Personal relationships of Paul McCartney "gave me the strength and courage to work again", after the break-up of the Beatles. McCartney adopted her daughter from her first marriage, Heather, and had three children together: Mary, Stella, and James McCartney. McCartney taught Linda to play keyboards, and permanently included her in the line-up of Wings. Linda died of breast cancer at age 56 in Tucson, Arizona, on 17 April 1998; McCartney denied rumours that her death was an assisted suicide. Along with eight other British composers, he contributed to the choral album "A Garland for Linda", and dedicated his classical album, "Ecce Cor Meum", to his
Paul McCartney and Wings consecutive albums topping the US charts. Paul McCartney was unquestionably Wings' leader and dominant creative force, but Denny Laine, Jimmy McCulloch, and Linda McCartney all contributed in songwriting, and Laine, McCulloch, Joe English, and Linda McCartney all performed lead vocals. The success of Wings was a vindication for McCartney. His first few post-Beatles albums were highly criticized and often dismissed by critics as "lightweight" next to the more serious nature of his former bandmates' solo output. But by the mid-1970s, the solo careers of the other three former Beatles were in varying degrees of decline, with John Lennon putting his