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June 18, 1942

James Paul McCartney is born in Walton Hospital. His father Jim is a cotton salesman who plays trumpet in a jazz band. Music is the family language

Mendips & Forthlin Road

Two houses in Liverpool that will become museums. Mimi raises John in middle-class Woolton. Paul grows up in a council house in Allerton with Jim and brother Mike

Julia

John's mother teaches him banjo chords, buys him a guitar, and fills his weekends with rock and roll records. Then, on July 15, 1958, she is killed by an off-duty police officer's car

Mary McCartney

Paul's mother is a midwife and health visitor who dies of breast cancer when Paul is fourteen. Two motherless boys. The grief that bonds Lennon and McCartney before they write a single word together

Andrea Swift

Her mother gave up a marketing career to drive her daughter to every audition. Everything starts here.

Scott Swift

Her father, the Merrill Lynch stockbroker who eventually transferred to Nashville and bought a stake in Big Machine Records.

The Theater Kid

Musical theater obsession, the Berks Youth Theatre, and first performances before she could drive.

Shania and the Decision

How a nine-year-old watching Shania Twain on TV decides she wants to be a country star — and what she does next.

The Jacksons of Jackson Street

Nine children, one house, and a father with a plan

The Prodigy

By age five, everyone in the room already knew

Joe

The complicated man who built a machine and called it a family

The Chitlin Circuit

Playing strip clubs and talent shows before he could read

Chicago to Compton

His parents fled Chicago's South Side for California. The gangs followed

The Tupac Moment

Age eight. His dad lifts him on his shoulders to watch Pac and Dre film 'California Love'

Section 80 Babies

Crack cocaine, Reagan's policies, and a generation raised in the crossfire

Centennial High

A quiet straight-A student in a school surrounded by gang territory

The Divorce

Kurt is nine when his parents split. He bounces between his mother, his father, aunts, uncles, and eventually sleeps under a bridge. The happy, artistic child becomes withdrawn and furious. He will write about this rupture for the rest of his life

The Melvins

Buzz Osborne of the Melvins is the first person to show Kurt that punk rock exists. Black Flag, Flipper, MDC. The Melvins rehearse in a practice space in Montesano, and teenage Kurt watches from the corner, absorbing everything. Punk is not just music. It is permission to be loud, ugly, and honest

Fecal Matter

Kurt records a demo tape on his aunt's four-track in December 1985. He calls the project Fecal Matter. The songs are raw, distorted, and weirdly melodic underneath all the noise. Dale Crover of the Melvins plays drums. It is the first document of the sound that will become Nirvana

Krist Novoselic

A tall, awkward kid from a Croatian immigrant family who lives down the road. Kurt gives him a copy of the Fecal Matter tape. Krist listens to it, doesn't get it, listens again, and calls Kurt. They start playing together in a series of basements and garages, looking for a drummer who can keep up

Mathew and Tina

A hairdresser, a Xerox salesman, and the daughter they built a dynasty around

The Talent Discovery

Age seven, a dance recital, a teacher who heard something different

Girl's Tyme

Six girls, one dream, and a father who quit his job to make it happen

Star Search 1993

They lost. Here's why that loss built everything that came after.