Sir James Paul McCartney, <!-- note he's a Knight Bachelor, which does not have postnoms, not a KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire)-->
MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of
The Beatles (1960–1970) and
Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of
popular music, according to
Guinness World Records.
McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of
The Beatles, alongside
John Lennon,
George Harrison, and
Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful
songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife,
Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter
Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in
Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60
gold discs and sales of 100 million
singles in the United Kingdom.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "
Yesterday" as the most
covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American...
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