Boston is waiting for u2 and Paul McCartney in Boston
Boston (pronounced /ˈbɒstən/ (help·info)) is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The city is located in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States.[5] The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the entire region.[6] The city, which had an estimated population of 599,351 in 2007, lies at the center of the Cambridge–Boston-Quincy metropolitan area—the 10th-largest metropolitan area (5th largest CSA) in the U.S., with a population of 4.5 million.
In 1630, Puritan colonists from England founded the city on the Shawmut Peninsula.[7] During the late eighteenth century Boston was the location of several major events during the American Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Several early battles of the American Revolution, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, occurred within the city and surrounding areas. After American independence was attained Boston became a major shipping port and manufacturing center, and its rich history now attracts 16.3 million visitors annually.[8][7] The city was the site of several firsts, including America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635),[9] and first college, Harvard College (1636), in neighboring Cambridge. Boston was also home to the first subway system in the United States.[10]
Through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the peninsula. With many colleges and universities within the city and surrounding area, Boston is a center of higher education[11] and a center for medicine. The city's economy is also based on research, finance, and technology – principally biotechnology. Boston has been experiencing gentrification and has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, though remains high on world livability rankings.[12]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Geography
2.1 Climate
3 Demographics
3.1 Crime
4 Economy
5 Culture
6 Media
7 Sports
8 Government
9 Education
10 Healthcare and utilities
11 Transportation
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 External links
[edit] History
Main article: History of Boston, Massachusetts
Boston in 1772.Boston was founded on September 17, 1630 by Puritan colonists from England.[7] The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are sometimes confused with the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony ten years earlier in what is today Bristol County, Plymouth County, and Barnstable County, Massachusetts. The two groups are historically distinct and differed in religious practice. The separate colonies were not united until the formation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1691.
The Shawmut peninsula was connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, and surrounded by the waters of Massachusetts Bay and the Back Bay, an estuary of the Charles River. Several prehistoric Native American archaeological sites excavated in the city have shown that the peninsula was inhabited as early as 5,000 BC.[13] Boston's early European settlers first called the area Trimountaine, but later renamed the town after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, from which several prominent colonists had emigrated. Massachusetts Bay Colony's original governor, John Winthrop, gave a famous sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity," popularly known as the "City on a Hill" sermon, which captured the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God. (Winthrop also led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, which is regarded as a key founding document of the city.) Puritan ethics molded a stable and well-structured society in Boston. For example, shortly after Boston's settlement, Puritans founded America's first public school, Boston Latin School (1635),[9] and America's first college, Harvard College (1636). Boston was the largest town in British North America until the mid-1700s.[14]
In the 1770s, British attempts to exert more stringent control on the thirteen colonies, primarily via taxation, prompted Bostonians to initiate the American Revolution.[7] The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and several early battles occurred in or near the city, including the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride.
View of Boston from Dorchester Heights, 1841.After the Revolution, Boston had become one of the world's wealthiest international trading ports due to the city's consolidated seafaring tradition – exports included rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. During this era, descendants of old Boston families became regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites; they were later dubbed the Boston Brahmins. In 1822, Boston was chartered as a city.[15]
The Embargo Act of 1807, adopted during the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 significantly curtailed Boston's harbor activity. Although foreign trade returned after these hostilities, Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy and by the mid-1800s, the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance. Until the early 1900s, Boston remained one of the nation's largest manufacturing centers, and was notable for its garment production and leather goods industries.[8] A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region made for easy shipment of goods and allowed for a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads facilitated the region's industry and commerce. From the mid- to late nineteenth century, Boston flourished culturally; it became renowned for its rarefied literary culture and lavish artistic patronage. It also became a center of the abolitionist movement.[16] The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Law, which contributed to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Burns Fugitive Slave Case.
Scollay Square in the 1880sIn the 1820s, Boston's population began to swell and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period. By 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston.[17] In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settle in the city. By the end of the nineteenth century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants – Italians inhabited the North End, the Irish dominated South Boston, and Russian Jews lived in the West End.
Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community[18] and since the early twentieth century the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics—prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.
Trinity Church reflected in the façade of the John Hancock Tower.Between 1630 and 1890, the city tripled its physical size by land reclamation, by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront,[19] a process Walter Muir Whitehill called "cutting down the hills to fill the coves." The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 1800s. Beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became Haymarket Square. The present-day State House sits atop this shortened Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, West End, the Financial District and Chinatown. After The Great Boston Fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late nineteenth century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km²) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of the Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. In addition, the city annexed the adjacent towns of Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (1870), Brighton, West Roxbury (including present day Jamaica Plain, Roslindale and West Roxbury), and Charlestown. The last three towns were annexed in 1874.[20]
The first community health center in the United States was the Columbia Point Health Center in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. It was opened in December 1965 and served mostly the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it. It was founded by two medical doctors, Jack Geiger of Harvard University and Count Gibson of Tufts University. It is still in operation and was re-dedicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center.[21]
The skyline of Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, home to some of the city's tallest skyscrapers, as seen from the Back Bay Fens. The Prudential Tower, John Hancock Tower, 111 Huntington Avenue, and the Christian Science Center are all visible; left to right.By the early and mid-twentieth century, the city was in decline as factories became old and obsolete, and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere.[7] Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which was established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated a project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition garnered vociferous public opposition to the new agency.[22] BRA subsequently reevaluated its approach to urban renewal in its future projects, including the construction of Government Center. By the 1970s, the city's economy boomed after thirty years of economic downturn. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women's Hospital led the nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, Boston College and Northeastern University attracted students to the Boston area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing, which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s.
The Columbia Point housing projects, built in 1953 on the Dorchester peninsula, had gone through bad times until there were only 350 families living in it in 1988. It was run down and dangerous. In 1984, the city of Boston gave control of it to a private developer, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, who re-developed and re-vitalised the property into an attractive residential mixed-income community called Harbor Point Apartments which was opened in 1988 and completed by 1990. It is a very significant example of revitalisation and re-development and was the first federal housing project to be converted to private, mixed-income housing in the United States.
In the early twenty-first century the city has become an intellectual, technological, and political center. It has, however, experienced a loss of regional institutions,[23] which included the acquisition of the Boston Globe by The New York Times, and the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such FleetBoston Financial, which was acquired by Charlotte-based Bank of America in 2004. The city also had to tackle gentrification issues and rising living expenses, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s.
[edit] Geography
See also: Neighborhoods in Boston, Massachusetts
A simulated-color satellite image of the Boston area taken on NASA's Landsat 3
The headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist in the Back Bay are dominated by a reflecting pool. The tall buildings in the background are the Prudential Tower and 111 Huntington Avenue.Owing to its early founding, Boston is very compact. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 89.6 square miles (232.1 km²)—48.4 square miles (125.4 km²) of it is land and 41.2 square miles (106.7 km²) (46.0%) of it is water. Boston is the fourth most densely populated city in the country not a part of a larger city's metropolitan area.[24] Of United States cities over 500,000 in population, only San Francisco is smaller in land area. Boston's official elevation, as measured at Logan International Airport, is 19 feet (5.8 m) above sea level.[25] The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 feet (101 m) above sea level, while the lowest point is at sea level.[26]
Boston is surrounded by the "Greater Boston" region, and bordered by the cities and towns of Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Somerville, Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Brookline, Needham, Dedham, Canton, Milton, and Quincy.
Much of the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods are built on reclaimed land—all of the earth from two of Boston's three original hills, the "trimount", was used as landfill material. Only Beacon Hill, the smallest of the three original hills, remains partially intact; just half of its height was cut down for landfill. The downtown area and immediate surroundings consist mostly of low-rise brick or stone buildings, with many older buildings in the Federal style. Several of these buildings mix in with modern high-rises, notably in the Financial District, Government Center, the South Boston waterfront, and Back Bay, which includes many prominent landmarks such as the Boston Public Library, Christian Science Center, Copley Square, Newbury Street, and New England's two tallest buildings: the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Center.[27] Near the John Hancock Tower is the old John Hancock Building with its prominent weather forecast beacon—whatever light illuminates gives an indication of weather to come: "steady blue. clear view; flashing blue, clouds are due; steady red, rain ahead; flashing red, snow instead." (In the summer, flashing red indicates instead that a Red Sox game has been rained out.) Smaller commercial areas are interspersed among single-family homes and wooden/brick multi-family row houses. Currently, the South End Historic District remains the largest surviving contiguous Victorian-era neighborhood in the U.S.[28]
Along with downtown, the geography of South Boston was particularly impacted by the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project (or the "Big Dig"). The unstable reclaimed land in South Boston posed special problems for the project's tunnels. In the downtown area, the CA/T Project allowed for the removal of the unsightly elevated Central Artery and the incorporation of new green spaces and open areas.
Boston Common, located near the Financial District and Beacon Hill, is the oldest public park in the U.S.[29] Along with the adjacent Boston Public Garden, it is part of the Emerald Necklace, a string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to encircle the city. Franklin Park, which is also part of the Emerald Necklace, is the city's largest park and houses a zoo.[30] Another major park is the Esplanade located along the banks of the Charles River. Other parks are scattered throughout the city, with the major parks and beaches located near Castle Island, in Charlestown and along the Dorchester, South Boston, and East Boston shorelines.
The Charles River separates Boston proper from Cambridge, Watertown, and the neighborhood of Charlestown. To the east lies Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the city of Quincy and the town of Milton.[31] The Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, while Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Boston proper.[32]
Boston skyline from the north side of the Charles River.
[edit] Climate
Boston has what may basically be described as a continental climate, such as is very common in New England. Summers are typically warm and humid, while winters are cold, windy and snowy. Prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore affect Boston, minimizing the influence of the Atlantic Ocean.
Spring in Boston can be warm, with temperatures as high as the 90s when winds are offshore, though it is just as possible for a day in late May to remain in the lower 40s due to cool ocean waters. The hottest month is July, with an average high of 82 °F (28 °C) and average low of 66 °F (18 °C), with conditions usually humid. The coldest month is January, with an average high of 36 °F (2 °C) and an average low of 22 °F (-6 °C).[33] Periods exceeding 90 °F (32 °C) in summer and below 10 °F (−12 °C) in winter are not uncommon, but rarely prolonged. The record high temperature is 104 °F (40 °C), recorded July 4, 1911. The record low temperature is -18 °F (-28 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934. February in Boston has seen 70 °F (21 °C) only once in recorded history, on February 24, 1985. The maximum temperature recorded in March was 89 °F (31 °C), on March 31, 1998.[34]
The city averages about 42 in (108 cm) of precipitation a year, with 40.9 in (104 cm) of snowfall a year.[35] Snowfall increases dramatically as one goes inland away from the city and the warming influence of the ocean.[36] Most snowfall occurs December through March, usually with little or no snow in April and November and rare snow events in May and October.[37][38]
Boston's coastal location on the North Atlantic, though it moderates temperatures, also makes the city very prone to Nor'easter weather systems that can produce much snow and rain.[39] Fog is prevalent, particularly in spring and early summer, and the occasional tropical storm or hurricane can threaten the region, especially in early autumn.
[hide]Weather averages for Boston, Massachusetts
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °F (°C) 36 (2) 38 (3) 45 (7) 56 (13) 67 (19) 77 (25) 82 (28) 80 (27) 73 (23) 63 (17) 52 (11) 41 (5) 59 (15)
Average low °F (°C) 22 (-6) 23 (-5) 31 (-1) 40 (4) 50 (10) 59 (15) 65 (18) 64 (18) 57 (14) 47 (8) 38 (3) 27 (-3) 44 (7)
Precipitation inches (mm) 3.8 (97) 3.5 (89) 4.0 (102) 3.7 (94) 3.4 (86) 3.0 (76) 2.8 (71) 3.6 (91) 3.3 (84) 3.3 (84) 4.4 (112) 4.2 (107) 42.9 (1,090)
Source: Weatherbase[40] Feb 2007
[edit] Demographics
Historical populations
Census Pop. %±
1790 18,320 —
1800 24,937 36.1%
1810 33,787 35.5%
1820 43,298 28.1%
1830 61,392 41.8%
1840 93,383 52.1%
1850 136,881 46.6%
1860 177,840 29.9%
1870 250,526 40.9%
1880 362,839 44.8%
1890 448,477 23.6%
1900 560,892 25.1%
1910 670,585 19.6%
1920 748,060 11.6%
1930 781,188 4.4%
1940 770,816 −1.3%
1950 801,444 4%
1960 697,197 −13%
1970 641,071 −8.1%
1980 562,994 −12.2%
1990 574,283 2%
2000 589,141 2.6%
Est. 2007 599,351 1.7%
Per capita income in the greater Boston area, by U.S. Census block group, 2000. The dashed line shows the boundary of the city of Boston.According to the census[41] of 2000, there were 589,141 people, (the population estimate of 2006 was 596,638 people),[42] 239,528 households, and 115,212 families residing in the city. The population density was 12,166 people per square mile (4,697/km²). Of major US cities,[43] only New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago have a greater population density than Boston.[44] There were 251,935 housing units at an average density of 5,203 per square mile (2,009/km²).
