Paul McCartney and President Obama
Host of stars join the former Beatle for a private concert at the White House

LAST UPDATED 7:53 AM, JUNE 3, 2010

Paul McCartney performed for President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in the ornate East Room of the White House last night on becoming the third recipient of the Gershwin Prize, America’s greatest honour for living songwriters.

Towards the end of the concert, he serenaded the First Lady with Michelle, off the 1965 Beatles album, Rubber Soul. After singing the refrain, I love you, I love you, I love you, he told the audience, sotto voce, “I’m gonna be the first guy ever to be punched out by a president”.

McCartney, who will be 68 in two weeks’ time, is only the third musician to received the recently instigated prize, awarded by the Library of Congress. The previous recipients are Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.

The former Beatle had feigned nerves at a press conference the previous day, but was his normal relaxed self when the concert began. As the Washington Post reported, “He waltzed into the East Room as if it were his living room. He dived into Got to Get You Into My Life, plunking away on the same Hofner bass he played on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 – his once-boyish yelp now an older, coarser shout.”

Several stars turned out to join McCartney for the concert, all performing McCartney or Lennon-McCartney songs. Stevie Wonder gave his famous 1970 cover version of We Can Work It Out, country singer Faith Hill took Long and Winding Road and Elvis Costello performed Penny Lane.

Perhaps the most poignant moment was Corinne Bailey Rae singing Blackbird, the 1968 song McCartney wrote in response to the racial discord then in evidence in the US.

Most popular with the Obama daughters – Sasha and Malia – was the performance of Baby You Can Drive My Car by the US boy band of the moment, The Jonas Brothers.

President Obama said the Beatles had “helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation”. They might not have been the first rock group, he said, but “they blew the walls down for everyone else”.

McCartney closed the concert with a string of favourites, Eleanor Rigby, Let It Be and Hey Jude, before thanking the Library of Congress, and signing off with the quip: “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that knows what a library is.”

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64075,people,entertainment,paul-mccartney-serenades-first-lady-with-michelle-obama-us-president-gershwin?DCMP=NLC-people#ixzz0ppANg29k