Sir Paul McCartney, is a British vocalist, songwriter, composer, bass player, poet, and painter whose work with the Beatles in the 1960s helped lift popular music from its origins in the entertainment business and transform it into a creative, highly commercial art form. He is also one of the most popular solo performers of all time in terms of both sales of his recordings and attendance at his concerts. With some 60 gold records and sales of more than 100 million singles in the course of his career, McCartney is arguably the most commercially successful performer and composer in popular music.
He had interests beyond popular music. In the late 1970s, he began painting, and by the late 1980s he was devoting much of his time to it. His work was first shown publicly in May 1999 at a retrospective held in Siegen, Germany. He branched out in other areas too: his semi-autobiographical classical composition Liverpool Oratorio, written in collaboration with American composer Carl Davis, was first performed in 1991 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He subsequently oversaw the recording of his other classical compositions.
In 2001 a volume of his poetry, Blackbird Singing, which also included some song lyrics, was published. In addition, he composed the score for Peter Martin's ballet Ocean’s Kingdom. He has authored several children’s books, including Hey Grandude! (2019).
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