Jim and Mary Mc Cartney - Music

Music

Joe McCartney, Jim's father, was a traditionalist who liked opera and played an E-flat tuba in the local Territorial Army band that played in Stanley Park, and the Copes' Tobacco factory Brass Band where he worked. He also played the double bass at home, sang, and hoped to interest his children in music. Jim learned how to play the trumpet and piano by ear, and at the age of 17 started playing ragtime music. Joe McCartney thought that ragtime—the most popular music of the period—was "tin-can music". Jim's first public appearance was at St Catherine's Hall, Vine Street, Liverpool, with a band that wore black masks as a gimmick, calling themselves the Masked Melody Makers. He later led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s, with his brother Jack on trombone, and composed his first tune, "Eloise". Paul would later record it as, "Walking in The Park With Eloise". Jim had an upright piano in the Forthlin Road front room that he had bought from Harry Epstein's North End Music Store (NEMS) and Brian Epstein, Harry's son, later became The Beatles' manager.

Jim had a collection of old, 78 rpm records that he would often play, or perform his musical "party-pieces"—the hits of the time—on the piano. He used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio to his sons, and took them to local brass band concerts. Jim also taught them a basic idea of harmony between instruments, and Paul credits Jim's tuition as being helpful when later singing harmonies with Lennon. After Mary's death, Jim bought Paul a nickel-plated trumpet as a birthday present. When skiffle music became popular, Paul swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar. Paul also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon.

With encouragement from Jim, Paul started playing the family piano and wrote "When I'm Sixty-Four" on it. Jim advised Paul to take some music lessons, which he did, but soon realised that he preferred to learn 'by ear' (as his father had done) and because he never paid attention in music classes. After Paul and Michael became interested in music, Jim connected the radio in the living room to extension cords connected to two pairs of Bakelite headphones so that they could listen to Radio Luxembourg at night when they were in bed.

After first meeting Lennon, Jim warned Paul that he would get him "into trouble", although he later allowed The Quarrymen to rehearse in the dining room at Forthlin Road in the evenings. Jim was reluctant to let the teenage Paul go to Hamburg with The Beatles until Paul said the group would earn £15 per week each. As this was more than he earned himself, Jim finally agreed, but only after a visit from the group's then-manager, Allan Williams, who said that Jim should not worry. Jim was later present at a Beatles' concert in Manchester when fans surrounded drummer Pete Best, and ignored the rest of The Beatles. Jim criticised Best by saying, "Why did you have to attract all the attention? Why didn't you call the other lads back? I think that was very selfish of you". Bill Harry recalled that Jim was probably "The Beatles' biggest fan", and was extremely proud of Paul's success. Shelagh Johnson—later to become director of The Beatles' Museum in Liverpool—said that Jim's outward show of pride embarrassed his son. Jim enlisted Michael's help when sorting through the ever-increasing sacks of fan letters that were delivered to Forthlin Road, with both composing "personal" responses that were supposedly from Paul. Michael would later have success on his own with the group The Scaffold.