The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com:80/Xmas
Saturday, 27 October 2012
The Slade - 06.Merry Xmas Everybody
John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Love Actually - All I want for Xmas
Annoying Orange - Xmas Card Xplosion!!
Eddsworld - Eddsworld - Xmas Day
XMAS SHOPPING PRANK!
Celine Dion: Happy Xmas (The War is Over)-- WITH LYRICS
RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Routine
KoRn - Xmas Song
Merry XMas - LD
slade - merry christmas everybody
Happy Holidays - Xmas Google Doodle

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The Slade - 06.Merry Xmas Everybody
  • Order:
  • Published: 14 Feb 2007
  • Duration: 3:41
  • Updated: 22 Oct 2012
Author: kkkkkklf

published: 14 Feb 2007
author: kkkkkklf
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/The Slade - 06.Merry Xmas Everybody
Eddsworld - Eddsworld - Xmas Day
  • Order:
  • Published: 20 Dec 2009
  • Duration: 2:19
  • Updated: 26 Oct 2012
Author: eddsworld

published: 20 Dec 2009
author: eddsworld
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/Eddsworld - Eddsworld - Xmas Day
XMAS SHOPPING PRANK!
  • Order:
  • Published: 04 Dec 2011
  • Duration: 4:10
  • Updated: 26 Oct 2012
Author: MediocreFilms

published: 04 Dec 2011
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/XMAS SHOPPING PRANK!
RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Routine
  • Order:
  • Published: 20 Nov 2009
  • Duration: 3:37
  • Updated: 10 Oct 2012
Author: plasticpals1

published: 20 Nov 2009
author: plasticpals1
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Routine
KoRn - Xmas Song
  • Order:
  • Published: 28 Nov 2007
  • Duration: 2:30
  • Updated: 25 Oct 2012
Author: osgoodrios

published: 28 Nov 2007
author: osgoodrios
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/KoRn - Xmas Song
Merry XMas - LD
  • Order:
  • Published: 20 Dec 2007
  • Duration: 1:03
  • Updated: 11 Oct 2012
Author: Gengsty

published: 20 Dec 2007
author: Gengsty
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/Merry XMas - LD
slade - merry christmas everybody
  • Order:
  • Published: 26 Nov 2007
  • Duration: 3:16
  • Updated: 26 Oct 2012
Author: abcdefdjykj

published: 26 Nov 2007
author: abcdefdjykj
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/slade - merry christmas everybody
Happy Holidays - Xmas Google Doodle
  • Order:
  • Published: 23 Dec 2011
  • Duration: 0:38
  • Updated: 23 Sep 2012
Author: tagSeoBlog

published: 23 Dec 2011
author: tagSeoBlog
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/Happy Holidays - Xmas Google Doodle
Xmas Metal Medley
  • Order:
  • Published: 03 Dec 2011
  • Duration: 3:24
  • Updated: 24 Oct 2012
Author: sbeast64

published: 03 Dec 2011
author: sbeast64
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/Xmas Metal Medley
Pink Floyd - Merry Xmas Song
  • Order:
  • Published: 22 Dec 2007
  • Duration: 2:21
  • Updated: 20 Oct 2012
Author: Malkin2004

published: 22 Dec 2007
author: Malkin2004
http://web.archive.org./web/20121027074442/http://wn.com/Pink Floyd - Merry Xmas Song

published: 14 Feb 2007
author: kkkkkklf
3:41
The Slade - 06.​Merry Xmas Ev­ery­body
...
pub­lished: 14 Feb 2007
3:36
John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
...
pub­lished: 24 Aug 2010
2:33
Love Ac­tu­al­ly - All I want for Xmas
...
pub­lished: 05 Nov 2006
2:36
An­noy­ing Or­ange - Xmas Card Xplo­sion!!
...
pub­lished: 16 Dec 2011
2:19
Ed­dsworld - Ed­dsworld - Xmas Day
...
pub­lished: 20 Dec 2009
4:10
XMAS SHOP­PING PRANK!
...
pub­lished: 04 Dec 2011
4:15
Ce­line Dion: Happy Xmas (The War is Over)-- WITH LYRICS
...
pub­lished: 26 Nov 2008
3:37
RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Rou­tine
...
pub­lished: 20 Nov 2009
2:30
KoRn - Xmas Song
...
pub­lished: 28 Nov 2007
1:03
Merry XMas - LD
...
pub­lished: 20 Dec 2007
3:16
slade - merry christ­mas ev­ery­body
...
pub­lished: 26 Nov 2007
0:38
Happy Hol­i­days - Xmas Google Doo­dle
...
pub­lished: 23 Dec 2011
3:24
Xmas Metal Med­ley
...
pub­lished: 03 Dec 2011
2:21
Pink Floyd - Merry Xmas Song
...
pub­lished: 22 Dec 2007
Vimeo results:
2:23
School Por­trait
Di­rect­ed by Nick Scott - www.​nickdavidscott.​com || http://​twitter.​com/​nickdavidscott Produ...
pub­lished: 06 Oct 2011
1:30
Ex­pe­ri­ence Mo­bile Mo­bile
Lost Boys (an In­ter­ac­tive Agen­cy) in­vit­ed me to do some­thing for their agen­cy Christ­mas ca...
pub­lished: 11 Dec 2009
1:26
Share The Joy. Répan­dez la Joie.
A short an­i­mat­ed Hol­i­day mes­sage from SHED. Un court mes­sage des fêtes animé par SHED....
pub­lished: 22 Dec 2011
Au­thor: SHED
0:52
BT Vi­sion Christ­mas 2011
pub­lished: 05 Dec 2011
Au­thor: weare17

Youtube results:
4:01
Why This Xmas Tree Kolaveri Tommy Sand­hu BBC
...
pub­lished: 09 Dec 2011
3:48
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
...
pub­lished: 25 Oct 2009
2:06
Christ­mas vs. Xmas - Mer­ri­am-Web­ster Ask the Ed­i­tor
...
pub­lished: 10 Dec 2010
12:56
XMAS LIGHT N00bz! (12.19.10 - Day 598)
...
pub­lished: 20 Dec 2010




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Photo: Creative Commons / Neogeolegend
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25 Oct 2012
MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - A high-ranking North Korean Army official was reportedly executed with a mortar round for drinking liquor during the 100-day...



Photo: White House / Pete Souza
File - President Barack Obama disembarks Air Force One upon arrival at Joplin Regional Airport in Joplin, Missouri, May 21, 2012.
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24 Oct 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling By the time President Richard Nixon told his Chinese hosts during a banquet toast, "Let us start a long march together, not in lockstep, but on different...



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Yahoo Daily News
25 Oct 2012
HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy, growing stronger over warm Caribbean waters, lashed eastern Cuba with heavy rains and rising winds on Wednesday as it bore down on the communist island after...



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Myanmar Buddhist monks march, protesting against plans to open office of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in Yangon, Myanmar, Monday, Oct. 15, 2012.
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YANGON: A new wave of sectarian violence in western Myanmar has left five people dead and dozens injured in recent days, triggering another exodus of Muslims to emergency camps, officials said...



Photo: AP / Ariel Schalit
Smoke trails of rocket fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza Strip towards Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012.
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24 Oct 2012
Repeated attacks ... a rocket is launched from Gaza towards southern Israel. Photo: AFP JERUSALEM: The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened "more extensive and deeper action" against...





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A 1922 Ladies' Home Journal advertisement using "Xmas".

"Xmas" is a common abbreviation of the word "Christmas". It is sometimes pronounced /ˈɛksməs/, but it, and variants such as "Xtemass", originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation /ˈkrɪsməs/. The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for "Mass",[1] while the "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ".[2]

There is a common misconception that the word Xmas is a secular attempt to remove the religious tradition from Christmas[3] by taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas".

Contents

Style guides and etiquette[link]

"Xmas" used on a Christmas postcard, 1910

"Xmas" is deprecated by some modern style guides, including those at the New York Times,[4] The Times, The Guardian, and the BBC.[5] Millicent Fenwick, in the 1948 Vogue's Book of Etiquette states that "'Xmas' should never be used" in greeting cards.[6] The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage states that the spelling should be considered informal and restricted to contexts where concision is valued, such as headlines and greeting cards.[7] The Christian Writer's Manual of Style, while acknowledging the ancient and respectful use of "Xmas" in the past, states that the spelling should never be used in formal writing.[8]

History[link]

Use in English[link]

"XMAS 1898" is near the bottom of this Canadian postage stamp.

Early use of "Xmas" includes Bernard Ward's History of St. Edmund's college, Old Hall (originally published circa 1755).[9] An earlier version, "X'temmas", dates to 1551.[9] Around 1100 the term was written as "Xp̄es mæsse" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[2] "Xmas" is found in a letter from George Woodward in 1753.[10] Lord Byron used the term in 1811,[11] as did Samuel Coleridge (1801)[5] and Lewis Carroll (1864).[11] In the United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. used the term in a letter dated 1923.[11] Since at least the late 19th century, "Xmas" has been in use in various other English-language nations. Quotations with the word can be found in texts written in Canada,[12] and the word has been used in Australia,[7] and in the Caribbean.[13] Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage stated that modern use of the term is largely limited to advertisements, headlines and banners, where its conciseness is valued. The association with commerce "has done nothing for its reputation", according to the dictionary.[11]

In the United Kingdom, the former Church of England Bishop of Blackburn, Alan Chesters, recommended to his clergy that they avoid the spelling.[5] In the United States, in 1977 New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson sent out a press release saying that he wanted journalists to keep the "Christ" in Christmas, and not call it Xmas—which he asserted was a "pagan" spelling of Christmas.[14]

Use of "X" for "Christ"[link]

For the article about the "ΧΡ" symbol see Chi Rho.
The labarum, often called the Chi-Rho, is a Christian symbol representing Christ.

The abbreviation of Christmas as "Xmas" is the source of disagreement among Christians who observe the holiday. Dennis Bratcher, writing for a website for Christians, states "there are always those who loudly decry the use of the abbreviation 'Xmas' as some kind of blasphemy against Christ and Christianity".[15] Among them are evangelist Franklin Graham and CNN journalist Roland S. Martin. Graham stated in an interview:

for us as Christians, this is one of the most holy of the holidays, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. And for people to take Christ out of Christmas. They're happy to say merry Xmas. Let's just take Jesus out. And really, I think, a war against the name of Jesus Christ.[16]

Martin likewise relates the use of "Xmas" to his growing concerns of increasing commercialization and secularization of one of Christianity's highest holy days.[17] Bratcher posits that those who dislike abbreviating the word are unfamiliar with a long history of Christians using X in place of "Christ" for various purposes.

The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated in English for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "XP" or "Xt"; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as AD 1021. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ and ρ used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for "Christ"),[2] and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as , is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.[18]

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and the OED Supplement have cited usages of "X-" or "Xp-" for "Christ-" as early as 1485. The terms "Xpian" and "Xtian" have also been used for "Christian". The dictionary further cites usage of "Xtianity" for "Christianity" from 1634.[2] According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, most of the evidence for these words comes from "educated Englishmen who knew their Greek".[11]

In ancient Christian art, χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name.[19] In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, Χ is an abbreviation for Χριστος[citation needed], as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma);[20] compare IC for Jesus in Greek.

Other uses of "X" for "Chris-"[link]

Other proper names containing the name "Christ" besides those mentioned above are sometimes abbreviated similarly (e.g., Xtina for the name "Christina"). This usage of "X" to spell the syllable "kris" (rather than the sounds "ks") has extended to "xtal" for "crystal", and on florists' signs to "xant" for "chrysanthemum",[21] even though these words are not etymologically related to "Christ": "crystal" comes from a Greek word meaning "ice" (and not even using the letter χ), and "chrysanthemum" comes from Greek words meaning "golden flower" (while "Christ" comes from a Greek word meaning "anointed").

In the 17th and 18th centuries, "Xene" and "Exene" were common spellings for the given name Christine. The American singer Christina Aguilera has sometimes gone by the name "Xtina" (the "t" should not be considered redundant; as is noted above, "Christ" was historically often shortened to "Xt", not just to X).[22]

In popular culture[link]

  • In the animated television show Futurama, which is set in the 31st century, Xmas /ˈɛksməs/ is the official name for the day formerly known as Christmas (which, in the episode "Xmas Story," is said to have become an "archaic pronunciation").
  • In the board game Monopoly, one of the "Community Chest" cards reads, "XMAS FUND MATURES COLLECT $150."

