Early life

McCartney was born in Westchester, New York, USA,[1] to Scott and Ginger McCartney. His maternal grandparents are Dick and Joyce Sarber, from Mendocino County, California.[2] McCartney is a born-again Christian.[3] In 1988, his family relocated to Ardsley, Westchester County, New York, where he grew up with one brother, Timothy ("Timmy") Glover Mark McCartney (born December 20, 1996) and one sister, Lea Joyce McCartney (born July 7, 1991).

Music career

Early career

In 1999, McCartney joined the American pop boy band Dream Street, and was a member until 2002. Jesse McCartney has described the experience as a good "stepping stone" for his solo career.[4] The group earned a gold record with their debut CD, and broke up while touring with Aaron Carter. At fifteen, he began work on a solo career with a local band, featuring musicians Dillon Kondor (guitar), Peter Chema (bass), Katie Spencer (keyboards), Alex Russeku (drums), Karelilla LaGravinese (background vocals), and Sharisse Francisco (background vocals), under the management of Ginger McCartney and Sherry Goffin Kondor, who co-produced his first album, Beautiful Soul.
McCartney released his first solo EP in July of 2003. The album featured three songs: "Beautiful Soul", "Don't You" and "Why Don't You Kiss Her". In 2004, he performed a duet with Anne Hathaway, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", which is featured on the Ella Enchanted soundtrack.

Beautiful Soul (2004–2006)

His first full-length solo album, Beautiful Soul, which was two years in the making, was released on September 28, 2004. The album featured four songs co-written by McCartney, "That Was Then," "Get Your Shine On", "What's Your Name", and "She's No You", as well as songs written by Desmond Child and Chris Braide. The title song reached #2 on AOL Music and the "Beautiful Soul" music video performed well on MTV's Total Request Live, having been voted into the top 10 fifty times, and peaked at #4. The album, having sold over 1.5 million records, has achieved platinum status.
His first solo tour, also named "Beautiful Soul" (opened by singer/songwriter and actress Brie Larson) began on May 2, 2005 at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento, California. The United States portion of the tour spanned 56 stops, ending on September 10 at the Madera District County Fair in Madera, California. Jesse McCartney has also performed at many amusement parks, including Six Flags and Canada's Wonderland, and has performed "Beautiful Soul" while making guest appearances on several late night talk shows, including "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".
This tour featured a new band, comprising Dory Lobel (guitar), Zane Carney (guitar), Andre De Santanna (bass), Mitchell Yoshida (keyboards), Karen Teperberg (drums), Margeaux "JoJo" Fernandez (background vocals) and Julie Dickens (background vocals). In the fall of 2005, Jesse McCartney toured Australia, and opened for the Backstreet Boys in Europe, the summer of 2005. His July 9 appearance at Paramount's Great America, Santa Clara, California was recorded as a live CD and released in November 2005; this was his first concert DVD.[5]

Right Where You Want Me (2006–present)

His latest album, entitled Right Where You Want Me, was released by Hollywood Records on September 19, 2006. The first single from the album, also called "Right Where You Want Me", began receiving radio play on July 11, 2006 and was written by Jesse McCartney, Adam Watts and Andy Dodd; McCartney, who co-wrote all of the songs on the new album, has said that he believes the single takes him in a "new direction musically". The video for his second single Just So You Know is now available to view at http://www.jessemac.com.au/. The song "Invincible" from Jesse's new album "Right Where You Want Me" was written by McCartney in memory of one of his high school friends(male)who had died in 2001 due to drinking and driving. Although as stated by his management that he will not be launching a new tour because of lack of support from his record company, McCartney has done various shows in Italy and also in the United States. [6] The new album has also been made available for purchase at Yahoo Music in MP3 format.[7]

Third album information

It has been confirmed by his management that McCartney is in studios again writing and recording for his third album. It has been also confirmed by Jesse McCartney himself at a few concerts recently that his new cd should be out by February 19th, 2008. McCartney was quoted saying about the new album, "I'm going for Prince chord changes, Michael (Jackson) melodies, and the bigness of Madonna - fun '80s stuff. That's the best that I can put it".[8] Sean Garrett and J.R. Rotem will produce the album.
McCartney recently did a collaboration with the reggae/hip-hop band Cipes and The People. The song can be heard on their myspace here.

Acting career

McCartney began performing in local community musicals at the age of seven, before joining the National Tour of The King and I at the age of ten along with Phil of the Future star Ricky Ullman. He later appeared with The Who's Roger Daltrey in A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. From 1998 to 2001, McCartney played Adam Chandler, Jr. on the ABC soap opera All My Children, a role in which he earned a Daytime Emmy nomination. He also later starred in the short-lived series Summerland, which aired on the now-defunct The WB network for two seasons. McCartney also co-starred along with Elisabeth Harnois in an independent teenage drama feature film directed by Todd Kessler, Keith, shot during late-2005/early-2006, featuring McCartney in the title role. As of now, no official release date has been announced. He was also the voice actor for Roxas in Kingdom Hearts II. In the Summer of 2007, he appeared in an episode of Hannah Montana titled "When You Wish You Were The Star," where he played himself as Hannah Montana's boyfriend.He played himself for an episode of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody.

Philanthropy

In 2004, Jesse McCartney participated in "Come Together Now",[9] a charity single to benefit the victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, McCartney signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock,[10] a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools throughout the U.S.A. He sits on its board of directors as an honorary member. He has donated proceeds of his 2005 tour for disaster relief, recorded radio spots promoting the "Kids For A Drug-Free America" campaign, is a spokesperson for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and is involved in the charity SPACE, which was co-founded by a childhood friend of his mother's. Jesse performed at the Hope Rocks concert in 2005 to benefit City of Hope Cancer Center.

Personal life

McCartney, who has been dating actress Katie Cassidy for the past two and a half years, has recently ended their relationship. Jesse announced on TRL Italy that he is now officially "a single man". They broke up because of the difficulty being apart and Jesse being on tour. Cassidy sent the following message to their fansite, JKfans.

I wanted to write you to let you know how grateful Jesse and I are for having your support for so long. Unfortunately, we are no longer together as a couple, but we managed to stay close friends :) and still spend time together when we are in the same city! It just got too crazy with our busy careers, always being in different countries for work, but we still love and adore one another, always will. I just wanted to thank you again and who knows what the future holds ;) maybe we'll work it out at some point ... :(.Thank you to all our fans and God bless! Katie[11][12]