- published: 08 Dec 2012
- views: 46
- author: Austin Durack
Vimeo results:
Youtube results:
MORE VIDEOS
Loading...
![Paul McCartney about John Lennon on Tv-AM Good Morning Britain [9.12.1985]](http://web.archive.org./web/20121213164351im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qc2DOBobJx8/default.jpg "Paul talks about his relationship with John Lennon")
![Dala - Lennon and McCartney [Official Video]](http://web.archive.org./web/20121213164351im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rGM4dOsN3ic/default.jpg "Official Video for")
..." width="225" height="168" class="playvideo1 gotop" onClick="activateTab('playlist1'); return false" style="display: block;" />
Open Collage in a new Window
Email the Collage
- Loading...
Loading suggestions ...
- 1967–1970
- 20 Forthlin Road
- 251 Menlove Avenue
- 4-by The Beatles
- A Day in the Life
- A World Without Love
- A&R;
- A-side and B-side
- Abbey Road
- Abbey Road (street)
- Abbey Road Studios
- Act Naturally
- Ain't She Sweet
- Alan W. Pollack
- Alfred Lennon
- Alistair Taylor
- All My Loving (EP)
- All You Need Is Love
- Allan Williams
- Allen Klein
- Allmusic
- And I Love Her
- Andy White (drummer)
- Anthology 1
- Anthology 2
- Anthology 3
- Apple Corps
- Apple Records
- Apple scruffs
- Art school
- Ask Me Why
- Astrid Kirchherr
- Baby's in Black
- Back in the U.S.
- Back in the U.S.S.R.
- Bad to Me
- Barry Miles
- Beatle boots
- Beatlemania
- Beatlemania Hamburg
- Beatles '65
- Beatles Day
- Beatles For Sale
- Beatles for Sale
- Beatles VI
- Beatles-Platz
- Bernie Taupin
- Bert Kaempfert
- Bill Harry
- Billy Preston
- Black Dyke Band
- Bob Dylan
- Bob Spitz
- Book The Beatles
- Brian Epstein
- Brian Jones
- Bridge (music)
- British Invasion
- Bruce Spizer
- Bruno Koschmider
- Buddy Holly
- Burt Bacharach
- Camillo Felgen
- Can't Buy Me Love
- Candlestick Park
- Capitol Records
- Category The Beatles
- Cayenne (song)
- Chas Newby
- Chris Barber
- Cilla Black
- Come Together
- Counter-melody
- Cover version
- Cry for a Shadow
- Cynthia Lennon
- Dave Dexter, Jr.
- Day Tripper
- Death of John Lennon
- Derek Taylor
- Dick James
- Don't Bother Me
- Don't Pass Me By
- Donovan
- Eight Days a Week
- Eleanor Rigby
- Elton John
- Elvis Presley
- Eric Clapton
- Everly Brothers
- Fifth Beatle
- For You Blue
- Four by The Beatles
- Francie Schwartz
- Free as a Bird
- From a Window
- From Me To You
- From Me to You
- Geoff Emerick
- George Dunning
- George Harrison
- George Martin
- George Toogood Smith
- German language
- Get Back
- Giles Martin
- Glyn Johns
- Hal David
- Harmony Books
- Harrisongs
- Harry Nilsson
- Hello Little Girl
- Hello, Goodbye
- Help! (album)
- Help! (film)
- Help! (song)
- Hey Jude
- Hey Jude (album)
- Horst Fascher
- How I Won the War
- Hunter Davies
- I Am the Walrus
- I Call Your Name
- I Feel Fine
- I Wanna Be Your Man
- I'll Be on My Way
- I'll Cry Instead
- I'll Get You
- I'm Down
- I've Got a Feeling
- Ian MacDonald
- If I Fell
- If You Love Me, Baby
- In My Life
- It's for You
- Ivan Vaughan
- Jane Asher
- Jeff Lynne
- Jim Keltner
- Jimmie Nicol
- John Lennon
- Johnny Gentle
- Johnny Hutchinson
- Julia Lennon
- Julian Lennon
- Jürgen Vollmer
- Kaiserkeller
- Ken Brown (musician)
- Ken Mansfield
- Ken Scott
- Ken Townsend
- Kinfauns (Surrey)
- Klaus Voormann
- Lady Madonna
- Larry Parnes
- Lee Eastman
- Lennon–McCartney
- Let It Be
- Let It Be (film)
- Let It Be (song)
- Let It Be... Naked
- Like Dreamers Do
- Linda McCartney
- Lingasong Records
- Little, Brown
- Liverpool Institute
- Long Tall Sally (EP)
- Love Me Do
- Love of the Loved
- Magic Alex
- Magical Mystery Tour
- Mal Evans
- Mark Lewisohn
- Mary Hopkin
- Matador
- Matchbox (song)
- Maureen Starkey
- May Pang
- Meet The Beatles!
- Mick Jagger
- Middle eight
- Mimi Smith
- Mona Best
- MPL Communications
- Murray the K
- My Bonnie
- Neil Aspinall
- Nicky Hopkins
- Nigel Walley
- Nobody I Know
- Northern Songs
- Nowhere Man (EP)
- Nowhere Man (song)
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
- Octopus's Garden
- Old Brown Shoe
- One After 909
- P.J. Proby
- Paperback Writer
- Parlophone
- Past Masters
- Pattie Boyd
- Paul is dead
- Paul McCartney
- Penny Lane
- Pete Best
- Pete Shotton
- Peter & Gordon
- Peter and Gordon
- Peter Shotton
- Phil McDonald
- Phil Spector
- Plastic Ono Band
- Playboy
- Please Please Me
- Por Siempre Beatles
- Portal The Beatles
- Ravi Shankar
- Ray Connolly
- Reel Music
- Revolution (song)
- Revolver (album)
- Richard Lester
- Richie Unterberger
- Ringo Starr
- Ronnie Scott
- Rory Storm
- Rubber Soul
- Savile Row
- Scotch of St James
- Seltaeb
- Sessions (album)
- She Loves You
- She's a Woman
- Sid Bernstein
- Something
- Songwriter
- Startling Music
- Step Inside Love
- Strawberry Field
- Stuart Sutcliffe
- Swan Records
- Tell Me What You See
- Thank You Girl
- That Means a Lot
- The Bag O'Nails
- The Beatles
- The Beatles (album)
- The Beatles (No. 1)
- The Beatles Box
- The Beatles Box Set
- The Beatles in 1966
- The Beatles in film
- The Beatles in India
- The Beatles in Italy
- The Beatles in Mono
- The Beatles reunions
- The Beatles timeline
- The Beatles' Ballads
- The Beatles' First
- The Beatles' Hits
- The Beatles' Story
- The Cavern Club
- The Compleat Beatles
- The Dirty Mac
- The Early Beatles
- The Ed Sullivan Show
- The Fourmost
- The Miracles
- The Number Ones
- The Quarrymen
- The Rolling Stones
- The Rutles
- The Star-Club
- The Top Ten Club
- There's a Place
- Things We Said Today
- This Boy
- Ticket to Ride
- Tip of My Tongue
- Tittenhurst Park
- Tollie Records
- Tommy Quickly
- Tony Barrow
- Tony Sheridan
- Twist and Shout
- Twist and Shout (EP)
- Up Against It
- Usenet
- Vee-Jay Records
- Very Together
- We Can Work It Out
- What Goes On (song)
- Wigmore Street
- Wings over America
- With The Beatles
- WP Books
- Yes It Is
- Yesterday
- Yesterday (EP)
- Yesterday (song)
- Yesterday and Today
- Yoko Ono
- You Can't Do That
-
251 Menlove Avenue
251 Menlove Avenue, named "Mendips", was the childhood home of John Lennon, singer and songwriter with the Beatles, and is now preserved by the National Trust.
Mendips is a 1930s semi-detached property in Woolton, South Liverpool, England. The house belonged to Lennon's Aunt Mimi and her husband George Smith. The couple took John in at the age of five, after his mother, who was living with her boyfriend, was persuaded that it would be better for Mimi and George to take care of him. He remained at Mendips until mid-1963, when he was 22 years old.
Despite having purchased the childhood residence of Paul McCartney, the National Trust showed no interest in acquiring the Menlove Avenue property, claiming that, unlike McCartney's home, no Beatles' songs had been composed at Mendips. It was eventually bought by Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, who then donated it to the National Trust. After much restoration work to return it to a 1950s style, it was opened to the public on 27 March 2003.
Said Ono, "When John's house came up for sale I wanted to preserve it for the people of Liverpool and John Lennon and Beatles' fans all over the world." (Associated Press, 14 February 2003).
wn.com/251_Menlove_Avenue -
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner. It is most notable as being the venue in the 1960s for innovative recording techniques adopted by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Hollies, Badfinger, and others.
Towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers, however the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, thereby preventing the building from subjection to major alterations.
Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in the 1830s on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to apartments where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory. The premises were acquired by the Gramophone Company in 1931 and converted into studios. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios, when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music. The neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-1900s the studio was extensively used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was just around the corner from the studio building.
wn.com/Abbey_Road_Studios -
Beatles-Platz
The Beatles-Platz (German: Beatles Square/Plaza) is a plaza in the St. Pauli quarter in Hamburg, Germany, at the crossroads of Reeperbahn and Große Freiheit. It is circular, with a diameter of 29 metres (95 ft) and paved black to make it look like a vinyl record. Surrounding the place are five statues, representing The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe, George Harrison, and a hybrid of drummers Pete Best and Ringo Starr each of whom played with The Beatles at times during their Hamburg engagements.
