Who Was James McCartney? Learn About Paul McCartney’s Father And Mother

James Paul McCartney is an English musician best known as the Beatles’ co-lead vocalist, co-composer, and bassist. He is recognized for his lyrical approach to bass-playing, diverse and broad tenor vocal range, and musical eclecticism.

His styles range from pre-rock ‘n’ roll pop to classical and electronica. He is one of the most successful writers and performers of all time with his collaboration with John Lennon being the most successful in history.

Table of Contents

– Who Was James McCartney?
– Paul McCartney’s Father Was An Inspiration For Him
– James McCartney Was Paul McCartney And Peter Michael McCartney’s Father

Who Was James McCartney?

James (Jim) McCartney, was the father of Paul McCartney, an English songwriter for the Beatles. James was a volunteer firefighter during World War II and of which he was absent in the rearing of Paul.

James was married to his first wife, Mary Patricia with whom he gave birth to Paul. Similarly, he also has a son, Peter Michael, and a daughter, Ruth from his second wife, Angie.

Even though their father was a former Protestant who had become agnostic, Paul and Michael were baptized in their mother’s Catholic religion.

McCartney’s parents originated from the “lowest rungs of the working class.” But had seen some upward social mobility over their lives, according to his biographer Peter Ames Carlin.

Jim had worked as a salesman for the cotton merchants A. Hannay and Co. before the war, having been promoted from his job as a sample boy in their warehouse.

However, when the war broke out, Hannay’s was closed down, and Jim was employed as a lathe turner at Napier’s defense engineering works, volunteering for the fire brigade at night.

Jim returned to his employment at the cotton merchants after the war, but with a lower salary. His wife, Mary’s job as a visiting midwife paid substantially better.

Her wages enabled them to relocate to 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, where they remained until 1964. She rode her bicycle to her patients; McCartney recalled her departing at “around three a.m., streets packed with snow.”

On October 31, 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism as a result of breast cancer surgical complications.

Jim remarried at the age of 61 to Angela Lucia Williams, his second wife. She was a widow who was 28 years his junior.

She had a five-year-old daughter named Ruth McCartney, whom Jim adopted. Angela, also known as Angie, is the owner and creator of McCartney Multimedia. Until his death, they were inseparable.

Paul married Linda McCartney in March 1969 and named his son James McCartney in remembrance of his father.

Paul McCartney’s Father Was An Inspiration For Him

Paul McCartney attributes a big impact on his life to his father, James McCartney. Jim, who was a superb musician himself, used to head a band called Mac’s Jazz Band as a trumpet player and pianist in the 1920s.

He encouraged his kid to pursue a musical career by enrolling him in music lessons. McCartney, on the other hand, prefers to learn by ear.

McCartney’s father urged him to try for the Liverpool Cathedral choir when he was 11 years old, but he was not accepted. McCartney then joined the choir at Mossley Hill’s St Barnabas Church.

For his fourteenth birthday, McCartney got a nickel-plated trumpet from his father. But as rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney swapped it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar.

Since he wanted to be able to sing while playing.

He struggled to play guitar right-handed, but after seeing a poster for a Slim Whitman show and realizing Whitman played left-handed, he flipped the string order.

On the Zenith, McCartney penned his first song, “I Lost My Little Girl,” and on the piano, he composed another early melody that would become “When I’m Sixty-Four.”

James McCartney Was Paul McCartney And Peter Michael McCartney’s Father

Paul McCartney and Peter Michael McCartney are brothers from the same parents, James McCartney and Mary McCartney. He also has a step-sister, Ruth from James’s second wife, Angie.

Mike McGear, born Peter Michael McCartney, is an English performing artist and photographer who was a member of the bands The Scaffold and Grimms.

McGear worked as a photographer during his musical career and has continued to do so thereafter. In the early 1960s, the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein dubbed him “Flash Harry” because he was frequently capturing photographs with a flash gun

He has produced volumes of photographs of the Beatles shot backstage and on tour. In 2008, he released a limited edition book of photographs captured spontaneously backstage at Live8.

In 2005, McCartney launched and displayed “Mike McCartney’s Liverpool Life,” a series of images he took in the 1960s, both in Liverpool and at other places such as the Provincial Museum of Alberta.

He also photographed the cover of Paul McCartney’s 2005 solo album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.