See also[link]

References[link]

  1. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia: Liturgy of the Mass. Retrieved 20 December 2007.
  2. ^ a b c d "X n. 10.". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2011. http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.spl.org:2048/view/Entry/230945#eid14045485. Retrieved 17 June 2011. 
  3. ^ O'Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart (2009). Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language. New York: Random House. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-4000-6660-5. 
  4. ^ Siegel, Allan M. and William G. Connolly, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Three Rivers Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8129-6389-2, pp 66, 365, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  5. ^ a b c Griffiths, Emma, "Why get cross about Xmas?", BBC website, December 22, 2004. Retrieved December 28, 2008.
  6. ^ Fenwick, Millicent, Vogue's Book of Etiquette: A Complete Guide to Traditional Forms and Modern Usage, Simon and Schuster, 1948, p 611, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008; full quote seen on Google Books search page
  7. ^ a b Peters, Pam, "Xmas" article, The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage, Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-87821-0, p 872, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  8. ^ Hudson, Robert, "Xmas" article, The Christian Writer's Manual of Style: Updated and Expanded Edition, Zondervan, 2004, ISBN 978-0-310-48771-5 p 412, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  9. ^ a b "Xmas, n.". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2011. http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.spl.org:2048/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/231032. Retrieved 17 June 2011. 
  10. ^ Mullan, John and Christopher Reid, Eighteenth-century Popular Culture: A Selection, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-19-871134-6, p 216, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  11. ^ a b c d e "Xmas" article, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1994, p 968, ISBN 978-0-87779-132-4, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  12. ^ Kelcey, Barbara Eileen, Alone in Silence: European Women in the Canadian North Before 1940, McGill-Queen's Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-7735-2292-3 ("We had singing practice with the white men for the Xmas carols", written by Sadie Stringer in Peel River, Northwest Territories, Canada), p 50, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  13. ^ Alssopp, Richard, "most1" articleDictionary of Caribbean English Usage, University of the West Indies Press, 2003, ISBN 978-976-640-145-0 ("The most day I enjoy was Xmas day" — Bdos, 1985), p 388, retrieved via Google Books, December 27, 2008
  14. ^ "X-mas is 'X'ing out Christ'", The Montreal Gazette, December 8, 1977, accessed February 10, 2010
  15. ^ "The Origin of "Xmas"". CRI/Voice. 2007-12-03. http://www.crivoice.org/symbols/xmasorigin.html. Retrieved 2009-08-16. 
  16. ^ American Morning: A Conversation With Reverend Franklin Graham, CNN (December 16, 2005). Retrieved on December 29, 2009.
  17. ^ Martin, Roland (December 20, 2007). Commentary: You can't take Christ out of Christmas, CNN. Retrieved on December 29, 2009.
  18. ^ Christian Symbols: Chi-Rho Christian Symbols, Doug Gray, Retrieved 2009-12-07
  19. ^ "Monogram of Christ". New Advent. 1911-10-01. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10488a.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-16. 
  20. ^ Church Symbolism: An Explanation of the more Important Symbols of the Old and New Testament, the Primitive, the Mediaeval and the Modern Church by Frederick Roth Webber (2nd. edition, 1938). OCLC 236708
  21. ^ "X". Everything 2. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=13693&lastnode_id=0. Retrieved 2009-08-16. 
  22. ^ http://www.all-acronyms.com/XT./Christ/1136835 "Abbreviation: Xt." Date retrieved: 19 Dec. 2010.

External links[link]

http://wn.com/Xmas

Related pages:

http://de.wn.com/X-mas

http://it.wn.com/Xmas




This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.


John Lennon
MBE
A bearded, bespectacled man in his late twenties, with long dark brown hair and wearing a loose-fitting pajama shirt, sings and plays an acoustic guitar. White flowers are visible behind and to the right of him.
Lennon rehearses "Give Peace a Chance" in Montreal, Canada, in 1969
Background information
Birth name John Winston Lennon
Born (1940-10-09)9 October 1940
Liverpool, England, UK
Died 8 December 1980(1980-12-08) (aged 40)
New York, New York, US
Genres Rock, pop
Occupations Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, writer
Instruments Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica, harmonium, electronic organ, six-string bass
Years active 1957–75, 1980
Labels Parlophone, Capitol, Apple, EMI, Geffen, Polydor
Associated acts The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, Yoko Ono
Website www.johnlennon.com
Notable instruments
Rickenbacker 325
Epiphone Casino
Gibson J-160E
Lennon's signature

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founder members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Together with Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to raising his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film, and in interviews. Controversial through his political and peace activism, he moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.

As of 2012 Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002 a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Contents

History[link]

1940–57: Early years[link]

Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son's birth.[1] He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[2] His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother,[3] but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944.[4][5] When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea.[6] After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him.[7] Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her.[8] It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.[9]

A grey two-story building, with numerous windows visible on both levels
251 Menlove Avenue, the home of George and Mimi Smith, where Lennon lived for most of his childhood and adolescence

Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton.[10] His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles.[11] Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, learning how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.[12]

In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature:

Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic musician. But I cannot be what I am not. Because of my attitude, all the other boys' parents ... instinctively recognised what I was, which was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their kids, which I did ... I did my best to disrupt every friend's home ... Partly, maybe, it was out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home, but I really did ... There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic ... that was my first feminist education ... One happened to be my mother ... she just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister ... the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods.[13]

He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas.[14] During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby.[15] After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16."[16] He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).[17]

Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School.[18] From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, "A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad."[19] He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl,[20] but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: "Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time."[21]

His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she "lent" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations.[22] As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it".[23] On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.[24]

Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened.[25] Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class.[26] He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was "thrown out of the college before his final year."[27]

1957–70: The Quarrymen to The Beatles[link]

1957–65: Formation, commercial break-out, and touring years[link]

Monochrome image of John Lennon playing guitar and speaking into a microphone while wearing a grey suit.
Lennon playing with The Beatles in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania

The Beatles evolved from Lennon's first band, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by him in September 1956 when he was 15, and began as a skiffle group.[28] By the summer of 1957 the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle, and half rock and roll.[29] Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which McCartney was asked to join the band.[30]

McCartney says that Aunt Mimi: "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon.[31] According to Paul's brother Mike, McCartney's father was also disapproving, declaring Lennon would get his son "into trouble";[32] although he later allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the McCartneys' front room at 20 Forthlin Road.[33][34] During this time, the 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", a UK top 10 hit for The Fourmost nearly five years later.[35]

George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist,[36] even though Lennon thought Harrison (at 14 years old) was too young to join the band, so McCartney engineered a second audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon.[37] Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist.[38] Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year The Beatles, engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, and desperately in need of a drummer, asked Pete Best to join them.[39] Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead.[40] After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg,[41] and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.[42]

Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but nevertheless had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage.[43] Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me".[44] McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached #17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963,[45] a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold,[46] which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, Twist and Shout.[47] The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that–to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant".[45] In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".[48]

The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK during the beginning of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery."[49] After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.[50] The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1965.[51]

Lennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles' concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result.[52] Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'".[53] He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period),[54] and felt he was subconsciously seeking change.[55] The following January he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug.[56] When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical."[56] A few months later in March, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."[57] The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles' records, Ku Klux Klan activity, and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.[58]

1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo work[link]

File:Beatles-our-world.jpg
Lennon (right) performing "All You Need Is Love" with The Beatles in 1967 to 400 million viewers of "Our World".

Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band.[59] Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year."[60] According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him "close to erasing his identity".[61] 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by TIME magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness",[62] and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon–McCartney's early years.

In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales,[63] and were informed of Epstein's death during the seminar. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared".[64] They later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance, where they composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.[65]

The anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles' full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967.[66] McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project,[67] the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Lewis Carroll-inspired "I am the Walrus", was a success.[68][69] With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, "artistic freedom within a business structure",[70] but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple's chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr,[71] but McCartney never signed the management contract.[72]

At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film.[74] Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called "Bag One" depicting scenes from their honeymoon,[75] eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated.[76] Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond The Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins[77] (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War,[78] Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced.[79] Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969),[80] "Cold Turkey" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin[81]) and "Instant Karma!".

Lennon left the group in September 1969,[82] and agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, but he was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!"[83] He later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that."[84] In later interviews with Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record."[85] He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr "got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?"[86]

1970–80: Solo career[link]

1970–72: Initial solo success and activism[link]

Advertisement for "Imagine" from Billboard, 18 September 1971.

In 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London.[87] Lennon's emotional debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock."[88] The album featured the songs "Mother", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection,[89] and the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric "you're still fucking peasants", fell foul of broadcasters.[90][91] The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write "Power to the People". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against Oz magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as "disgusting fascism", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined marches in support of the magazine.[92]

With Lennon's next album, Imagine (1971), critical response was more guarded. Rolling Stone reported that "it contains a substantial portion of good music" but warned of the possibility that "his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant".[95] The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements,[96] while another, "How Do You Sleep?", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed,[97] were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-1970s and said he had written "How Do You Sleep?" about himself.[98] He said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".[99]

Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".[100] To advertise the single, they paid for billboards in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER—IF YOU WANT IT".[101] The new year saw the Nixon Administration take what it called a "strategic counter-measure" against Lennon's anti-war propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him: embroiled in a continuing legal battle, he was denied permanent residency in the US until 1976.[102]

Recorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, Some Time in New York City was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card,[103] the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic.[104] "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word "nigger".[105] Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility.[106] Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.[107]

1973–75: "Lost weekend"[link]

Publicity photo of John Lennon and host Tom Snyder from the television program Tomorrow. Done in 1975, this was the last television interview Lennon gave before his death in 1980.

While Lennon was recording Mind Games (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing 18-month period apart, which he later called his "lost weekend",[108] was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. Mind Games, credited to the "Plastic U.F.Ono Band", was released in November 1973. Lennon also contributed "I'm the Greatest", to Starr's album Ringo (1973), released the same month. (an alternate take, from the same 1973 Ringo sessions, with Lennon providing a guide vocal, appears on John Lennon Anthology).

In early 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson made headlines. Two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club in March, the first when Lennon placed a menstruation "towel" on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress, and the second, two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers.[109] Lennon decided to produce Nilsson's album Pussy Cats and Pang rented a Los Angeles beach house for all the musicians[110] but after a month of further debauchery, with the recording sessions in chaos, Lennon moved to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than 30 years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007).[111]

Settled back in New York, Lennon recorded the album Walls and Bridges. Released in October 1974, it yielded his only number-one single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", featuring Elton John on backing vocals and piano.[112] A second single from the album, "#9 Dream", followed before the end of the year. Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano.[113] On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"—a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted—reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There", which he introduced as "a song by an old estranged fiancee of mine called Paul".[114]

Lennon co-wrote "Fame", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording.[115] The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals (Lennon is credited on the single under the moniker of "Dr. Winston O'Boogie"). He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards. Lennon released Rock 'n' Roll (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. "Stand by Me", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years.[116] He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June.[117] Playing acoustic guitar, and backed by an eight-piece band, Lennon performed two songs from Rock 'n' Roll ("Stand By Me", which was not broadcast, and "Slippin' and Slidin'") followed by "Imagine".[117]

1975–80: Retirement and return[link]

With the birth of his second son Sean on 9 October 1975, Lennon took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family.[13] Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing Shaved Fish, a compilation album of previously recorded tracks.[13] He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him.[118] He wrote "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980.[119] He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, "we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family."[120] During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed "mad stuff",[121] all of which would be published posthumously.