This plaza was built to commemorate Hamburg's importance in The Beatles' history. The draft design was by architects Dohse & Stich during a common tendering. Building the project cost about €500,000 and was split among donations, sponsors and the city of Hamburg.
The project's initiator was Hamburg radio station Oldie 95. On the station's instigation the community of interest IG Beat City was founded, which considers The Beatles-Platz as a prelude for more projects targeting The Beatles' memorisation in Hamburg's cityscape.[citation needed]
wn.com/Beatles-Platz -
Death of John Lennon
Coordinates: 40°46′35″N 73°58′34″W / 40.776436°N 73.976006°W / 40.776436; -73.976006
John Lennon was an English musician who gained worldwide fame as one of the founders of The Beatles, for his subsequent solo career, and for his political activism and pacifism. He was shot by Mark David Chapman at the entrance of the building where he lived, The Dakota, in New York City, on Monday, 8 December 1980; Lennon had just returned from Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono.
Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where it was stated that nobody could have lived for more than a few minutes after sustaining such injuries. Shortly after local news stations reported Lennon's death, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of The Dakota. He was cremated on 10 December 1980, at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York; the ashes were given to Ono, who chose not to hold a funeral for him. The first report of his death to a national audience was announced by Howard Cosell, on ABC's Monday Night Football.
wn.com/Death_of_John_Lennon -
Kaiserkeller
Kaiserkeller is a night club in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, Germany, near the Reeperbahn. It was opened by Bruno Koschmider on October 14, 1959. The Beatles had a contract with Kaiserkeller to play there in 1960.
A Caribbean steel band that had played at Allan Williams Jacaranda club in Liverpool took an offer to play in Hamburg. After receiving letters enthusing about Hamburg's club scene, Williams made contact with Koschmider, offering to act as a booking agent, to which Koschmider agreed. Koschmider had previously booked Derry and the Seniors after seeing them perform in London, and as they were successful in Hamburg, he asked Williams to look for additional groups.Rory Storm and The Hurricanes were Williams' first choice, but as they were committed to a season at Butlins holiday camp, they turned his offer down (as did Gerry & The Pacemakers) so Williams sent The Beatles to Hamburg instead. They were required to play six or seven hours a night, seven nights a week. The Beatles first played at Koschmider's Indra club, sleeping in small, "dirty" rooms in the Bambi Kino, and then moved (after the closure of the Indra) to the larger Kaiserkeller.
wn.com/Kaiserkeller -
Kinfauns (Surrey)
Kinfauns was a bungalow-style house, located at 16 Claremont Drive, Esher, Surrey, England, KT10 9LU, on the Claremont Estate. From 1964 to 1970 it was home of George Harrison, lead guitarist of The Beatles, and was where many of the demo recordings for the White Album were made. The house has since been demolished, and a new one built in its place.
Harrison bought Kinfauns for £20,000 on 17 July 1964, on the advice of Dr. Walter Strach, the Beatles' accountant. Going house-shopping, he said later, "It was the first one I saw, and I thought, that'll do." He was joined there months later by wife-to-be Pattie Boyd. Harrison and Boyd were married on 21 January 1966, and lived in the house until 1970, when Harrison purchased Friar Park.
During 1967, Harrison and Boyd painted the outside of the house in psychedelic patterns; a mural around the fireplace was created by design collective The Fool, who also painted several Beatles musical instruments and Harrison's Mini.
Aside from Paul McCartney's house at 7 Cavendish Avenue in St. John's Wood, Kinfauns was probably the home the Beatles gathered at most, as it was only a short drive from the homes of John Lennon (Kenwood) and Ringo Starr (Sunny Heights). It was where Harrison, Lennon and their wives retreated during their first LSD experience in 1965, and in May 1968 it was where many of the demo recordings for the White Album were made, on Harrison's Ampex four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. (These demos have been released on various bootleg albums; seven of them also appear on The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 3.)
wn.com/Kinfauns_(Surrey) -
Liverpool Institute
Coordinates: 53°23′58.4″N 2°58′20.3″W / 53.399556°N 2.972306°W / 53.399556; -2.972306 The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys was an all-boys grammar school in the English port city of Liverpool.
The school had its origins in 1825 but occupied different premises while the money was found to build a dedicated building on Mount Street. The Institute was first known as the Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts. In 1832 the name was shortened to the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution. The facade of the listed building, the entrance hall and modified school hall remain after substantial internal reconstruction was completed in the early 1990s.
Its initial primary purpose as a Mechanics' Institute (one of many established about this time throughout the country) was to provide educational opportunities, mainly through evening classes, for working men. Lectures for the general public were also provided of wide interest covering topics ranging from Arctic exploration to Shakespeare and philosophy. Luminaries like Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered talks and readings in the main lecture hall (now the architecturally restructured Sir Paul McCartney Auditorium of LIPA).
wn.com/Liverpool_Institute -
Penny Lane
Coordinates: 53°23′13″N 2°55′10″W / 53.38694°N 2.91944°W / 53.38694; -2.91944
"Penny Lane" is a song by The Beatles, written primarily by Paul McCartney. It was credited to Lennon–McCartney.
Recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, "Penny Lane" was released in February 1967 as one side of a double A-sided single, along with "Strawberry Fields Forever". Both songs were later included on the Magical Mystery Tour LP (1967). The single was the result of the record company wanting a new release after several months of no new Beatles releases.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "Penny Lane" at #456 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song's title is derived from the name of a street near Lennon's house, in the band's hometown, Liverpool. McCartney and Lennon would meet at Penny Lane junction in the Mossley Hill area to catch a bus into the centre of the city. The area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road is also commonly called Penny Lane. At the time, in the 1960s, this was a significant bus terminus for several routes, and buses with "Penny Lane" displayed were common throughout Liverpool.
wn.com/Penny_Lane -
Savile Row
Savile Row (pronounced /ˌsævɪl ˈroʊ/) is a shopping street in Mayfair, central London, famous for its traditional men's bespoke tailoring. The term "bespoke" is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers. The short street is termed the "golden mile of tailoring", where customers have included Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson, Napoleon III and Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Savile Row runs parallel to Regent Street between Conduit Street at the northern end and Vigo Street at the southern. Linking roads include Burlington Place, Clifford Street and Burlington Gardens.
Savile Row was built between 1731 and 1735 as part of the development of the Burlington Estate, and is named after Lady Dorothy Savile, wife of the 3rd Earl of Burlington. It originally ran from Burlington Gardens (then Vigo Lane) to Boyle Street, with houses only on the east side, but in 1937–8 it extended to Conduit Street, and in the 19th century houses were built on the west side. The original architectural plan is believed to have been drawn up by Colen Campbell, though Henry Flitcroft appears to have been the main architect of the street, under the supervision of Daniel Garrett, while Nos 1 and 22–23 Savile Row were designed by William Kent, who lived next door in No 2.Dr Livingstone was laid out in state in No 1, when it was the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society, before being buried in Westminster Abbey.
wn.com/Savile_Row -
Strawberry Field
Coordinates: 53°22′49″N 2°53′2″W / 53.38028°N 2.88389°W / 53.38028; -2.88389
Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army children's home in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool, England.
The earliest reference to 'Strawberry Field' dates from 1870. In 1912 it was transferred to a wealthy merchant whose widow sold the estate to the Salvation Army in 1934. It opened on 7 July 1936. The original house was later demolished and replaced with a smaller purpose-built home for children which opened in the early 1970s. This home provided three family units, each accommodating 12 children. It closed in early January 2005 and is now a church and prayer centre. The famous gates marking its entrance were removed and replaced with replicas in May 2011.
The name of the home became world famous in 1967 with the release of The Beatles single "Strawberry Fields Forever" written by John Lennon. Lennon grew up near the home - one of his childhood treats was the garden party that took place each summer on the grounds of Strawberry Field. Lennon's Aunt Mimi recalled: 'As soon as we could hear the Salvation Army Band starting, John would jump up and down shouting "Mimi, come on. We're going to be late."' He and his childhood friends Pete Shotton and Ivan Vaughan often played in the wooded area behind the building, which Lennon nicknamed in the plural "Strawberry Fields."
wn.com/Strawberry_Field -
The Bag O'Nails
The Bag O'Nails was a live music venue and meeting place for musicians in the 1960s, situated at 8 Kingly Street, Soho, London. Bands and other musicians such as Georgie Fame and Gass appeared there, often jamming with artists such as Jimi Hendrix. The venue hosted an early gig by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
After Beatles recording sessions in London their roadie Mal Evans, personal assistant Neil Aspinall and Paul McCartney would often look for a place where they could eat and The Bag O'Nails was one of their favourite venues. McCartney met his future wife Linda Eastman there on 15 May 1967. In his memoirs Evans wrote:" January 19 and 20: "I ended up drunk in The Bag O'Nails with Paul [McCartney] and Neil [Aspinall]".
