Despite growing up to become one of the legends in the music industry, The Beatles star once failed to wow the crowd at a talent show when he was young.
- Oct 7, 2023
AceShowbiz - Sir Paul McCartney was unable to impress at a talent show in his youth. The Beatles legend becomes one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time but he and his brother Mike were met with a tough crowd when they performed at a Butlin's holiday camp as a child.
McCartney was just 11 when he performed in the talent show after he had been taught to harmonise by his father James and the siblings did their best to channel The Everly Brothers.
The 81-year-old star recalled on his new podcast "McCartney: A Life in Lyrics", "The Everly Brothers sang in harmony, so me and my brother did. We sang 'Bye Bye Love'. We didn't win - obviously not talented enough for the Butlin's crowd!"
McCartney previously described how his childhood holiday to Butlin's was a great adventure. He told the Daily Mirror in 2021, "I was 11 when I went to Butlin's Pwllheli holiday camp and the photos of me show I'm still wearing my school cap and short school trousers."
"I think we were too poor for leisure clothes or I was amazingly proud of my new school uniform. But, yeah, it was great, I loved it. Me and my brother Mike just zoomed round all day, going to all the various things going on - beauty contest or the knobbly knees contest or the singing contest or the rock and calypso ballroom."
Meanwhile, McCartney also revealed that The Beatles loved the idea that Russians secretly listened to their "forbidden" group, which had been banned from the Communist Soviet Union. Speaking on the podcast, he said, "Everyone in Russia goes back to the Beatles period and remembers having to smuggle records or it was all very you know, little rooms where you could play and you didn't want people to know."
"You didn't want the authorities to know that you were listening to this forbidden group, which really we loved the idea of that that we were getting smuggled along with Levi's jeans. This was like true cultural arrival."
