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James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool England on June 18^th, 1942 as son to father James and mother Mary McCartney.

Paul’s mother, whom he was very close to, was a midwife, a skill that she learned while working as a nurse in the Maternity Ward at the same hospital that her son Paul was born in, Walton General Hospital in Liverpool. His father worked during the day for A. Hannay Co. as a cotton salesman, and then as a jazz musician with Jim Mac’s Jazz Band at night.

At school, Paul was an exceptional student. After breezing through primary school and junior school with flying colors, he passed a test called the 11-plus exam, which got him into a sort of elite type of high school known as the Liverpool Institute. This is where he first met his band mate and friend, George Harrison.

In 1955, when he was just 14, Paul’s mother died tragically from breast cancer, after suffering an embolism, likely due to a post mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her cancer. This incident greatly affected him, and was a large aspect of the bond that he and John Lennon, who also lost his mother at a young age, formed.

Musically, Paul started out on the trumpet, probably due to the fact that his father would often take him to local brass band concerts to expose him to music. He quickly traded the trumpet for an acoustic guitar however after a style of music called Skiffle became popular.

Skiffle music was a type of music that combined an influence of both folksy and bluesy styles. It was an interesting music that combined conventional instruments like the acoustic guitar and piano with unique object such as the washboard, the comb, a musical saw, etc.

Paul found that playing his first acoustic guitar was nearly impossible being a lefty, until he saw a poster of a famous musician of that time playing left handed with the strings being strung the opposite way.

At 15, Paul met John Lennon, who was actually playing in his own little Skiffle band called the Quarrymen. The two were introduced through a mutual friend named Ivan Vaughan.

Paul McCartney apparently left an impression on the group after teaching them how to tune a guitar and showcasing his talents through a couple of songs because two weeks later the group invited Paul into the band.

Not long after, the Quarrymen were practicing in Paul McCartney’s living room. This shows the support that Jim McCartney had of his son, even though at the time he didn’t much care for the fact that Paul was hanging out with the apparently troublesome Lennon.

Through an endless stream of band member changes as well as name changes, eventually George Harrison was brought into the band on guitar, Paul moved from guitar to bass, and the Quarrymen became the Beatles. Not long after, the guy usually known as “the fifth Beatle” Pete Best was asked to leave and in came Ringo Starr… and the rest was the Beatles history.

Paul McCartney had a hand in writing nearly all of the songs that the Beatles ever recorded. He and Lennon were basically partners in writing the material together and found themselves to obviously be a dynamic writing team. They would often write the material after shows in hotel rooms, and took only a couple of hours to write most songs from start to finish.

Out of all of the Beatles, Paul was probably the most prolific of them all, and that can be witnessed just by combing through the Beatles discography, and noticing just how many songs that Paul actually either wrote or co-wrote in the years between the beginning of The Beatles in 1967 to their breakup in 1970.

Besides being the “cute one,” he also stood out from the other three in the fact that he liked to be where the action was. After the Beatles catapulted to fame, all of the other members moved away to the countryside of Southern England to live a more quiet and normal lifestyle, but Paul McCartney enjoying every bit of fame and life, stayed on to live in the heart of Central London to take advantage of the full hustle bustle of the city.

Paul enjoyed going out to the nightclubs where he would often stay until closing, and sometimes even took it further on from there to hit the gambling clubs after that. He enjoyed the benefits of being famous, yet has a pretty good reputation of being a nice guy.

Further proving his love of the excitement of being in spotlight, as well as just enjoying life, Paul McCartney loved to tour and perform live. However, toward the end of their career as a band, the Beatles stopped touring albums after their very last performance at Candlestick Park in August of 1966.

Paul agreed because he was outnumbered, not because he actually wanted to stop. When he suggested that the Beatles get back to their roots in 1969 and go on tour, he was met with a resistance that eventually broke the band up in 1970, when McCartney released his first solo album aptly entitled “McCartney” two weeks before the Beatles “Abbey Road” was to be released. No doubt he’s proven himself as someone who likes to work hard and tour hard, touring for the better part of the last thirty years as a solo artist.

Paul began his solo career by releasing his first album, “McCartney” two weeks before the Beatles released their last album “Abbey Road.” That first solo album had a warm welcome from fans, and so he went on to release a second album in 1971 called “Ram.” On this one, he included his new wife Linda McCartney so that they could be on tour together.

After “Ram,” he started the super group Wings, with wife Linda McCartney, as well as Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, and drummer Denny Seiwell. The band started an unexpected tour in 1972 throughout Europe in small venues and various British University Auditoriums.

From there, McCartney seemed to get the touring bug again and started producing albums and touring with Wings nearly every year to year and a half through to 1979. These included the massive “Wings Over the World Tour” as well as the “Wings Over America Tour.”

In the 1980s McCartney ventured out on his own again, and recorded “McCartney II,” where, just like on his first self-titled album, he played every instrument on the album himself.

One thing that did change for McCartney during that year was his ambition to tour – following the murder of his longtime friend and Beatles bandmate John Lennon on Dec. 9^th, 1980.

McCartney didn’t want to tour following this tragic event and did not until 1985. In an interview with Playboy magazine in 1984, McCartney revealed that it was because he feared that he would be next to be murdered.

After he started touring again in 1985, he kept right on going, recording and touring right into the 90s with two live albums in 1990 and 1993 as well as venturing into classical music that same decade.

In the new Millennium, McCartney fulfilled tours from 2002 through to 2005 once again proving himself as one of the most prolific musicians on the planet. In 2006 he performed with rapper JayZ and rock band Linkin Park at the Grammy Awards, performing “Yesterday” in honor of the death of Coretta Scott King.

At age 66 this year, who knows what will come out of Sir McCartney next, but you can be sure that he won’t be settling down anytime soon.