Coordinates: 51°30′44.5″N 0°8′20″W / 51.512361°N 0.13889°W / 51.512361; -0.13889
wn.com/The_Bag_O'Nails -
The Beatles in India
The Beatles visited Rishikesh in India in 1968 to attend an advanced Transcendental Meditation (TM) training session at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Amidst widespread media attention, their stay at the ashram was one of the band's most productive periods. Their adoption of the Maharishi as their guru is credited by some as changing attitudes in the West about Indian spirituality, and encouraging the study of Transcendental Meditation. The Beatles first met the Maharishi in London in August 1967 and then attended a seminar in Bangor, Wales. Although planned to be a 10-day session, their stay was cut short by the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. Wanting to learn more, they kept in contact with the Maharishi and planned to attend his ashram in October, but their trip was rescheduled due to other commitments.
The Maharishi's compound was across from Rishikesh, located in the holy "Valley of the Saints" in the foothills of the Himalayas, and the home to many ashrams. The Beatles arrived there in February 1968, along with wives, girlfriends, assistants and numerous reporters, joining about 60 other TM students, including musicians Donovan, Mike Love of The Beach Boys, and flautist Paul Horn. While there, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison wrote many songs (Ringo Starr wrote one), of which eighteen were later recorded for The Beatles (White Album), two for Abbey Road, and others for solo works.
wn.com/The_Beatles_in_India -
The Cavern Club
The Cavern Club is a rock and roll club in Liverpool, England. Opened on Wednesday 16 January 1957, the club had their first performance by The Beatles on 9 February 1961, and where Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles performing on 9 November 1961.
Alan Sytner opened the club having been inspired by the Jazz district in Paris, where there were a number of clubs in cellars. Sytner returned to Liverpool and wanted to open a club similar to Le Caveau in Paris. He eventually found a perfect cellar for his club — which had been used as an air raid shelter during the war — and opened it on 16 January 1957. The first act to open the club was the Merseysippi Jazz Band.
What started as a jazz club eventually became a hangout for skiffle groups. Whilst playing golf with Sytner's father, Dr. Joseph Sytner, Nigel Walley — who had left school at 15 to become an apprentice golf professional at the Lee Park Golf Club — asked Dr. Sytner if his son could book The Quarrymen at The Cavern, which was one of three jazz clubs he managed. Dr. Sytner suggested that the band should play at the golf club first, so as to assess their talent, which they did. Sytner phoned Walley a week later and offered the band an interlude spot playing skiffle between the performances of two jazz bands at The Cavern, on Wednesday, 7 August 1957.
wn.com/The_Cavern_Club -
The Star-Club
The Star-Club was a music club in Hamburg, Germany that opened Friday 13 April 1962 and was initially operated by Manfred Weissleder and Horst Fascher. In the 1960s, many of the giants of rock music played at the club. The club closed on 31 December 1969 and the building it occupied was destroyed by a fire in 1987. The address in Hamburg area St. Pauli was: Große Freiheit 39; Große Freiheit is a side street of the Reeperbahn.
The club achieved worldwide renown through the performances of the Beatles, who played there 13 April 1962 - 31 May 1962 and started another round of performances 1 November 1962. Their last performance there was 31 December 1962; that performance was recorded on a home tape machine, and a remixed version was released in 1977 as Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.
The Beatles' first Hamburg Club performance was at the Indra Club (also in Große Freiheit) at 18 August 1960.
English musicians (alphabetical): The Beatles, Chicken Shack (featuring Christine McVie (Perfect)), Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, Cream, Lee Curtis, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, Earth (pre-Black Sabbath), The Graduates, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (US/UK, march 1967), The Jaybirds (featuring Alvin Lee of Ten Years After), Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas (band), The Liverbirds, The Overlanders, The Pretty Things, The Remo Four, The Searchers; Richard Thompson, Soft Machine...
wn.com/The_Star-Club -
Wigmore Street
Wigmore Street is a street in the City of Westminster, in the West End of London, England. The street runs for about 600 yards parallel and to the north of Oxford Street between Portman Square to the west and Cavendish Square to the east.
The well-known Wigmore Hall concert hall is located on north side of Wigmore Street, just to the east of the junction with Welbeck Street. Harley Street and Wimpole Street, famous for their private medical practices, are nearby and have junctions with Wigmore Street. Number 95 Wigmore Street was the location of the original offices of the Beatles' Apple Corps in 1968 prior to their move to Savile Row.
The nearest tube stations are on Oxford Street to the south: Marble Arch at the west end; Bond Street in the centre and Oxford Circus at the east end.
The corner of Wimpole and Wigmore Street features in the famous legal case about causing a "nuisance" between neighbours - Sturges v. Bridgman (1879).
Coordinates: 51°30′57″N 0°09′04″W / 51.51583°N 0.15111°W / 51.51583; -0.15111
wn.com/Wigmore_Street
-
A&R;
Artists and repertoire (A&R) is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label; every activity involving artists to the point of album release is generally considered under the purview of, and responsibility of, A&R.
The A&R division is responsible for discovering new recording artists and bringing them to the record company. They are expected to understand the current tastes of the market and to be able to find artists that will be commercially successful. For this reason, A&R people are often young and many are musicians, music journalists or record producers.
An A&R executive is authorized to offer a record contract, often in the form of a "deal memo": a short informal document that establishes a business relationship between the recording artist and the record company. The actual contract negotiations will typically be carried out by rival entertainment lawyers hired by the musician's manager and the record company.
wn.com/A&R; -
Alan W. Pollack
Alan W. Pollack is a musicologist. He is best known for having musically analysed every Beatles song released. He started the task in 1989 and finished in 2000, with 187 original songs and 25 cover songs. The analyses have come to be known as the "Notes on..." Series, as each is entitled "Notes on Love Me Do", "Notes on Help!" and so on. The notes were released weekly, usually on Wednesdays, on the rec.music.beatles usenet group.
Pollack holds a B.A. in Music from Brooklyn College and both an M.A. and PhD from University of Pennsylvania in Music Theory and Composition. He was an instructor of music theory and composition at Yale University from 1975 - 1977. Since 1979 he has pursued a career in software engineering.
wn.com/Alan_W._Pollack -
Alfred Lennon
Alfred "Alf" Lennon (14 December 1912 – 1 April 1976) was the father of English musician John Lennon. He spent many years in an orphanage—with his sister, Edith—after his father died. He was known as being very witty and musical throughout his life—he sang and played the banjo—but not as being very dependable. Although always known as Alf by his family, he later released a record as Freddie Lennon, and was quoted in newspapers under that name.
He married Julia Stanley in 1938. John was their only child together, but as Alf was often away at sea during World War II, he did not see much of his child during his infancy. During this period, Julia became pregnant with another man's child. He offered to look after his wife, their child and the expected baby, but Julia rejected the idea. He had very little contact with his son until Beatlemania, when they met again, but later had only intermittent contact with each other. He died in Brighton, where he had gone to live after marrying 19-year-old Pauline Jones.
wn.com/Alfred_Lennon -
Alistair Taylor
James Alistair Taylor (21 June 1935 in Runcorn – 9 June 2004 in Chesterfield) was the English personal assistant of Brian Epstein who accompanied him to the Cavern Club when he first saw The Beatles play on 9 November 1961. Taylor later became General Manager of Apple Corps for a short period.
Born in Runcorn, Taylor did his National Service in the Royal Air Force and worked in a series of jobs as a mover, timber importer and docker in the Liverpool Docks, before being successfully interviewed by Brian Epstein for a salesman job at North End Music Stores (NEMS). Brian liked him so much that he decided to offer him a job as his personal assistant in the shop.
Taylor said he invented the name of Raymond Jones to order Tony Sheridan’s album, which featured backing music by the Beatles, because he thought NEMS was losing sales by not stocking the disc:
Taylor's claim is in some doubt, as NEMS and Epstein communicated with a real Raymond Jones to acknowledge their debt once the Beatles became famous.
wn.com/Alistair_Taylor -
Allan Williams
Allan Richard Williams (born 17 March 1930 in Bootle, Liverpool) is a former businessman and promoter of Welsh descent. He was the original booking agent and first manager of The Beatles. He personally took the young band to Hamburg, Germany, where they gained the vital show business experience that led to their emergence on the world stage.
In 1957 Williams leased a former watch-repair shop at 21 Slater Street, Liverpool, which he converted into a coffee bar. He named the venue the Jacaranda, after an exotic species of ornamental flowering tree, jacaranda mimosifolia. The Jac (as it became known) opened in September 1958. The Beatles were frequent customers, with John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe attending Liverpool Art College nearby, and Paul McCartney at Liverpool Institute adjacent to the college. Asking for the chance to play the club, Williams instead put them to work redecorating, with Lennon and Sutcliffe painting a mural for the Ladies room. Finally, the Beatles began playing at the Jac on occasion. Between May and August 1960, Williams secured a number of bookings for the group at other places. (Scott Wheeler: Charlie Lennon: Uncle To A Beatle. Boulder, Colorado: Outskirts Press, 2005.) One was backing a local stripper; when she discovered the Beatles were not familiar with the "Gypsy Fire Dance", they instead backed her with a rendition of the Harry Lime theme tune.
wn.com/Allan_Williams -
Allen Klein
Allen Klein (December 18, 1931 – July 4, 2009) was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Allen Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish immigrants from Budapest, Hungary. His father was a butcher by trade, and his mother died before his first birthday. As a teenager, he worked in several jobs while attending evening classes. He excelled at mental arithmetic, and graduated from Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, in 1956.
