Musical career
Main article: Paul McCartney's musical career
1957–1960: the Quarrymen
Main article: The Quarrymen
At the age of fifteen, McCartney met Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957.[18] The Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music withjazz, blues and folk influences.[19] The band invited McCartney to join soon afterwards 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.[20] By May 1960 the band had tried several names, including Beatals, Johnny and the Moondogs and the Silver Beetles.[21] They adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg.[22]
1960–1970: the Beatles
Main article: The Beatles
Informally represented by Allan Williams, the Beatles' first booking was for a series of performances in Hamburg, starting in 1960.[23][nb 2] In 1961, Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.[25] They recorded professionally for the first time while in Hamburg, credited as the Beat Brothers, as the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".[26] This brought them to the attention of Brian Epstein, a key figure in their subsequent development and success. He became their manager in January 1962.[27] 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. Their fans' hysteria became known as "Beatlemania", and the press sometimes referred to McCartney as the "cute Beatle".[28][nb 3][nb 4]
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.[31] "Yesterday" became the most covered song in popular music history.[32] 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 MacDonaldwrote, "from [1965] ... [McCartney] would be in the ascendant not only as a songwriter, but also as instrumentalist, arranger, producer, and de facto musical director".[33] Critics described Rubber Soul as a significant advance in the refinement and profundity of the band's music and lyrics.[34] Considered a high point in the Beatles catalogue, both Lennon and McCartney claimed lead authorship for the song, "In My Life".[35] McCartney said of the album, "we'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand."[36]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."[37]
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.[38] The first of three consecutive McCartney A-sides, the single "Paperback Writer" preceded the LP's release.[39] 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.[40] Revolver also included McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby", which featured astring octet. According to Gould, the song is "a neoclassical tour de force ... a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song".[41] Except for some backing vocals, the song included only McCartney's lead vocal and the strings arranged by producer George Martin.[42][nb 5]
The band gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.[45] Later that year, McCartney completed his first musical project apart from 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.[46]
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.[47] 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, McCartney invented the fictional band of the album's title track.[48] As McCartney explained, "We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys we were men ... and [we] thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers."[49]
Starting in November 1966, the band adopted an experimental attitude during recording sessions for the album.[50] According to engineer Geoff Emerick, "the Beatles were looking to go out on a limb, both musically and sonically ... we were utilising a lot of tape varispeeding and other manipulation techniques ... limiters and ... effects like flangingand ADT."[51] Their recording of "A Day in the Life" required a forty-piece orchestra, which Martin and McCartney took turns conducting.[52] The sessions produced the double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967, and the LP followed in June.[29][nb 6] McCartney's "She's Leaving Home" was an orchestral pop song. MacDonald described the track as "[among] the finest work on Sgt. Pepper — imperishable popular art of its time."[54] 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.[55][nb 7] The heavy moustaches worn by the Beatles reflected the growing influence of hippie style trends on the band, while their clothing "spoofed the vogue in Britain for military fashions", wrote Gould.[57] Scholar David Scott Kastan described Sgt. Pepper as "the most important and influential rock-and-roll album ever recorded".[58]
"After Brian died ... Paul took over and supposedly led us you know ... we went round in circles ... We broke up then. That was the disintegration. I thought, 'we've fuckin' had it.'"[59]
—John Lennon, Rolling Stone magazine, 1970
Epstein's death in August 1967 created a void, which left the Beatles perplexed and concerned about their future.[60] McCartney, stepping in to fill that void, gradually became the de facto leader and business manager of the group Lennon had once led.[61] His first creative suggestion after this change of leadership was to propose that the band move forward on their plans to produce a film for television, which was to become Magical Mystery Tour. The project was "an administrative nightmare throughout", according to Beatles' historian Mark Lewisohn.[62] McCartney largely directed the film, which brought the group their first unfavourable critical response.[63] 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.[29] 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.[64]
In January 1968, EMI filmed the Beatles for a promotional trailer intended to advertise the animated film Yellow Submarine, loosely based on the imaginary world evoked by McCartney's 1966 composition. Though critics admired the film for its visual style, humour and music, the soundtrack album issued seven months later received a less enthusiastic response.[65] By late 1968, relations within the band were deteriorating. The tension grew while recording The Beatles, commonly known as the White Album.[66][nb 8] 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".[68]
In March 1969, McCartney married Linda Eastman, and in August, the couple had their first child, Mary, named after his late mother.[69] For Abbey Road, the band's last recorded album, Martin suggested "a continuously moving piece of music", urging the group to think symphonically.[70] McCartney agreed, but Lennon did not. They eventually compromised, agreeing to McCartney's suggestion: an LP featuring individual songs on side one, and a longmedley on side two.[70][nb 9]
On 10 April 1970, in the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates, McCartney announced his departure from the group.[72] He filed suit for the band's formal dissolution on 31 December 1970. More legal disputes followed as McCartney's attorneys, his in-laws John and Lee Eastman, fought Lennon, Harrison, and Starr's business manager, Allen Klein, over royalties and creative control. An English court legally dissolved the Beatles on 9 January 1975, though sporadic lawsuits against their record company EMI, Klein, and each other persisted until 1989.[61][nb 10][nb 11] They are widely regarded as one of the most popular and influential acts in the history of rock music.[77]
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