He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album Double Fantasy, which contained songs written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June,[122] that reflected Lennon's fulfilment in his new-found stable family life.[123] Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey (released posthumously in 1984).[124] Released jointly with Ono, Double Fantasy was not well received, drawing comments such as Melody Maker's "indulgent sterility ... a godawful yawn".[125]

8 December 1980: Death[link]

At around 10:50 pm on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in The Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of the nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 pm.[126] Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.[127]

Ono issued a statement the next day, saying "There is no funeral for John", ending it with the words, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him."[128] His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created.[129] Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; as of 2011, he remains in prison, having been denied parole six times.[130][131]

Personal relationships[link]

Cynthia Lennon[link]

File:John and Cynthia on car.JPG
John Lennon and Cynthia Powell in 1959

Lennon and Cynthia Powell met in 1957 as fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art.[132] Although being scared of Lennon's attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so she dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he screamed out, "I didn't ask you to fuckin' marry me, did I?"[133] She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend at the time to visit him.[134] Lennon, jealous by nature, eventually grew possessive and often terrified Powell with his anger and physical violence.[135] Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude to women. The Beatles' song "Getting Better", he said, told his own story, "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace".[13]

Recalling his reaction in July 1962 on learning that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, "There's only one thing for it Cyn. We'll have to get married."[136] The couple were married on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. His marriage began just as Beatlemania took hold across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day, and would continue to do so almost daily from then on.[137] Epstein, fearing that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his son until three days later.[138]

Cynthia attributes the start of the marriage breakdown to LSD, and as a result, she felt that he slowly lost interest in her.[139] When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967, for the Maharishi Yogi's Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolise the ending of their marriage.[140] After arriving home at Kenwood, and finding Lennon with Ono, Cynthia left the house to stay with friends. Alexis Mardas later claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he informed her that Lennon was seeking a divorce and custody of Julian on grounds of her adultery with him. After negotiations, Lennon capitulated and agreed to her divorcing him on the same grounds. The case was settled out of court, with Lennon giving her £100,000, and custody of Julian.[141]

Brian Epstein[link]

File:Epstein at Hard Days Night.jpg
Starr, McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Epstein at the preview of A Hard Day’s Night in 1964

The Beatles were performing at Liverpool's Cavern Club in 1962, when all four Beatles were introduced to Epstein after a midday concert. Epstein was homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of his reasons for wanting to manage the group was that he was physically attracted to Lennon. Almost as soon as Julian was born, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, leading to speculation about their relationship. Questioned about it later, Lennon said, "Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship. It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one? Do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this."[142] Soon after their return from Spain, at McCartney's twenty-first birthday party in June 1963, Lennon physically attacked Cavern Club MC Bob Wooler for saying "How was your honeymoon, John?" The MC, known for his wordplay and affectionate but cutting remarks, was making a joke,[143] but ten months had passed since Lennon's marriage, and the honeymoon, deferred, was still two months in the future.[144] To Lennon, who was intoxicated with alcohol at the time, the matter was simple: "He called me a queer so I battered his bloody ribs in".[145]

Lennon delighted in mocking Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish.[146] When Epstein invited suggestions for the title of his autobiography, Lennon offered Queer Jew; on learning of the eventual title, A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, "More like A Cellarful of Boys".[147] He demanded of a visitor to Epstein's flat, "Have you come to blackmail him? If not, you're the only bugger in London who hasn't."[146] During the recording of "Baby, You're a Rich Man", he sang altered choruses of "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew".[148][149]

Julian Lennon[link]

Julian Lennon at the unveiling of the John Lennon Peace Monument in Liverpool, 2010

Lennon's first son, Julian, was born as his commitments with The Beatles intensified at the height of Beatlemania during his marriage to Cynthia. Lennon was touring with The Beatles when Julian was born on 8 April 1963. Julian's birth, like his mother Cynthia's marriage to Lennon, was kept secret because Epstein was convinced public knowledge of such things would threaten The Beatles' commercial success. Julian recalls how some four years later, as a small child in Weybridge, "I was trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And Dad said, 'What's this?' I said, 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'"[150] Lennon used it as the title of a Beatles' song, and though it was later reported to have been derived from the initials LSD, Lennon insisted, "It's not an acid song."[151] McCartney corroborated Lennon's explanation that Julian innocently came up with the name.[151] Lennon was distant from Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to his father. During a car journey to visit Cynthia and Julian during Lennon's divorce, McCartney composed a song, "Hey Jules", to comfort him. It would evolve into The Beatles song "Hey Jude". Lennon later said, "That's his best song. It started off as a song about my son Julian ... he turned it into 'Hey Jude'. I always thought it was about me and Yoko but he said it wasn't."[152]

Lennon's relationship with Julian was already strained, and after Lennon and Ono's 1971 move to New York, Julian would not see his father again until 1973.[153] With Pang's encouragement, it was arranged for him (and his mother) to visit Lennon in Los Angeles, where they went to Disneyland.[154] Julian started to see his father regularly, and Lennon gave him a drumming part on a Walls and Bridges track.[155] He bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by demonstrating guitar chord techniques.[155] Julian recalls that he and his father "got on a great deal better" during the time he spent in New York: "We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general."[156]

In a Playboy interview with David Sheff shortly before his death, Lennon said, "Sean was a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will." He said he was trying to re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old, and confidently predicted, "Julian and I will have a relationship in the future."[13] After his death it was revealed that he had left Julian very little in his will.[157]

Yoko Ono[link]

John Lennon with Yoko Ono by Jack Mitchell, 1980

Two versions exist of how Lennon met Ono. According to the first, on 9 November 1966 Lennon went to the Indica Gallery in London, where Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibit, and they were introduced by gallery owner John Dunbar.[158] Lennon was intrigued by Ono's "Hammer A Nail": patrons hammered a nail into a wooden board, creating the art piece. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to hammer a nail into the clean board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, "Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He might buy it." Ono had supposedly not heard of The Beatles, but relented on condition that Lennon pay her five shillings, to which Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in."[13] The second version, told by McCartney, is that in late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on, Notations, but McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book, suggesting that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word".[159]

Ono began telephoning and calling at Lennon's home, and when his wife asked for an explanation, he explained that Ono was only trying to obtain money for her "avant-garde bullshit".[160] In May 1968, while his wife was on holiday in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to visit. They spent the night recording what would become the Two Virgins album, after which, he said, they "made love at dawn."[161] When Lennon's wife returned home she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, "Oh, hi."[162] Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono Lennon II on 21 November 1968,[129] a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.[163]

During Lennon's last two years in The Beatles, he and Ono began public protests against the Vietnam War. They were married in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long Bed-In for peace. They planned another Bed-In in the United States, but were denied entry,[164] so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance".[165] They often combined advocacy with performance art, as in their "Bagism", first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Lennon detailed this period in The Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko".[166] Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding "Ono" as a middle name. The brief ceremony took place on the roof of the Apple Corps building, made famous three months earlier by The Beatles' Let It Be rooftop concert. Although he used the name John Ono Lennon thereafter, official documents referred to him as John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not permitted to revoke a name given at birth.[167] After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon arranged for a king-sized bed to be brought to the recording studio as he worked on The Beatles' last album, Abbey Road.[168] To escape the acrimony of the band's break-up, Ono suggested they move permanently to New York, which they did on 31 August 1971.

They first lived in the St. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, then moved to a street-level flat at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, on 16 October 1971. After a robbery, they relocated to the more secure Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street, in May 1973.[169]

May Pang[link]

Profile picture of a bespectacled Asian woman in her early fifties. She has long red hair, and shows a toothy smile.
May Pang

ABKCO Industries, formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company to ABKCO Records, recruited May Pang as a receptionist in 1969. Through involvement in a project with ABKCO, Lennon and Ono met her the following year. She became their personal assistant. After she had been working with the couple for three years, Ono confided that she and Lennon were becoming estranged from one another. She went on to suggest that Pang should begin a physical relationship with Lennon, telling her, "He likes you a lot." Pang, 22, astounded by Ono's proposition, eventually agreed to become Lennon's companion. The pair soon moved to California, beginning an 18-month period he later called his "lost weekend".[108] In Los Angeles, Pang encouraged Lennon to develop regular contact with Julian, whom he had not seen for two years. He also rekindled friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles' roadie Mal Evans, and Harry Nilsson. Whilst drinking with Nilsson, after misunderstanding something Pang said, Lennon attempted to strangle her, relenting only when physically restrained by Nilsson.[170]

On moving to New York, they prepared a spare room in their newly rented apartment for Julian to visit.[170] Lennon, hitherto inhibited by Ono in this regard, began to reestablish contact with other relatives and friends. By December he and Pang were considering a house purchase, and he was refusing to accept Ono's telephone calls. In January 1975, he agreed to meet Ono—who said she had found a cure for smoking. But after the meeting he failed to return home or call Pang. When Pang telephoned the next day, Ono told her Lennon was unavailable, being exhausted after a hypnotherapy session. Two days later, Lennon reappeared at a joint dental appointment, stupefied and confused to such an extent that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He told her his separation from Ono was now over, though Ono would allow him to continue seeing her as his mistress.[171]

Sean Lennon[link]

When Lennon and Ono were reunited, she became pregnant, but having previously suffered three miscarriages in her attempt to have a child with Lennon, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed to allow the pregnancy to continue on condition that Lennon adopt the role of househusband; this he agreed to do.[172] Sean was born on 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday, delivered by Caesarean section. Lennon's subsequent career break would span five years. He had a photographer take pictures of Sean every day of his first year, and created numerous drawings for him, posthumously published as Real Love: The Drawings for Sean. Lennon later proudly declared, "He didn't come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish."[173]

Former Beatles[link]

Black-and-white picture of four young men outdoors in front of a staircase, surrounded by a large assembled crowd. All four are waving to the crowd.
Lennon (left) and the rest of The Beatles arriving in the US in 1964

Although his friendship with Starr remained consistently warm during the years following The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon's relationship with McCartney and Harrison varied. He was close to Harrison initially, but the two drifted apart after Lennon moved to America. When Harrison was in New York for his December 1974 Dark Horse tour, Lennon agreed to join him on stage, but failed to appear after an argument over Lennon's refusal to sign an agreement that would finally dissolve The Beatles' legal partnership. (Lennon eventually signed the papers while holidaying in Florida with Pang and Julian.[174]) Harrison incensed Lennon in 1980 when he published an autobiography that made little mention of him. Lennon told Playboy, "I was hurt by it. By glaring omission ... my influence on his life is absolutely zilch ... he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book."[175]

Lennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?", Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after the group split. The two later began to reestablish something of the close friendship they had once known, and in 1974 even played music together again, before growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get The Beatles to reunite on the show.[176] The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance, attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired.[13] Lennon summarised his feelings towards McCartney in an interview three days before his death: "Throughout my career, I've selected to work with...only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono....That ain't bad picking."[177]

Along with his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt a musical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. During his five-year career break he was content to sit back so long as McCartney was producing what Lennon saw as mediocre "product".[178] When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year of his life, he took notice. "It's driving me crackers!" he jokingly complained, because he could not get the tune out of his head.[178] Asked the same year whether the group were dreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they were neither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But he also said, "I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on."[13]

Political activism[link]

Lennon and Ono sit in front of flowers and placards bearing the word "peace." Lennon is only partly visible, and he holds an acoustic guitar. Ono wears a white dress, and there is a hanging microphone in front of her. In the foreground of the image are three men, one of them a guitarist facing away, and a woman.
Recording "Give Peace a Chance" during the Bed-In for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal

Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a "Bed-In for Peace" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel; the March 1969 event attracted worldwide media ridicule.[179][180] At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal[181] Lennon wrote and recorded "Give Peace a Chance". Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem and sung by a quarter of a million demonstrators against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC, on 15 October, the second Vietnam Moratorium Day.[80][182]

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported efforts by the family of James Hanratty, hanged for murder in 1962, to prove his innocence.[183] Those who had condemned Hanratty were, according to Lennon, "the same people who are running guns to South Africa and killing blacks in the streets. ... The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything, it's the whole bullshit bourgeois scene."[184] In London, Lennon and Ono staged a "Britain Murdered Hanratty" banner march and a "Silent Protest For James Hanratty",[78] and produced a 40-minute documentary on the case. At an appeal hearing years later, Hanratty's conviction was upheld.[185]

Lennon and Ono showed their solidarity with the Clydeside UCS workers' work-in of 1971 by sending a bouquet of red roses and a cheque for £5,000.[186] On moving to New York City in August that year, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.[187] Another peace activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for selling two joints of marijuana after previous convictions for possession of the drug.[188] In December 1971 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 20,000 people attended the "John Sinclair Freedom Rally", a protest and benefit concert with contributions from Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, and others.[189] Lennon and Ono, backed by David Peel and Rubin, performed an acoustic set of four songs from their forthcoming Some Time in New York City album including "John Sinclair", whose lyrics called for his release. The day before the rally, Michigan State had drastically reduced the penalties for Sinclair's crimes and three days after the rally, he was released on bail.[190] The performance was recorded and two of the tracks later appeared on John Lennon Anthology (1998).[191]

Following the Bloody Sunday incident in Northern Ireland in 1972, in which 13 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRA (who were not involved in the incident) he would side with the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote two songs protesting British presence and actions in Ireland for their Some Time in New York City album: "Luck of the Irish" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday". In 2000, David Shayler, a former member of Britain's domestic security service MI5 suggested that Lennon had given money to the IRA though this was swiftly denied by Ono.[192] Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film The Irish Tapes, a political documentary with a Republican slant.[193]

According to FBI surveillance reports (and confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) Lennon was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968.[194] However, the FBI considered Lennon to have limited effectiveness as a revolutionary since he was "constantly under the influence of narcotics".[195]

Deportation attempt[link]

Following the impact of "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", both strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, the Nixon administration, hearing rumours of Lennon's involvement in a concert to be held in San Diego at the same time as the Republican National Convention,[196] tried to have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election;[197] Republican Senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that "deportation would be a strategic counter-measure" against Lennon.[198] The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the United States. Lennon spent the next three and a half years in and out of deportation hearings until on 8 October 1975, when a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating " ... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds."[199][103] While the legal battle continued, Lennon attended rallies and made television appearances. Lennon and Ono co-hosted the Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972, introducing guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale to mid-America.[200] In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country's so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country's got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay![201][202]

On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days.[203] Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia; a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people".[204] Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. The press conference was filmed, and would later appear in the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon.[205] Lennon's Mind Games (1973) included the track "Nutopian International Anthem", which comprised three seconds of silence.[206] Soon after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a political scandal came to light, and in June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, DC. They led to the president's resignation 14 months later. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle against Lennon, and the deportation order was overturned in 1975. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his "green card" certifying his permanent residency, and when Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977, Lennon and Ono attended the Inaugural Ball.[207]

FBI surveillance and declassified documents[link]

Document with portions of text blacked out, dated 1972.
The FBI conducted clandestine surveillance on Lennon in the early 1970s. Here is a confidential letter from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General about the surveillance. Historian Jon Wiener used the Freedom of Information Act with help from ACLU lawyers to push for the eventual release of these documents.