However, the population of Boston can grow during the daytime to about 1.2 million. This fluctuation of people is caused by suburban residents traveling to the city for work, education, medical purposes, and special events.[45]
According to the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the city was 49% Non-Hispanic White, 25% African American or Black, 8% Asian American, 1% Native American, 4% from other races, and 3% from two or more races. 14% of the population was Hispanic or Latino who can be of any race.
According to a 2006 estimate, the White population comprises 53.5% of the population, while Hispanics make up 15.5%.[46] People of Irish descent form the largest single ethnic group in the city, making up 15.8% of the population, followed by Italians, accounting for 8.3% of the population. People of West Indian ancestry are another sizeable group, at 6.4%,[47] about half of whom are of Haitian ancestry. Some neighborhoods, such as Dorchester, have received an influx of Vietnamese residents in recent decades. Neighborhoods such as Jamaica Plain and Roslindale have experienced a growing number of Dominican Americans.
There were 239,528 households, out of which 22.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 27.4% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 51.9% were non-families. 37.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 3.17.[48]
In the city the population was spread out with 19.8% under the age of 18, 16.2% from 18 to 24, 35.8% from 25 to 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.2 males.[48]
The median income for a household in the city was $39,629, and the median income for a family was $44,151. Males had a median income of $37,435 versus $32,421 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,353. 19.5% of the population and 15.3% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 25.6% of those under the age of 18 and 18.2% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.[49]
[edit] Crime
The city has seen a great reduction in violent crime since the early 1990s. Boston's low crime rate in the last years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first has been credited to its police department's collaboration with neighborhood groups and church parishes to prevent youths from joining gangs, as well as involvement from the United States Attorney and District Attorney's offices. This helped lead in part to what has been touted as the "Boston Miracle." Murders in the city dropped from 152 in 1990 (for a murder rate of 26.5 per 100,000 people) to just 31—not one of them a juvenile—in 1999 (for a murder rate of 5.26 per 100,000). In more recent years, however, the annual murder count has fluctuated by as much as 50% compared to the year before, with 60 murders in 2002, followed by just 39 in 2003, 64 in 2004, and 75 in 2005. Though the figures are nowhere near the high-water mark set in 1990, the aberrations in the murder rate have been unsettling for many Bostonians and have prompted discussion over whether the Boston Police Department should reevaluate its approach to fighting crime.[50][51][52]
[edit] Economy
See also: Major companies in Greater Boston
Hyatt in downtown BostonBoston's colleges and universities have a major impact on the city and region's economy. Not only are they major employers, but they also attract high-tech industries to the city and surrounding region. Boston is home to technology companies such as EMC Corp. and Analog Devices as well as E-Commerce companies VistaPrint and CSN Stores. Boston is also a major hub for biotechnology companies, including Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Merck & Co., Millipore, Genzyme, and Biogen Idec. According to a 2003 report by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, students enrolled in Boston's colleges and universities contribute $4.8 billion annually to the city's economy.[53] Boston also receives the highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health of all cities in the United States.[54]
Data from City-Data.com[55]Tourism comprises a large part of Boston's economy. In 2004 tourists spent $7.9 billion and made the city one of the ten most popular tourist locations in the country.[8] Other important industries include financial services, especially mutual funds and insurance.[8] Boston-based Fidelity Investments helped popularize the mutual fund in the 1980s, and has made Boston one of the top financial cities in the United States. The city is also the regional headquarters of major banks such as Bank of America and Sovereign Bank, and a center for venture capital. State Street Corporation, which specializes in asset management and custody services, is headquartered in the city. Boston is also a printing and publishing center – Houghton Mifflin is headquartered within the city, along with Bedford-St. Martin's Press, Beacon Press, and Little, Brown and Company. Pearson PLC publishing units also employ several hundred people in Boston. The city is home to four major convention centers: the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay, the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, and the World Trade Center Boston and Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on the South Boston waterfront. Because of its status as a state capital and the regional home of federal agencies, law and government is another major component of the city's economy.[8]
Major companies headquartered within the city include the Liberty Mutual insurance company, Gillette (now owned by Procter & Gamble), and Teradyne, one of the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductor and other electronic test equipment. New Balance has its headquarters in the city. Boston is also home to management consulting firms The Boston Consulting Group, Monitor Group, and Bain & Company, as well as the private equity group Bain Capital.[56] Other major companies are located outside the city, especially along Route 128.[57] The Port of Boston is a major seaport along the United States' East Coast, and is also the oldest continuously-operated industrial and fishing port in the Western Hemisphere.[58] Boston is classified as a "Gamma world city" by a study group at Loughborough University in England.
[edit] Culture
Main article: Culture in Boston, Massachusetts
See also: Sites of interest in Boston, Massachusetts and List of Registered Historic Places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Quincy Market designed by Alexander ParrisBoston shares many cultural roots with greater New England, including a dialect of the non-rhotic Eastern New England accent known as Boston English, and a regional cuisine with a large emphasis on seafood, rum, salt, and dairy products. Irish Americans are a major influence on Boston's politics and religious institutions. Boston also has its own collection of neologisms known as Boston slang.
Many consider Boston to have a strong sense of cultural identity, perhaps as a result of its intellectual reputation; much of Boston's culture originates at its universities.[59] The city has several ornate theatres, including the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston Opera House, Citi Performing Arts Center, and the Orpheum Theatre. Renowned performing arts organizations include the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Ballet, Boston Pops, Celebrity Series of Boston, Boston Early Music Festival, Boston Lyric Opera Company, OperaBoston, Emmanuel Music, and the Handel and Haydn Society (one of the oldest choral companies in the United States).[60] There are also many major annual events such as First Night, which occurs on New Year's Eve, the annual Boston Arts Festival at Chistopher Columbus Waterfront Park, Italian summer feasts in the North End honoring Catholic saints, and several events during the Fourth of July period. These events include the week-long Harborfest festivities[61] and a Boston Pops concert accompanied by fireworks on the banks of the Charles River.[62]
Symphony Hall designed by McKim, Mead, and White.Because of the city's prominent role in the American Revolution, several historic sites relating to that period are preserved as part of the Boston National Historical Park. Many are found along the Freedom Trail, which is marked by a red line or bricks embedded in the ground. The city is also home to several prominent art museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In December 2006 the Institute of Contemporary Art moved from its Back Bay location to a new contemporary building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro located in the Seaport District. The University of Massachusetts campus at Columbia Point houses the John F. Kennedy Library. The Boston Athenaeum (one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States),[63] Boston Children's Museum, Bull & Finch Pub (whose building is known from the television show Cheers), Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium are within the city.
Boston is also one of the birthplaces of the hardcore punk genre of music. Boston musicians have contributed greatly to this music scene over the years (see also Boston hardcore). Boston neighborhoods were home to one of the leading local third wave ska and ska punk scenes in the 1990s, led by bands such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Allstonians, The Pixies, and the Dropkick Murphys. The 1980s hardcore punk rock compilation This Is Boston, and although Greater Boston Tickets is your source for
Boston tickets
Not L.A. highlights some of the bands that built the genre. Several nightclubs, such as The Channel, Bunnratty's in Allston, and The Rathskeller, were renowned for showcasing both local punk rock bands and those from farther afield. All of these clubs are now closed, and in many cases razed during recent gentrification.[64]
[edit] Media
Main article: Media in Boston, Massachusetts
Copley Square with the Boston Public Library designed by Charles Follen McKim on the left, and Old South Church designed by Charles Amos Cummings on the right.The Boston Globe (owned by The New York Times Company) and the Boston Herald are Boston's two major daily newspapers. The Christian Science Monitor, a third daily, is edited in Boston and printed in a series of regional presses across the U.S. The city is also served by other publications such as The Boston Phoenix, Boston magazine, The Improper Bostonian, Boston's Weekly Dig, and the Boston edition of Metro. The Boston Globe also releases a teen publication to the city's public high schools. The newspaper Teens in Print or T.i.P. is written by the city's teens and delivered quarterly within the school year.[65]
Boston has the largest broadcasting market in New England, with the Boston radio market being the eleventh largest in the United States.[66] Several major AM stations include talk radio WRKO 680 AM, sports/talk station WEEI 850 AM, and news radio WBZ 1030 AM. A variety of FM radio formats serve the area, as do NPR stations WBUR and WGBH. College and university radio stations include WERS (Emerson), WHRB (Harvard), WUMB (UMass Boston), WMBR (M.I.T.), WZBC (Boston College), WMFO (Tufts University), WBRS (Brandeis University), WTBU (Boston University, campus and web only), and WRBB (Northeastern University).
The Boston television DMA, which also includes Manchester, New Hampshire, is the seventh largest in the United States.[67] The city is served by stations representing every major American network including WBZ 4 (CBS), WCVB 5 (ABC), WHDH 7 (NBC), WFXT 25 (Fox), WUNI 27 (Univision), and WLVI 56 (The CW). Boston is also home to PBS station WGBH 2, a major producer of PBS programs, which also operates WGBX 44. Most Boston television stations have their transmitters in nearby Needham and Newton.[68]
[edit] Sports
Prudential Tower lit up for the 2007 World Series.Main article: Sports in Boston
The Boston Red Sox are a founding member of the American League of Major League Baseball and are the 2007 World Series champions. The team plays its home games at Fenway Park, near Kenmore Square in the Fenway section. Built in 1912, it is the oldest sports arena or stadium in active use in the United States among the four major professional sports. Boston was also the site of the first game of the first modern World Series, in 1903. The series was played between the Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates.[69] Persistent reports that the team was known in 1903 as the "Boston Pilgrims" appear to be unfounded.[70] The Boston Braves were Boston's NL team (1871-1953) until they moved to Milwaukee in 1953, then later Atlanta in 1966 where they currently play as the Atlanta Braves.
The TD Banknorth Garden (formerly called the Fleet Center, and the Shawmut Center) is adjoined to North Station and is the home of two major league teams: the Boston Bruins ice hockey team of the National Hockey League and the 2008 National Basketball Association champions, the Boston Celtics. The stadium seats 18,624. The Bruins were the first American member of the National Hockey League and an Original Six franchise. The Boston Celtics were founding members of the Basketball Association of America, one of the two leagues that merged to form the NBA. The Celtics have the distinction of having more national titles than any other NBA team with 17 championships from 1957 to 2008.[71]
A Boston Red Sox baseball game at Fenway ParkAlthough the team has played in suburban Foxboro since 1971, the New England Patriots are Boston's football team. The team was founded in 1960 as the Boston Patriots, a charter member of the American Football League, and in 1970 the team joined the National Football League. The team has won three Super Bowl titles since the 2001 season (in 2001, 2003, and 2004).[72] They share Gillette Stadium with the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. There has also been talk of a possible Arena Football League expansion team coming to Boston sometime in the next few years.[73]
Boston's many colleges and universities are active in college athletics. There are four NCAA Division I members in the city: Boston College (member of the Atlantic Coast Conference), Boston University (America East Conference), Northeastern University (Colonial Athletic Association), and Harvard University (Ivy League). All except Harvard, which belongs to ECAC Hockey, belong to the Hockey East conference. The hockey teams of these four universities meet every year in a four-team tournament known as the "Beanpot Tournament," which is played at the TD Banknorth Garden over two Monday nights in February.[74]
One of the most famous sporting events in the city is the Boston Marathon, the 26.2 mile (42.2 km) run from Hopkinton to Copley Square in the Back Bay. The Marathon, the world's oldest, is popular and heavily attended.[75] It is run on Patriots' Day in April and always coincides with a Red Sox home baseball game that starts at 11:05 AM (10:05 beginning in 2007), the only MLB game all year to start before noon local time.[76] Another major event held in the city is the Head of the Charles Regatta rowing competition on the Charles River.