He undertook bookkeeping for several people in showbusiness, and audited record companies. In 1957 he began his own business, a partnership with his wife Betty. Record industry insiders began to fear his blunt-speaking tenacity, and well-placed people began to recommend him. Klein regarded himself as a shrewd and tenacious businessman, exampled by him having a modified Bible quote on his desk, reading: "Though I walk in the shadow of the valley of evil, I have no fear, as I am the biggest bastard in the valley."
wn.com/Allen_Klein -
Andy White (drummer)
Andrew "Andy" White (born 1930) is a Scottish drummer, best known for replacing Ringo Starr on drums on The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do". White featured on the American 7" single release of the song, which also appeared on the band's debut British album, Please Please Me. He also played drums on the "Love Me Do" single B-side, "P.S. I Love You".
White has played with many other prominent musicians and groups, including Chuck Berry, Billy Fury, Herman's Hermits and Tom Jones. Allmusic called White "one of the busier drummers in England from the late '50s through the mid-'70s".
Andy White was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1930, the son of a baker. At the age of 12, he started playing drums in a pipe band, and became a professional session musician at the age of 17. In the 1950s and early 1960s, White played drums with a number of swing and traditional jazz groups and musicians. In 1958 he formed a big band jazz outfit and took it to the American Northeast where he backed "rockers" like Chuck Berry, The Platters and Bill Haley & His Comets. White said, "We used some big band arrangements and put a back beat to it to fit in with the rock 'n' roll thing. I got the chance to hear rock 'n' roll in the flesh. That was where I got a good idea about what it was supposed to happen, drumwise." In 1960 in London White recorded with Billy Fury on Fury's first album, The Sound of Fury, which is generally regarded as Britain's first rock and roll album.
wn.com/Andy_White_(drummer) -
Astrid Kirchherr
Astrid Kirchherr (born 20 May 1938), is a German photographer and artist and is well known for her association with The Beatles (along with her friends Klaus Voormann and Jürgen Vollmer), and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Pete Best.
Kirchherr met artist Sutcliffe in the Kaiserkeller bar in Hamburg in 1960, where he was playing bass with The Beatles, and was later engaged to him, before his death in 1962. Although Kirchherr has taken very few photographs since 1967, her early work has been exhibited in Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool, New York City, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. She has published three limited-edition books of photographs.
Astrid Kirchherr was born in 1938 in Hamburg, Germany, and is the daughter of a former executive of the German branch of the Ford Motor Company. During World War II she was evacuated to the safety of the Baltic Sea where she remembered seeing dead bodies on the shore (after the ships Cap Arcona and the SS Deutschland had been bombed and sunk), and the destruction in Hamburg when she returned.
wn.com/Astrid_Kirchherr -
Barry Miles
Barry Miles (or "Miles", born 1943, Cirencester, England) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subject of the 1960s London underground. He has written numerous books and his work has also regularly appeared in left-wing papers such as The Guardian. In the 1960s, he was co-owner of the Indica Gallery and helped start the independent newspaper International Times.
In the 1960s, Miles worked at Better Books, which was managed by Tony Godwin. Godwin was friends with Lawrence Ferlinghetti with whom he would exchange Penguin books for City Lights publications. In 1965 Allen Ginsberg gave a reading at Better Books which led to the International Poetry Incarnation, a seminal event that was co-organised by Miles.
In 1965 Miles and his wife, the former Susan Crane, introduced McCartney to hash brownies by using a recipe for hash fudge which they had found in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.
Following the International Poetry Incarnation, Miles established the Indica Gallery and Bookshop, allowing him to meet many of the stars of the Swinging London social scene. Miles brought Paul McCartney into contact with people who wanted to start the International Times, which McCartney helped to fund.
wn.com/Barry_Miles -
Bernie Taupin
Bernard John "Bernie" Taupin (born 22 May 1950) is an English lyricist, poet, and singer, best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, writing the lyrics for the majority of the star's songs, making his lyrics some of the best known in pop-rock's history.
In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement in the UK's music paper New Musical Express that was seeking new songwriters. Around the same time Elton John submitted samples of his work to the paper, and the pair were brought together, collaborating on many projects since.
Much of Taupin's childhood is reflected in his lyrics and poetry. He was born at Flatters Farmhouse which is located between the village of Anwick and the town of Sleaford in the southern part of Lincolnshire, England. Of French ancestry, his father was educated in Dijon and was employed as a stockman by a large farm estate near the town of Market Rasen and his mother worked as a nanny, having previously lived in Switzerland. The family later relocated to Rowston Manor, a significant step up from Flatters Farmhouse which had no electricity.
wn.com/Bernie_Taupin -
Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert (born Berthold Kämpfert; 16 October 1923 – 21 June 1980) was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as Strangers in the Night and Spanish Eyes.
He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong nickname, Fips - and studied at the School of Music there. A multi-instrumentalist, he was hired by Hans Busch to play with his orchestra before serving as a bandsman in the German Navy during World War II. He later formed his own big band, toured with them, then worked as an arranger and producer, making hit records with Freddy Quinn and Ivo Robić. In 1961, he hired The Beatles to back Tony Sheridan for an album called My Bonnie. The album and its singles, released by Polydor, were the Beatles' first commercially released recordings.
Kaempfert's own first hit with his orchestra had been in 1960, with Wonderland by Night. Many of his tunes became better known as hits for other artists:
wn.com/Bert_Kaempfert -
Bill Harry
Bill Harry (born in Liverpool, England) is the creator of Mersey Beat, an important newspaper of the early 1960s, which focused on the Liverpool music scene. Harry had started various magazines and newspapers before attending the Liverpool College of Art, with fellow students John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe, who both later performed with The Beatles.
Harry met his wife-to-be, Virginia, at the Jacaranda club (managed by Allan Williams, the first manager of The Beatles) and she later agreed to help him start a music newspaper. After borrowing £50, Harry released the first issue of Mersey Beat on 6 July 1961, with the first 5,000 copies selling out within a short time. Harry arranged for the future Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, to see them perform a lunchtime concert at The Cavern Club on 9 November 1961. Epstein subsequently asked Harry create a national music paper, the Music Echo, but after problems with Epstein about editorial control, he decided to become a P.R.; working for many solo artistes and groups.
wn.com/Bill_Harry -
Billy Preston
William Everett "Billy" Preston (September 2, 1946 – June 6, 2006) was a musician whose work included R&B, rock, soul, funk and gospel. Preston became famous, first as a session musician with such artists as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and was later successful as a solo artist with such hit pop singles as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing", and a string of albums.
Alongside Tony Sheridan, Billy Preston was the only other musician to be credited on a Beatles recording after he was credited on the group's number-one hit, "Get Back", with the record title listed as The Beatles with Billy Preston. Steven Stills asked Preston if he could use Preston's phrase "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" in a song and created the legendary eponymous hit.
William Everett Preston was born on September 2, 1946 in Houston, Texas. At the age of three, the family moved to Los Angeles where Preston began playing piano while sitting on his mother Robbie's lap. Noted as a child prodigy, by the age of ten, Preston was playing organ onstage backing several gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland and Andrae Crouch. At twelve, he appeared in the W.C. Handy biopic starring Nat King Cole entitled, St. Louis Blues, playing W.C. Handy at a younger age. A year prior, Preston appeared on Cole's national TV show singing the Fats Domino hit, "Blueberry Hill".
wn.com/Billy_Preston -
Black Dyke Band
Black Dyke Band, formerly Black Dyke Mills Band, is one of the oldest and best-known brass bands in the world. The band has won many prizes and competitions over the years. In 2009, the band won the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain for a record 22nd time.
It was formerly the band of the Black Dyke Mills in Queensbury, West Yorkshire, England, a company owned by John Foster. Foster, a French horn player, joined with others in a small brass and reed band in Queensbury in 1816. This band faltered, and another band formed - called the Queenshead Band - which consisted of 18 musicians around 1843. This second band also faltered, but in 1855, Foster and other musicians established the new mill band, and outfitted it with uniforms made from the mill's own cloth. Most of the musicians in the band also worked at the mill, and a close bond was fostered with the local community. The band has remained active since that time, and still rehearses in its original rooms.
Black Dyke was the first band to achieve the "Grand Slam" in 1985 by winning the Yorkshire regional, European, British Open and National Championship contests. They were also voted BBC Band of the Year.
wn.com/Black_Dyke_Band -
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (
/ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.
Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.
wn.com/Bob_Dylan -
Bob Spitz
Bob Spitz is an American journalist and author best known for his celebrity biographies, including the New York Times best seller The Beatles: The Biography.
Articles by Spitz appear regularly in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Conde Nast Traveler, Men's Journal, In Style, Esquire and The Washington Post. He currently lives in Connecticut.
wn.com/Bob_Spitz -
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein (
/ˈɛpstaɪn/; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967), was an English music entrepreneur; best known for being the manager of The Beatles, until his death. He also managed many other musical artists, such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four, and The Cyrkle. His management company was named NEMS Enterprises after his family's music stores, also called NEMS (North End Music Stores).