After Lennon's death, historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files documenting the Bureau's role in the deportation attempt.[208] The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to release the withheld pages.[209] The ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favourable decision in their suit against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991.[210] The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court declined to review the case.[211] In 1997, respecting President Bill Clinton's newly instigated rule that documents should be withheld only if releasing them would involve "foreseeable harm", the Justice Department settled most of the outstanding issues outside court by releasing all but 10 of the contested documents.[211] Wiener published the results of his 14-year campaign in January 2000. Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files contained facsimiles of the documents, including "lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges".[212] The story is told in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The final 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file, which reported on his ties with London anti-war activists in 1971 and had been withheld as containing "national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality", were released in December 2006. They contained no indication that the British government had regarded Lennon as a serious threat; one example of the released material was a report that two prominent British leftists had hoped Lennon would finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room.[213]

Writing and art[link]

Lennon's biographer Bill Harry writes that Lennon began drawing and writing creatively at an early age with the encouragement of his uncle. He collected his stories, poetry, cartoons, and caricatures in a Quarry Bank High School exercise book that he called the Daily Howl. The drawings were often of crippled people, and the writings satirical, and throughout the book was an abundance of wordplay. According to classmate Bill Turner, Lennon created the Daily Howl to amuse his best friend and later Quarrymen band mate, Pete Shotton, to whom he would show his work before he let anyone else see it. Turner said that Lennon "had an obsession for Wigan Pier. It kept cropping up", and in Lennon's story A Carrot In A Potato Mine, "the mine was at the end of Wigan Pier." Turner described how one of Lennon's cartoons depicted a bus stop sign annotated with the question, "Why?". Above was a flying pancake, and below, "a blind man wearing glasses leading along a blind dog—also wearing glasses".[214]

Lennon's love of wordplay and nonsense with a twist found a wider audience when he was 24. Harry writes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after "Some journalist who was hanging around The Beatles came to me and I ended up showing him the stuff. They said, 'Write a book' and that's how the first one came about". Like the Daily Howl it contained a mix of formats including short stories, poetry, plays and drawings. One story, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the tale of "a happy dog, urinating on a lamp post, barking, wagging his tail—until he suddenly hears a message that he will be killed at three o'clock". The Times Literary Supplement considered the poems and stories "remarkable ... also very funny ... the nonsense runs on, words and images prompting one another in a chain of pure fantasy". Book Week reported, "This is nonsense writing, but one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me".[215]

In combination with A Spaniard in the Works (1965), In His Own Write formed the basis of the stage play The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write, co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrienne Kennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, the play opened at the Old Vic in 1968. Lennon and Ono attended the opening night performance, their second public appearance together to date.[216] After Lennon's death, further works were published, including Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986); Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook (1992), with Lennon's illustrations of the definitions of Japanese words; and Real Love: The Drawings for Sean (1999). The Beatles Anthology (2000) also presented examples of his writings and drawings.

Musicianship[link]

Instruments played[link]

Lennon's Les Paul Jr.

His playing of a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland caught the driver's ear. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger left it on a bus.[217] The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. He would continue to play harmonica, often using the instrument during The Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen.[218] As his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E, and, from the start of his solo career, the Gibson Les Paul Junior.[219][220] Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the Fender Bass VI, providing bass on some Beatles' numbers that occupied McCartney with another instrument.[221] His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including "Imagine", described as his best-known solo work.[222] His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of The Beatles' first US number one, "I Want to Hold Your Hand".[223] In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a Mellotron keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles' recording until "Strawberry Fields Forever" in late 1966.[224]

Vocal style[link]

When Lennon recorded "Twist and Shout", the final track during the mammoth one-day session that captured the band's 1963 debut album Please Please Me, his voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming."[225] In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll."[226] The Beatles' producer, George Martin, tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice! ... put something on it ... Make it different.'"[227] Martin obliged, often using double-tracking and other techniques. Music critic Robert Christgau says that Lennon's "greatest vocal performance ... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically ... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."[228]

As his Beatles' era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes that Lennon was, "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of 'Cold Turkey' and the cathartic John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band."[229] David Stuart Ryan notes Lennon's vocal delivery to range from, "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style.[230] Wiener too describes contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair"[231] Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing The Beatles' Ed Sullivan Show performance of "This Boy" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak ... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."[232]

Legacy[link]

John Lennon Peace Monument, Liverpool

Music historians Schinder and Schwartz, writing of the transformation in popular music styles that took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, say that The Beatles' influence cannot be overstated: having "revolutionized the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts", the group then "spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers".[233] Liam Gallagher, his group Oasis among the many who acknowledge the band's influence, identifies Lennon as a hero; in 1999 he named his first child Lennon Gallagher in tribute.[234] On National Poetry Day in 1999, after conducting a poll to identify the UK's favourite song lyric, the BBC announced "Imagine" the winner.[94]

In a 2006 Guardian article, Jon Wiener wrote: "For young people in 1972, it was thrilling to see Lennon's courage in standing up to [US President] Nixon. That willingness to take risks with his career, and his life, is one reason why people still admire him today."[235] Whilst for music historians Urish and Bielen, Lennon's most significant effort was "the self-portraits ... in his songs [which] spoke to, for, and about, the human condition."[236]

Lennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes. In 2010, on what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park, Liverpool, by Cynthia and Julian Lennon.[237] The sculpture entitled 'Peace & Harmony' exhibits peace symbols and carries the inscription "Peace on Earth for the Conservation of Life · In Honour of John Lennon 1940–1980".

Awards and sales[link]

Statue of Lennon, bespectacled with long hair, on a park bench. There are red flowers in the statue's lap, and numerous trees are visible in the background.
Statue in John Lennon Park, Havana, Cuba

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership is regarded as one of the most influential and successful of the 20th century. As performer, writer or co-writer Lennon has had 25 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart.a His album sales in the US stand at 14 million units.[238] Double Fantasy, released shortly before his death, and his best-selling, post-Beatles' studio album[239] at three million shipments in the US,[240] won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.[241] The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon.[242]

Participants in a 2002 BBC poll voted him eighth of "100 Greatest Britons".[243] Between 2003 and 2008, Rolling Stone recognised Lennon in several reviews of artists and music, ranking him fifth of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time"[244] and 38th of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time",[245] and his albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, 22nd and 76th respectively of "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[245][246] He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles in 1965.[51] He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987[247] and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.[107]

Discography[link]

A statue depicting a young Lennon outside a brick building. Next to the statue are three windows, with two side-by-side above the lower, which bears signage advertising the Cavern pub.
Statue outside the Cavern Club, Liverpool

Notes[link]

^ Note a: Lennon was responsible for 25 Billboard Hot 100 number one singles as performer, writer or co-writer.

Citations[link]

  1. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 504.
  2. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 24: "Julia offered the name in honour of... Winston Churchill".
  3. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 24: "The entire Stanley clan gathered nightly at Newcastle Road".
  4. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 54: "Until then he had sent her money each month from his wages, but now it stopped".
  5. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 26: "In February 1944 ... he was arrested and imprisoned. Freddie subsequently disappeared for six months".
  6. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 27.
  7. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 56: "Alf admitted to her that he had planned to take John to live in New Zealand".
  8. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 30: "Julia went out of the door... John ran after her".
  9. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 497.
  10. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 56: "Hard to see why Mimi wanted John, as she had always said she didn't want children".
  11. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 32: "When he was old enough, taught John how to solve crossword puzzles".
  12. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 48: "To get them started, she applied the triad to 'Ain't That a Shame'".
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Sheff 1981.
  14. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 32: "Parkes recalled... Leila and John to the cinema as often as three times a day".
  15. ^ Harry 2009.
  16. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 702.
  17. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 819.
  18. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 411.
  19. ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 32–33.
  20. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 40.
  21. ^ ClassReports 2008.
  22. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 45.
  23. ^ Norman 2008, p. 89.
  24. ^ Miles 1997, p. 48.
  25. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 100.
  26. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 553–555.
  27. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 50.
  28. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 738.
  29. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 95.
  30. ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 93–99.
  31. ^ Miles 1997, p. 44.
  32. ^ Miles 1997, p. 32.
  33. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 38–39.
  34. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 47.
  35. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 337–338.
  36. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 47, 50.
  37. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 47.
  38. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 64.
  39. ^ Miles 1997, p. 57.
  40. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 53.
  41. ^ Miles 1997, pp. 66–67.
  42. ^ Lennon 2005, p. 57.
  43. ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 67.
  44. ^ Frankel 2007.
  45. ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 721.
  46. ^ Lewisohn 1988, pp. 24–26: "Twist and Shout, which had to be recorded last because John Lennon had a particularly bad cold".
  47. ^ Spitz 2005, p. 376: "He had been struggling all day to reach notes, but this was different, this hurt".
  48. ^ Doggett 2010, p. 33.
  49. ^ Shennan 2007.
  50. ^ Coleman 1984a, pp. 239–240.
  51. ^ a b London Gazette 1965, p. 5488.
  52. ^ Coleman 1984a, p. 288.
  53. ^ Gould 2008, p. 268.
  54. ^ Lawrence 2005, p. 62.
  55. ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 171.
  56. ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 570.
  57. ^ Cleave 2007.
  58. ^ Gould 2008, pp. 5–6, 249, 281, 347.
  59. ^ Brown 1983, p. 222.
  60. ^ Gould 2008, p. 319.
  61. ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 281.
  62. ^ Time 1967.
  63. ^ BBC News 2007b.
  64. ^ Brown 1983, p. 276.
  65. ^ Miles 1997, p. 397.
  66. ^ Hoppa 2010.
  67. ^ Miles 1997, p. 349-373.
  68. ^ Logan 1967.
  69. ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 131.
  70. ^ Harry 2000b, p. 31.
  71. ^ TelegraphKlein 2010.
  72. ^ Miles 1997, p. 549: "Paul never did sign the management contract".
  73. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 276–278.
  74. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 774–775.
  75. ^ Fawcett 1976, p. 185.
  76. ^ Coleman 1984a, p. 279.
  77. ^ Coleman 1984a, pp. 48–49.
  78. ^ a b Miles and Badman 2003.
  79. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 615–617.
  80. ^ a b Perone 2001, pp. 57–58.
  81. ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 160–161.
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References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

http://wn.com/John_Lennon

Related pages:

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http://es.wn.com/John Lennon

http://ru.wn.com/Леннон, Джон

http://cs.wn.com/John Lennon

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Céline Dion

Dion during her Taking Chances Tour concert in Bell Centre, Montreal, on August 19, 2008.
Background information
Birth name Céline Marie Claudette Dion
Born (1968-03-30) March 30, 1968 (age 44)
Origin Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada
Genres Pop, dance, R&B, pop rock, soft rock, adult contemporary
Occupations Singer,[1] songwriter-composer,[2] actress[3]
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1980–present
Labels Sony Music Canada, Epic, 550, Columbia
Website celinedion.com