Boston is also bidding for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[77]
Club League Sport Venue Established Championships
Boston Red Sox MLB Baseball Fenway Park 1901 7 World Series Titles
12 AL Pennants
New England Patriots NFL Football Gillette Stadium 1960 3 Super Bowl Titles
Boston Celtics NBA Basketball TD Banknorth Garden 1946 17 NBA Titles
Boston Bruins NHL Hockey TD Banknorth Garden 1924 5 Stanley Cups
New England Revolution MLS Soccer Gillette Stadium 1995 1 U.S. Open Cup, 1 Superliga
Boston Cannons MLL Lacrosse (Outdoor) Harvard Stadium 2001 None
Boston Blazers NLL Lacrosse (Indoor) TD Banknorth Garden 2008 None
New England Riptide NPF Softball Martin Softball Field 2004 1 Cowles Cup
[edit] Government
See also: List of Mayors of Boston, Boston Fire Department, Boston Emergency Medical Services, and Boston Finance Commission
Boston has a strong mayor system in which the mayor is vested with extensive executive powers. The mayor is elected to a four-year term by plurality voting. The city council is elected every two years. There are nine district seats, each elected by the residents of that district through plurality voting, and four at-large seats. Each voter casts up to four votes for at-large councilors, with no more than one vote per candidate. The candidates with the four highest vote totals are elected. The president of the city council is elected by the councilors from within themselves. The school committee for the Boston Public Schools is appointed by the mayor.[78] The Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Zoning Board of Appeals (a seven-person body appointed by the mayor) share responsibility for land-use planning.[79]
Massachusetts State House designed by Charles BulfinchIn addition to city government, numerous commissions and state authorities play a role in the life of Bostonians, including the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Boston Public Health Commission, and the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport). As the capital of Massachusetts, Boston plays a major role in state politics. The city has several properties relating to the United States federal government, including the John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building and the Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building.[80] The city also serves as the home of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, as well as the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (the First District of the Federal Reserve). The city is in the Eighth and Ninth Congressional districts.[81]
[edit] Education
See also: List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston
Partial map of colleges and universities within Boston's Inner CoreBoston's reputation as the Athens of America derives in large part from the teaching and research activities of more than 100 colleges and universities located in the Greater Boston Area,[82] with more than 250,000 students attending college in Boston and Cambridge alone.[11] Within the city, Boston University exudes a large presence as the city's fourth-largest employer,[83] and maintains a campus along the Charles River on Commonwealth Avenue and its medical campus in the South End. Northeastern University, another large private university, is located in the Fenway area, and is particularly known for its Business and Health Science schools and cooperative education program. Wheelock College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Simmons College, Emmanuel College, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Wentworth Institute of Technology, founding members of the Colleges of the Fenway, are adjacent to Northeastern University. Suffolk University, a small private university known for its law school, maintains a campus on Beacon Hill. New England School of Law, a small private law school located in the theater district, was originally established as America's only all female law school.[84] Emerson College, a small private college with a strong reputation in the fields of performing arts, journalism, writing, and film, is located nearby on Boston Common. Boston College, whose original campus was located in South Boston, moved its campus west to a site that straddles the Boston(Brighton)-Newton border. Boston College is expanding further into the Brighton neighborhood following the purchase of adjacent land from the Boston Catholic Archdiocese.[85]
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, heart of the oldest institution of higher education in the United States, Harvard University, and located just across the Charles River from the Allston neighborhood of Boston.Boston is also home to several conservatories and art schools, including the Art Institute of Boston, Massachusetts College of Art, New England School of Art and Design (part of Suffolk University), and the New England Conservatory of Music (the oldest independent conservatory in the United States).[86] Other conservatories include the Boston Conservatory, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Berklee College of Music. Boston has one major public university, the University of Massachusetts Boston, located on Columbia Point in Dorchester, while Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College are the city's two community colleges.
Several major national universities located outside Boston have a major presence in the city. Harvard University, the nation's oldest, and arguably best known, institution of higher learning, is located across the Charles River in Cambridge. The business and medical schools are in Boston, and there are plans for additional expansion into Boston's Allston neighborhood.[87] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which originated in Boston and was long known as "Boston Tech," moved across the river to Cambridge in 1916. Tufts University administers its medical and dental school adjacent to the Tufts Medical Center, a 451-bed academic medical institution that is home to both a full-service hospital for adults and the Floating Hospital for Children. Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, is the only evangelical Christian college in metropolitan Boston and is active in Christian ministry in the City of Boston.[88]
Boston Public Schools, the oldest public school system in the U.S., enrolls 57,000 students from kindergarten to grade 12.[9] The system operates 145 schools, which includes Boston Latin School (the oldest public school in the United States, established in 1635; which, along with Boston Latin Academy, is a highly prestigious public exam school admitting students in the 7th and 9th grades only and serving grades 7–12), English High (the oldest public high school, established 1821), and the Mather School (the oldest public elementary school, established in 1639).[9] The city also has private, parochial, and charter schools. 3000 students of racial minorities attend participating suburban schools through the Metropolitan Educational Opportunity Council, or METCO. In 2002, Forbes Magazine ranked the Boston Public Schools as the best large city school system in the country, with a graduation rate of 82%.[89] In 2005, the student population within the school system was 45.5% Black or African American, 31.2% Hispanic or Latino, 14% White, and 9% Asian, as compared with 24%, 14%, 49%, and 8% respectively for the city as a whole.[90][91]
[edit] Healthcare and utilities
See also: List of hospitals in Boston
Longwood Medical AreaThe Longwood Medical Area is a region of Boston with a concentration of medical and research facilities, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard School of Dental Medicine.[92] Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is near the Beacon Hill neighborhood, with the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital nearby. Boston also has VA medical centers in the Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury neighborhoods.[93]
Many of Boston's major medical facilities are associated with universities. The facilities in the Longwood Medical Area and MGH are world-renowned[citation needed] research medical centers affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Tufts Medical Center (formerly Tufts-New England Medical Center), located in the southern portion of the Chinatown neighborhood, is affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine. Boston Medical Center, located in the South End neighborhood, is the primary teaching facility for the Boston University School of Medicine as well as the largest trauma center in the Boston area;[94] it was formed by the merger of Boston University Hospital and Boston City Hospital, which was the first municipal hospital in the U.S.[95]
Water supply and sewage-disposal services are provided by the Boston Water and Sewer Commission.[96] The Commission in turn purchases wholesale water and sewage disposal from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). The city's water comes from the Quabbin Reservoir and the Wachusett Reservoir, which are about 65 miles (105 km) and 35 miles (56 km) west of the city respectively.[97] NSTAR is the exclusive distributor of electric power to the city, though due to deregulation, customers now have a choice of electric generation companies. Natural gas is distributed by KeySpan Corporation (the successor company to Boston Gas); only commercial and industrial customers may choose an alternate natural gas supplier.[98]
Verizon, successor to New England Telephone, NYNEX, Bell Atlantic and earlier, the Bell System, is the primary wired telephone service provider for the area. Phone service is also available from various national wireless companies. Cable television is available from Comcast and RCN, with Broadband Internet access provided by the same companies in certain areas. A variety of DSL providers and resellers are able to provide broadband Internet over Verizon-owned phone lines.[99]
[edit] Transportation
Main article: Boston transportation
An MBTA sign at the Chinatown stop.Logan International Airport, located in the East Boston neighborhood, handles most of the scheduled passenger service for Boston.[100] Surrounding the city are three major general aviation relievers: Beverly Municipal Airport to the north, Hanscom Field in Bedford, to the west, and Norwood Memorial Airport to the south. T. F. Green Airport serving Providence, Rhode Island, and Manchester-Boston Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, also provide scheduled passenger service to the Boston area.
Downtown Boston's streets are not organized on a grid, but grew in a meandering organic pattern beginning early in the seventeenth century. They were created as needed, and as wharves and landfill expanded the area of the small Boston peninsula.[101] Along with several rotaries, roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random. On the other hand, streets in the Back Bay, East Boston, the South End, and South Boston do follow a grid system.
Many of Boston's roads were based upon horse and cart paths from the 17th century. A few horse carriages are still found in the city today.Boston is the eastern terminus of I-90, which in Massachusetts runs along the Mass Pike. I-95, which surrounds the city, is locally referred to as Route 128, its historical state route numbering. U.S. 1 and I-93 and Massachusetts Route 3 run north to south through the city forming the elevated Central Artery, which ran through downtown Boston and was constantly prone to heavy traffic, was replaced with an underground tunnel through the Big Dig.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates what was the first underground rapid transit system in the United States and is now the fourth busiest rapid transit system in the country,[10] having been expanded to 65.5 miles (105 km) of track,[102] reaching as far north as Malden, as far south as Braintree, and as far west as Newton – collectively known as the "T". The MBTA also operates the nation's sixth busiest bus network, as well as water shuttles, and a commuter rail network totaling over 200 miles (321 km),[102] extending north to the Merrimack Valley, west to Worcester, and south to Providence. Nearly a third of Bostonians use public transit for their commute to work.[103] Nicknamed "The Walking City", pedestrian commutes play a larger role than in comparably populated cities. Owing to factors such as the compactness of the city and large student population, 13% of the population commutes by foot, making it the highest percentage of pedestrian commuters in the country out of the major American cities.[104] In its March 2006 issue, Bicycling magazine named Boston as one of the worst cities in the U.S. for cycling;[105] regardless, it has one of the highest rates of bicycle commuting.[106]
South Station is an intermodal station for Amtrak, commuter, and bus service.Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Chicago lines originate at South Station and stop at Back Bay. Fast Northeast Corridor trains, which service New York City, Washington, D.C., and points in between, also stop at Route 128 Station in the southwestern suburbs of Boston.[107] Meanwhile, Amtrak's Downeaster service to Maine originates at North Station.[108]
U2 are a rock band from Dublin, Ireland. The band consists of Bono (vocals and guitar), The Edge (guitar, keyboards, and vocals), Adam Clayton (bass guitar) and Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums and percussion).
The band formed in 1976 when the members were teenagers with limited musical proficiency. By the mid-1980s, however, the band had become a top international act, noted for their anthemic sound, Bono's impassioned vocals, and The Edge's textural guitar playing. Their success as a live act was greater than their success at selling records until their 1987 album The Joshua Tree[1] increased the band's stature "from heroes to superstars," according to Rolling Stone.[2] U2 responded to the dance and alternative rock revolutions, and their own sense of musical stagnation by reinventing themselves with their 1991 album Achtung Baby and the accompanying Zoo TV Tour. Similar experimentation continued for the rest of the 1990s. Since 2000, U2 have pursued a more traditional sound that retains the influence of their previous musical explorations.
U2 have sold more than 140 million albums worldwide[3] and have won 22 Grammy Awards,[4] more than any other band.[5] In 2005, the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. Rolling Stone magazine listed U2 at #22 in its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.[6] Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and social justice causes, including Amnesty International, the ONE Campaign, and Bono's DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) campaign.
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Formation and early years (1976–1979)
1.2 Boy, October, and War (1980–1983)
1.3 The Unforgettable Fire and Live Aid (1984–1985)
1.4 The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum (1986–1989)
1.5 Achtung Baby, Zoo TV, and Zooropa (1990–1993)
1.6 Passengers, Pop, and PopMart (1995–1998)
1.7 "Reapplying to be the best band in the world" (2000–present)
2 Musical style
2.1 Lyrics and themes
2.2 Influences
3 Campaigning and activism
4 Other projects
5 Discography
6 Awards
7 References
7.1 General
7.2 Notes
8 External links
[edit] History
[edit] Formation and early years (1976–1979)
U2 in 1979: (left to right) Clayton, Mullen, Bono, EdgeThe band formed in Dublin on 25 September 1976.[7] Larry Mullen, Jr., then 14, posted a notice on his secondary school notice board (Mount Temple Comprehensive School) seeking musicians for a new band. Seven teenage boys attended the initial practice in Mullen's kitchen. It was, as Mullen put it, "'The Larry Mullen Band' for about ten minutes, then Bono walked in and blew any chance I had of being in charge." The group featured Mullen on drums, Paul Hewson (Bono) on lead vocals, Dave Evans (The Edge) and his brother Dik Evans on guitar, Adam Clayton, a friend of the Evans brothers on bass guitar, and initially Ivan McCormick and Peter Martin, two other friends of Mullen.[8] Soon after, the group settled on the name "Feedback", because it was one of the few technical terms they knew.[9] Martin did not return after the first practice, and McCormick left the group within a few weeks. Most of the group's material initially consisted of cover versions, which the band said was not their forte.[citation needed] The original material the band did write demonstrated a sound influenced by their post-punk peers.[10]
We couldn't believe it. I was completely shocked. We weren't of an age to go out partying as such but I don't think anyone slept that night....Really, it was just a great affirmation to win that competition, even though I've no idea how good we were or what the competition was really like. But to win at that point was incredibly important for morale and everyone's belief in the whole project.
