourteen, while the two brothers were away at Boy Scout camp. The antithesis of John Lennon as a school boy, Paul did very well in school.

When Lonnie Donnegan appeared in and the Skiffle craze hit, Jim McCartney scraped together £15 for a guitar for Paul. Paul's friend Ivan Vaughan invited Paul to Woolton to see the Quarrymen play in Woolton on July 6, 1957, but not really to hear the Quarrymen, it was because Vaughan had promised Paul it would be a great place to pick up girls, which Paul was already very interested in at the age of 14. Later in the afternoon, after hearing the Quarrymen play, Paul borrowed a guitar and impressed the boys with all the and the words to "Twenty Flight Rock". Paul's first impression of John was that he was drunk. But Paul wrote down the words for "Twenty Flight Rock" and "Be Bop a Lula" for him so that John could learn them. A few days later Pete Shotten told Paul the others wanted him to join the band.

Paul switched to the Bass when the Beatles' bass player Stu Sutcliffe left the group in 1961. When all of the Beatles moved to London in 1963, Paul began to see actress Jane Asher on a steady basis.

In His Own Words

On the creation of Apple, Paul said:

"We've already bought all our dreams. We want to share that possibility with others. When we were touring, and when the adoration and hysteria were at a peak, if we'd been the shrewd operators we were often made out to be, we might have thought -- that's nice! Ah. Click. Let's use this for own evil ends. But there's no desire in any of our heads to take over the world. That was Hitler. That's what he wanted to do. There is, however, a desire to get power in order to use it for good."

While speaking about the Maharishi, Paul said:

"I realize now that taking drugs was like taking an aspirin without having a headache."

In this interview from just before the Beatles visited America, Paul talks about how the Beatles got started.

Here, Paul talks about Liverpool and the history of his family in show business.

In this clip, Paul talks about musical heritage of Liverpool and all of his early rock 'n' roll influences.

In this sound clip, Paul talks about the boy's Hamburg days and how some of the stories were blown out of proportion.

Biographical info from the book Shout! by Philip Norman, The Love You Make by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, and The Beatles A To Z by Sue Weiner.

This page last modified September 1, 2008.