Epstein paid for The Beatles to record a demonstration tape in Decca's London studios, which resulted in Decca declining to sign the group to a contract. After approaching nearly all all the major recording companies and recording producers in London and being rejected, Epstein managed to secure an EMI recording contract under threat of withdrawing the sale of EMI's records at his NEMS music stores. NEMS was one of the biggest musical retail outlets in the North of England. Record producer George Martin offered a contract on behalf of EMI's small Parlophone label, only when informed of the economic threat to EMI by Epstein.
wn.com/Brian_Epstein -
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969), was an English musician and a founder member of the Rolling Stones.
Jones' main instruments were the guitar and the harmonica, but he played a wide variety of other musical instruments and was a talented multi-instrumentalist. His innovative use of traditional or folk instruments, such as the sitar and marimba, was integral to the changing sound of the band.
Originally the leader of the group, Jones' fellow bandmembers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards soon overshadowed him; especially after they became a successful songwriting team. He developed a serious drug abuse problem over the years and his role in the band steadily diminished. He was asked to leave the Rolling Stones in June 1969 and guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group. Jones died less than a month later by drowning in the swimming pool at his home on Cotchford Farm in East Sussex.
Original Stones bassist Bill Wyman stated about Jones: "...he formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs ... Very influential, very important, and then slowly lost it - highly intelligent - and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away."
wn.com/Brian_Jones -
Bruce Spizer
David "Bruce" Spizer (born July 2, 1955) is a tax attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana, who is also recognized as an expert on The Beatles. He has published eight books, and is frequently quoted as an authority on the history of the band and its recordings.
Spizer was born and raised in New Orleans. He attended Isidore Newman School and then received B.A., M.B.A., and J.D. degrees from Tulane University, where he was a member of honorary societies Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif. While pursuing his legal career, he also managed The Cold, a popular New Wave band in New Orleans.
In 1997, Spizer earned a large legal fee from the settlement of a class action lawsuit, and decided to use some of the money to replace his childhood collection of Beatles LPs (which had been damaged by cockroaches) with a new set of first edition albums. Drawn into the world of Beatles collectors, he ended up writing and self-publishing The Beatles Records on Vee-Jay, about the relationship between EMI, the Beatles' U.K. record label, and Vee-Jay Records, the U.S. label that released the band's first records in the U.S. As of 2011, Spizer has written and published eight books about The Beatles. A New York Times reviewer described his books as containing "a wealth of detail about the Beatles' American recordings and their first visit to the United States, touching on everything from contracts and lawsuits to promotional materials, all richly illustrated." A New York Daily News article called his The Beatles' Story on Capitol Records "a Beatle collector's fantasy by a fanatic Beatles collector and historian."
wn.com/Bruce_Spizer -
Bruno Koschmider
Bruno Koschmider (born 1926, Danzig (Gdańsk) - died 2000, Hamburg, Germany) was a German entrepreneur in Hamburg, Germany best known for employing The Beatles in the early 1960s. He controlled various businesses, such as the Bambi Kino, which was a porn cinema, The Indra club and The Kaiserkeller.
Allan Williams booked The Beatles (in May 1960) into Koschmider's Indra club.
The Beatles first played at the Indra club - sleeping in small, dirty rooms in the Bambi Kino - and then moved (after the closure of the Indra) to the larger Kaiserkeller In October 1960, they left Koschmider's club and worked at the "Top Ten Club", which was run by Peter Eckhorn. When Paul McCartney and Pete Best went back to the Bambi Kino to get their belongings they found it in almost total darkness. As a snub to Koschmider, they found a condom, attached it to a nail on the concrete wall of their room, and set fire to it. There was no real damage, but Koschmider reported them for attempted arson. McCartney and Best spent three hours in a local jail and were deported, as was George Harrison, for working under the legal age limit.
wn.com/Bruno_Koschmider -
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." His works and innovations inspired and influenced contemporary and later musicians, notably The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, and exerted a profound influence on popular music. Holly was among the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, to Lawrence Odell and Ella Pauline (Drake) Holley. In Philip Norman's biography it is stated that his mother's family claimed to be descended from the English navigator Francis Drake.
wn.com/Buddy_Holly -
Camillo Felgen
Camillo Jean Nicolas Felgen (17 November 1920 in Tétange – 16 July 2005 in Esch-sur-Alzette) was a Luxembourgian singer, lyricist, DJ, and television presenter.
Felgen started his career as a teacher. During the Second World War, Felgen was a translator for the German occupiers, and then a reporter with a French-language newspaper. He studied theater and opera in Brussels and Liège; in 1946, he joined Radio Luxembourg as a chorus singer and a French-language reporter. In 1949, the mastering of his baritone completed his theatre and opera studies. In 1951, he had his first international hit record, "Bonjour les amies" ("Hello Friends"). The song went on to become the theme song for his national broadcaster. In 1953, he recorded his first German-language record, "Onkel Toms altes Boot" ("Uncle Tom's Old Boat"), in Berlin. He represented his home country in the Eurovision Song Contest 1960 with "So laang we's du do bast", becoming the first male contestant to represent Luxembourg and the first entrant to sing in Luxembourgish. He finished last with only one point. Two years later he entered the contest again, this time doing much better by finishing in 3rd place with the song "Petit bonhomme".
wn.com/Camillo_Felgen -
Chas Newby
Charles 'Chas' Newby (born 18 June 1941, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England), was temporarily the bassist for The Beatles in December 1960, following the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe. When The Beatles returned from Germany for the first time, they were short of a bass guitarist. Pete Best suggested Chas Newby. Chas had been with The Blackjacks (Pete Best's group), and was now attending university, but was on vacation and so agreed to play with The Beatles. He appeared with them for four engagements in December 1960 (December 17th, Casbah Club, Liverpool; December 24th, Grosvenor Ballroom, Liscard; December 27th, Litherland Town Hall; December 31st, Casbah Club). John Lennon asked him to go to Germany, for the Beatles' second trip, but he chose to return to university.
Chas later became a teacher of Mathematics at Droitwich Spa High School in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, England.
wn.com/Chas_Newby -
Chris Barber
Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber (born 17 April 1930, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England) is best known as a jazz trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid 1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Chris Barber's band. His providing an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner makes Barber a significant figure in the British rhythm and blues and "Beat boom" of the 1960s.
The son of a statistician father and headmistress mother, Barber was educated at St Paul's School in London and the Guildhall School of Music.
Barber and Monty Sunshine (clarinet) formed a band in 1953, calling it Ken Colyer's Jazzmen to capitalise on their trumpeter's recent escapades in New Orleans: the group also included Donegan, Jim Bray (bass), Ron Bowden (drums) and Barber on trombone. The band played Dixieland jazz, and later ragtime, swing, blues and R&B. Pat Halcox took over on trumpet in 1954 when Colyer moved on after musical differences and the band became "The Chris Barber Band".
wn.com/Chris_Barber -
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon (née Powell, born 10 September 1939) is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the Liverpool College of Art. Lennon also attended the college; a meeting with Powell in a calligraphy class led to their relationship.
When Lennon was performing in Hamburg with The Beatles, she rented Lennon's bedroom from his aunt and legal guardian, Mimi Smith. After she became pregnant, the Lennons were married on 23 August 1962, at the Mount Pleasant Register office in Liverpool. Starting in 1964, the Lennon family lived at Kenwood in Weybridge, where she kept house and participated with her husband in a London-based social life. In 1968, Lennon left her for Yoko Ono; the couple's divorce was legally granted on 8 November 1968.
She married Italian hotelier Roberto Bassanini in 1970, divorcing him in 1973. In 1976, she married John Twist, an engineer from Lancashire, but divorced him in 1983. After her divorce from Twist, she changed her name back to Lennon by deed poll and met Jim Christie, her partner for 17 years. She published a book of memoirs, A Twist of Lennon, in 1978, and later married Noel Charles, a night club owner, in 2002. In September 2005, she published a more intimate biography, John. Over the years she staged several auctions of memorabilia associated with her life with Lennon. In 2006, she and her son attended the Las Vegas premiere of the Cirque du Soleil production of Love, which was her first public appearance with Ono. She currently lives in Majorca, Spain.
wn.com/Cynthia_Lennon -
Dave Dexter, Jr.
Dave E. Dexter, Jr. (1915 – 1990) was an American music journalist, record company executive, and producer known primarily for his long association with Capitol Records. He worked with many important figures in jazz and traditional popular music, including Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra. He is also known for his role in packaging and sometimes altering the recordings of The Beatles for the American market.
Dexter was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His career in music began in journalism, as he wrote about music for the Kansas City Journal-Post and then for Down Beat magazine in the late 1930s and early 1940s. During this time, he produced an album entitled Kansas City Jazz which documented his hometown's jazz scene, showcasing such talents as Count Basie, Lester Young, and Big Joe Turner.
In 1943, Dexter joined Capitol Records, established the previous year, initially writing press releases and doing other publicity work, but eventually rising to the position of A&R representative. Over the next three decades, he signed some of the biggest names in music to the label, including Frank Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Peggy Lee,Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman and Kay Starr. He produced the first Dixieland recordings to reach the music charts, and was responsible for the landmark 1944 collection The History of Jazz. He also compiled a series of world music albums, Capitol of the World, and served as editor of the company's own publication, Capitol News. His productions included the Duke Ellington classic "Satin Doll".
wn.com/Dave_Dexter,_Jr. -
Derek Taylor
Derek Taylor (7 May 1932 – 8 September 1997) was an English journalist, writer and publicist, best known for his work as press officer for The Beatles. He had started his career as a local journalist in Liverpool working for the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, then becoming a North England-based writer for national British newspapers that included the News Chronicle, the Sunday Dispatch and the Sunday Express. He also served as a regular columnist and theatre critic for the Daily Express.