— The Edge on winning the CBS competition[11]
In March 1977, the band changed their name to "The Hype".[12] Dik Evans, who was older and by this time at college, was becoming the odd man out. The rest of the band was leaning towards the idea of a four-piece ensemble and he was "phased out" in March 1978. During a farewell concert in the Presbyterian Church Hall in Howth, which featured The Hype playing covers, Dik ceremoniously walked offstage. The remaining four band members completed the concert playing original material as "U2".[13] Steve Averill, a punk rock musician and family friend of Clayton's, had suggested six potential names from which the band chose "U2" for its ambiguity and open-ended interpretations, and because it was the name that they disliked the least.[14]
On Saint Patrick's Day in 1978, U2 won a talent show in Limerick, Ireland. The prize consisted of £500 and funding to record a demo, which was an important milestone and affirmation for the fledgling band.[13] The band recorded their first demo tape at Keystone Studios, in Harcourt Street, Dublin, in April 1978.[15] In May, Paul McGuinness, who had earlier been introduced to the band by Hot Press journalist Bill Graham, agreed to be U2's manager.[16] U2's first release, an Ireland-only EP entitled Three, was released in September 1979 and was the band's first Irish chart success.[17] In December 1979, U2 performed in London for their first shows outside Ireland, although they failed to get much attention from audiences or critics.[18] In February 1980, their second single "Another Day" was released on the CBS label, but again only for the Irish market.[19]
[edit] Boy, October, and War (1980–1983)
Island Records signed U2 in March 1980, and "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" became the band's first internationally released single that May.[20] The band's debut album, the Steve Lillywhite produced Boy, followed in October, and received generally positive reviews.[21] Although Bono's lyrics were unfocused and seemingly improvised, a common theme was the dreams and frustrations of adolescence.[22] The album included the band's first United Kingdom hit single, "I Will Follow". Boy's release was followed by U2's first tour of continental Europe and the United States.[23] Despite being unpolished, these early live performances demonstrated U2's potential, as critics noted that Bono was a "charismatic" and "passionate" showman.[24]
The band's second album, October, was released in 1981 and contained overtly spiritual themes. During the album's recording sessions, Bono and The Edge left the band due to spiritual conflicts, and U2 ceased to exist for a brief period of time.[25] Bono, The Edge, and Mullen had joined a Christian group in Dublin called the 'Shalom Fellowship', which led them to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle.[26] The album received mixed reviews and limited radio play. It did not sell well outside of the UK, which put pressure on their contract with Island and focused the band on improvement.[27]
Music sample:
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1983) Image:U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday.ogg
From the album War.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.Resolving the doubts of the October period, U2 released War in 1983.[28] A record where the band "turned pacifism itself into a crusade,"[29] War's sincerity and "rugged" guitar was intentionally at odds with the "cooler" synth-pop of the time.[30] The album included "Sunday Bloody Sunday," where Bono had lyrically tried to contrast the events of Bloody Sunday with Easter Sunday.[31] Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the song showed the band was capable of deep and meaningful songwriting. War was U2's first album to feature the photography of Anton Corbijn, who remains U2's principal photographer and has had a major influence on their vision and public image.[32] U2's first commercial success, War debuted at number one in the UK, and its first single, "New Year's Day", was the band's first hit outside Ireland or the UK.[33]
On the subsequent War Tour, the band performed to sold-out concerts in mainland Europe and the U.S. The image of Bono waving a white flag during performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" became a familiar sight.[34] U2 recorded the Under a Blood Red Sky live album on this tour, as well as the Live at Red Rocks video, both of which received extensive play on the radio and MTV, expanding the band's audience and cementing the band's prowess as a live band.[35] Their generally unfavourable record deal with Island Records was coming to an end, and in 1984 U2 signed a highly lucrative extension. They negotiated the return of their copyrights (such that they owned the rights to their own songs), an increase in their royalty rate, and a general improvement in terms, at the expense of a larger initial payment.[36]
In July 2008 (2008-07), U2 released re-mastered and deluxe versions of Boy, October, and War. [37]
[edit] The Unforgettable Fire and Live Aid (1984–1985)
We knew the world was ready to receive the heirs to The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn't feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling.
— Bono on The Unforgettable Fire's new direction.[38]
The Unforgettable Fire was released in 1984. Ambient and abstract, it was at the time the band’s most marked change in direction.[39] The band feared that following the overt rock of the War album and tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band".[40] Thus, experimentation was sought[41] as Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty."[38] The Edge admired the ambient and "weird works" of Brian Eno, who, along with his engineer Daniel Lanois, eventually agreed to produce the record.[42]
The Unforgettable Fire has a rich and orchestrated sound. Under Lanois' direction, Larry's drumming became looser, funkier, and more subtle and Adam's bass became more subliminal; the rhythm section no longer intruded, but flowed in support of the songs.[43] Complementing the sonic atmospherics, the album's lyrics are open to many interpretations, providing what the band called a "very visual feel".[39] Bono's recent immersion in fiction, philosophy, and poetry made him realise that his songwriting responsibilities—about which he had always been reluctant—were a poetic one. Due to a tight recording schedule, however, Bono felt songs like "Bad" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" were incomplete "sketches".[44] "Pride (In the Name of Love)", about Martin Luther King, was the album's first single and became the band's biggest hit at that point, including being their first to enter the U.S. top 40.[45]
Music sample:
"The Unforgettable Fire" (1984)
Sample of "The Unforgettable Fire" from the album The Unforgettable Fire (1984). Typical of the album, the song has a rich, symphonic sound built from ambient guitar and driving rhythm; a lyrical "sketch".[46]
Problems listening to the file? See media help.Much of The Unforgettable Fire Tour moved into indoor arenas as U2 began to win their long battle to build their audience.[47] The complex textures of the new studio-recorded tracks, such as "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Bad", were problematic to translate to live performance.[39] One solution was programmed sequencers, which the band had previously been reluctant to use, but are now used in the majority of the band's performances.[39] Songs on the album had been criticised as being "unfinished", "fuzzy", and "unfocused", but were better received by critics when played on stage.[48]
U2's performance at Live Aid was a turning point in their career.U2 participated in the Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine relief at Wembley Stadium in July 1985.[49] U2's performance was considered one of the show's most memorable and was a turning point in the band's career.[50] During the song "Bad", Bono leapt down off the stage to embrace and dance with a fan, showing a television audience of millions the personal connection that Bono could make with audiences.[51] In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine called U2 the "Band of the 80s," saying that "for a growing number of rock-and-roll fans, U2 have become the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters."[52]
[edit] The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum (1986–1989)
Motivated by friendships with Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and Keith Richards, the band looked back to the roots of rock music, and Bono focused on his skills as a song and lyric writer.[53] Realising "that U2 had no tradition", the band explored American blues, country, and gospel music.[54] For their fifth album, the band wanted to build on The Unforgettable Fire's atmospherics, but instead of its out-of-focus tracks, they sought a harder-hitting sound within the strict discipline of conventional song structures.[55] U2 interrupted their 1986 album sessions to serve as a headline act on Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope tour, but rather than be a distraction, the tour added extra intensity and power to their new music.[56] In his 1986 travels to San Salvador and Nicaragua, Bono saw the distress of peasants bullied in internal conflicts subject to American political intervention. This first-hand experience later became a central influence on the new music. The band wanted music with a sense of location, a 'cinematic' quality; the album's music and lyrics draw on imagery created by American writers whose works the band had been reading.[57]
The wild beauty, cultural richness, spiritual vacancy and ferocious violence of America are explored to compelling effect in virtually every aspect of The Joshua Tree—in the title and the cover art, the blues and country borrowings evident in the music...Indeed, Bono says that "dismantling the mythology of America" is an important part of The Joshua Tree's artistic objective.
— Rolling Stone[58]
The Joshua Tree[59] was released in March 1987. The album juxtaposes antipathy towards America against the band's deep fascination with the country, its open spaces, freedom, and what it stands for.[60] It became the fastest-selling album in British chart history, and was number one for nine weeks in the United States.[61] It won U2 their first two Grammy Awards.[62] The album's first two singles, the "the rock & roll bolero" "With or Without You"[40] and the rhythmic gospel "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", quickly went to number one in the U.S. U2 became the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time magazine,[63] which declared U2 "Rock's Hottest Ticket".[64] The album brought U2 a new level of success and is cited by Rolling Stone as one of rock's greatest.[65] The Joshua Tree Tour was the first during which the band played numerous stadium shows alongside smaller arena shows.[66]
The documentary Rattle and Hum featured footage recorded from The Joshua Tree Tour, and the accompanying double album of the same name included nine studio tracks and six live U2 performances. Released in record stores and cinemas in October 1988, the album and film were intended as a tribute to American music.[67] The film included tracks recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis and tracks performed with Bob Dylan and B. B. King. Despite a positive reception from fans, Rattle and Hum received mixed reviews from both film and music critics;[68] one Rolling Stone editor spoke of the album's "excitement", another described it as "bombastic and misguided".[69] The film's director, Phil Joanou, described it as "an overly pretentious look at U2".[70] Most of the album's new material was played on 1989's Lovetown Tour, which primarily consisted of shows in Australia and Europe. With a sense of musical stagnation, Bono announced at an end-of-decade concert that U2 had come to the end of an era and had to "...go away and just dream it all up again".[71]
[edit] Achtung Baby, Zoo TV, and Zooropa (1990–1993)
Buzzwords on this record were trashy, throwaway, dark, sexy, and industrial (all good) and earnest, polite, sweet, righteous, rockist and linear (all bad). It was good if a song took you on a journey or made you think your hifi was broken, bad if it reminded you of recording studios or U2...Berlin became a conceptual backdrop for the record. The Berlin of the Thirties—decadent, sexual and dark—resonating against the Berlin of the Nineties—reborn, chaotic and optimistic...
— Brian Eno on the recording of Achtung Baby[72]
In November 1991, U2 released their seventh studio album, Achtung Baby. Stung by criticism of Rattle and Hum, the band made a calculated change in musical and thematic direction, their most dramatic since The Unforgettable Fire.[73] Sonically, Achtung Baby incorporated dance, industrial, and alternative rock influences of the time and the band referred to the album as the sound of "four men chopping down the Joshua Tree".[74] Thematically, it was a more inward-looking and personal record; it was darker, yet at times more flippant, than the band's previous work. Commercially and critically, it has been one of the band's most successful albums and a crucial part of the band's early 1990s reinvention.[75] Like The Joshua Tree, it is cited by Rolling Stone as one of rock's greatest.[65]
The band initially worked on Achtung Baby in East Berlin, seeking inspiration and renewal on the eve of German reunification. Daniel Lanois produced the album with assistance from Brian Eno.[76] In the Berlin sessions, conflict arose within the band over the quality of material and musical direction. While Adam and Larry preferred a sound similar to U2's previous work, Bono and The Edge were inspired by alternative and European dance music and advocated a change. Weeks of slow progress, arguments, and tension subsided when the band rallied around a chord progression The Edge had written, creating the song "One".[77]
Music sample:
"The Fly" (1991)
Sample of "The Fly" – chosen as the first single from Achtung Baby (1991) because its hip-hop beats, distorted vocals, and hard industrial edge sounded nothing like the traditional U2 sound.[78]
Problems listening to the file? See media help.The Zoo TV Tour of 1992–1993 was a multimedia event, and showcased an extravagant but intentionally bewildering array of hundreds of video screens, upside-down flying Trabant cars, mock transmission towers, satellite TV links, subliminal messages, and Bono's over-the-top stage characters such as "The Fly", "Mirror-Ball Man", and "(Mister) MacPhisto". The extravagant shows were intentionally in contrast to the austere staging of previous U2 tours, and mocked the excesses of rock and roll by appearing to embrace these very excesses. The shows were, in part, U2's way to represent the pervasive nature of cable television and its blurring of news, entertainment, and home shopping.[79] Prank phone calls were made to President Bush, the United Nations, and others. Live satellite uplinks to war-torn Sarajevo caused controversy.[80]
The Zoo TV stageQuickly recorded and released during a break in the Zoo TV tour in mid-1993, the Zooropa album continued many of the themes from Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV tour. Initially intended as an EP, the band expanded Zooropa into a full-length LP album. It was an even greater departure from the style of their earlier recordings, incorporating techno influences and other electronic effects.[81] In keeping with this intentional departure from their previous style, Bono stepped down from the mic for the final track on Zooropa, and invited Johnny Cash to perform "The Wanderer".
