Paul McCartney: Back in the U.S.

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to Guinness World Records. McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the UK. BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 32 number one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone. McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.

Abraham "Abe" Laboriel Jr. (born March 23, 1971) is an American session drummer. He is the son of Mexican bass guitarist Abraham Laboriel, nephew of Mexican rocker Johnny Laboriel, and brother of record producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel. He has been the drummer for Paul McCartney as well as for the French singer Mylène Farmer, among others. The son of jazz bass player Abraham Laboriel, Abe grew up playing drums starting at age four. His mother is a classically trained singer. Laboriel was mentored by well-known percussionists and drummers, including Jeff Porcaro, Chester Thompson, along with Bill Maxwell and Alex Acuña, who had formed the band Koinonia with his father in the 1980s. He attended the Dick Grove School of Music, studying with Peter Donald, during his junior year in high school. He also attended the Hamilton High School Academy of Music in Los Angeles in his senior year. Here he first experienced the use of programming and became a member of a marching band. He formed a jazz trio with Vernell Brown and Mike Elizondo. In 1989, he was honored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and Down Beat magazine. He then enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where he graduated in 1993. (Wikipedia)

George Harrison,  MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles.  Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle",  Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as those of their Western audience. Following the band's break-up, he had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys, and also as a film and record producer. Harrison is listed at number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Although most of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison's own songs, from With The Beatles onwards.  His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". By the time of the band's break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the acclaimed and successful triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970, from which came two singles: a double A-side single, "My Sweet Lord" backed with "Isn't It a Pity", and "What Is Life". In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for Ringo Starr, another former Beatle, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. Harrison embraced Indian culture and Hinduism in the mid 1960s, and helped expand Western awareness of sitar music and of the Hare Krishna movement. With Ravi Shankar he organised a major charity concert with the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh. Besides being a musician, he was also a record producer and co-founder of the production company HandMade Films. In his work as a film producer, he collaborated with people as diverse as the members of Monty Python and Madonna. He was married twice, to model Pattie Boyd from 1966 to 1974, and for 23 years to record company secretary Olivia Trinidad Arias, with whom he had one son, Dhani Harrison. He was a close friend of Eric Clapton. He is the only Beatle to have published an autobiography, with I Me Mine in 1980. Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Along with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered by Mark Chapman three weeks after its release. Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, and he became controversial through his political and peace activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement. As of 2010, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 27 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

James Douglas Muir Leno is an American television host, comedian, and writer. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from 1992 to 2009.

Sir Roger George Moore KBE (14 October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions/MGM Studios film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. Moore's seven appearances as Bond, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill, are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries. On television, Moore played the lead role of Simon Templar, the title character in the British mystery thriller series The Saint (1962–1969). He also had roles in American series, including Beau Maverick on the Western Maverick (1960–1961), in which he replaced James Garner as the lead, and a co-lead, with Tony Curtis, in the action-comedy The Persuaders! (1971–1972). Continuing to act on screen in the decades after his retirement from the Bond franchise, Moore's final appearance was in a pilot for a new Saint series that became a 2017 television film. Moore was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to charity. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. He was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2008. Description above from the Wikipedia article Roger Moore, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940), better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in August 1962, taking the place of Pete Best. In addition to his contribution as drummer, Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and The Beatles version of "Act Naturally"), as co-writer with the song "What Goes On" and primary writer with "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden". As drummer for The Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills", technically limited by being a left-handed person playing a right-handed kit. Drummer Steve Smith said that Starr's popularity "brought forth a new paradigm" where "we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect" and that Starr "composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs". In 2011, Starr was picked as the fifth-best drummer of all-time by Rolling Stone readers, behind drummers such as John Bonham, Keith Moon and Neil Peart. Starr is the most documented and critically acclaimed actor-Beatle, playing a central role in several Beatles films, and appearing in numerous other movies, both during and after his career with The Beatles. After The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Starr achieved solo musical success with several singles and albums, and recorded with each of his fellow ex-Beatles as they too developed their post-Beatle musical careers. He has also been featured in a number of TV documentaries, hosted TV shows, and narrated the first two series of the children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. He currently tours with the All-Starr Band.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. After signing with Capitol Records in 1962, Wilson wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits for the group. He originally functioned as the band's songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, keyboardist, and de facto leader. Wilson is considered a major innovator in the field of music production, the principal originator of the California Sound, one of the first music producer auteurs, and the first rock producer to use the studio as its own instrument. The unusual creative control Capitol gave him over his own records effectively set a precedent that allowed other bands and artists to act as their own producers or co-producers. He was a major influence on the retrospectively-termed "sunshine pop" and Flower Power music that proceeded.

Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954)[1] is an American radio and television personality, comedian, and author. He is best known for his radio show, The Howard Stern Show, which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1986 to 2005. Stern has broadcast on Sirius XM Satellite Radio since 2006.

