Paul McCartney yesterday appeared before an audience of wildly cheering fans for the first public US reading from his new book of poetry.
Rapturous applause greeted each of several poems he read from his collection published yesterday entitled Blackbird Singing.
McCartney, 58, began by telling the 1000 strong audience of all ages: "I originally started, as you know, songwriting."
But he said the death of his childhood friend Ivan Vaughn, who introduced him to John Lennon and so led to the creation of the Beatles, inspired him to write "Ivan" as a tribute to his Liverpool friend.
Several of the poems in the book were about McCartney's late wife Linda, who died of cancer and whose idea the book was, while another poem reflected on the murder of Lennon.