Jesse Abraham Arthur McCartney (born April 9, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and voice actor. McCartney rose to fame in the early 2000s as member of the boy band Dream Street. He branched into a solo career, having appeared in the television series Summerland and as a recurring character in the ABC Family series Greek.
[edit] Early life
McCartney was born to Ginger and Scot McCartney.[citation needed] He began performing in local community musicals at the age of nine, before joining the national tour of The King and I at age ten along with Phil of the Future star Ricky Ullman.
[edit] Music career
[edit] 1999–2002: Musical Beginnings with Dream Street
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.[1] 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), Karina LaGravinese (background vocals), Sharisse Francisco (background vocals), and 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 2004. The album featured two songs: "Beautiful Soul", "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.
[edit] 2004–06: Beautiful Soul & Right Where You Want Me
McCartney's debut solo album, Beautiful Soul, which was two years in the making, was released on September 28, 2004 in the United States and over a year later in Europe.[2] He categorized it as a "pop record" with twists of urban.[3] The album featured four songs that he co-wrote.[4] Beautiful Soul reached number 15 on the Billboard 200.[5] The album has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, denoting over one million units of shipment to US retailers; it is his highest-certified album as of early 2009.[6] As of mid-2006, the album had sold more than 1.5 million copies.[4] The album's lead single of the same name reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.[7] McCartney was one of the artist with multiple awards at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, winning Choice Crossover Artist, Choice Male Artist and Choice Breakout, Male.[8] The following year, he won Favorite Male Singer at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.[4]
His first headlining tour, also named Beautiful Soul, began on May 2, 2005 at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento, California.[3] The United States portion of the tour spanned 56 stops, ending on September 10, 2005 at the Madera District County Fair in Madera, California. In the fall of 2005, McCartney toured Australia, and opened for the Backstreet Boys in Europe in the summer of 2005. His July 9 performance at California's Great America in Santa Clara, California was recorded, released as Live: The Beautiful Soul Tour in November 2005.[2]
He has contributed to numerous Disney soundtracks including Disneymania 2, Radio Disney Jingle Jams, A Cinderella Story, That's So Raven, Stuck in the Suburbs, Disneymania 3, Sydney White, Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 7, Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 8, DisneyMania 4, Hannah Montana, Radio Disney: Party Jams, That's So Raven Too! and Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 9.
After the filming of Keith wrapped, McCartney had been working on his second album, Right Where You Want Me, co-writing all but one of the songs featured in it.[4][9] Right Where You Want Me is more mature than his debut, reflecting his musical and personal growth since he recorded his debut album at age 15.[2] Released by Hollywood Records on September 19, 2006, the album reached number 14 on the Billboard 200.[5] The lead single of the album, "Right Where You Want Me", began receiving airplay on July 11, 2006. 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.
[edit] 2007–09: Songwriting and Departure
In the fall of 2007, McCartney co-wrote the hit song "Bleeding Love" with Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, produced by McCartney and Tedder for McCartney's third album, but gave it away to English singer Leona Lewis for her debut album, Spirit. The song was nominated for Record of the Year at the 2009 Grammy Awards.[10] McCartney recorded his own version, which was released on some editions of his Departure album.
