In Famous Footsteps

PAUL AND JAMES MCCARTNEY

Crippled by shyness, James McCartney has spent most of his life trying to avoid comparisons with his father. While his sisters Stella, a prominent fashion designer, and Mary, a photographer, have revelled in the family name, the more diffident James spent most of his twenties living a modest existence in Brighton. A talented guitarist, he has co-written and played on several tracks on his father's solo albums and was spotted accompanying him on his American tour in 2005. Yet, at times, he has refused to tell new friends his surname and waited tables to earn a living. Then, in 2007, he seemed to have a sudden change of heart, mingling with A-listers and moving into a 1 million flat in London. When he first started playing publicly, last year, he appeared under the pseudonym Light, but his identity was soon uncovered. Now he is touring under his own name, although he has yet to release an album.

STEPHEN KING and JOE HILL

WHEN a novel as scary as The Shining has been dedicated to you, perhaps it's inevitable your tastes will tend towards the gothic. But Stephen King's son Joe went to extraordinary lengths to conceal his identity when he decided to earn his living as a horror writer. Desperate to be recognised for his own talents, he wrote under his first and middle names, with even his publisher claiming to have been unaware of the connection until after a deal was sealed for his first novel Heart-Shaped Box in 2007.

Hill's decision to distance himself stemmed not from a dislike of his father, but from the experience of having an essay published when he was 12. "I felt like I was on the verge of major celebrity, and my excitement about the piece lasted right up until the day it was published. When I read it in the newspaper, I realised for the first time that it was full of trite ideas and windy writing. At the end, they had added a little postscript that said, 'Joseph King is the son of best-selling novelist Stephen King,' and when I read that I knew that was the only reason they published the piece."

Since Heart-Shaped Box received rave reviews, he no longer needs to worry about living in his father's shadow.

CHRISTINE BRINKLEY AND ALEXA RAY JOEL

THEY say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But to agree to advertise the product your mother made famous a generation ago is bordering on the bizarre. Singer-songwriter Alexa Ray Joel was recently unveiled as the new face of Prell shampoo nearly 25 years after model mum Christine Brinkley first starred in ads for the hair product.

Alexa may have inherited her mother's glossy hair, but the pair found it hard to get along when she was growing up. On one occasion, Brinkley supposedly chewed a brownie in front of her daughter and spat it into a trash can, telling Alexa: "This is how to eat without putting on weight."

In fact she seems closer to her father, Billy Joel, singing Baby Grand with him at his Presidential Campaign Fundraiser, "Change Rocks". Famous parents are no guarantee of happiness, of course. And last year, Alexa apparently attempted suicide taking an overdose of homeopathic pills.

RICHARD AND KATE BECKINSALE

KATE Beckinsale was only five when her actor father Richard – who played Lennie Godber in Porridge and Alan Moore in Rising Damp – died of a heart attack in 1979, but she has felt his influence all her life. Like many who have lost a parent young, she spent her early years terrified she would lose those closest to her, until she had a nervous breakdown as a teenager. Now, however, Beckinsale, the daughter of actress Judy Loe, is a respected performer in her own right, having won praise for her performances in Pearl Harbor, Serendipity and Nothing But The Truth. "I do have memories (of my dad], but when you're that young, you're not really at the conversational stage of a relationship," Beckinsale has said about her father. "He's still such a huge figure in England, which I find moving and impressive all these years later, but at the time, I used to get him confused with both God and John Lennon because John Lennon died a couple of years later, and I remember getting the whole thing a bit mixed up."

PETE and EMMA TOWNSHEND

AS a teenager, Emma Townshend looked set to embark on a career as a rock star like her father Peter, guitarist and songwriter with The Who. In the Eighties, she sang back-up on A Bao A Qu, a four-track EP by her aunt, singer-songwriter Virginia Astley and on her dad's White City: A Novel album. Then, in 1998, she released her own highly-acclaimed album Winterland, before dropping out of the music industry.

Having gained a degree and a Phd from Cambridge earlier in her life, she now lectures and – somewhat unpredictably – writes a gardening column for The Independent.

