McCartney Paul, *18 June 1942 Liverpool, English singer, bass guitarist and composer. His father played trumpet and piano and was the leader of the amateur Jim Mac’s Band. McCartney took piano lessons as a child. In 1957, he formed a songwriting partnership with J. Lennon to provide hit songs for The Beatles. In October 1962, the group’s debut single (Love Me Do) was released on the Parlophone label. McCartney started composing at an early age. He was inspired by both rock and roll songs Little Richard (Long Tall Sally), Chuck Berry (Roll Over Beethoven), Budda Holly (Words of Love), Carl Perkins (Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby), as well as ballads by R. Marlow (A Taste of Honey), B. Scott and pop song by M. David (Baby It’s You), B. Bacharach, B. Williams, C. Velazquez (Besame mucho), S. Shaftel. Although The Beatles’ songs were signed J. Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem, it was McCartney who was the composer and singer of the most popular ones. Thanks to him, musically simple hits (Love Me Do, Can’t Buy Me Love, All My Loving) were gradually replaced by elaborate, richly instrumented pieces, betraying a fascination with classical music (Here, There and Everywhere, She’s Leaving Home). Alongside sentimental ballads about love (Yesterday, I’ll Follow the Sun, I Will), McCartney’s work includes reflective songs (The Fool on the Hill, Eleanor Rigby, Hey Jude and Let It Be), musical tales (Michelle, Lovely Rita, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour), parodies of songs by The Beach Boys (Back in the USSR), stylizations inspired by 1920s hits. (Honey Pie, When I’m Sixty Four, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Your Mother Should Know). In some of McCartney’s compositions, the influence of folk music (Blackbird, I’ve Just Seen a Face, Two of Us), hard rock (Helter Skelter, Oh! Darling) and avant-garde (Why Don’t We Do It on the Road?) is noticeable. In 1967, two of his compositions (Michelle and Eleanor Rigby) won Grammy awards. McCartney was also the inspirer of one of the first concept albums in pop music history (Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1967). McCartney left The Beatles as a result of the artistic controversy with J. Lennon in 1970 and released a solo album McCartney. He and his wife Linda soon formed the band Wings, with which he recorded and performed from 1971 to 1981. He wrote and popularised at the time among others, lyrical ballads, such as My Love (1973) and Let ’Em In (1976), dynamic Jet (1974), Mull of Kintyre (1977) inspired by Scottish folk, and pop Goodnight Tonight (1979). Later, McCartney’s work shifted closer towards pop songs, and the albums, which were released regularly, became less and less successful. The only albums that stood out were Pipes of Peace (1983), Press to Play (1986) and Flaming Pie (1997). In the 1990s, he renewed his interest in classical music and composed a The Liverpool Oratorio (1991) and Standing Stone (1997). McCartney was recognised as “most honoured composer and performer in music” by Guinness Book of World Records in 1979, and in 1992 was awarded the Polar Music Prize. He wrote music for movies, such as: Family Way (directed by R. Boulting, 1967), Empty Hand (directed by D. Litchfield, 1974), Beyond the Limit (directed by J. McKenzie, 1983), Give My Regards to Broad Street (directed by P. Webb, 1984), Spies Like Us (directed by J. Landis, 1985). His compositions were performed by, among others, Mary Hopkin, Scaffold, Rod Stewart, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Jackson. Furthermore, McCartney launched the hits: Coming Up (1980), Ebony and Ivory (1982), Say, Say, Say (1983), Pipes of Peace (1983), No More Lonely Nights (1984), Once Upon a Long Ago (1987). In 2018, he gave a concert in Krakow. His biography has been published in Poland (P. Chróściel Paul, Warsaw 1992).
