Sir Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles, and "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history. His Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song in the history of recorded music. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre", co-written with Laine, was one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK. He has written or co-written thirty-two songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States.McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had twelve years earlier qualified to practise as a nurse.His father, James ("Jim") McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II.Paul has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944, and though they were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, religion was not emphasised in their household, as Jim was a Protestant turned agnostic who felt Catholic schools sacrificed the education of their students for religion.From August 1960 the Beatles were booked by Allan Williams to perform in Hamburg. During their extended stays there over the next two years they performed as the resident group at two of Bruno Koschmider's clubs, the Indra, then the Kaiserkeller, and upon returns to Liverpool at the Cavern Club. In 1961 Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player. The Beatles recorded professionally for the first time in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie". The recording would later bring them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962.Epstein negotiated a record contract for the group withParlophone that May. After replacing Best with Ringo Starr in August, and releasing their first hit; "Love Me Do" in October, they became increasingly popular in the UK during 1963 and in the US in 1964. Their fans' frenzied adulation became known as "Beatlemania"; during which McCartney was dubbed the cute Beatle.His contributions to the band's early hits include: "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (1963); co-written with Lennon, "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964) and "We Can Work It Out" (1965); co-written with Lennon.