Despite his relative youth – Peter was 23 when she was born – and his rock star ways, Emma has always had a close relationship with her father standing by him even when he was put on the sex offender's register for viewing child porn images in 2003. Describing the encouragement her dad always gave her, she has said:" There was never any of that, 'Oh, God, why are you disturbing me?' He would just go: 'Hey, do you want to hear what I'm doing? Would you like to record something yourself? Here's a microphone. Here's a guitar.'"

STUART AND KIRSTEN ADAMSON

KIRSTEN Adamson's success with country rock band The Gillyflowers is tinged with sadness as her father, the driving force behind the Skids, Big Country and The Raphaels, died before he could see his daughter's musical talents flourish.

Adamson killed himself in 2001 after relapsing into alcoholism. But he had nurtured his daughter's gift for writing and performing. Spending time with him in Nashville fostered her love of country music and she was a guest vocalist for Big Country live and on the album Driving To Damascus. For the past few years, Kirsten has been lauded for her performances with The Gillyflowers, with one critic describing her as having "a voice that recalls Lone Justice era Maria McKee tempered with the bottle-blond wisdom of Dolly Parton."

PAUL AND HARPER SIMON

WHEN Harper Simon talks about being the son of a famous musician, he sounds defensive. "I cannot think of that many pros, to be honest," he has said. "There are definitely way more cons. There's just a lot of contempt prior to investigation." Perhaps he was soured by the experience of singing Bingo with his father on Sesame Street at the age of four. Harper has been working with his dad on and off throughout his life, making guest appearances on the Graceland tour at the age of 12. Having moved to London, he spent several years writing for a playing with the band Menlo Park. But it took till last year for him to release his self-named solo album.

MAKING THEIR OWN MARK...

EWAN and KIRSTY MACCOLL

KIRSTY MacColl may have followed her father into the music industry, but her uneasy relationship with the singer/songwriter and his long-term partner musician Peggy Seeger left her with a deep dislike of folk. Brought up by her mother, dancer Jean Newlove, she ploughed her own furrow, writing and singing quirky songs such There's a Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis and In These Shoes.

Right up to her death in a diving accident in Mexico in 2000 she found it difficult to talk about him, but conceded he had taught her a valuable lesson: that when you're truly good at what you do you don't have to follow the latest trends.

Though Ewan's songs The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Dirty Old Town are known around the world, Kirsty's performance of Fairytale of New York with the Pogues has secured her a place in pop history and the hearts of millions.

TIM and JEFF BUCKLEY

The child of a brief high school marriage, Jeff only met his musician father Tim once at the age of eight. But it was nevertheless their relationship – or the lack of it – that launched his career. When Jeff made his first solo appearance at a tribute concert for Tim, at which he sang I Never Asked to be Your Mountain, written by his father for his mother Mary and the infant Jeff, he viewed his performance as a kind of farewell to the father he never knew. "It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything," he said. "I used that show to pay my last respects." After years in the musical wilderness, the performance brought the success which had eluded him for so long, finding cult fame that exceeded even that of his father. He went on to make the album Grace, but is probably best known for his cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which went to No 1 on the iTunes chart in 2008. Jeff died the age of 30, in a drowning accident in Mississippi in 1997.

LOUDON III and RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

Born into a family of folk singers – his father is Loudon Wainwright III and his mother and aunt are Kate and Anna McGarrigle – it was would not have been surprising if Rufus had found it difficult to make his mark. Being welcomed into the world to the ditty Rufus Is A Tit Man, which Loudon, who has recorded more than 20 albums, penned in tribute to his new baby, is not the most auspicious start. But the talent of the opera-loving performer allowed him to transcend his heritage and ensured he would eventually eclipse both them – and younger sister Martha – in terms of both his musical success and fame, at least in the UK.

Part of this has come down to his personality. Rufus came out as gay when he was still a teenager and became so badly addicted to crystal meth that he had to go into rehab. But mostly it is due to his musical genius. He has recorded five albums of original music, EPs, tracks on compilations and film soundtracks, since he released his critically lauded debut album Poses in 1995.