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Paul McCartney
James Paul McCartney was born on June 18th, 1942, in Liverpool, England. He was the first son of a Catholic nurse and a Protestant cotton salesman. Paul's mother Mary worked as a midwife, so the McCartneys changed houses throughout much of Paul's childhood to accomadate her profession.
We always felt like a pioneer family in a wagon train. No sooner would we be established in one house than we would be moved to a new one, on the outskirts of Speke, say, where they hadn't built the roads yet. We'd live there for a while and then it would be 'whipcrack away', and we were moving again. It was all right, we adjusted. They were frontiers, the ouskirts of Liverpool, where we were sent.-- Paul McCartney
The McCartney family, which consisted of Mary, Jim, Paul, and his younger brother Michael, finally settled in to a permenant life in one home somewhere near the center of Liverpool. As a child, Paul often played in bombsites and on the docks, and heard about his father's jazz band. Paul's father was a self-taught musician, who was the leader of the Jimmy Mac Jazz Band. It involved a good number of Paul's relatives, and was an acclaimed act in Liverpool.
My dad was an instinctive musician. He'd played trumpet in a little jazz band when he was younger. I unearthed a photo in the Sixties which someone in the family had given me, and there he is in front of a big bass drum. That gave us the idea for Sgt. Pepper: The Jimmy Mac Jazz Band. My dad is sitting there as a 24-year-old in his tux with my Uncle Jack next to him. Uncle Jack played trombone. It was all very 'family'. --Paul McCartney