Paul McCartney at 80: A look at the celebrated life of the legendary musician – News

The ex-Beatle has written or co-written more than 50 top 10 singles.

Paul McCartney turns 80 on Saturday and a week later becomes the oldest headliner to perform at the Glastonbury Festival. There has even been talk of the ex-Beatle being made a lord before the end of the year.

Not bad for a kid from a working-class Liverpool family after nearly 60 years at the top of the charts.

Between his years with the Fab Four, his work with the Wings, and his solo career, McCartney has written or co-written over 50 top 10 singles.

During the lockdown in 2020, Macca, as it is affectionately known, recorded McCartney III alone and it became his first number one solo album in the UK since 1989.

McCartney and the Beatles returned to the limelight last year thanks to director Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary Come back on the making of their 1970 album So be it.

With a series of 80th birthday events planned in Liverpool, British media have reported that McCartney could become a peer of the kingdom – 25 years after he was first knighted.

His knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II was raised five years ago to admit Sir Paul into the even rarer order of Companions of Honour, which recognizes outstanding achievement across the Commonwealth.

A source said The sun newspaper in March that “the idea of ​​offering him the opportunity to sit as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords has been mooted.

“He has done an incredible service to British culture, so this could be a very fitting tribute and a mark of all he has done for his country.”

McCartney married his third wife, American heiress Nancy Shevell, 62, in 2011, and has eight grandchildren, who he says call him “Grandude.”

The Sunday time Rich List estimates the couple are worth £861m together.

The marriage came after his bitter divorce from model-turned-activist Heather Mills in 2008, who gave up six years of marriage with a settlement worth £24.3million.

Born in the port city of Liverpool in northwest England, McCartney met John Lennon when he was 15 and the pair formed the Quarrymen, the skiffle band that eventually morphed into the Beatles .

McCartney, Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr would become synonymous with crowds of screaming fans, mopping haircuts and an image of four men strolling down London’s Abbey Road at a zebra crossing.

Simply put, they were one of the most powerful cultural influences of their time.

They are also the best-selling band in history, with their label EMI estimating all-time sales at over a billion records and cassettes.

Relentlessly imaginative, the band will develop the catchy tunes that sparked Beatlemania in 1964 into an evolving sound incorporating every influence from psychedelia to country and western.

Lennon and McCartney formed one of the most famous songwriting partnerships of the 20th century, but their creative differences ultimately contributed to the Beatles’ 1970 breakup.

McCartney formed Wings with his first wife Linda in 1971 and used his ingenious ear for melody – which had previously brought classics such as Hey Jude and Blackbird — to rack up a decade of success with the new band.

Linda, a renowned photographer and animal rights activist, died of breast cancer in 1998. After 29 years of marriage, McCartney described the loss as “utter grief”.

But he was back at the end of the following year with a new album, consisting mostly of covers, and continued the experimental tradition of the Beatles – a techno record and two classical works are among more than a dozen solo albums. in studio.

He also did famous duets with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, and in 2012 he presented a brief reunion of Nirvana.

And his most streamed song on Spotify, above all Beatles songs, is his 2015 collaboration with Kanye West and Rihanna, FourFiveSeconds.

Far from music, the singer tried her hand at painting, directed the film Give my regards to Broad Streetand campaigns for causes such as animal rights.

He has one son and four daughters, including famed fashion designer Stella and Beatrice, who was born in Mills in 2003.

Of the four Beatles, two have since died: Lennon was shot in New York in 1980 and Harrison from cancer in 2001.

Drummer Ringo Starr is still alive and well and is expected to start touring again later this year at the age of 81.