Most of the songs were played at least once during the 1993 leg of the tour, which extended through Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan; half the album's tracks became fixtures in the set.[82]
[edit] Passengers, Pop, and PopMart (1995–1998)
In 1995, U2 released an experimental album called Original Soundtracks 1. Brian Eno, producer of three previous U2 albums, contributed as a full partner, including writing and performing. For this reason, and due to the record's highly experimental nature, the band chose to release it under the moniker "Passengers" to distinguish it from U2's conventional albums. It was commercially unnoticed by U2 standards and it received generally poor reviews. However, the single "Miss Sarajevo" featuring Luciano Pavarotti, and which Bono cites as one of his favourite U2 songs,[83] was a hit.
The giant screen from the PopMart Tour stageIt's not enough to write a great lyric; it’s not enough to have a good idea or a great hook, lots of things have to come together and then you have to have the ability to discipline and screen. We should give this album to a re-mixer, go back to what was originally intended, so that 'Mofo' is on top of the stickiest groove with a proper plastic attack, 'Do You Feel Loved' is done as a liquid bass line hook that carries the intimacies whispered on top of it, 'If God Will Send His Angels' should be diamonds and pearls.
— Bono on Pop[84]
On 1997's Pop, U2 continued experimenting; Tape loops, programming, rhythm sequencing, and sampling provided much of the album with heavy, funky dance rhythms.[85] Released in March, the album debuted at number one in 35 countries, and drew mainly positive reviews.[86] Rolling Stone, for example, stated that U2 had "defied the odds and made some of the greatest music of their lives."[87] Others felt that the album was a major disappointment and sales were poor compared to previous U2 releases.[88] The band was hurried into completing the album in time for the impending pre-booked tour, and Bono admitted that the album "didn't communicate the way it was intended to".[89]
The subsequent tour, PopMart, commenced in April 1997. Like Zoo TV, it featured advertising influences and was intended to send a sarcastic message to those accusing U2 of commercialism. The stage included a 100-foot (30 m) tall golden yellow arch (reminiscent of the McDonald's logo), a 150-foot (46 m) long video screen, and a 40-foot (12 m) tall mirrorball lemon. U2's "big shtick" failed, however, to satisfy many who were seemingly confused by the band's new kitsch image and elaborate sets.[90] The late delivery of Pop meant rehearsal time was severely reduced, and performances in early shows suffered.[91] A highlight of the tour was a concert in Sarajevo where U2 were the first major group to perform following the Bosnian War.[92] Larry Mullen, Jr. described the concert as "an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life, and if I had to spend 20 years in the band just to play that show, and have done that, I think it would have been worthwhile."[93] One month following the conclusion of the PopMart Tour, U2 appeared on the 200th episode of The Simpsons, "Trash of the Titans," in which Homer Simpson disrupted the band on stage during a PopMart concert.[94]
[edit] "Reapplying to be the best band in the world" (2000–present)
All That You Can't Leave Behind is easy to relate to, full of solid songs that appeal to a wide audience with its clear notions of family, friendship, love, death, and re-birth. More Lanois than Eno on first impression, the sounds on this album come from a band that has digested the music it started to consume while making Rattle and Hum. This time they are neither imitating or paying tribute. This time it's soul music, not music about soul.
— Caroline van Oosten de Boer[41]
Following the comparatively poor reception of Pop, U2 declared on a number of occasions that they were "reapplying for the job ... [of] the best band in the world".[95] Since 2000, the band has pursued a more traditional sound while maintaining influences from their previous musical explorations.[96] All That You Can't Leave Behind was released in October 2000 and reunited the band with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The album was considered by many of those not won over by the band's 1990s experimentation as a return to grace;[97] Rolling Stone called it U2's "third masterpiece" alongside The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.[98] The album debuted at number one in 22 countries[99] and its worldwide hit single, "Beautiful Day" earned three Grammy Awards. The album's other singles, "Walk On", "Elevation", and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" also won Grammy Awards.
U2 perform at Super Bowl XXXVI Halftime Show, 3 February 2002For the Elevation Tour, U2 performed in a scaled-down setting, returning to arenas after nearly a decade of stadium productions. A heart-shaped stage and ramp permitted greater proximity to the audience. Following the September 11 attacks, the new album gained added resonance.[100] In October, U2 performed a series of sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In later interviews, Bono and the Edge called these New York City shows among their most memorable and emotional performances.[101] In early 2002, U2 performed during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI.[102]
The band's next studio album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was released on 22 November 2004. Sonically, the band was looking for harder-hitting rock than All That You Can't Leave Behind. Thematically, Bono states that "A lot of the songs are paeans to naiveté, a rejection of knowingness."[103] The first single, "Vertigo," was featured on a widely-aired television commercial for the Apple iPod, in conjunction with the release of a special edition U2 iPod and an iTunes U2 box set. The album debuted at number one in the U.S. where first week sales doubled that of All That You Can't Leave Behind and set a record for the band.[104] Claiming it as a contender as one of U2's three best albums, Bono said, "There are no weak songs. But as an album, the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts, and it fucking annoys me."[103] Using a similar setup and stage design as the previous tour, the Vertigo Tour featured a set list that varied more across dates than any U2 tour since the Lovetown Tour, and included songs not played since the early 1980s. Like the Elevation Tour, the Vertigo Tour was a commercial success.[105] The album and its singles won Grammy Awards in all eight categories in which U2 were nominated. In 2005, Bruce Springsteen inducted U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[106]
In August 2006, the band transferred some of its operations to The Netherlands two months after Ireland capped its artists' tax exemption at €250,000.[107] Since 2006, the band have been writing and recording new material, initially with Rick Rubin, and more recently with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The band's twelfth album is planned to be released in 2009.[108] The album has been described as "hand-played but it's also electro."[109] Bono has been quoted as saying that the sessions show a real departure from the themes of the last two albums, with "trance influences,"[110] and Lanois has said the album will push the limits of the sound arena much like Achtung Baby years earlier. A 3-D concert film, U2 3D, filmed at nine concerts during the Vertigo Tour, was released on 23 January 2008. On 31 March 2008, it was confirmed that U2 signed a 12 year deal with Live Nation worth an estimated $100 million (£50 million).[111] The deal includes Live Nation controlling the band's merchandise, sponsoring and their official website.
[edit] Musical style
Since their inception, U2 have developed and maintained a distinctly recognisable sound, with emphasis on melodic instrumentals and expressive, larger-than-life vocals.[112] This approach is rooted partly in the early influence of record producer Steve Lillywhite at a time when the band was not known for musical proficiency.[113] The Edge has consistently used a rhythmic echo and a signature delay[114] to craft his guitar work, coupled with an Irish-influenced drone played against his syncopated melodies[115] that ultimately yields a well-defined ambient, chiming sound. Bono has nurtured his falsetto operatic voice[116] and has exhibited a notable lyrical bent towards social, political, and personal subject matter while maintaining a grandiose scale in his songwriting. In addition, the Edge has described U2 as a fundamentally live band.[115]
Despite these broad consistencies, U2 have introduced new elements into their musical repertoire with each new album. U2's early sound was influenced by bands such as Television and Joy Division, and has been described as containing a "sense of exhilaration" that resulted from The Edge's "radiant chords" and Bono's "ardent vocals".[117] U2's sound began with post-punk roots and minimalistic and uncomplicated instrumentals heard on Boy and October, but evolved through War to include aspects of rock anthem, funk, and dance rhythms to become more versatile and aggressive.[118] The two albums were labeled "muscular and assertive" by Rolling Stone,[40] influenced in large part by Lillywhite's producing. The Unforgettable Fire, which began with the Edge playing more keyboards than guitars, as well as follow-up The Joshua Tree, had Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois at the production helm. With their influence, both albums achieved a "diverse texture".[40] The songs from The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum placed more emphasis on Lanois-inspired rhythm as they mixed distinct and varied styles of gospel and blues music, which stemmed from the band's burgeoning fascination with America's culture, people and places. In the 1990s, U2 reinvented themselves as they began using synthesizers, distortion, and electronic beats derived from alternative music, dance music, and hip-hop on Achtung Baby,[119] Zooropa and Pop.[120] The 2000s had U2 returning to a stripped-down sound, with less use of synthesizers and effects and a more traditional rhythm.
[edit] Lyrics and themes
Social and political commentary, often embellished with Christian religious and spiritual imagery,[121] are a major aspect of U2's lyrical content. Songs like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Mothers of the Disappeared" were motivated by current events of the time. The former was written about the troubles in Northern Ireland,[122] while the latter concerns the struggle of mothers whose children were kidnapped and killed under Argentina's military dictatorship that began in 1976.
Bono's personal conflicts and turmoil related to family colour songs like "Mofo", "Tomorrow" and "Kite". An emotional yearning or pleading is another frequent conveyance,[112] in tracks such as "Yahweh",[123] "Peace on Earth", and "Please". The investigation of loss and anguish coupled with hopefulness and resiliency, which is central to The Joshua Tree,[40] has motivated much of U2's songwriting and music. Some of this lyrical ideation has been amplified by Bono and the band's personal experiences during their youth in Ireland, as well as Bono's campaigning and activism later in his life. U2 have used tours such as Zoo TV and PopMart to caricature social trends, such as media overload and consumerism, respectively.[120]
While the band and its fans often affirm the political nature of their music, U2's lyrics and music have been criticized as apolitical because of their vagueness and "fuzzy imagery", and a lack of any specific references to actual people or characters.[124]
[edit] Influences
The band cites The Who,[125] The Clash,[126] Ramones,[127] The Beatles,[128] Joy Division,[129] Siouxsie & the Banshees[130] and Patti Smith[131] as influences. Van Morrison has been cited by Bono as an influence[132] and his influence on U2 is pointed out by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[133] Other musicians and bands such as Snow Patrol,[134] The Fray,[135] OneRepublic,[136] Coldplay,[137] The Academy Is...,[138] The Killers, Your Vegas[139] and Angels & Airwaves[140] have in turn been influenced by the work of U2. Cover versions of U2 songs have been made by performers such as Our Lady Peace, Mary J. Blige, Johnny Cash, The Chimes, Joe Cocker, Pearl Jam, James Blunt, tobyMac, Darlene Zschech, Pet Shop Boys, Ignite, The Smashing Pumpkins, Keane, Pillar, Hikaru Utada, Dream Theater, Sepultura, Saul Williams, The Living End, The Upper Room, Funeral for a Friend and The Bravery. U2 have also worked and/or had influential relationships with artists including Johnny Cash, Green Day, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King, Luciano Pavarotti,[141] Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Wim Wenders, R.E.M., Salman Rushdie, and Anton Corbijn.
[edit] Campaigning and activism
Bono with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of BrazilSince the early 1980s, the members of U2—as a band and individually—have collaborated with other musicians, artists, celebrities, and politicians to address issues concerning poverty, disease, and social injustice.
In 1984, Bono and Adam Clayton participated in Band Aid to raise money for Ethiopian famine relief. The initiative produced the hit charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which would be the first among several collaborations between U2 and Bob Geldof. In July 1985, U2 played Live Aid, a follow-up to Band Aid's efforts. Bono and his wife Ali, invited by World Vision, later visited Ethiopia where they witnessed the famine first hand. Bono would later say this laid the groundwork for his Africa campaigning and some of his songwriting.[142]
In 1986, U2 participated in the A Conspiracy of Hope tour in support of Amnesty International and in Self Aid for unemployment in Ireland. The same year, Bono and Ali Hewson also visited Nicaragua and El Salvador at the invitation of the Sanctuary movement, and saw the effects of the El Salvador Civil War. These 1986 events greatly influenced The Joshua Tree album, which was being recorded at the time.
In 1992, the band participated in the "Stop Sellafield" concert with Greenpeace during their Zoo TV tour.[143] Events in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war inspired the song "Miss Sarajevo", which premiered at a September 1995 Pavarotti and Friends show, and which Bono and the Edge performed at War Child.[144] A promise made in 1993 was kept when the band played in Sarajevo as part of 1997's PopMart Tour.[145] In 1998, they performed in Belfast days prior to the vote on the Good Friday Agreement, bringing Irish political leaders David Trimble and John Hume on stage to promote the agreement.[146] Later that year, all proceeds from the release of the "Sweetest Thing" single went towards supporting the Chernobyl Children's Project.