Taylor was a national journalist when he was assigned to write a review of a Beatles concert. He had been expected by his editors to write a piece critical of what at that time was considered by the national press as an inconsequential teen fad. However, he was enchanted by the group and instead sang their praises. Shortly afterwards, he was invited to meet The Beatles and soon became a trusted journalist in their circle.
As The Beatles gained national attention in Britain, Taylor's editors conceived of running a column ostensibly written by a Beatle to boost circulation, to be ghostwritten by Taylor. George Harrison was the Beatle eventually decided upon. Although Taylor was initially only given the right to approve or disapprove of the content, Harrison's dissection of the first draft turned the column into an ongoing collaboration between the two, with Harrison providing the stories and Taylor providing the polish.
wn.com/Derek_Taylor -
Donovan
Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch, 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist. Initially labelled as an imitator of Bob Dylan, Donovan quickly developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music (notably calypso). He has variously lived in Scotland, London, California and Ireland, and currently lives with his family in County Cork in Ireland.
Emerging from the British folk scene, Donovan shot to fame in the United Kingdom in early 1965 with a series of live performances on the pop TV series, Ready Steady Go!. Initially signing with the British label Pye Records in 1965, he recorded a handful of singles and two albums in the folk music vein, but after signing a new contract with the US label Epic Records his popularity rapidly spread to the US and other countries. After extricating himself from his original management contract, he began a long and successful collaboration with Mickie Most, one of the leading British independent record producers of the era, scoring a string of hits in the UK, the US, Australia and other countries. His successful records in the 1960s included the UK hits "Catch the Wind" and "Colours" in 1965, while "Sunshine Superman" topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart the following year, and reached #2 in Britain. Donovan was the first artist to be signed to CBS/Epic Records by then-new Administrative Vice President Clive Davis, who later became head of the CBS Record empire.
wn.com/Donovan -
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriter partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.
In his four-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, and is the best selling single in Billboard history. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won six Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.
John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Having been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, John received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1998.
wn.com/Elton_John -
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
wn.com/Elvis_Presley -
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, (born 30 March 1945) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.
In the mid 1960s, Clapton departed from the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. In his one-year stay with Mayall, Clapton gained the nickname "Slowhand". Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed Cream, a power trio with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop." For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of J.J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded by Derek and the Dominos, another band he formed and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded by Cream. A recipient of seventeen Grammy Awards, in 2004 Clapton was awarded a CBE for services to music. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.
wn.com/Eric_Clapton -
Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil; born Isaac Donald "Don" Everly on February 1, 1937 and Phillip "Phil" Everly on January 19, 1939, are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing. The group was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
Don and Phil Everly are both guitarists and use vocal harmony mostly based on parallel thirds. With this, each line can often stand on its own as a melody line. This is in contrast to classic harmony lines which, while working well alongside the melody, are not as melodic by themselves.
For most of their recordings, Don sings the lower harmony part, while Phil takes the higher. One exception is on "Devoted To You". Although Don is still low and Phil is high, they switch lead and harmony back and forth. Don almost always sings any lines that are sung solo (for example, the verses of "Bye Bye Love".) Among the exceptions to this rule is the Everlys' 1965 single "It's All Over", where Phil sings the song's solo lines.
wn.com/Everly_Brothers -
Fifth Beatle
The Fifth Beatle is an informal title that various commentators in the press and entertainment industry have applied to persons who were at one point a member of The Beatles, or who had a strong association with the "Fab Four" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) during the group's existence. The "Fifth Beatle" claims started appearing in the press immediately upon the band's sensational rise to global fame in 1963–1964 as the most famous quartet in pop culture.
At The Beatles' 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, George Harrison at one point stated that there were only two "fifth Beatles": Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall (referring to the Beatles' public relations manager and road manager-turned-business-executive, respectively). In a 1997 BBC interview, Paul McCartney stated: "If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was [Beatles' manager] Brian Epstein."
The term is not used to indicate the chronology of band members joining the group. Pete Best joined Lennon, McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe and Harrison on the eve of their Hamburg sojourn, the five using the monikers, "The Silver Beetles" and "The Silver Beatles" (they would experiment with "The Beat Brothers" and ultimately "The Beatles" while in Hamburg with Best).
wn.com/Fifth_Beatle -
Francie Schwartz
Francie Schwartz, born 1944, is an American scriptwriter and the former girlfriend, during the late 1960s, of Paul McCartney, who referred to her as "Franny". At the time, McCartney was engaged to the actress Jane Asher who broke off the engagement when she found them in bed together, although Schwartz claims otherwise. One of the fans who used to hang around McCartney's Cavendish Avenue house says that "...Paul brought this American girl home...[and a little while later]...another car turned into Cavendish Avenue – it was Jane. She'd come back...earlier than she was supposed to. Jane went into the house. A bit later on she came storming out again and drove away." Later on, Jane's mother arrived to retrieve Jane's things.
In 1968, intrigued by the Beatles' formation of the Apple Corps which she had read about in the American magazine "Rolling Stone", at the age of 23 she went to London to see if one of her scripts was of interest to what she regarded as the "non-establishment". She met the Beatles at a critical point in their development – when they were making the "White Album".
wn.com/Francie_Schwartz -
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Emerick (born 1946 in London) is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road. He is widely regarded as one of the best engineers in all of recording history.
Emerick first started working as an assistant engineer at EMI at the age of 15. To familiarize with his work, he was placed under the supervision of another assistant engineer, Richard Langham. On his second day of work at EMI, Richard Langham was assigned to be the assistant engineer of Norman Smith who will be doing the first recording session of the Beatles in the evening. As a new recruit, Emerick was not entitled to get over-time pay, but was lucky enough to witness the first-ever EMI recording session by the finalised line-up of The Beatles in 1962, during which the group recorded for the first time with new drummer Ringo Starr on what would eventually become their first hit single "Love Me Do". As assistant engineer, Emerick worked on numerous early recordings by the Beatles, and also helped record other artists for the label, including Judy Garland. He assisted at the EMI artist test of The Hollies.
wn.com/Geoff_Emerick -
George Dunning
George Garnett Dunning (November 17, 1920 – February 15, 1979) was a Canadian film maker and animator. He is best known for animating and directing the 1968 Beatles' film Yellow Submarine.
He was born in Toronto and studied in Canada at the Ontario College of Art, and soon found freelance work as an illustrator. Dunning joined the NFB of Canada in 1943, where he worked with Norman McLaren and contributed to several episodes of the Chants populaires series. From 1944 to 1947 Dunning created many original short films and developed his skills animating articulated, painted, metal cut-outs.
In 1948, he spent a year working for UNESCO in Paris under the mentorship of Czech-born animator Berthold Bartosch. Then in 1949, he and fellow NFB grad Jim McKay created one of Toronto’s first animation studios, Graphic Associates, where he produced commercials and gave Michael Snow his first job in film. In 1956 he moved to England to manage UPA’s new London office. After the office went under, he hired many of the UPA staff to work for him and his newly established production company, TVC. By 1961, TVC was producing about one hundred commercials a year. During this time Dunning also managed to make many personal short films noted for their surrealistic atmosphere and Kafkaesque themes.
wn.com/George_Dunning -
George Harrison
George Harrison,MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian culture and mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles, as well as their Western audience. Following the band's break-up he was a successful solo artist, and later a founding member of the Traveling Wilburys. Harrison was also a session musician and a film and record producer. He is listed at number 11 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Although most of The Beatles' songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Beatle albums generally included one or two of Harrison's own songs, from With The Beatles onwards. His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". By the time of the band's break-up, Harrison had accumulated a backlog of material, which he then released as the triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970, from which two hit singles originated: a double A-side single, "My Sweet Lord" backed with "Isn't It a Pity", and "What Is Life". In addition to his solo work, Harrison co-wrote two hits for former Beatle Ringo Starr, as well as songs for the Traveling Wilburys—the supergroup he formed in 1988 with Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison.
wn.com/George_Harrison -
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE (born 3 January 1926) is an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"—a title that he has described as "nonsense"—in reference to his extensive involvement on each of The Beatles' original albums. He is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time, with 30 number one hit singles in the UK and 23 number one hits in the USA.
Influenced by a range of musical styles, encompassing Cole Porter and Johnny Dankworth, he attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1947 to 1950, studying piano and oboe. Following his graduation, he worked for the BBC's classical music department, then joined EMI in 1950. Martin produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with the likes of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.
In a career spanning over six decades, Martin has worked in music, film, television and live performance. He has also held a number of senior executive roles at media companies and contributes to a wide range of charitable causes, including his work for the Prince's Trust and the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
wn.com/George_Martin -
George Toogood Smith
George Toogood Smith (1903 – 5 June 1955) was the maternal uncle, through marriage, of John Lennon. Smith operated his family's two dairy farms and a retail outlet with his brother, Frank Smith, in the village of Woolton, Liverpool. The farms had been in the Smith family for four generations, but after the start of World War II, they were taken over by the British Government for war work.
