Paul is the rare musical talent, which only comes by once so often. Of course, all Beatles had great musical talents: John’s contribution to contemporary music cannot be overestimated, George wrote beautiful songs, and Ringo was an excellent drummer and even he wrote some nice songs. But even among those musical talents Paul did stand out.
The Day John Met Paul
Already on July 6, 1957, the day when Paul met John, Paul’s musical talent became obvious. That day, the Quarry Men played at a church party at St. Peter’s church in Woolton Liverpool. Paul McCartney was invited by a mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan, to see and meet them. Paul was impressed with John, the singer, who had great presence and clearly was the leader of the band. After some time, he noticed that John was playing banjo chords on his guitar, using only four of the six strings.
Twenty Flight Rock
After the show John and Paul met and started talking music. After a while Paul, being only fifteen years of age, asked whether he could have a go on John’s guitar. He corrected the banjo tuning, turned the guitar upside down, being left-handed, and played Twenty Flight Rock by Eddie Cochran, from the beginning to the end, knowing all the words. None of the Quarry Men could do anything like this.
Throughout The Beatles Years and after that, there are many illustrations of Paul’s special talent. You can find them in …