In 2001, the band dedicated "Walk On" to Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.[147] In late 2003, Bono and the Edge participated in the South Africa HIV/AIDS awareness 46664 series of concerts hosted by Nelson Mandela. The band played 2005's Live 8 concert in London. The band and manager Paul McGuinness were awarded Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for their work in promoting human rights.[148]
Since 2000, Bono's campaigning has included Jubilee 2000 with Bob Geldof, Muhammad Ali, and others to promote the cancellation of third world debt during the Great Jubilee. In January 2002, Bono co-founded the multinational NGO, DATA, with the aim of improving the social, political, and financial state of Africa. He continued his campaigns for debt and HIV/AIDS relief into June 2002 by making high-profile visits to Africa.[149]
Product Red, a 2006 for-profit brand seeking to raise money for the Global Fund, was founded, in part, by Bono. The ONE Campaign, the US counterpart of Make Poverty History, has been shaped by his efforts and vision. Bono has also teamed up with Yahoo! to promote the ONE Campaign, which Yahoo! has helped to re-develop.
In late 2005, following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, The Edge helped introduce Music Rising, an initiative to raise funds for musicians who lost their instruments in the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.[150] In 2006, U2 collaborated with punk rock band Green Day to record a cover version of the song "The Saints Are Coming" by The Skids to benefit Music Rising.[151]
U2 and Bono's social activism have not been without its critics however. Several authors and activists who publish in politically left journals such as CounterPunch have decried Bono's support of political figures such as Paul Wolfowitz,[152] as well as his "essential paternalism".[153] Other news sources have more generally questioned the efficacy of Bono's campaign to relieve debt and provide assistance to Africa, with 20/20 declaring that "foreign aid often just makes politicians rich—but leaves their people poor".[154]
[edit] Other projects
The members of U2 have undertaken a number of side projects, sometimes in collaboration with some of their bandmates. In 1985, Bono recorded the song "In a Lifetime" with the Irish band Clannad. The Edge recorded a solo soundtrack album for the film Captive in 1986,[155] which included a vocal performance by Sinéad O'Connor that predates her own debut album by a year. Bono and The Edge wrote the song "She's A Mystery To Me" for Roy Orbison, which was featured on his 1989 album Mystery Girl.[156] In 1990, Larry Mullen co-wrote and produced a song for the Irish International soccer team in Italia '90, called "Put 'Em Under Pressure", which topped the Irish charts. Together with The Edge, Bono wrote the song "Goldeneye" for the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, which was performed by Tina Turner.[157] Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. did a rework of the title track of the movie Mission: Impossible in 1996.[158] Bono loaned his voice to "Joy" on Mick Jagger's 2001 album Goddess in the Doorway.[159] Bono also recorded a spare, nearly spoken-word version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" for the "Tower of Song" compilation in 1995.
Aside from musical collaborations, U2 have worked with several authors. American author William S. Burroughs had a guest appearance in U2's video for "Last Night on Earth" shortly before he died.[160] His poem "A Thanksgiving Prayer" was used as video footage during the band's Zoo TV Tour. Other collaborators include William Gibson and Allen Ginsberg.[161] In early 2000, the band recorded three songs for the The Million Dollar Hotel movie soundtrack, including "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," which was co-written by Salman Rushdie and motivated by his book of the same name.[162
Sir James Paul McCartney MBE (born 18 June 1942) is a multiple Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record producer, film producer, painter, and animal rights activist. He 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 music in rock and roll history.[1] After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman McCartney, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. He has worked on film scores and classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and taken part in projects to help international charities.
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.[2] His song "Yesterday" is listed as the most covered song in history—by over 3,700 artists so far—and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single.[3] (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so, in 1984, was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?", whose participants included McCartney.) According to britishhitsongwriters.com he is the most successful songwriter in U.K. singles chart history, based on weeks that his compositions have spent on the chart.[4]
His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs,[5] including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is also an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt.
Contents [hide]
1 Childhood
2 Musical career
2.1 Before The Beatles
2.2 The Beatles
2.3 After The Beatles
3 Creative outlets
3.1 Electronic music
3.2 Film
3.3 Painting
3.4 Writing and poetry
4 Contact with fellow ex-Beatles
4.1 John Lennon
4.1.1 Reaction to Lennon's murder
4.2 George Harrison
5 Relationships and marriages
5.1 Relationship with Dot Rhone
5.2 Relationship with Jane Asher
5.3 Marriage to Linda Eastman
5.4 Marriage to Heather Mills
5.5 Relationship with Nancy Shevell
6 Lifestyle
6.1 Recreational drug use
6.2 Meditation
6.3 Activism
6.4 Football
7 Business
8 Critique, recognition and achievements
9 Discography
10 Notes
11 References
12 External links
[edit] Childhood
Main article: Jim and Mary McCartney
Paul McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mahon), had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward.[6] He has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944.[7] McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic, and his father, James "Jim" McCartney, was a Protestant turned agnostic.[7]
In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary school. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School, and passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees and thus gained admission to the Liverpool Institute.[8] In 1954, while riding on the bus to the Institute, he met George Harrison, who lived nearby.[9] Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison did not have to go to a secondary modern school, which most pupils attended until they were eligible to work. It also meant that Grammar school pupils had to find new friends.[10]
20 Forthlin Road now attracts large numbers of touristsIn 1955 the McCartney family moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton.[11] Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily.[12] On 31 October 1956, Mary McCartney (who was a heavy smoker) died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.[13] The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, died after being struck by a car when Lennon was 17.[14]
McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s. He encouraged his two sons to be musical.[15] Jim had an upright piano in the front room that he had bought from Brian Epstein's store, and McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.[16][17] Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts.[17] After the death of his wife, Mary, Jim McCartney gave McCartney a nickel-plated trumpet, but when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar.[18][19]
McCartney, being left-handed, found the Zenith difficult to play. He then saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, and realised that Whitman played left-handed, with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player.[19][20] McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon.[21] He later started playing piano and wrote "When I'm Sixty-Four".[22] On his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn 'by ear' he never paid attention in them.[22]
[edit] Musical career
Main article: Paul McCartney's musical career
[edit] Before The Beatles
At the age of fifteen, McCartney met John Lennon and The Quarrymen at the Woolton (St. Peter's church hall) fête on 6 July 1957.[23] McCartney formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated on many songs. Harrison joined the group as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe, on bass.[24][25] By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "The Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They finally changed the name of the group to The Beatles.[26][27]
[edit] The Beatles
Starting in May 1960, The Beatles were managed by Allan Williams, who booked them to perform at a club in Hamburg.[28] For the next two years, The Beatles remained in Hamburg for much of the time, performing as a resident group in Hamburg clubs. During their two-year Hamburg residency, The Beatles returned to Liverpool from time to time, performing at the Cavern club. Prior to the end of the Hamburg residency, Sutcliffe left the band, so McCartney, reluctantly, became The Beatles' bass player.[29] In Hamburg, The Beatles recorded their first published musical material, the single "My Bonnie", performing as the backing group for Tony Sheridan.[30] "My Bonnie" later brought The Beatles to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager after Allan Williams.[31] Epstein negotiated a record contract with Parlophone in May 1962.[32] The Beatles became popular in the UK in 1963 and in the U.S. in 1964. In 1965, The Beatles were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).[33] After performing concerts and tours almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than one thousand four hundred live performances internationally,[34] The Beatles gave their last commercial concert at the end of their 1966 U.S. tour.[35] The Beatles continued to work in the recording studio from 1966 until their breakup in 1970, releasing, in the eight years from 1962 to 1970, twenty-four UK singles and twelve studio albums, along with further U.S. releases (see discography).
[edit] After The Beatles
After the breakup of The Beatles, McCartney continued his musical career, in solo work as well as in collaborations with other musicians. After releasing the solo album McCartney in 1970, he worked with Linda McCartney to record the album Ram in 1971. Later the same year, the pair were joined by guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, which was active between 1971 and 1981 and released numerous successful singles and albums (see discography). McCartney also collaborated with a number of other popular artists including Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eric Stewart, and Elvis Costello. In 1985, McCartney played "Let It Be" at the Live Aid concert in London, backed by Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, and Alison Moyet. The 1990s saw McCartney venture into orchestral music, and in 1991 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by McCartney to celebrate its sesquicentennial.[36] McCartney collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio;[37] involving the opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess,[38] Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral.[39] The Prince of Wales later honoured McCartney as a Fellow of The Royal College of Music.[40] Other forays into classical music included Standing Stone (1997), Working Classical (1999), and "Ecce Cor Meum" (2006). It was announced in the 1997 New Year Honours that McCartney was to be knighted for services to music,[41] becoming Sir Paul McCartney.[42] In 1999, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. In May 2000, he was given a Fellowship by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
The 1990s also saw McCartney, Harrison and Starr working together on Apple's The Beatles Anthology documentary series.
McCartney, who witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac,[43] took a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City in response.[44]
On the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.[45]
McCartney has continued to work in the realms of popular and classical music, touring the world and performing at a large number of concerts and events, and on more than one occasion he has performed again with Ringo Starr. In 2008, he received a BRIT award for outstanding contribution[46] and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University.[47] The same year, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture.[48] In 2009, McCartney received two nominations for the 51st annual Grammy awards.
[edit] Creative outlets
During the '60s, McCartney was often seen at major cultural events, such as the launch party for The International Times, and at The Roundhouse (28 January and 4 February 1967).[49] He also delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists. McCartney later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at the Indica.[50][51] The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, The International Times, McCartney helped to start.[52] Miles would become de facto manager of the Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label, and wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1998).
While living at the Asher house, McCartney took piano lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which The Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended. McCartney studied composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.[53] McCartney later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, besides writing poetry and painting. McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys.[54] The 1837 building, which McCartney attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s.[54] On 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.[54]
[edit] Electronic music
After the recording of "Yesterday" in 1965, McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale, London, to see if they could record an electronic version of the song, but never followed it up.[55] When visiting John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would take along tapes he had compiled at Jane Asher's house.[56] The tapes were mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that he had Dick James make into a demo record for him.[57] He later made tape loops by recording voices, guitars and bongoes on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted (which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows"). McCartney referred to them as electronic symphonies and was heavily influenced by John Cage at the time.[58]
In the spring of 1966, while McCartney was part of a small group that included figureheads John Dunbar and (Barry) Miles, involved with giving birth to the Indica Gallery and the newspaper International Times, he rented a ground floor and basement flat from Ringo Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small demo studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.[59] The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with (Barry) Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic (although few releases would ultimately result as Apple and The Beatles slid into subsequent business and personal difficulties).[59]
In 1995, McCartney recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu"[60][61] for the American network Westwood One, which McCartney described as being "wide-screen radio".[62][63] During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the name of the Fireman,[64] and released two ambient electronic albums: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998). In 2000, he released an album titled Liverpool Sound Collage[65] with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilizing collage and musique concrete techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s. In 2005, he worked on a project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career and released under the name Twin Freaks.[66] The Fireman's third album Electric Arguments was released on November 25, 2008.[67] The album is available on the duo's website.
