Ageless Paul McCartney plans to cement his place in pop history

In early December 1961, Brian Epstein drew up a contract that bound The Beatles to him for five years. Only Paul McCartney was hesitant about signing it. McCartney told Epstein that he hoped The Beatles would make it big, as Howard Sounes recounts in Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney. “But I’ll tell you now, Mr. Epstein,” McCartney declared, “I’m going to be a star anyway.”

Macca was 19 at the time. He turned 71 last month and the steely resolve he showed Epstein has never wavered.

McCartney, worth about $650 million according to Forbes magazine, is on the road this summer to burnish his musical legacy. Not only his own, but The Beatles’ legacy, too. The plan is to cement his place in pop history by giving fans what he calls, with Liverpudlian understatement, “a good night out.”