Smith started courting Mimi Stanley in the spring of 1932, but was thwarted by her indifference and her father's interference. After delivering milk to the hospital where she worked he gave her an ultimatum that she must marry him, "or nothing at all!" On 15 September 1939, she finally married him. They bought a semi-detached house called Mendips, named after the range of hills, at 251 Menlove Avenue, Liverpool.
Lennon lived with Smith and his wife for the majority of his childhood, and Smith taught the young Lennon to read, read him nursery rhymes at night, and later taught Lennon how to solve crossword puzzles. He also taught him to draw and paint and bought him his first mouth organ. Smith collapsed and died on a Sunday at his home of a liver haemorrhage, aged 52, and was buried in St Peter’s Church graveyard, Woolton.
wn.com/George_Toogood_Smith -
Giles Martin
Giles Martin (born 9 October 1969) is an English record producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is the son of Sir George Martin, famed producer of almost all of The Beatles' records.
Giles Martin grew up without much awareness of The Beatles, and was discouraged by his father from pursuing a career in music lest the inevitable comparisons should be made. Giles ignored the advice, first playing in the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful band Velvet Jones, then writing jingles in college, then working in various musical capacities in the UK. In 1995, he was appointed co-music director for the television and radio music countdown show, The Great Music Experience. He worked on the Party at the Palace concert to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee, for which he also produced the subsequent album and DVD.
Martin's first notable producer role came with the high-selling UK band Kula Shaker. After that, his production and mixing credits came to include Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, INXS, and Kate Bush. In 2004 Martin produced Hayley Westenra's multi-platinum album Pure, the UK’s fastest-selling classical album of all time.
wn.com/Giles_Martin -
Glyn Johns
Glyn Johns (born 15 February 1942, Epsom, Surrey, England) is a British musician, recording engineer and record producer.
He has worked with such artists as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Easybeats, The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Clash, The Steve Miller Band, Small Faces, Spooky Tooth, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Blue Öyster Cult, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Midnight Oil, New Model Army, Belly, Joe Satriani, Ronnie Lane, Rod Stewart with Faces, Joan Armatrading, Buckacre, Gallagher and Lyle, Georgie Fame, Family, Helen Watson, Fairport Convention, Humble Pie and many others.
In the 1960s, while associated with the rock band The Presidents, Johns began working as a recording studio engineer at IBC Studios, Portland Place, London and was able to take the band in during weekends and try his skills at production and recording. The Presidents was his first true production work and some of the original tracks are available to hear and record at the Sound Bite Page on The President's web site www.the-presidents.org.uk. In 1969, Johns was called upon to rescue the troublesome Get Back sessions for The Beatles. Johns compiled several versions of the album, which were all rejected by the band, before the project was eventually turned over to producer Phil Spector. Spector's version became the released album, which was retitled Let It Be.
wn.com/Glyn_Johns -
Hal David
Harold Lane "Hal" David (born May 25, 1921) is an American lyricist. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. David is best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach.
David was born in New York City, New York, and is credited with popular music lyrics beginning in the 1940s with material written for band leader Sammy Kaye, and Guy Lombardo. He worked with Morty Nevins of The Three Suns on four songs for the feature film Two Gals and a Guy (1951), starring Janis Paige and Robert Alda.
In 1957, David met composer Burt Bacharach at Famous Music in the Brill Building in New York. The two teamed up and wrote their first hit "The Story of My Life", recorded by Marty Robbins in 1957. Later that year Perry Como had a hit with their "Magic Moments". Subsequently, Bacharach and David wrote some of the most enduring songs in American popular music, many for Dionne Warwick, but also for The Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, B. J. Thomas, Gene Pitney, Tom Jones, Jackie DeShannon, and others in the 1960s and early 1970s.
wn.com/Hal_David -
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994) was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson. He is known for the hit singles "Everybody's Talkin'" (1969), "Without You" (1971), and "Coconut" (1972). Nilsson's career is also notable for the fact that he was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists of his era to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours.
He was awarded Grammys for two of his recordings; best male contemporary vocal in 1969 for "Everybody's Talkin'", the theme song to the Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy, and best male pop vocal in 1972 for "Without You."
Nilsson was born in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1941. His paternal grandparents were Swedish circus performers and dancers, especially known for their "aerial ballet" (which is the title of one of Nilsson's albums). His father, Harry Edward Nilsson, Jr., abandoned the family when young Harry was three. An autobiographical reference to this is found in the opening to Nilsson's song "1941":
wn.com/Harry_Nilsson -
Horst Fascher
Horst Fascher (born 5 February 1936, Hamburg) is a previous German nightclub bouncer, and a friend of The Beatles during their days playing in Hamburg, Germany.
A onetime professional boxer whose career was cut short (he had unintentionally killed a sailor in a street fight), Fascher found work in clubs along the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. When the Beatles (including original drummer Pete Best and bassist Stuart Sutcliffe) made their first trip to Germany in August 1960, Fascher befriended the young group, who played at the Indra Club and the Kaiserkeller.
As they rose through the ranks of bands playing the Reeperbahn (making five trips in all over the next two-and-a-half years), Fascher usually managed to be working at the same clubs, and for the same boss, as the Beatles. They visited him at home, and he in turn kept troublemakers away from the band. The only favour Fascher asked was to be able to sing with them occasionally onstage, which was granted; Eddie Cochran's music was a common choice.
wn.com/Horst_Fascher -
Hunter Davies
This article is about the Scottish writer. For the American writer see Hunter S. Thompson
Edward Hunter Davies (born 7 January 1936) is a prolific British author, journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of many books, including the only authorised biography of The Beatles.
Davies was born in Johnstone to Scottish parents. For 4 years his family lived in Dumfries until Davies was aged 11. Davies has frequently quoted his boyhood hero as being football centre-forward, Billy Houliston, of Davies' then local team, Queen of the South.
His family moved to Carlisle when Davies was 11 and he attended the Creighton School in the city. Davies lived in Carlisle until he moved to study at university. During this time his father, who was a former RAF pay clerk, developed multiple sclerosis and had to retire on medical grounds from a civil service career. Davies joined the sixth form at Carlisle Grammar School and was awarded a place at University College, Durham to read for an Honours Degree in History, but after his first year he switched to a general arts course. He gained his first writing experience as a student, contributing to the university newspaper, Palatinate. However after completing his degree course he stayed on at Durham for another year to gain a teaching diploma.
wn.com/Hunter_Davies -
Ian MacDonald
Ian MacCormick (pseudonym Ian MacDonald; 3 October 1948 – 20 August 2003) was a British music critic and author, best known for both Revolution in the Head, his forensic history of The Beatles which borrowed techniques from art historians, and The New Shostakovich, a study of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. MacDonald was instrumental in popularising Nick Drake during the late 1970s and early 1980, a period during which Drake was largely forgotten.
MacDonald briefly attended King's College, Cambridge, at first to study English, but he later transferred to Archaeology and Anthropology. He dropped out after a year. While at Cambridge, he was distantly acquainted with the singer/songwriter Nick Drake. From 1972 to 1975 he served as assistant editor at the NME. McDonald began a songwriting collaboration as lyricist with Quiet Sun, which included his brother Bill MacCormick and future Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. The collaboration resumed in the late 1970s, with MacDonald providing lyrics for the album Listen Now. Later, Brian Eno assisted MacDonald in producing Sub Rosa, an album of his songs released on Manzanera's label.
wn.com/Ian_MacDonald -
Ivan Vaughan
Ivan Vaughan (18 June 1942 - 16 August 1993) was a boyhood friend of John Lennon, and later schoolmate of Paul McCartney at the Liverpool Institute, both commencing school there in Sept. 1953. He was born on the same day as Paul McCartney in Liverpool. He played bass part-time in Lennon's first band, The Quarrymen, and was responsible for introducing Lennon to Paul McCartney at a community event (the Woolton village fête) on July 6, 1957, where The Quarrymen were performing. McCartney impressed Lennon, who invited McCartney to join the band, which he did a day later. This led to the formation of Lennon and McCartney's songwriting partnership, and later of The Beatles.
Vaughan studied classics at University College, London, married in 1966 and settled down to family life with a son and daughter, and became a teacher.
Lennon and McCartney never forgot the friend who brought them together. For a time they put Vaughan on the payroll of their Apple company, in charge of a plan that never took off to set up a school with a Sixties, hippie-style education ethos. Vaughan's wife Jan, a languages teacher, was hired to sit down with Lennon and McCartney and help with the French lyrics to the 1965 song "Michelle".
wn.com/Ivan_Vaughan -
Jane Asher
Jane Asher (born 5 April 1946) is an English actress, author and entrepreneur.
Asher was the middle of three children born to Richard Alan John and Margaret Asher, née Eliot, in Willesden, North West London. Her father was a broadcaster and a consultant at the Central Middlesex Hospital and the author of notable medical articles. Asher's mother was a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.[citation needed] Asher attended Queen's College in Harley Street, London and is the elder sister of Clare Asher, a radio actress and school inspector. Asher's elder brother is record producer Peter Asher,
, who was "Peter" of Peter and Gordon.