In January 2009 interview with L.A. Weekly newspaper, McCartney explained what he sees as the most significant difference between the music he creates as The Fireman and the rest of his catalogue. "Fireman is improvisational theatre," McCartney said. "When I sit down to write a song, it’s a kind of improvisation, but I formalise it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do. I usually have a song, and I know the melody and lyrics, and my performance is the only unknown. In this case, I had neither lyrics nor melody to go on — and it felt great."[68]
[edit] Film
McCartney was interested in animated films as a child, and later had the financial resources to ask Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song, in 1981. McCartney wrote the music and the script, was the producer, and added some of the characters voices.[69] McCartney wrote and starred in the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street. The film and soundtrack featured the US and UK Top 10 hit[70] "No More Lonely Nights", and the album reached #1 in the UK, but the film did not do well commercially[71] or critically. Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "You can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track".[72] Dunbar worked again with McCartney on an animated film about the work of French artist Honore Daumier, in 1992, which won both of them a Bafta award.[73] They also worked on Tropic Island Hum, in 1997.[74] In 1995, McCartney directed a short documentary about The Grateful Dead.[75][76] He is rumored to be doing the voice of the fantasy character Rumpelstiltskin in the fourth Shrek movie, and maybe having a hand in writing music for the soundtrack.[77]
In May 2000, McCartney released Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes films and photographs that Paul and Linda McCartney (who had died in 1998) took of their family and bands.[78] Interspersed throughout the 88 minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, McCartney, and was one of the producers of the documentary.[79]
[edit] Painting
In 1966, McCartney met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists.[80] McCartney met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton there, and learned about art appreciation.[80] McCartney later started buying paintings by Magritte, and used Magritte's painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo.[81] He now owns Magritte's easel and spectacles.[82]
McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island barn.[83] McCartney took up painting in 1983.[84] In 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries.[85] The first UK exhibition of McCartney's work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 500 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint" - as Lennon had.[85]
In October 2000, Yoko Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."[86][87]
As an artist, Paul McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post on 1 July 2002. According to BBC News, McCartney seems to be the first major rock star in the world who is also known as a stamp designer.[88]
[edit] Writing and poetry
McCartney's English teacher, Alan Durband, in 1946When McCartney was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. McCartney's father was interested in crosswords and invited the two young McCartneys (Paul and his brother Michael) to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power".[89] McCartney was later inspired - in his school years - by Alan Durband, who was McCartney's English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute.[90] Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works.[91] McCartney later took his A-level exams, but passed only one subject - Art.[92][93]
In 2001 McCartney published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems, some of which were lyrics to his songs, and gave readings in Liverpool and New York.[94] Some of them were serious: "Here Today" (about Lennon) and some humorous ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer").[95] In the foreword of the book, McCartney explained that when he was a teenager, he had "an overwhelming desire" to have a poem of his published in the school magazine. He wrote something "deep and meaningful", but it was rejected, and he feels that he has been trying to get some kind of revenge ever since. His first "real poem" was about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.[96]
In October 2005, McCartney released a children's book called High In The Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail. In a press release publicizing the book, McCartney said, "I have loved reading for as long as I can remember," singling out Treasure Island as a childhood favourite.[97] McCartney collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write the book.[98]
[edit] Contact with fellow ex-Beatles
This section is about social and other general interactions. For creative collaborations, see Collaborations between fellow ex-Beatles.
[edit] John Lennon
Although McCartney's relationship with Lennon was troubled, they reconciled during the 1970s.[99] McCartney would often call Lennon, but was never sure of what sort of reception he would get,[100] such as when McCartney once called Lennon and was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!"[100] McCartney understood that he could not just phone Lennon and only talk about business, so they often talked about cats, baking bread, or babies.[101] According to May Pang, during Lennon's "Lost Weekend" with her he announced plans to surprise McCartney in New Orleans and record songs; however, soon afterward he rejoined Ono in New York City and abandoned the idea.[citation needed]
In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that the last time he had seen McCartney was when they had watched the episode of Saturday Night Live (May 1976) in which Lorne Michaels had made his $3,000 cash offer[102] to get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to reunite on the show.[103] McCartney and Lennon had seriously considered going to the studio, but were too tired.[104] This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us.
[edit] Reaction to Lennon's murder
On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in the Dakota building in New York.[105] Lennon's death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles.[106] On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death. He replied, "I was very shocked, you know—this is terrible news," and said that he had spent the day in the studio listening to some material because he "just didn't want to sit at home."[107] When asked why, he replied, "I didn't feel like it." He was then asked when he first heard the news, McCartney replied "This morning sometime," and one of the reporters asked "Very early?" McCartney said "yeah" and then asked the reporters if they all knew, they added "yeah." McCartney then said, "It's a drag, isn't it?"[108] When published, his "drag" remark was criticised, and McCartney later regretted it. He furthermore stated that he had intended no disrespect but had just been at a loss for words, after the shock and sadness he felt over his friend's murder.[109] He was also to recall:
“ I talked to Yoko the day after he was killed and the first thing she said was, "John was really fond of you." The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, "It's only me." They were like a wall, you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure.[110] ”
In 1983 McCartney said:
“ I would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his "mask" and have a better relationship with him.'[110] ”
In a Playboy interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—while sitting with all his children—and cried all evening. His last telephone call to Lennon, which was just before Lennon and Yoko released Double Fantasy, was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!"[111] which referred to Lennon's "house-husband" years, while looking after Sean Lennon.[107]
McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered.[109][112] This led to a disagreement with Denny Laine, who wanted to continue touring and subsequently left Wings, which McCartney disbanded in 1981.[112][113] Also in 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, "All Those Years Ago," which also featured Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney would go on to record "Here Today", a tribute song to Lennon.
[edit] George Harrison
In late 2001, McCartney learned that his former classmate, neighbour and bandmate, and best friend of over 45 years, George Harrison, was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on 29 November, McCartney told Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, Good Morning America, The Early Show, MTV, VH-1 and Today that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney.[114] On 29 November 2002, the first anniversary of George Harrison's death, McCartney played Harrison’s "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.[115]
[edit] Relationships and marriages
One of McCartney's first girlfriends was called Layla, whom McCartney remembered as having an unusual name in Liverpool at the time.[116] Layla was slightly older than McCartney and used to ask him to baby-sit with her, which was a code word for sex. Julie Arthur, another girlfriend, was Ted Ray's niece.[116]
McCartney had a three-year relationship with Dot Rhone in Liverpool, and they were due to get married until Rhone lost the baby she was expecting. In London McCartney had a five-year relationship with actress Jane Asher. They were engaged to be married until they broke up in 1968. McCartney married American photographer Linda Eastman in 1969 (McCartney was the last Beatle to get married). They had four children (Linda's daughter Heather who was adopted by Paul, followed by three more children) and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998. In 2002, McCartney married former model Heather Mills and they had a child, Beatrice, in 2003. They separated in May 2006 and were divorced in May 2008.[117] Widespread animosity towards McCartney's wives was reported in 2004. "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher," McCartney said. "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."[118]
[edit] Relationship with Dot Rhone
McCartney and Dot Rhone on 17 March 1962, in LiverpoolMcCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.[119] McCartney picked out the clothes he wanted Rhone to wear and told her which make-up to use, and also paid for Rhone to have her blonde hair done in the style of Brigitte Bardot, whom Lennon and McCartney idolised.[120][121] When McCartney went to Hamburg with The Beatles he wrote regular letters to Rhone, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when The Beatles played there again in 1962.[122] According to Rhone, McCartney bought her a gold ring in Hamburg, took her sightseeing and was very attentive and caring.[123] Rhone later rented a room in the same house as Cynthia Lennon was living as McCartney helped with the rent.[124] McCartney admitted that he had other girlfriends in Hamburg during his time with Rhone, who were usually "strippers," who knew a lot more about sex than Liverpool girls.[125]
Shortly after McCartney returned from Hamburg in May 1962, Rhone told him that she was pregnant. They told Jim McCartney—whom they expected to be shocked at the news—but found him delighted at the prospect of becoming a grandfather. McCartney took out a marriage licence and set the wedding date for November; shortly before the baby was due.[126] Rhone had a miscarriage in July 1962, and after a few weeks, McCartney's feelings towards Rhone "cooled off" and he finished their relationship.[127]
Rhone later emigrated to Toronto, Canada, and McCartney met her again when The Beatles played there, and then again with Wings. Rhone said that "Love of the Loved" and "P.S. I Love You" were written about her. Years later, Cynthia Lennon gave back Rhone the gold ring that McCartney had bought in Hamburg, as Cynthia had once tried it on when Rhone was washing dishes, and had forgotten to take it off. Rhone is now a grandmother and lives in Mississauga, Ontario.[128]
[edit] Relationship with Jane Asher
Main article: Jane Asher
Asher during filming of the Maestro TV series in 2008The Beatles were performing at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, when McCartney first met British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, and a photographer asked them to pose with Asher.[129] The Beatles were interviewed by Asher for the BBC, and Asher was then photographed screaming at them like a fan. McCartney later persuaded her to become his girlfriend.[130]
McCartney soon met Jane's family: Margaret, Jane's mother, who combined her life as the mother of three children with a full-time career as a music teacher, and Jane's father, Richard, who was a physician. Jane's brother, Peter, was a member of Peter and Gordon, and Jane's younger sister, Clare, was also an actress.[131] McCartney later gave "A World Without Love" to Peter and Gordon-as well as the song "Nobody I Know". Both songs became hits for the group.[132] McCartney took up residence at the Ashers' house at 57 Wimpole Street, London, and lived there for nearly three years.[133] During his time there McCartney met writers such as Bertrand Russell, Harold Pinter and Len Deighton.[134] He wrote several songs at the Ashers', including "Yesterday", and worked on songs with Lennon in the basement music room. Jane inspired many songs, such as "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me", and "I'm Looking Through You".[135] On 13 April 1965, McCartney bought a £40,000 three-storey Regency house, at 7 Cavendish Avenue, St. John's Wood, London, and spent a further £20,000 renovating it. McCartney created a music room on the top floor of his house, where he worked with Lennon. He thanked the Ashers by paying for the decoration of the front of their house.[136]
On 15 May 1967, McCartney met American photographer Linda Eastman at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club in London.[78][137] Eastman was in the UK on an assignment to take photographs of "Swinging sixties" musicians in London. McCartney and Linda later went to The Speakeasy club on Margaret Street.[138] They met again four days later at the launch party for the Sgt. Pepper album at Epstein's house in Belgravia, but when her assignment was completed, Linda flew back to New York City.[139]
On 25 December 1967, McCartney and Asher announced their engagement, and she accompanied McCartney to India in February and March 1968. Asher broke off the engagement in early 1968, after coming back from Bristol to find McCartney in bed with another woman, Francie Schwartz.[140][141] They attempted to mend the relationship, but finally broke it off in July 1968. Asher has consistently refused to publicly discuss that part of her life.[142]
[edit] Marriage to Linda Eastman
Main articles: Linda McCartney, Heather McCartney, Mary McCartney, Stella McCartney, and James McCartney
Linda and McCartney in 1976In May 1968, McCartney met Eastman again in New York, when Lennon and McCartney were there to announce the formation of Apple Corps.[143] In September, McCartney phoned Eastman and asked her to fly over to London. Six months later, McCartney and Eastman were married at a small civil ceremony (when Linda was four months pregnant with McCartney's child) at Marylebone Registry Office on 12 March 1969. He later said that Eastman was the woman who "gave me the strength and courage to work again" (after the break-up of The Beatles).[144] McCartney adopted Linda's daughter from her first marriage, Heather Louise (now a potter), and the couple had three more children together: photographer Mary Anna, fashion designer Stella Nina,[145] and musician James Louis. McCartney has claimed that he and Linda spent less than a week apart during their entire marriage, interrupted only by Paul's incarceration in Tokyo on drug charges in January 1980.
Linda McCartney died of breast cancer in Tucson, Arizona, on 17 April 1998.[146] McCartney denied rumours that her death was an assisted suicide.[146][147] McCartney now has six grandchildren: Mary's three sons Arthur Alistair Donald (born 3 April 1999), Elliot Donald (born 1 August 2002), and Sam Aboud (born 11 August 2008), and Stella's children, Miller Alasdhair James Willis (born 25 February 2005),[148] daughter Bailey Linda Olwyn Willis (born 8 December 2006),[149] and Beckett Robert Lee Willis (born 8 January 2008).
