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Paul McCartney

English musician and member of the Beatles (born 1942)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ2599 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician and songwriter. He gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he was the bassist and keyboardist, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. McCartney is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing, versatile tenor vocal range and musical eclecticism, exploring genres ranging from pre–rock and roll pop to classical, ballads and electronica. His songwriting partnership with Lennon remains the most successful in music history.

Born in Liverpool, McCartney taught himself piano, guitar, and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the cute Beatle", McCartney later immersed himself in the London avant-garde scene and played a key role in incorporating experimental aesthetics into the Beatles' studio productions. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the band's de facto leader, providing creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. Many of his Beatles songs, including "And I Love Her", "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Blackbird", rank among the most covered songs in history.

Editorial summary

“Paul McCartney” enters the record as english musician and member of the Beatles (born 1942). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paul, McCartney and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1957, 1960, 1967—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1942-06-18. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Paul, McCartney and English.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Paul McCartney” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Paul, McCartney and English provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2599. VIAF identifies the subject as 100252012. The Library of Congress control number is n50012135. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1957, 1960 and 1967.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Paul McCartney”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Paul McCartney primary sources, Paul McCartney archive and Paul research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paul McCartney”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Paul McCartney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.