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James Paul McCartney was born on June 18,1942 at Walton
General Hospital in Liverpool, England.
He had a brother, Peter Michael MCCartney. His family
often moved. When he was 13,they moved little over one
mile away from where John lived with his Aunt Mimi.
Paul's mother Mary died of breast cancer when he was fourteen. Before the war, Paul's father was a Cotton salesman during the day, and a jazz musician with
Jim Mac's Jazz Band by night.Paul did very well in school. When Lonnie Donnegan appeared in Liverpool and the
Skiffle craze hit, Jim McCartney scraped together money
for a guitar for Paul. Although encouraged by his father, Paul couldn't seem to get the knack of the guitar until
he discovered that, while right-handed for everything
else, he was left-handed when it came to playing the guitar. They brought the guitar back and had it restrung the other way around, and Paul started to pick out tunes almost immediately. When Ivan Vaughan invited Paul to Woolton to see the Quarrymen play in Woolton on July 6, 1957, it wasn't really to hear the Quarrymen, it was because Vaughan had promised Paul it would be a great
place to pick up girls, which he was already very interested in at the age of 14. Later in the
afternoon, after hearing the Quarrymen play, Paul
borrowed a guitar and impressed the boys with all the
chords and the words to "Twenty Flight Rock". Paul's
first impression of John was that he was a drunk. But
Paul wrote down the words for "Twenty Flight Rock" and
"Be Bop a Lula" for him so that John could learn them. A
few days later Pete Shotten told Paul the others wanted
him to join the band.