[edit] Marriage to Heather Mills
Main article: Heather Mills
A Heather McCartney photograph for the charity organisation PETAAfter having sparked the interest of the tabloids about his appearances with Heather Mills at events, McCartney appeared publicly beside Mills at a party in January 2000, to celebrate her 32nd birthday.[150][151] On 11 June 2002, McCartney married Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner, in an elaborate ceremony at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, County Monaghan, Ireland, where more than 300 guests were invited and the reception included a vegetarian banquet.[152] In 28 October 2003, Mills gave birth to a daughter, Beatrice Milly McCartney.[153] The baby was reportedly named after Heather's late mother Beatrice and Paul's Aunt Milly.[154]
On 29 July 2006, British newspapers announced that McCartney had petitioned for divorce, which sparked a media furore.[155][156][157] A settlement was announced on 21 January 2007, but Mills' lawyers denied this.[158] On 17 March 2008, the financial terms of the divorce were finalised[159] with a settlement awarding Heather Mills £24.3 million ($38.5 million).[160] The settlement will also see the former Beatle pay their four-year-old daughter Beatrice's nanny and school fees and will pay Beatrice £35,000 ($70,000) a year until she is 17, or ends secondary education.[160][161][162][163] Mills's reaction to the Court's decision was to throw a glass of water at McCartney's lawyer, Fiona Shackleton. [164] After the divorce ruling, Justice Bennett said that throughout the case Mills was "inconsistent, inaccurate and less than candid" while McCartney was "honest."[165][166] On 12 May 2008, Justice Hugh Bennett issued only a preliminary divorce decree to be finalized in 6 months: "On the petition for divorce presented by Miss Heather Mills, I pronounce the decree nisi of divorce on the grounds of two years' separation."[167][168]
[edit] Relationship with Nancy Shevell
McCartney has been dating Nancy Shevell since November, 2007.[169] She is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which includes New England Motor Freight.[170]
[edit] Lifestyle
[edit] Recreational drug use
McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany.[171] The Beatles had to play for hours, and they were often given "Prellies" (Preludin) by German customers or by Astrid Kirchherr (whose mother bought them). McCartney would usually take one, but Lennon would often take four or five.[172]
McCartney recollects getting 'very high' and giggling when introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York in 1964.[173] McCartney's use of cannabis became regular, and he was quoted in the Barry Miles book as saying that any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis-as was "Got to Get You into My Life".[174] John Dunbar's flat at 29 Lennox Gardens, in London, became a regular hang-out for McCartney, where he talked to musicians, writers and artists, and smoked cannabis.[57] In 1965, Miles introduced McCartney to hash brownies by using a recipe for hash fudge he found in the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.[175] During the filming of Help!, he and the other Beatles occasionally smoked a spliff in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made them forget their lines.[176] Help! director Dick Lester said that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into taking heroin, but he refused.[176]
McCartney called for the legalization of Cannabis in 1967McCartney's attitude about cannabis was made public in the 1960s, when he added his name to an advertisement in The Times, on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, fifteen doctors, and two MPs.[177]
McCartney was introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, and it was available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[178][179] He admitted that he used the drug multiple times for about a year but stopped because of the unpleasant come down.[180]
In 1967, on a sailing trip to Greece—with the idea of buying an island for the whole group—McCartney said everybody sat around and took LSD, although McCartney first took it with Tara Browne, in 1966.[181][182][183] He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a studio session.[184] McCartney was the first British pop star openly to admit to using LSD, in an interview in the now-defunct "Queen" magazine.[185] His admission was followed by a TV interview in the UK on Independent Television News on 19 June 1967, when McCartney was asked about his admission of LSD use, he said:
“ I was asked a question by a newspaper, and the decision was whether to tell a lie or tell him the truth. I decided to tell him the truth ... but I really didn't want to say anything, you know, because if I had my way I wouldn't have told anyone. I'm not trying to spread the word about this. But the man from the newspaper is the man from the mass medium. I'll keep it a personal thing if he does too, you know ... if he keeps it quiet. But he wanted to spread it so it's his responsibility, you know, for spreading it, not mine. ”
In spite of his statements then, and his admission (in 2004) that he had used cocaine, McCartney was not arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as had been Lennon, Harrison, Donovan, and several members of the Rolling Stones.[180] In 1972, however, police found cannabis plants growing on his Scottish farm.[186]
On 16 January 1980, Wings went to Tokyo for 11 concerts in Japan.[187] As McCartney was going through customs, officials found 7.7 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage.[187] He was arrested and taken to a Tokyo prison while the Japanese government decided what to do. McCartney had been previously denied a visa to Japan (in 1975) because he had been convicted twice in Europe for possession of cannabis.[180] Public figures called for McCartney to be put on trial for drug-smuggling. Had he been convicted, he would have faced up to seven years in prison.[187] The members of Wings cancelled the tour and left Japan. After ten days in jail, McCartney was released and deported. He was told that he would not be welcome in Japan again, although a decade later he played a concert in Tokyo.[187] In 1984, Paul and Linda McCartney were both arrested for possession of cannabis.[188][189]
[edit] Meditation
On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference.[190] McCartney said that although he does not meditate daily, he still uses the mantra that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave him in Bangor.[191] The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as practically all of the songs that would later be recorded for The White Album and Abbey Road were composed there by McCartney, Lennon, or both together.[192] Although McCartney was told that he was never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he did tell Linda McCartney,[193] and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan.[191]
[edit] Activism
McCartney in an advertisement for PETA's Go Veggie! campaign, 2008.[194]Paul and Linda McCartney became outspoken vegetarians and animal-rights activists. They said that their vegetarianism was realised when they happened to see lambs in a field as they ate a meal of lamb.[195] McCartney has also credited the 1942 Disney film Bambi - in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter - as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights.[196] In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights.[197][198]
In 1999, McCartney spent £3,000,000 to make sure Linda McCartney's food range remains free of GM ingredients.[199] In 2002, McCartney gave his support to a campaign against a proposed ban on the sale of certain vitamins, herbs and mineral products in the European Union.[200] Following his marriage to Heather Mills, McCartney joined with her to campaign against landmines;[201][202] both McCartney and Mills are patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield.[203] In 2003, he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollars to the charity.[204] He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt on the Back in the World tour.[203]
McCartney’s campaign against landmines.In 2006, the McCartneys traveled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt (their final public appearance together). Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance.[205] The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show Larry King Live. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business.[206] McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade,[207][208] and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.[209]
McCartney has been involved with a number of charity recordings and performances. In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi,[210] and he had previously been involved in the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (released 8 May 1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.[211][212]
In a December 2008 interview with Prospect Magazine, McCartney mentioned that he tried to convince the Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian. In a letter to the Dalai Lama, McCartney took issue with Buddhism and meat-eating being considered mutually exclusive, saying, "Forgive me for pointing this out, but if you eat animals then there is some suffering somewhere along the line.” The Dalai Lama replied to McCartney by saying his doctors advised him to eat meat for health reasons. In the interview McCartney said, “I wrote back saying they were wrong."[213]
McCartney has claimed that it was he, and not Lennon, who made The Beatles aware of political issues, such as the war in Vietnam. During a meeting with Bertrand Russell in the mid-1960s, Russell told McCartney about America’s increasing role in Vietnam. McCartney then went to a Beatles recording session, and told "the guys, particularly John [Lennon], about this meeting and saying what a bad war this was". Tariq Ali (leader of the International Marxist Group at the time) commented: "This is news to me. We never heard of Paul’s views at the time. It was John Lennon who was concerned about the war. He never mentioned McCartney and I never thought of asking him to join us."[214] McCartney went on to say that he has handed over the political "megaphone" to musicians such as Bob Geldof and Bono.[214]
[edit] Football
The Beatles were advised by Epstein to make no comments about the football clubs they supported, in case they alienated fans of the group, although McCartney was known as a supporter of Everton Football Club, because his father and relatives used to take him to matches.[215][216] His allegiance later encompassed Liverpool F.C..[217][218] Linda McCartney later said: "We spent last night listening to Liverpool football team on the radio, wanting them to win so badly. Paul supports Everton..[219][220]
Lennon and McCartney were present to watch the 1966 FA Cup Final at Wembley, between Everton and Sheffield Wednesday, and McCartney attended the 1968 FA Cup Final (18 May 1968) which was played by West Bromwich Albion against Everton.[221] After the end of the match, McCartney shared cigarettes and whisky with other football fans.[220] The ex-Liverpool player, Albert Stubbins, was the only footballer shown on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover.[216] On 28 July 1968, The Beatles were photographed in a photographer's studio at 192-212 Gray's Inn Road, with McCartney wearing a Liverpool F.C. rosette on two photos.[222]
McCartney tried to listen (on a radio) to the Liverpool v Manchester United 1977 FA Cup Final, while sailing in the Caribbean,[216] and the video for McCartney's Pipes of Peace (in 1983) recreated the 1915 football game played between German and British troops during World War I, at Christmas.[223][224] At the end of the live version of Coming Up recorded in Glasgow in 1979 (later to become a US number one single) the crowd begins to sing "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes the chant to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to the current Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player who played for Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex, in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish”, to which Linda added: "I like Gordon McQueen of Man United", and Smith replied, "I know him too."[225]
McCartney was seen at the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton,[220] and in 1989, McCartney contributed to the "Ferry Cross the Mersey" charity single that was recorded to aid victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, which happened during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.[226] McCartney played at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium on 1 June 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year.[227] Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on Band On the Run, and played drums on Back in the USSR.[228] Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.[229][230][231]
[edit] Business
Main articles: Apple Corps, Northern Songs, and MPL Communications
McCartney is today one of Britain's wealthiest men, with an estimated fortune of £824 million ($1.3 billion),[232] although Justice Bennett, in his judgment on McCartney's divorce case found no evidence that McCartney was worth more than £400 million.[233] In addition to his interest in Apple Corps, McCartney's MPL Communications owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights.[234][235] McCartney earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner.[236] This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.[237] In the same year he joined the top American talent agency Grabow Associates, who arrange private performances for their richest clients.[238] Northern Songs was established in 1963, by Dick James, to publish the songs of Lennon/McCartney.[239] The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a jointly held company, Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests. Northern Songs was purchased by Associated TeleVision (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to Michael Jackson. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.[240]
MPL Communications is an umbrella company for McCartney's business interests, which owns a wide range of copyrights,[241] as well as the publishing rights to musicals,[242] and controls 25 subsidiary companies.[243] In 2006, the Trademarks Registry reported that MPL had started a process to secure the protections associated with registering the name "Paul McCartney" as a trademark.[244] The 2005 films, Brokeback Mountain[245] and Good Night and Good Luck, feature MPL copyrights.[246]
In April 2009, it was revealed that McCartney, in common with other wealthy musicians, had seen a significant decline in his net worth over the preceding year. It was estimated that his fortune had fallen by some £60m, from £238m to £175m.[247] The losses were attributed to the ongoing global recession, and the resultant decline in value of property and stock market holdings.[247]
[edit] Critique, recognition and achievements
Main article: List of awards received by Paul McCartney
McCartney is listed in The Guinness Book Of Records as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history,[248][249][250] with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold discs.[251] McCartney has achieved twenty-nine number-one singles in the U.S., twenty of them with The Beatles, the rest with Wings and as a solo artist.[248] McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles in the United Kingdom than any other artist under a variety of credits, although Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has achieved 24 number-ones in the U.K.: solo (1), Wings (1), with Stevie Wonder (1), Ferry Aid (1), Band Aid (1), Band Aid 20 (1) and The Beatles (17).[252] McCartney is the only artist to reach the U.K. number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder), trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", The Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", The Beatles with Billy Preston) and as part of an ensemble for charity ("Let It Be" with Ferry Aid)[citation needed]. McCartney's song "Yesterday" is the most covered song in history with more than 3,500 recorded versions[253] and has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American TV and radio, for which McCartney was given an award.[254] After its 1977 release the Wings single "Mull of Kintyre" became the highest-selling record in British chart history, and remained so until 1984.[255]
The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named 'McCartney' in his honour.[256]
On 2 July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history. His performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released only 45 minutes after it was performed, before the end of the concert.[257] The single reached number six on the Billboard charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world.[258] McCartney played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on 21 April 1990,[259] and he played his 3,000th concert in front of 60,000 fans in St Petersburg, Russia, on 20 June 2004.[260] Over his career, McCartney has played 2,523 gigs with The Beatles, 140 with Wings, and 325 as a solo artist.[261]
In the concert programme for his 1989 world tour, McCartney wrote that Lennon received all the credit for being the avant-garde Beatle,[52] and McCartney was known as 'baby-faced', which he disagreed with.[262] People also assumed that Lennon was the 'hard-edged one', and McCartney was the 'soft-edged' Beatle,[14] although McCartney admitted to 'bossing Lennon around.'[263] Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a 'hard-edge'—and not just on the surface—which she knew about after all the years she had spent living with him.[14][264] McCartney seemed to confirm this edge when he commented that he sometimes meditates, which he said is better than "sleeping, eating, or shouting at someone".[193]
On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, the human milestone that was the subject of one of the first songs he ever wrote, at the age of sixteen,[265] the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four." Paul Vallely noted in The Independent:
“ "Paul McCartney’s 64th birthday is not merely a personal event. It is a cultural milestone for a generation. Such is the nature of celebrity, McCartney is one of those people who has represented the hopes and aspirations of those born in the baby-boom era, which had its awakening in the Sixties.
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