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, CC OQ, (French pronunciation: [selin djɔ̃] ( listen); born March 30, 1968), is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec,[4] Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record.[5] In 1990, she released the English-language album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.[6]

Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest.[7][8] Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to CBS Records Canada in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history.[9][10] However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a hiatus from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer.[10][11] She returned to the top of pop music in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Paradise, Nevada.[12][13][14]

Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals.[15][16][17] Dion is the best-selling Canadian artist of all time,[18][19] is the second best-selling female artist in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era,[20][21] and is the only female artist to have two singles sell more than a million copies in the UK.[22] In addition, her 1995 album D'eux, is the best-selling French-language album of all time.[23] In 2004, after surpassing 175 million in album sales worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award at the World Music Awards for becoming the best-selling female artist of all time.[24][25] According to Sony Music Entertainment, Dion has sold over 200 million albums worldwide.[26]

Contents

Life and career[link]

Childhood and early beginnings[link]

The youngest of 14 children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, both of French-Canadian descent, Celine Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada.[10][27] Music had always been a part of the family (Dion was named after the song Céline, recorded by French singer Hugues Aufray two years before her birth [28]). On the 13th of August 1973, (at the age of five) the young Céline did her first public appearance at her brother Michel's marriage, and performed Christine Charbonneau's song [29] Du fil des aiguilles et du coton.[30] Then after she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril. From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer.[31] In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."[32]

At age 12, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream").[27] Her brother Michel Dondalinger Dion sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album.[5] Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice, and decided to make her a star.[27] In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu ("The Voice of the Good God"), which later became a local number-one hit and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You").[5]

By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year".[5][33] Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Ne partez pas sans moi (Don't Go Without Me) and won the contest by a close margin in Dublin, Ireland.[34] However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.[35] At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson.[36] Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide.[27] Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.[6]

In 1989, during a concert on Incognito Tour, Dion injured her voice. She consulted the otorhinolaryngologist William Gould.[37][38] He gave her an ultimatum: have surgery on her vocal cords, or not utilize them at all for three weeks.[37] Dion chose the latter and underwent a vocal formation with William Riley,[37][38] because, according to Gould and Riley, she "doesn't know singing, she made a bad use of her vocal cords".[37][38]

Career breakthrough: 1990–1992[link]

Two years after she had learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), the lead single having originally been recorded by Laura Branigan.[5] She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian producer David Foster.[39] The album was largely influenced by 1980s soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the adult contemporary radio format. Unison also hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion's vocals were "tastefully unadorned", and that she never attempted to "bring off styles that are beyond her".[40] Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic declared it as, "a fine, sophisticated American debut."[41] Singles from the album included "(If There Was) Any Other Way", "The Last to Know", "Unison", and "Where Does My Heart Beat Now", a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which made prominent use of the electric guitar. The latter became her first single to reach the top-ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number-four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across Continental Europe and Asia.

In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in Voices That Care, a tribute to American troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm. Dion's real international breakthrough came when she duetted with Peabo Bryson on the title track to Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991).[42] The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top-ten single, and won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.[15] "Beauty and the Beast" was featured on Dion's 1992 self-titled album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and Diane Warren, the album was as well received as Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included "If You Asked Me To" (a cover of Patti LaBelle's song from the 1989 movie Licence to Kill) which peaked at number-four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged "Love Can Move Mountains", and "Nothing Broken But My Heart".

As with Dion's earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love. Also during this time, Dion released the Francophone album Dion chante Plamondon in 1991. The album consisted mostly of covers, but included 4 new songs, which included "Des mots qui sonnent", "Je danse dans ma tête", "Quelqu'un que j'aime, quelqu'un qui m'aime" and "L'amour existe encore". It was originally released in Canada and France during the 1991–1992 period, but then got an international release in 1994, the first French Celine Dion album to do so. "Un garçon pas comme les autres (Ziggy)" became a smash hit in France, reaching number-two and being certified gold. In Quebec, the album was certified Gold the day it was released.

By 1992 Unison, Céline Dion, and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the Anglophone market and achieving fame.[35] However, while she was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them.[15][43] She would later regain her fan base at the Félix Award show, where, after winning "English Artist of the Year", she openly refused to accept the award. She asserted that she was—and would always be—a French, not an English, artist.[6][44] Apart from her commercial success, there were also changes in Dion's personal life, as Angélil, who was twenty-six years her senior, transitioned from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find their relations inappropriate.[45]

Popularity established: 1993–1995[link]

In 1993, Dion announced her feelings for her manager by declaring him "the colour of [her] love" in the dedication section of her third English-language album The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as Dion had feared, fans embraced the couple.[46] Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.

As it was dedicated to her manager, the album's motif focused on love and romance.[47] It became her most successful record up to that point, selling more than six million copies in the U.S., two million in Canada, and peaking at number-one in many countries. The album also spawned Dion's first U.S., Canadian, and Australian number-one single "The Power of Love" (a remake of Jennifer Rush's 1985 hit), which would become her signature hit until she reached new career heights in the late 1990s.[35] The single "When I Fall in Love", a duet with Clive Griffin, achieved moderate success on the U.S. and Canadian charts, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards, winning one. The Colour of My Love also became Dion's first major hit in Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom. Both the album and the single "Think Twice" simultaneously occupied the top of the British charts for five consecutive weeks. "Think Twice", which remained at number-one for seven weeks, eventually became the fourth single by a female artist to sell in excess of one million copies in the UK,[48] while the album was eventually certified five-times platinum for two-million copies sold.[49]

Dion kept to her French roots and continued to release many Francophone recordings between each English record.[50] Generally, they achieved more credibility than her English-language works.[43] She released À l'Olympia, a live album that was recorded during one of Dion's concerts at the Paris Olympia in 1994. It had one promotional single, a live version of "Calling You", which peaked at seventy-five on the French Singles Chart. She also recorded a bilingual version of Petit Papa Noël with Alvin and the Chipmunks for the 1994 holiday album A Very Merry Chipmunk. D'eux (also known as The French Album in the United States), was released in 1995, and it would go on to become the best-selling French-language album of all time.[50] The album was mostly written and produced by Jean-Jacques Goldman, and amassed huge success with the singles "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" and "Je sais pas". "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" reached number 1 in France and stayed at the top position for twelve weeks. It was later certified Platinum in France.[51] The single also reached the top ten in the UK and Ireland, a rare accomplishment for a French song. The second single off the album, "Je sais pas", reached number-one on the French Singles Chart as well and was certified Silver in France.[52] These songs would later become "If That's What It Takes" and "I Don't Know" on Dion's next English album, Falling into You.

During the mid-1990s, Dion's albums continued to be constructed on the basis of melodramatic ballads, but also with up-tempo pop and adult contemporary themed music.[53] She collaborated with talented craftsman such as Jim Steinman and David Foster who helped her devise more adult contemporary songs.[54][55] While critical reviews fluctuated, Dion's releases performed increasingly well on the international charts, and in 1996 she won the World Music Award for "World’s Best-selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year" for the third time. By the mid-1990s, she had established herself as one of the best-selling artists in the world.[56]

Worldwide commercial success: 1996–1999[link]

Falling into You (1996), Dion's fourth English-language album, presented the singer at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music.[45] In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements, such as complex orchestral sounds, African chanting and elaborate musical effects. Additionally, instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho and saxophone created a new sound.[57] The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles. The title track "Falling into You" and "River Deep, Mountain High" (a Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of percussion instruments; "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the piano; and the number-one single "Because You Loved Me", which was written by Diane Warren, was a ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film Up Close & Personal.[56]

Falling into You garnered career-best reviews for Dion. While Dan Leroy wrote that it was not very different from her previous work,[58] and Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic,[59][60] other critics, such as Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AMG and Daniel Durchholz, lavished the album as "compelling", "passionate", "stylish", "elegant" and "remarkably well-crafted".[57][61] Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in many countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.[62] In the United States, the album reached number-one,[63] and was later certified 11x Platinum for over 11 million copies shipped.[64] In Canada, the album was certified diamond for over one million copies shipped.[65] The IFPI certified Falling into You 9x Platinum, an accolade that has been given to only two other albums in history, with one of the two being Dion's own album, Let's Talk About Love.[66] The album also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor Album of the Year.[67] Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.[68] In March 1996, Dion launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.

Dion followed Falling into You with Let's Talk About Love (1997), which was publicized as its sequel.[69] The recording process took place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests, such as Barbra Streisand on "Tell Him"; the Bee Gees on "Immortality"; and world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "I Hate You Then I Love You".[45][70] Other musicians included Carole King, Sir George Martin, Bryan Adams and Jamaican singer Diana King, who added a reggae tinge to "Treat Her Like a Lady".[71] As with Falling into You, Let's Talk About Love was a major success for Dion, reaching number-one all over the world, attaining platinum status in twenty-four sales territories, and becoming Dion's fastest selling album of her career.[72] In the United States, the album topped the chart in its seventh week of release,[73] and was later certified 10x Platinum in the U.S. for over 10 million copies shipped.[74] In Canada, the album sold 230,212 copies in its first week of release, which became, and still is, a record.[75] It was eventually certified diamond in Canada for over 1 million copies shipped.[76][77] The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "My Heart Will Go On", which was written and composed by James Horner and Will Jennings, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff.[67] Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, the song topped the charts across the world, and became Dion's signature song;[78] as well as winning the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.[79] The song also gave Dion two Grammy Awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and the most coveted "Record of the Year", (the song itself won four awards, but two were presented to the songwriters).[80] "My Heart Will Go On" and "Think Twice" made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles to sell more than a million copies.[81] In support of her album, Dion embarked on the Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999.[82]

Dion ended the 1990s with three more extremely successful albums—the Christmas album These Are Special Times (1998), the French-language album, S'il suffisait d'aimer, and the compilation album All the Way... A Decade of Song (1999).[46] On These Are Special Times, Dion became more involved in the writing process. She co-wrote the song, "Don't Save It All For Christmas Day" along with Ric Wake and Peter Zizzo.[83] The album was her most classically influenced yet, with orchestral arrangements found on virtually every track.[84] "I'm Your Angel", a duet with R. Kelly, became Dion's fourth U.S. number one single, and another hit single across the world. All the Way... A Decade of Song drew together her most successful hits coupled with seven new songs, including the lead off single "That's the Way It Is", a cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", and "All the Way", a duet with Frank Sinatra.[46] The album itself was also extremely successful worldwide, reaching number-one in the United States for three weeks.[63] The album was later certified 7x Platinum in the U.S. for 7 million copies shipped.[85] All the Way... A Decade of Song also topped the charts in the UK,[86] Canada,[87] and Australia.[88] Her last French-language studio album of the 1990s, S'il suffisait d'aimer, was very successful as well, topping the charts in every major French-speaking country, including France,[89] Switzerland,[90] Belgium Wallonia,[91] and Canada.[87] In France, the album was certified diamond, selling 1.5 million copies.[92] By the end of the 1990s, Celine Dion had sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, and had won a slew of industry awards.[93] Her status as one of the music industry's biggest pop divas was further solidified when she was asked to perform on VH1's Divas Live special in 1998, with superstars Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain and Mariah Carey.[94] That year she also received two of the highest honours from her home country: "Officer of the Order of Canada for Outstanding Contribution to the World of Contemporary Music"[95][96] and "Officer of the National Order of Quebec".[97] A year later she was inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.[98]

During this time, the pop-rock genre that was more noticeable in her earlier releases, was replaced by a more adult contemporary feel.[69] However, the theme of "love" remained in most of her releases, which led to some critics dismissing her music as banal.[99] Other critics, like Elysa Gardner and Jose F. Promis, praised her vocals during this period, describing it as a "technical marvel".[100][101] However, others, like Steve Dollar, who reviewed These Are Special Times, stated that Dion is a "vocal Olympian for whom there ain't no mountain—or scale—high enough."[102]

Career break: 2000–2002[link]

After releasing and promoting thirteen albums during the 1990s, Dion stated that she needed to settle down, and announced on her latest album All the Way... A Decade of Song, that she needed to take a step back from the spotlight and enjoy life.[10][103] Angélil's diagnosis with throat cancer also prompted her to hiatus.[104] While on break, Dion was unable to escape the spotlight. In 2000, the National Enquirer published a false story about the singer. Brandishing a picture of Dion and her husband, the magazine misquoted Dion, printing the headline, "Celine — 'I'm Pregnant With Twins!'"[105] Dion later sued the magazine for more than twenty million dollars.[106] The editors of the Enquirer printed an apology and a full retraction to Dion in the next issue, and donated money to the American Cancer Society in honor of Dion and her husband. A year after the incident, after undergoing fertility treatments, Dion gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, on January 25, 2001, in Florida.[107][108] Following the September 11 attacks, Dion returned to the music scene, and in a televised performance sang "God Bless America" at the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote, "the performance... brings to mind what has made her one of the celebrated vocalists of our time: the ability to render emotion that shakes the soul. Affecting, meaningful, and filled with grace, this is a musical reflection to share with all of us still searching for ways to cope."[109] Dion would perform it again in 2003 during pregame festivities for Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego.[110]

In December 2001, Dion published her autobiography, My Story, My Dream which chronicled her rags to riches story.[111]

Return to music: 2002–2003[link]

Dion's aptly titled A New Day Has Come, released in March 2002, ended her three-year break from the music industry. The album was Dion's most personal yet, and established a more mature side of Dion with the songs "A New Day Has Come", "I'm Alive", and "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a change that resulted from her new-found maternal responsibilities, because, in her own words, "becoming a mother makes you a grown-up."[103] She stated, "A New Day Has Come, for Rene, for me, is the baby. It has everything to do with the baby...That song "A New Day Has Come" represents very well the mood I'm feeling right now. It represents the whole album."[112] A New Day Has Come debuted at number one in over 17 countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada.[113][114][115] In the United States, the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with first week sales of 527,000 copies; marking her first number one debut on the chart.[116] It was eventually certified 3x Platinum in the United States,[117] and 6x Platinum in Canada.[118]

Dion performing "God Bless America" with members of the Band of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, 2002.

