Things You Might Not Know About Paul McCartney

06/18/2012
. (Gibson) Gibson.com wishes Paul McCartney Happy Birthday today. Few lives have been as thoroughly documented as the life of Paul McCartney. Biographies � both of The Beatles and Sir Paul � number in the hundreds, many filled with minute details about the public and private life of the former Beatle. Still, we managed to unearth a few interesting tidbits that may have eluded all but the most avid fans.

The artist who showed him the option to play guitar left-handed was � Slim Whitman.: McCartney's father bought him a trumpet for his birthday when McCartney turned 14, but the young lad had his Dad exchange it for a cheap acoustic. The future Beatle struggled mightily with the instrument until he happened upon a photograph of Slim Whitman, the country yodeler who played guitar lefty-style. McCartney flipped his guitar, modified the string setup, and soon wrote his first song, a ditty titled "I Lost My Little Girl."

Before they became Wings, McCartney's post-Beatles band nearly became � a paint thinner. In August 1971, when he was trying to get his post-Beatles band off the ground, McCartney was having a terrible time coming up with a name for the nascent group. Among the top name-candidates floated were The Dazzlers and, for reasons unknown, Turpentine. Alas, while praying for his wife, Linda, as she was giving birth to their daughter, the image of "wings" kept springing to mind.

His 1980 hit, "Coming Up," was a prime factor in John Lennon's decision to get back into music.: This charming ditty, from McCartney's homespun 1980 album, McCartney II, was first heard by Lennon as he was traveling with his assistant, Fred Seaman. The next morning, Lennon confessed to Seaman that he couldn't get the song's distinctive riff out of his head. Seaman later said the track stirred the muse in Lennon. "If Paul was writing decent music," Seaman wrote, in his memoir, "John felt compelled to take up the challenge." Read more here.

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