Several podcasts I have listened to recommend McCartney: The Definitive Biography by Chris Salewicz as one of the best biographies of Paul. This book was published in 1986, and somehow, I had never heard of it. When I saw it for sale at the Fest for Beatle Fans in Chicago last month, I decided that I needed to buy it and see what I thought.
I was very impressed by the interviews the author was able to secure for this book, especially those related to Paul's teenage years. He spoke to several of Paul's teachers, who gave interesting insights into Paul's school years and ambitions. Most of this book focuses on Paul's early and teenage years, including his meeting John and joining the Quarry Men.
I would love for Chris Salewicz to make his interviews and notes available for Beatles historians of the future. He may have been the only Beatles journalist/historian to have spoken to many of the individuals in the biography. Most of the folks he interviewed would have passed away not too long after the interviews were conducted, making those interviews invaluable to future Beatles historians. This book dug deeper into Paul's early years than any other book about Paul McCartney that I have read.
That is the positive aspect of the book. The rest of the book seemed like an afterthought. He did a lot of research into the early years, which took up the majority of the book. The years with the Beatles, Wings, and the early 1980s were just skimmed through. The time Paul spent in India in 1968 was just a short paragraph.
I understand the book's purpose was to balance off the "Saint John" books that dominated the bookstores after John's murder. However, Salewicz swung too far the other way, making Paul look like a saint and John look bad. We all know that Paul and John were complex (as we all are when you think about it), and books need to be honest about what happened without making either one look fantastic or the other look terrible. This book must have been the first to show that Paul was involved in the avant-garde scene and was more than the "cute one." I appreciate that but did not appreciate the jabs toward John.
I also appreciated how the book explains how Paul's mother, Mary, death directed his choices and life. Paul is so private that the grief he experienced after his mother's death is never really spoken of, but of course, her death was a life-changing event for the entire McCartney family, including Paul.
If you have never read this book, or haven't read it in a long time -- it is well worth a look, especially if you want to learn more about Paul's pre-fame years in Liverpool.
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