While the album was commercially successful, critical reviews suggested that it was "forgettable" and the lyrics were "lifeless".[119] Both Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine, and Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, stated that Dion's music had not matured during her break, and classed her music as trite and mediocre.[120][121] Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine called the album "a lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter."[122] The first single off the album, A New Day Has Come peaked at No.22 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, being an airplay-only release. On the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks, however the song spent 21 consecutive weeks at number 1, breaking the record for the longest span at the top.[123] The previous record holders were Phil Collins' You'll Be in My Heart and Dion's own Because You Loved Me, both of which lasted nineteen weeks at number 1. During 2002, she performed for many benefit concerts, the famous VH1 Divas Live, a concert to benefit the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, alongside Cher, Anastacia, Dixie Chicks, Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, Shakira and Stevie Nicks.

Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Dion released One Heart (2003), an album that represented her appreciation for life.[124] The album largely consisted of dance music—a deviation from the soaring, melodramatic ballads, for which she had once been given mixed reception. Although the album achieved moderate success, One Heart was met with mixed criticism, and words such as "predictable" and "banal" appeared even in the most lenient reviews.[125][126] A cover of the 1989 Cyndi Lauper hit "I Drove All Night", released to launch her new advertising campaign with Chrysler,[127] incorporated dance-pop and rock and roll. The advertising deal itself, however was met with mixed criticism, with some stating that Dion was trying to please her sponsors.[128] However, people like Bonita Stewart, who was the director of Chrysler Group Marketing Communications stated that "Chrysler was taken by how her appeal crossed ethnic lines." She also added, "She brings sophistication, refinement, romance and passion to the brand."[129]

After One Heart, Dion released her next English Language studio album, Miracle (2004). Miracle was a multimedia project conceived by Dion and photographer Anne Geddes, and had a theme centering on babies and motherhood. The album was filled with lullabies and other songs of maternal love and inspiration, the two most popular being covers of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy". The reviews for Miracle were mixed.[130] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.com gave the album three of out five stars, stating, "The worst you can say about the record is that there are no surprises, but the audience for this record doesn't want surprises; they want comfort, whether it arrives in polished music or artsy photos of newborns, and Miracle provides both, which makes it appealing for those expectant or new mothers in Dion's audience.[130] Chuck Taylor of Billboard magazine wrote that the single "Beautiful Boy" was "an unexpected gem" and called Dion "a timeless, enormously versatile artist",[131] Chuck Arnold of People Magazine, however, labeled the album as excessively sentimental,[132] while Nancy Miller of Entertainment Weekly opined that "the whole earth-mama act is just opportunism, reborn".[133] Miracle debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 chart and number one in Canada , and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA.[134]

The Francophone album 1 fille & 4 types (1 Girl & 4 Guys), released in October 2003, fared better than her first two releases, and showed Dion trying to distance herself from the "diva" image. She recruited Jean-Jacques Goldman, Gildas Arzel, Eric Benzi, and Jacques Veneruso, with whom she had previously worked on two of her best-selling French albums S'il suffisait d'aimer and D'eux. Labeled "the album of pleasure" by Dion herself, the album cover showed Dion in a simple and relaxed manner, contrary to the choreographed poses usually found on her album covers. The album achieved widespread commercial success in France, Canada, and Belgium where it reached number one. In France, the album debuted at number one and was later certified 2x platinum after selling over 700,000 copies. Critic, Stephen Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that Dion's vocals "are back at top of their game" and that she was "getting back to pop basics and performing at a level unheard in a while."[135]

Though her albums were commercially successful, they did not achieve the sales or the reception of her previous works. Albums like The Collector's Series, Volume One (2000), and One Heart (2003) did not perform as well critically.[125][125] Her songs received less airplay as radio became less embracing of balladeers like Dion, Carey, and Houston, and was focused on more up-tempo, Urban/Hip-hop songs.[136] However, by 2004, Dion had accumulated sales of more than 175 million albums worldwide, and received the Chopard Diamond Award from the World Music Awards for her achievements.[137] According to the official World Music Awards website, the award is rare; it is "not presented every year" and an artist can only be presented with the award for selling "over 100 million albums during their career."[138]

[edit] A New Day... Live in Las Vegas: 2003–2007

In early 2002 Dion had announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza, A New Day..., at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.[12] This move was seen as "one of the smartest business decisions in years by any major recording artist".[139] She conceived the idea for the show after seeing O by Franco Dragone early in her break from recording, and began on March 25, 2003, in a 4,000-seat arena designed for her show.[12] Many stars attended opening night including Dick Clark, Alan Thicke, Kathy Griffin, and Justin Timberlake, who hosted the television special.[140] The show, put together by Dragone, was a combination of dance, music, and visual effects. It included Dion performing her biggest hits against an array of dancers and special effects. Reviewer Mike Weatherford felt that, at first, Dion was not as relaxed as she should be, and at times, it was hard to find the singer among the excessive stage ornamentations and dancers. However, he noted that the show had become more enjoyable, due to Dion's improved stage-presence and simpler costumes.[78]

The show was also well-received by audiences, despite the complaints of expensive tickets; the show routinely sold out until its end in late 2007.[141] Ticket prices averaged $135.33.[142] The show was choreographed by Mia Michaels, who is a world renowned choreographer. According to Pollstar, Dion sold 322,000 tickets and grossed US$43.9 million in the first half of 2005, and by July 2005, she had sold out 315 out of 384 shows.[143] By the end of 2005, Dion grossed more than US$76 million, placing sixth on Billboard's Money Makers list for 2005.[144] A New Day... was the 6th biggest selling tour in America in 2006.[145] Because of the show's success, Dion's contract was extended into 2007 for an undisclosed sum. On January 5, 2007 it was announced that the show would end on December 15, 2007, with tickets for the period after October 2007 having gone on sale from March 1.[146] During its entire run, the show accumulated a total gross of $400 million, while being seen by nearly 3 million fans.[147][148] The Live in Las Vegas - A New Day... DVD was released on December 10, 2007 in Europe and the following day in North America.[149]

Back to studio and world tour: 2007–2009[link]

Céline Dion on stage with her dancers performing River Deep Mountain High on the "Taking Chances World Tour" in September 2008 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on Long Island

Dion's latest French language album, D'elles (About Them), released on May 21, 2007, debuted at the top of the Canadian album charts, selling 72,200 copies in its first week. It marked her tenth number-one album in the SoundScan era, and her eighth to debut at the top position. In Canada, the album has been certified 2× platinum, and within the first month had already shipped half a million units worldwide.[150] D'Elles also reached No. 1 in France and Belgium. The first single "Et s'il n'en restait qu'une (je serais celle-là)" (meaning "And If There Was Only One Woman Left (I Would Be That One)") debuted at the top of the French singles chart a month earlier. She released her latest English album Taking Chances on November 12 in Europe, and on the November 13 in North America.[151] Her first English studio album since 2003's One Heart, it features pop, R&B, and rock inspired music.[152] Dion has collaborated with John Shanks and ex-Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody, as well as Kristian Lundin, Peer Astrom, Linda Perry, Japanese singer Yuna Ito, and R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo.[153][154] Dion stated, "I think this album represents a positive evolution in my career ... I'm feeling strong, maybe a little gutsier than in the past, and just as passionate about music and life as I ever was."[155] She launched her year-long worldwide Taking Chances Tour on February 14, 2008 in South Africa, performing 132 dates in stadiums and arenas across five continents.[156]

The Taking Chances Tour was a great success in the United States, reaching the Number 1 spot on the Billboard Boxscore and it sold out every concert in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, she appeared on Idol Gives Back for a second year in a row. Céline Dion was nominated for six Juno Awards in 2008, leading the group of Canadians to receive this honour,and adding to her 53 previous nominations. Her nominations included Artist of the Year, Pop Album of the Year (for Taking Chances), Francophone Album of the Year (for D'elles) and Album of the Year (for both Taking Chances and D'elles).[157] The following year, Dion was nominated for 3 Juno Awards including the Fan Choice Award, Song of the Year (for Taking Chances), and Music DVD of the Year (for Live in Las Vegas — A New Day...)[158]

Céline Dion on stage performing Eyes On Me in Montreal, Canada, August 15, 2008

On August 22, 2008, Celine Dion presented a free show, exclusively francophone,[159] outside on the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec City, Canada, for the 400th anniversary of Quebec City.[160] The celebration gathered approximately 490,000 people (total with TV broadcast). The concert, called Céline sur les Plaines, was released on DVD on November 11, 2008 in Quebec and was released on May 20, 2009 in France.[161] The end of October saw the worldwide release of her first ever comprehensive English greatest hits album called My Love: Essential Collection,[162] available in two different album formats.

In May 2009, Celine Dion was named the 20th best-selling artist of the decade in the United States and the second-best-selling female artist of the decade in the United States, selling an estimated 17.57 million albums.[163] In June 2009, Forbes reported that Dion earned $100 million during 2008. In December 2009, Pollstar announced that Dion was the best-selling solo touring act of the decade and the second-best-selling touring act of the decade, only to the Dave Matthews Band.[164] Dion grossed $522.2 million during the decade, a large sum of that coming from her five-year residence at Caesars Palace.[164]

Concert film and video release: late 2009–2010[link]

On February 17, 2010 Dion released into theatres a documentary film about her Taking Chances Tour, titled, Celine: Through the Eyes of the World.[165] The documentary shows behind-the-scenes footage of Dion both onstage and offstage, along with footage of Dion with her family as they traveled with her.[165] The distributor is the Sony Pictures subsidiary, Hot Ticket.[165] The film was later released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 4, 2010, along with the CD/DVD, Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert, which chronicled her world tour of the same name.[166][167] At the 52nd Grammy Awards in February 2010, Dion joined Carrie Underwood, Usher, Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson to perform the song "Earth Song" during the 3-D Michael Jackson tribute.[168]

In January 2010, The Los Angeles Times presented its annual list of the top ten largest earners of the year, revealing that Dion took the top spot for the entire decade, with $US747.9 million in total revenue from 2000–2009.[169] The largest haul came from ticket sales, totaling $522.2 million.[169] Additionally, Dion was named "Artist of the Decade" in her native Canadian province of Quebec, announced by the Montreal-based newspaper, Le Journal de Quebec in 2009 December.[170] A public online survey asked responders to vote for who they believe deserved the above-mentioned accolade.[170]

Furthermore, in a May 2010 Harris Poll, Dion was named the most popular musician in the United States, ahead of U2, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles, while factoring in gender, political affiliations, geographic region of residence, and income.[171] Specifically, Dion was the most popular musician in the female demographic, as well as among all Democrats, those who live in the eastern United States and southern United States, and those who have incomes between US$35k and US$74.9k.[172][173]

In September 2010, she released the single "Voler", a duet with French singer Michel Sardou. The song was later included on Sardou's album.[174] In addition, it was announced in October 2010 that Dion wrote and composed a new song for Canadian singer, Marc Dupré entitled "Entre deux mondes".[175]

New Las Vegas show: 2011–present[link]