David Wayne Spade (born July 22, 1964) is an American actor, comedian and television personality who first became famous in the 1990s as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and from 1997 until 2003 starred as Dennis Finch on Just Shoot Me!. He also starred as C.J. Barnes, along with Katey Sagal, James Garner and Kaley Cuoco on 8 Simple Rules.He currently stars as Russell Dunbar on the CBS sitcom Rules of Engagement. He is also working with TBS on an animated series based on his film Joe Dirt. Description above from the Wikipedia article David Spade, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Christian Michael Leonard Slater (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor. He made his film debut playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean. He then played a monk's apprentice alongside Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose before gaining recognition for his breakthrough role in the cult film Heathers. In the 1990s Slater featured in many big budget films including Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, Broken Arrow and Hard Rain. He was also featured in the cult film True Romance. Since 2000 Slater has combined work in the film business with television, including appearances in The West Wing and Alias. Slater was married to Ryan Haddon between 2000 and 2005; they had two children together. Slater has had widely publicized brushes with the law, including being sentenced to three months in jail for assault in 1997.

Jason Patric (born John Anthony Miller III) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is known for his roles in films such as The Lost Boys, Rush, Sleepers, Geronimo: An American Legend, Your Friends & Neighbors, Narc, The Losers, The Alamo, and Speed 2: Cruise Control. His father was actor/playwright Jason Miller and his maternal grandfather was actor Jackie Gleason.

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a retired American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for Academy Awards 12 times. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three), and second to Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (four). He is also one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting (either lead or supporting) in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s (the other one being Michael Caine). He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include, in chronological order, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, Something's Gotta Give and The Departed. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jack Nicholson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer, and musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Beatle", including by Paul McCartney, in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. Martin produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Corey Scott Feldman (born July 16, 1971) is an American actor, musician, and activist. He became well known during the 1980s, with roles as a youth in films such as Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), and Stand by Me (1986). In 1987, Feldman starred in the horror film The Lost Boys with Corey Haim; they became known as "The Two Coreys" and went on to appear in other films together, including License to Drive (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989). He experienced diminishing success in the film industry as an adult, amid well publicized personal conflicts with Haim over the latter's substance abuse, and with Michael Jackson, who had befriended him during his time as a teen celebrity. He has been outspoken about sexual abuse of children and teens in the entertainment industry, identifying himself as a victim of it.

John Paul Cusack (born June 28, 1966) is an American actor. Cusack began acting in films during the 1980s, starring in coming-of-age dramedies such as Sixteen Candles (1984), Better Off Dead (1985), The Sure Thing (1985), Stand by Me (1986), and Say Anything... (1989). In the 1990s, he then started appearing in independent films and had leading men roles in Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Con Air (1997), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), The Thin Red Line (1998), Being John Malkovich (1999), High Fidelity (2000), America's Sweethearts (2001), Max (2002), and Runaway Jury (2003). Cusack has been nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe for his role starring in High Fidelity. He won the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Maps to the Stars. He is a son of filmmaker Dick Cusack and the younger brother of actresses Joan and Ann Cusack. In 2012, Cusack was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Cusack, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes. Crowe has made his mark with character-driven, personal films that have been generally hailed as refreshingly original and devoid of cynicism. Michael Walker in The New York Times called Crowe "something of a cinematic spokesman for the post-baby boom generation" because his first few films focused on that specific age group, first as highers and then as young adults making their way in the world. Crowe's debut screenwriting effort, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, grew out of a book he wrote while posing for one year undercover as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California, where he met Geraldine Edwards, who was a student there, and who he later based his Penny Lane character on in Almost Famous, when he discovered she was going backstage to rock and roll concerts. Later, he wrote and directed one more high school saga, Say Anything, and then Singles, a story of Seattle twentysomethings that was woven together by a soundtrack centering on that city's burgeoning grunge music scene. Crowe landed his biggest hit, though, with Jerry Maguire. After this, he was given a green light to go ahead with a pet project, the autobiographical effort Almost Famous. Centering on a teenage music journalist on tour with an up-and-coming band, it gave insight to his life as a 15-year-old writer for Rolling Stone. Crowe has stated that the Penny Lane character was based on his fellow San Diegan, Geraldine Edwards, who he met in 1975, as mentioned earlier. Part of the dialogue is also inspired by comments that were made by Bebe Buell in certain interviews. Also, in late 1999, Crowe released his second book, Conversations with Billy Wilder, a question and answer session with the legendary director. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cameron Crowe, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon. He quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit soon became a staple of the show. As both a performer and writer, he earned three Primetime Emmy Awards out of five nominations. Chase is also well-known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon's Vacation films, and for his roles in other successful comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Fletch (1985), and ¡Three Amigos! (1986). He has hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988) and briefly had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. He played the character Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC comedy series Community from 2009 to 2014.

An American actor, writer and director. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Dorothy, who worked as a hostess at Howard Johnson's, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker and Korean War veteran. Buscemi's father was Sicilian American and his mother Irish American. He has three brothers: Jon, Ken, and Michael. Buscemi was raised Roman Catholic. Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films, including Parting Glances (1986), New York Stories (1989), Mystery Train (1989), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Desperado (1995), Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Grey Zone (2001), Ghost World (2001), Big Fish (2003), Lean on Pete (2017), and The Death of Stalin (2017). He is also known for his appearances in many films by Coen brothers: Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Fargo (1996), and The Big Lebowski (1998). Buscemi provides the voice of Randall Boggs in the Monsters, Inc. franchise. From 2010 to 2014, he portrayed Enoch "Nucky" Thompson in the critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire, which earned him two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe, and two nominations for an Emmy Award. He made his directorial debut in 1996, with Trees Lounge, in which he also starred. Other works include Animal Factory (2000), Lonesome Jim (2005), and Interview (2007). Buscemi has one son, Lucian, with his wife Jo Andres.