McCartney released his third album, Departure, on May 20, 2008 in the United States and Canada. Musically, it is a departure from his early works, showing mature themes.[11] The album has reached number 14 on the Billboard 200.[5]
The album's lead single, "Leavin'", was released in March 2008, and reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, giving McCartney his highest-charting single to date.[7] The single has been certified platinum by the RIAA, selling more than three million copies, and over two million downloads on iTunes, becoming McCartney's highest-certified single as of early 2009.[6] The second single, "It's Over", was released on August 26, 2008, and reached #62 on the Hot 100. McCartney promoted Departure on a co-headlining tour with Jordin Sparks, which began in August 2008 and ended in September. He also did solo shows at theaters and small venues to support the album while on tour with Sparks. McCartney's 2008 summer tourmate, American Idol season six winner Jordin Sparks, approached him to write some material for her.[12]
McCartney re-released Departure on April 7, 2009. The re-release, Departure: Recharged, featured four new songs: "Body Language", "Oxygen", "Crash & Burn" and "In My Veins". The re-release also features a remix of "How Do You Sleep?" with rapper-actor Ludacris. The third single from the album was released from the re-release and was the remix of "How Do You Sleep?". It was much more successful than the second single, reaching #26 on the Hot 100, The fourth and final single from the album was also released from the re-release and was a new version of "Body Language" featuring T-Pain. The single peaked at #10 on the Billboard Dance/Club Songs in its 13th week and rose up.[5]
[edit] 2010–present: Have It All
McCartney stated that his fourth album will have a similar sound to Departure but will be more R&B and urban-influenced than his third album. In March 2010, it was announced that Sean Garrett produced three songs for the project.
It was confirmed through McCartney's Twitter account that the album finished recording and production on August 13, 2010. He also confirmed August 16, 2010 that the first single is titled "Shake", which is playable on Tap Tap Revenge for iPhone & iPod Touch since September 6, 2010. The single was released through Digital Download on September 21, 2010[13] and debuted at #90 on the Billboard Hot 100. After 3 release date changes, most previous being December 28, 2010, 'Have It All' will now be released in early 2011. On December 3, McCartney said in an interview with Crash from Kiss 95.1, "I’ve been in the studio for the last three or four weeks and came up with some stuff that people are kind of excited about, so we're gonna hold off and wait till the new year and hopefully give the fans some extra material since they have to wait".
[edit] Other ventures
[edit] Acting career
McCartney appeared with The Who's Roger Daltrey in A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. From 1998–2001, McCartney played Adam Chandler, Jr. in the ABC soap opera All My Children, a role for which he earned two Young Artist Awards and two Daytime Emmy Award nominations.[14] He also later starred in the short-lived series Summerland, which aired on The WB for two seasons, playing orphaned teenager Bradin Westerly.
In 2005, McCartney appeared as himself in the Disney Channel show, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. In 2006, McCartney was also featured as the voice of Roxas in the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II. In 2007, he starred as himself in the Disney Channel show, Hannah Montana. In 2008, McCartney resumed his voice acting role of the Kingdom Hearts II character Roxas in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. In 2008, McCartney was also featured as the voice of Horton Hears A Who!'s JoJo McDodd. McCartney also voiced Theodore in the 2007 film Alvin and the Chipmunks and the 2009 film Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, in addition to voicing Terence in the 2008 film Tinker Bell.
In 2008, McCartney co-starred along with Elisabeth Harnois in an independent teenage drama feature film, Keith, directed by Todd Kessler. It is his movie debut, and features McCartney in the title role. Keith was released on September 19, 2008.
According to Entertainment Weekly in December 2008, McCartney was negotiating to play against type in the role of the Fire Nation's Prince Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's feature film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.[15] In February 2009, British actor Dev Patel replaced McCartney, whose tour dates conflicted with a boot camp scheduled for the cast to train in martial arts.[16] McCartney has expressed an interest in directing and producing films and even considered enrolling in a film school.[17]
McCartney appeared as a recurring character in the ABC Family series Greek for several episodes playing a star football talent who joins the fraternity of the starring character Rusty. His character eventually decided to depledge the fraternity after he cited pressures between football and Greek life combined with Rusty stealing away his girlfriend Jordan at the time.
McCartney has provided the voice work for Ventus, a character in the video game Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. He will also be voicing Robin in the upcoming Young Justice series.
[edit] Philanthropy
In 2005, McCartney participated in "Come Together Now", a charity single to benefit the victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
Later in 2005, McCartney signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock,[18] a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underserved public schools throughout the U.S.A. He sits on LKR's Honorary Board of Directors.
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. McCartney performed at the Hope Rocks concert in 2005 to benefit City of Hope Cancer Center.[19] He appeared in the Concert for Hope October 25, 2009 with fellow Disney stars Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.