In an interview with People magazine published in February 2010, Dion announced that she will be returning to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for Celine, a three-year residency for seventy shows a year, beginning March 15, 2011.[176] She stated that the show will feature, "all the songs from my repertoire that people want to hear" and will contain a selection of music from classic Hollywood films.[176] In preparation for her return to Las Vegas, Dion, on February 21 made an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show during the show's final season, for a record twenty-seventh time[177] and spoke about her upcoming Caesars Palace shows, as well as her family.[178] Additionally, for a record sixth time, Dion performed at the 83rd Academy Awards, where she sang the song "Smile," as part of the ceremony's "In Memoriam" segment.[179] On September 4, Dion appeared on the 2011 MDA Labor Telethon Event and showed a prerecorded performance of "Open Arms" from her new Las Vegas show.[180] On October 1, 2011, OWN Network premiered a documentary on Dion's life, from months before her pregnancy with twins, to the makings of her new Las Vegas Show, called, "Celine: 3 Boys and a New Show".[181] The documentary became the second highest rated show on TV OWN Canada. In October, FlightNetwork.com conducted a poll, asking 780 participants, which celebrity they would like to sit next to the most on an airplane. Dion was the top favorite, with 23.7% of the vote.[182] Also, in September, Dion released her 14th perfume from her Celine Dion Parfums Collection, called "Signature".[183]

On September 15, Dion made an appearance at the free concert of world famous tenor, Andrea Bocelli, in Central Park in New York.[184] In 2012 she performed at 16th Jazz and Blues Festival in Jamaica.[185] It has been officially announced that Dion will release a new English album in 2012.[186]

Personal life[link]

Dion first met her husband and manager, Rene Angelil in 1980, when she was 12 and he was 38, after she and her mother sent him a demo tape of a song they had written. They began a relationship in 1987, and became engaged in 1991. They married on December 17, 1994, at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec. On January 5, 2000, Dion and Angelil renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas.

In May 2000, Dion had two small operations at a fertility clinic in New York to improve her chances of conceiving, after deciding to use in-vitro fertilisation after years of failed attempts to conceive. Their first son, René-Charles Angelil, was born on January 25, 2001. In May 2010, Angelil announced that Dion was 14 weeks pregnant with twins after a sixth treatment of in-vitro fertilisation. On Saturday, October 23, 2010, at 11:11 and 11:12 am respectively, at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dion, by Caesarean section, gave birth to two healthy fraternal twins weighing 5 pounds 10 ounces and 5 pounds 4 ounces.[187] The twins were named Eddy, after Dion's favorite Algerian songwriter Eddy Marnay who also produced Dion's first five albums, and Nelson, after former South African President Nelson Mandela.[188] Dion appeared with her newborn sons on the cover of the December 9, 2010 issue of the Canadian edition of Hello! magazine.[189]

Artistry and image[link]

Dion grew up listening to the music of Aretha Franklin, Charles Aznavour, Michael Jackson, Carole King, Anne Murray, Barbra Streisand, and the Bee Gees, all of whom she would eventually collaborate with.[190][191] Dion has also stated she grew up listening to artists such as Janis Joplin, the Doobie Brothers, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, but never got the chance to sing their genre of music. She also was inspired by fellow vocalist Whitney Houston, whom Dion has often been compared to.[192] Her music has been influenced by numerous genres, including pop, rock, gospel, R&B and soul, and her lyrics focus on themes of poverty, world hunger, and spirituality, with an emphasis on love and romance.[47][193] After the birth of her child, her work also began to emphasize maternal bond and brotherly love.[130][194][195][196]

Dion has faced considerable criticism from critics, who state that her music often retreats behind pop and soul conventions, and is marked by excessive sentimentality.[6][99] According to Keith Harris of Rolling Stone magazine, "[Dion's] sentimentality is bombastic and defiant rather than demure and retiring....[she] stands at the end of the chain of drastic devolution that goes Aretha-Whitney-Mariah. Far from being an aberration, Dion actually stands as a symbol of a certain kind of pop sensibility—bigger is better, too much is never enough, and the riper the emotion the more true."[197] Dion's francophone releases, by contrast, tend to be deeper and more varied than her English releases, and consequently have achieved more credibility.[43][198]

Critics have stated that Dion's involvement in the production aspect of her music is fundamentally lacking, which results in her work being overproduced[198] and impersonal.[43] However, coming from a family in which all of her siblings were musicians, she learned to play instruments like piano and guitar, and practiced with a Fender Stratocaster during the recording sessions of her album, Falling into You. [199] Also, she helped to compose many of her earlier French songs, and had always tried to involve herself with the production and recording of her albums. On her first English album, which she recorded before she had a firm command of the English language, she expressed disapproval of the record, which could have been avoided if she had assumed more creative input.[43] By the time she released her second English album Celine Dion, she had assumed more control of the production and recording process, hoping to dispel earlier criticisms. She stated, "On the second album I said, 'Well, I have the choice to be afraid one more time and not be 100% happy, or not be afraid and be part of this album.' This is my album."[43] She would continue to involve herself in the production of subsequent releases, helping to write a few of her songs on Let's Talk About Love (1997) and These Are Special Times (1998).[2]

Dion is often the subject of media ridicule[200] and parody, and is frequently impersonated on shows like MADtv, Saturday Night Live, South Park, Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes for her strong accent and on-stage movements. However, Dion has stated that she is unaffected by the comments, and is flattered that people take the time to impersonate her.[103] She even invited Ana Gasteyer, who parodied her on SNL, to appear on stage during one of her performances. While she is rarely politically outspoken, in 2005 following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Dion appeared on Larry King Live and tearfully criticized the U.S. government's slow response in aiding the victims of the hurricane: "There's people still there waiting to be rescued. To me that is not acceptable...How can it be so easy to send planes in another country to kill everybody in a second and destroy lives. We need to serve our country."[201] After her interview, she stated, "When I do interviews with Larry King or the big TV shows like that, they put you on the spot, which is very difficult. I do have an opinion, but I'm a singer. I'm not a politician."[202]

Voice[link]

Dion is often regarded as one of pop music's most influential voices.[6][43][203] She has been described as a reigning "Queen of Pop" for her influence over the record industry during the 1990s, alongside other female entertainers, including Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.[204] In a countdown of the "22 Greatest Voices in Music" by Blender Magazine and MTV, she placed ninth (sixth for a female), and she was also placed fourth in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists."[17][205][206] Dion is often compared to Mariah Carey for her vocal style and to her idol, Barbra Streisand, for her voice.[207]

According to various sources, Dion possesses a five-octave vocal range.[208][209][210][211] Dion states she is a mezzo-soprano.[212] However, attempts to adopt classical voice types to other forms of singing has been met with controversy.[213] Without making a classification, maestro Kent Nagano remarked, "All you just sang was soprano," after Dion auditioned with two solos of Carmen, wanting to know if she could sing opera.[212] Her timbre has been described as "thin, slightly nasal, nearly vibratoless,"[214] with a "raspy" lower register and "bell glass-like high notes."[215]

Dion is often praised for her technical virtuosity.[216] Stephen Holden of The New York Times, writes, "Ms. Dion [...] is a belter with a high, thin, slightly nasal, nearly vibratoless soprano and a good-sized arsenal of technical skills. She can deliver tricky melismas, produce expressive vocal catches and sustain long notes without the tiniest wavering of pitch. And as her duets [...] have shown, she is a reliable harmony voice."[214] In an interview with Libération, Jean-Jacques Goldman states that she has "no problem of accuracy or tempo."[217] According to Kent Nagano, maestro of the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Dion is "a musician who has a good ear, a refinement, and a degree of perfection that is envious."[212] Charles Alexander of TIME states, "[Her] voice glides effortlessly from deep whispers to dead-on high notes, a sweet siren that combines force with grace."[35]

In her French repertoire, Dion adorns her vocals with more nuances and modulations, with the emotional intensity being "more tender and intimate."[218] Additionally, Luc Plamondon, a French singer-songwriter who has written several works for Dion states that there are three chanteuse that Dion uses: the Québécois, the French, and the American.[218]

Other activities[link]

Celine Dion's stars on Canada's Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dion became an entrepreneur with the establishment of her franchise restaurant, Nickels in 1990. She has since divested her interests in the chain and is no longer affiliated with Nickels, as of 1997. In 2003, Dion signed a deal with Coty, Inc. to release Celine Dion Parfums.[219] Her latest fragrance, Signature, was released in September 2011[183]with an advertising campaign by New York agency Kraftworks NYC.[220] Since its inception, Celine Dion Parfums has grossed over $850 million in retail sales.[221][222] In October 2004, Air Canada hired Dion as part of their promotional campaign to unveil new service products and an updated livery. "You and I", the theme song sung by Dion, was written by advertising executives working for Air Canada.[223]

Dion has actively supported many charity organizations, worldwide. She has promoted the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF) since 1982, and became the foundation's National Celebrity Patron in 1993.[224] She has an emotional attachment to the foundation; her niece Karine succumbed to the disease at the age of sixteen. In 2003, Dion joined a number of other celebrities, athletes, and politicians, including Josh Groban and Yolanda Adams to support "World Children's Day", a global fundraising effort sponsored by McDonald's. The effort raised money from more than 100 nations and benefited orphanages and children's health organizations. In addition, Dion has been a major supporter of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and many health and educational campaigns. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Dion donated $1 million to the victims of the storm, and held a fund-raising event for the victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, which subsequently raised more than $1 million.[225] After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Dion donated $100,000 to China Children & Teenagers' Fund and sent a letter showing her consolation and support.[226]

In 1999, Dion received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and also a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2004.[227][228] She dedicated her star to her father, who died the month prior. In 2007, Celine Dion was ranked by Forbes as the 5th richest woman in entertainment with an estimated net worth of US$250 million, though the ranking omitted non-working or retired celebrities.[229][230][231] She also received France's highest award, the Légion d'honneur, in May 2008. In August 2008, she received an honorary doctorate in music from the Université Laval in Quebec City.[232] In October 2010, Dion was named a Goodwill Ambassador, a program created by the UN in 1999. She shared this accolade with Oscar-winner, Susan Sarandon.[233]

Discography[link]

French albums

English albums

Holiday albums

Tours[link]

Year Title Releases
1983–1984 Les chemins de ma maison tournée None
1985 C'est pour toi tournée Vinyl Céline Dion en concert
1988 Incognito tournée None
1990–1991 Unison Tour VHS Unison
1992–1993 Celine Dion in Concert None
1994–1995 The Colour of My Love Tour VHS/DVD The Colour of My Love Concert; CD À l'Olympia
1995 D'eux Tour VHS/DVD Live à Paris; CD Live à Paris
1996–1997 Falling into You Tour VHS Live in Memphis
1998–1999 Let's Talk About Love World Tour VHS/DVD Au cœur du stade; CD Au cœur du stade
2003–2007 A New Day... DVD/BD Live in Las Vegas - A New Day...; CD A New Day... Live in Las Vegas
2008–2009 Taking Chances Tour DVD Céline sur les Plaines; DVD/BD Celine: Through the Eyes of the World; DVD/CD Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert
2011–2014 Celine

Filmography[link]

See also[link]


Notes[link]

