Happy Birthday to Paul McCartney, who turns 80 on Saturday (June 18th). McCartney closed out the North American leg of his “Got Back” tour on Thursday night (June 16th) to a sold-out crowd at East Rutherford, New Jersey's MetLife Stadium. Bruce Springsteen was on hand to join McCartney and his band to perform his own “Glory Days” and trade vocals with McCartney on the Meet The Beatles classic “I Wanna Be Your Man.” Jon Bon Jovi led a crowd sing-a-long of “Happy Birthday” and presented McCartney with balloons. “The Boss” returned to trade solos with McCartney and the band during the show-closing Abbey Road finale, “The End.”
To date, Paul McCartney is the most successful songwriter in history, having written or co-written 30 U.S. Number One hits. McCartney met his original songwriting partner John Lennon on July 6th, 1957 at a church social where Lennon was performing. After joining Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, McCartney persuaded Lennon to add his friend George Harrison in 1958, and the seeds of the Beatles were born. Ringo Starr joined the group in 1962.
Last November, McCartney published The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present, which includes “a treasure trove of material from McCartney’s personal archive — drafts, letters, photographs — never seen before, which make this also a unique visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.”