  1. ^ Britannica.com. Céline Dion. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
  2. ^ a b Céline Dion signe le single de Marc Dupré : Ecoutez ’Entre deux mondes' Evous.fr Retrieved December 20, 2010
  3. ^ René Angélil: the making of Céline Dion : the unauthorized biography Google Books Retrieved December 20, 2010
  4. ^ Glatzer, Jenna (2005). Celine Dion: For Keeps. Andrews McMeel Pub. p. 13. ISBN 0-7407-5559-5. http://books.google.com/?id=CAvRv-Myw08C&pg=PA13&dq=Celine+Dion+Le+Gardeur+hospital#v=onepage&q&f=true. Retrieved September 2, 2011. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Céline Dion Biography. "Canoe Jam!". Retrieved September 13, 2007.
  6. ^ a b c d e "The Canadian Encyclopedia". Céline Dion Biography. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0000970. Retrieved July 14, 2006. 
  7. ^ Bliss, Karen. "25 Years of Canadian Artists." Canadian Musician. March 1, 2004, p. 34. ISSN: 07089635
  8. ^ "Eurovision Winners". Baltics Worldwide. 2007. http://www.pubquizhelp.com/ent/eurovision-past-winners.html. Retrieved January 7, 2010. [dead link]
  9. ^ Taylor, Chuck. "Epic/550's Dion offers Hits." Billboard. November 6, 1999, p. 1.
  10. ^ a b c d "The Ultimate Diva". CNN. October 22, 2002. Retrieved September 13, 2007.
  11. ^ Celine Dion. "Interview with Celine Dion." Peter Nansbridge. The National. With Alison Smith. CBC-TV. March 28, 2002. Transcript.
  12. ^ a b c Helligar, Jeremy. "Céline Dion livin' la vida Vegas!." Us. March 31, 2003, p. 56.
  13. ^ "Celine Dion Releases 1st CD Since 1997". (April 15, 2002). Digital Journal Retrieved (October 12, 2009)
  14. ^ Hilburn, Robert (October 12, 2009). "Pop Albums; Ashanti Displaces Dion at Top". Los Angeles Times. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/113465576.html?dids=113465576:113465576&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Apr+11%2C+2002&author=Robert+Hilburn&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Pop+Albums%3B+Ashanti+Displaces+Dion+at+Top&pqatl=google. 
  15. ^ a b c Alexander, Charles P. The Power of Celine Dion". Time. March 7, 1994
  16. ^ Gardner, Elysa. Review: Falling Into You. Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, Calif.: November 16, 1997, p. 68
  17. ^ a b "Cove Magazine". The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists. http://covemagazine.com/100vocalists.html. Retrieved August 29, 2006. 
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  200. ^ See, e.g., Joel Selvin, "Celine Dion in full force at HP Pavilion", San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 2009, E2. In this rather hostile review, Selvin wrote: "You want cheese? She is a Velveeta volcano."
  201. ^ "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation". Céline Dion takes swipe at Iraq war; donates $1 m to Katrina victims. http://blogs.lasvegasmagazine.com/VegasLuxeLife/our-celine-dion-countdown%E2%80%94just-12-shows-to-go/. Retrieved July 14, 2006. [dead link]
  202. ^ Glatzer, Jenna (2005). Céline Dion: For Keeps. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0-7407-5559-5. 
  203. ^ Andersson, Eric. "Who Inspired the Idols?" Us. March 12, 2007. p. 104
  204. ^ "If Ella Fitzgerald is the queen of jazz, Billie Holiday first lady of the blues, and Aretha Franklin the queen of soul, then who is the queen of pop? In the 1990s, it would seem to be a three-way tie between Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion. Certainly all three have their devotees and detractors, but their presence has been inescapable." in Lister, Linda (2001). "Divafication: The Deification of Modern Female Pop Stars". Popular Music and Society 25 (3/4): p. 1. ISSN 03007766 
  205. ^ "MTV's 22 Greatest Voices in Music". mtv's 22. http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.19522. Retrieved November 15, 2007. 
  206. ^ 22 Greatest Voices in Music. Am I Annoying. Retrieved October 2, 2008.
  207. ^ Depalma, Anthony (February 23, 1997). "POP/JAZZ – Quebec's Little Girl, Conquering the Globe". The New York Times (Quebec Province (Canada)). http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/23/arts/quebec-s-little-girl-conquering-the-globe.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved June 30, 2010. 
  208. ^ The Unsinkable Celine Dion – Pop Diva Is On Top Of The World, And Not Even An Iceberg Could Stop Her Now Seattle Times. Retrieved December 31, 2009.
  209. ^ Celine Dion is 'Taking Chances' with her latest show stopper USA Today Retrieved December 31, 2009
  210. ^ Quebec's Little Girl, Conquering the Globe New York Times. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  211. ^ People to Watch The Paim Beach Post News Retrieved February 20, 2011
  212. ^ a b c "Alain de Repentigny : Céline Dion chante de l'opéra pour Kent Nagano | Musique". Cyberpresse.ca. http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musique/200809/08/01-658078-celine-dion-chante-de-lopera-pour-kent-nagano.php. Retrieved June 30, 2010. 
  213. ^ Peckham, Anne (2005). Vocal workouts for the contemporary singer. Boston: Berklee Press. pp. 117. ISBN 0-87639-047-5.
  214. ^ a b Holden, Stephen (March 2, 1994). "Review/Pop – The International Sound of Celine Dion – Review". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/02/arts/review-pop-the-international-sound-of-celine-dion.html?pagewanted=1. Retrieved June 30, 2010. 
  215. ^ Hazera, Hélène (June 21, 1999). "Dion dans les grandes largeurs : Samedi et dimanche, l'idole canadienne a rempli le Stade de France". Libération. http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101284999-dion-dans-les-grandes-largeurssamedi-et-dimanche-l-idole-canadienne-a-rempli-le-stade-de-france. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
  216. ^ Celine Dion Takes Chances in Latest Album Philippine Daily Inquirer Retrieved October 23, 2010
  217. ^ Hazera, Hélène (March 20, 1995). "Céline Dion en VF". Libération. http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101135681-celine-dion-en-vf. Retrieved February 17, 2011. 
  218. ^ a b Denise Bombardier, L'énigmatique Céline Dion, Albin Michel XO éditions, 2009, page 179.
  219. ^ Davis, Mari (April 16, 2003) "Celine Dion Promotes Her Eponymous Perfume". Fashion Windows. Retrieved August 12, 2009
  220. ^ Kraftworks NYC
  221. ^ Celine Dion to Launch New Perfume – Pure Brilliance AOL Style List. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
  222. ^ Celine Dion to Launch Pure Brilliance Fragrance Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
  223. ^ Alberts, Sheldon. "A Canadian liftoff; Dion 'flattered' her Air Canada ad chosen as Clinton's campaign song." National Post. June 20, 2007. pg A3.
  224. ^ McLellan, Stephanie Simpson. "Celebrating the Mother-Child Bond." Today's Parent, p. 32. May 1, 2004.
  225. ^ Wray, James (January 12, 2005). "Celine Dion to Raise One Million for Tsunami Victims". Monsters & Critics. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/music/news/article_3487.php/Celine_Dion_to_Raise_One_Million_for_Tsunami_Victims. Retrieved November 1, 2008. 
  226. ^ Celine Dion Her letter to China Children & Teenagers' Fund. Retrieved October 15, 2009.
  227. ^ "In Brief". Lakeland Ledger. April 25, 1999. http://news.google.ca/newspapers?id=RJwsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=__wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5268,2468024&dq=celine+dion+canada%27s+walk+of+fame&hl=en. Retrieved January 25, 2010. [dead link]
  228. ^ — (January 8, 2004) "Celine's star dedicated to dad, and more[dead link]". CBConline. Retrieved October 15, 2009.
  229. ^ Lea Goldman and Kiri Blakeley (2007-01-18). "The 20 Richest Women In Entertainment". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-entertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07_0118womenstars_lander.html. 
  230. ^ "Forbes Top 20 Richest Women In Entertainment". All Women Stalk. http://allwomenstalk.com/forbes-top-20-richest-women-in-entertainment/. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  231. ^ "Oprah tops celebrity women list". BBC News. January 19, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6278145.stm. Retrieved November 1, 2008. 
  232. ^ She's Dr. Dion now, courtesy of Laval U. Canada.com. Retrieved on September 7, 2008
  233. ^ Susan Sarandon, Celine Dion named hunger goodwill ambassadors USA Today. Retrieved October 15, 2010.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Republic of Ireland Johnny Logan
with "Hold Me Now"
Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest
1988
Succeeded by
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Riva
with "Rock Me"
Preceded by
Carol Rich
Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest
1988
Succeeded by
Furbaz

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Tommy Sandhu
Born (1976-11-24) 24 November 1976 (age 35)
London, England
Occupation DJ, Remixer, producer

Tommy Sandhu (born 24 November 1976) is a British DJ, Remixer, producer and television presenter who shot to fame after he appeared on the dating game show Blind Date with Cilla Black. Tommy is best known for his trademark shaved head and cheeky nature.[1]

Contents

Career[link]

Tommy is the host of the Breakfast show on the BBC Asian Network. Tommy joined the stations' daily schedule in February 2010 amid rumours that the station may close. Since Tommy's arrival in the 'drivetime' and subsequently 'breakfast' slot, the stations figures have risen consistently every quarter. The RAJAR figures for the stations weekly reach were approximately 300,000 in early 2010 and in early 2011 they stand at approximately 500,000 listeners.

Tommy's first presenting job was with Tess Daly on Smash Hits TV for Sky One. He was also the announcer - replacing "our graham" on the final series of the British version of Blind Date, starring Cilla Black.

Tommy has DJ'd in Londons' finest venues over recent years: China White, Movida, Cafe De Paris, Paper, The Roof Gardens and The Shadow Lounge. His DJ sets include funky house, rnb, and a mix of old school tracks. As a composer Tommy has produced the theme music to several TV shows which include Blind Date (ITV), Britain's Next Top Model (LIVING), Celebrity Snappers (Bravo), I'd Do Anything (BBC 1) and many more.

Tommy began his radio career as the London showbiz reporter for the BBC Asian Network covering premiere's, parties and all the gossip from the capital having interviewed an array of stars, such as Jeff Goldblum, Ricky Gervais, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Keitel, Keira Knightley, Daniel Radcliffe, Tilda Swinton (Oscar and Bafta winner), Will Smith, Johnny Depp, Jennifer Ellison, Amber Heard, Marion Cotillard and many more including Bollywoods' Akshay Kumar.

He also presented on Desi DNA and now hosts the breakfast show, weekdays between 07:00-10:00 on BBC Asian Network.

According to recent figures, Tommy's breakfast show attracts approximately 200,000 listeners and is THE most listened to show on the BBC Asian Network

Tommy also hosts a gadget feature on BBC Worlds' FAST:TRACK which is viewed in over 50 countries and attracts a global audience of over 70 million people. His fun loving nature and light hearted take on the world of technology means everyone can enjoy the latest travel gadgets without getting lost in the jargon.

Discography[link]

  1. Step Inside Love (Original Mix 6:29)
  2. Step Inside Love (Vacation Dub 4:53)
  3. Step Inside Love (All Burnt Out Mix 4:20)
  1. Step Inside Love (All Burnt Out Mix 4:20) [Hidden Track on CD]
  1. Step Inside Love (All Burnt Out Mix 4:20)
  1. Faded Images (Tommy Sandhu's Ram Mix 3:55)
  2. Kiss You All Over (Tommy Sandhu's Big Bill Mix 5:00)
  1. Step Inside Love (2009 The Stunner Mix 3:32)
  2. Step Inside Love (2002 Club Mix 6:37)
  3. Step Inside Love (2002 Vacation Dub 4:59)
  4. Step Inside Love (2002 Club Mix - Radio Edit 3:10)
  5. Step Inside Love (2002 All Burnt Out Mix 4:29)

References[link]

External links[link]

http://wn.com/Tommy_Sandhu




This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Sandhu

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.


Nathan Fake
Press shot at a Norfolk beach in 2009.
Press shot at a Norfolk beach in 2009.
Background information
Origin Norfolk, England
Genres Electronica, Techno, Ambient
Occupations Producer
Years active 2003–present
Website www.nathanfake.co.uk

Nathan Fake is an English electronic music artist from Norfolk, who has released numerous singles as well as two album releases on the label Border Community Recordings. His music has been used in soundtracks for TV shows and an advertisement.

In 2006, his debut album Drowning in a Sea of Love was released on Border Community. The album received very good reviews in the music press.[1] He released a six track mini-album Hard Islands in 2009.[2]

Contents

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

EP[link]

  • Outhouse (2003) - Border Community
  • Watlington Street EP (2004) - Saw Recordings
  • The Sky Was Pink (2004) - Border Community
  • Dinamo EP (2005) Traum Schallplatten
  • Silent Night (2005) - Border Community 7" release
  • Drowning in a Sea of Remixes (Remix EP) (2006) - Border Community
  • You Are Here (2007) - Border Community

Remixes[link]

Compilation appearances[link]

  • Numb Chance (2006) - Elektronische Musik: Interkontinental 5 - Traum Schallplatten

Collaborations[link]

  • "Lava Flow" (collaboration with Milky Globe) (2006) - LoEB

Television[link]

References[link]

  1. ^ Ranta, Alan "TMT gives Nathan Fake debut 4.5/5". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved on September 30, 2008
  2. ^ Ranta, Alan (May 20, 2009). "Nathan Fake: Hard Islands". PopMatters. Retrieved on June 14, 2010.
  3. ^ http://www.myspace.com/fortdax

External links[link]


http://wn.com/Nathan_Fake

Related pages:

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http://de.wn.com/Nathan Fake

http://it.wn.com/Nathan Fake

http://es.wn.com/Nathan Fake




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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.