Asher was a child actress and appeared in the 1952 film Mandy and the 1955 science fiction film The Quatermass Xperiment. She also had a title role in a version of Alice in Wonderland (1958) and Through the Looking-Glass for Argo Records. In 1961 she co-starred in The Greengage Summer which was released in the United States as Loss of Innocence. She also appeared in the 1962 film and Disney TV programme, The Prince and the Pauper. British TV appearances included three episodes (1956–1958) of the British TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood and as a panelist on the BBC's Juke Box Jury.
wn.com/Jane_Asher -
Jeff Lynne
Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra. He was later a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. Lynne has produced recordings for artists such as The Beatles, Brian Wilson, Roy Orbison, Dave Edmunds, Del Shannon and Tom Petty. He has co-written songs with Petty and also with George Harrison, whose 1987 album Cloud Nine was co-produced by Lynne and Harrison. Among the many compositions to his credit are such well-known hits as "Livin' Thing", "Evil Woman", "Turn to Stone", "Do Ya", "Xanadu", "Strange Magic", "Sweet Talkin' Woman", "Telephone Line", "Shine a Little Love", "Mr. Blue Sky", "Hold On Tight", "All Over the World", and "Don't Bring Me Down".
In 2008, The Washington Times named Lynne the fourth greatest record producer in music history.
wn.com/Jeff_Lynne -
Jimmie Nicol
James George "Jimmie"/"Jimmy" Nicol (born 3 August 1939, 93 Silverthorne Road, Battersea, London), is a British drummer, best known for temporarily replacing Ringo Starr in The Beatles for a series of concerts during the height of Beatlemania in 1964, elevating him from relative obscurity to worldwide fame and then back again in the space of a fortnight. Nicol had hoped that his association with The Beatles would greatly boost his career, but instead found that the spotlight moved away from him once Starr returned to the group. His subsequent lack of commercial success led him into bankruptcy in 1965. After then working with a number of different bands, which included a successful phase with The Spotnicks, he left the music business in 1967 to pursue a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. Later in his life he became a recluse preferring not to discuss his connection to The Beatles and refusing to seek financial gain from it. He has a son, Howard, who is a BAFTA award-winning sound engineer.
wn.com/Jimmie_Nicol -
John Lennon
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.
wn.com/John_Lennon -
Johnny Hutchinson
Johnny 'Hutch' Hutchinson (born 18 July 1940 in Malta), also known as Johnny Hutch, was a Liverpudlian rock and roll drummer of the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the same time that The Beatles rose through the ranks of British rock bands. Hutch's group, The Big Three, were rivals of the Beatles, and his opinions of them were not the highest; one early remark he made was that the Beatles "weren't worth a carrot."
Feelings aside, Hutch sat in with them during a 1960 audition, keeping a beat until their then-drummer Tommy Moore could arrive. Mersey Beat magazine editor, Bill Harry, claimed that the vacant drummer position in The Beatles when Pete Best was dismissed was initially offered by Epstein to Johnny, who Epstein later managed. Knowing The Beatles had secured a record contract, Hutchinson turned down the job, saying, "Brian asked me to join the Beatles and I said, I wouldn’t join the Beatles for a gold clock. There’s only one group as far as I’m concerned and that’s the Big Three. The Beatles can’t make a better sound than that, and Pete Best is a very good friend of mine. I couldn’t do the dirty on him". Johnnny did play for The Beatles when Pete Best naturally never turned up on the evening of his dismissal, and two subsequent bookings, until second choice Ringo Starr could join The Beatles from Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.
wn.com/Johnny_Hutchinson -
Julia Lennon
Julia Lennon (née Stanley; 12 March 1914 – 15 July 1958) was the mother of English musician John Lennon, who was born during her marriage to Alfred Lennon. After complaints to Liverpool's Social Services by her eldest sister, Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she handed over the care of her son to her sister. She later had one daughter after an affair with a Welsh soldier, but the baby was given up for adoption after pressure from her family. She then had two daughters, Julia and Jackie, with John 'Bobby' Dykins. She never divorced her husband, preferring to live as the common-law wife of Dykins for the rest of her life.
She was known as being high-spirited and impulsive, musical, and having a strong sense of humour. She taught her son how to play the banjo and ukulele, and bought his first acoustic guitar, even though her eldest sister strongly disapproved. She kept in almost daily contact with Lennon, and when he was in his teens he often stayed overnight at her and Dykins' house. On 15 July 1958, she was struck down and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman, close to her sister's house at 251 Menlove Avenue. Lennon was traumatised by her death and wrote several songs about her, including "Julia" and "Mother." Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that she was, "to a great extent... her son's muse."
wn.com/Julia_Lennon -
Julian Lennon
John Charles Julian Lennon (born 8 April 1963) is a British musician, songwriter, actor, and photographer. He is the son of John Lennon and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Powell. Beatles manager Brian Epstein was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon. Lennon was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia. He remains close friends with his father's former bandmate Paul McCartney.
Julian directly inspired three Beatles songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Hey Jude" and "Good Night". He is also devoted to philanthropic endeavors, most notably his own White Feather Foundation and the Whaledreamers Organization, both of which promote the co-existence of all species and the health and well-being of the Earth.
His sixth studio album Everything Changes was released on 3 October 2011.
Julian Lennon was born in Liverpool. Initially, the fact that John Lennon was married and had a child was concealed from the public, in keeping with the conventional wisdom of the era that female teenage fans would not be as enamoured of married male pop stars.
wn.com/Julian_Lennon -
Jürgen Vollmer
Jürgen Vollmer, with Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voorman (the "Exis"), befriended The Beatles during the band's time in Hamburg in the early 1960s. Vollmer was the son of a professional army officer who died during World War II. Young Vollmer was attending Hamburg's Institute of Fashion at the time he met The Beatles, who at the time included drummer Pete Best and bassist Stu Sutcliffe. Vollmer quickly became one of the group's photographers, and was responsible for the "Beatles haircut" and some of their most iconic images in their leather-clad days prior to Brian Epstein. John Lennon was particularly impressed with Vollmer's photos, and used one of his favourites on the cover of his 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll. During the time Vollmer lived in the USA, he worked as a set photographer in several Hollywood film productions.
wn.com/Jürgen_Vollmer -
Kaiserkeller
Kaiserkeller is a night club in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, Germany, near the Reeperbahn. It was opened by Bruno Koschmider on October 14, 1959. The Beatles had a contract with Kaiserkeller to play there in 1960.
A Caribbean steel band that had played at Allan Williams Jacaranda club in Liverpool took an offer to play in Hamburg. After receiving letters enthusing about Hamburg's club scene, Williams made contact with Koschmider, offering to act as a booking agent, to which Koschmider agreed. Koschmider had previously booked Derry and the Seniors after seeing them perform in London, and as they were successful in Hamburg, he asked Williams to look for additional groups.Rory Storm and The Hurricanes were Williams' first choice, but as they were committed to a season at Butlins holiday camp, they turned his offer down (as did Gerry & The Pacemakers) so Williams sent The Beatles to Hamburg instead. They were required to play six or seven hours a night, seven nights a week. The Beatles first played at Koschmider's Indra club, sleeping in small, "dirty" rooms in the Bambi Kino, and then moved (after the closure of the Indra) to the larger Kaiserkeller.
wn.com/Kaiserkeller -
Ken Mansfield
Ken Mansfield is a Grammy Award-winning record producer, former U.S. Manager of Apple Records, a high-ranking executive for several record labels, songwriter and the author of three books.
Since the 1960s, Mansfield has been associated with an array of notable performers including The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Waylon Jennings, James Taylor, Roy Orbison, Don Ho, the Imperials, Tompall Glaser, Harry Nilsson, Glen Campbell, Buck Owens, Lou Rawls, Andy Williams, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Eric Burdon, Badfinger, Ray Stevens, Jackie Lomax, The Four Freshmen, Judy Garland, Dolly Parton, David Cassidy, Nick Gilder, Claudine Longet and Jessi Colter. In the 1970s, he helped popularize the Outlaw movement in country music by producing Waylon Jennings' top-selling album, Are You Ready for the Country as well as the crossover hit "I’m Not Lisa" by Jessi Colter. In 2000, the former record executive-turned-producer embarked on a literary career with The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay. His follow-up, The White Book - The Beatles, the Bands, the Biz: An Insider's Look at an Era, was released in 2007. Mansfield's third book, Between Wyomings, published by Thomas Nelson, was released on June 9, 2009.
wn.com/Ken_Mansfield -
Ken Scott
Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947 in London) is an English record producer and recording engineer.
Scott started at the age of 16 working in the tape library at Abbey Road Studios. He became a recording engineer working with such acts as The Beatles, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Procol Harum.
Scott moved to Trident Studios where he worked with such artists as Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, America and with George Harrison on the 6x platinum selling album All Things Must Pass.
Scott went on to co-produce David Bowie's albums Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973) and Pin Ups (1973) before producing Supertramp, The Tubes, Dixie Dregs, Devo, Missing Persons, Kansas, Happy The Man and Level 42.
More recently Scott has recorded a number of legendary drummers for a VST instrument called EpiK Drums – A Ken Scott Collection.
Scott received a Clio award for "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke", and two Grammy nominations.
wn.com/Ken_Scott -
Ken Townsend
Ken Townsend MBE is a renowned English sound engineer who played an important role at Abbey Road Studios. He worked on several Beatles albums, such as Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In 1966 he invented automatic double tracking (ADT). He spent his whole working career at Abbey Road, and retired as the Chairman of the Studio Group after 42 years of service.
During the recording of Tomorrow Never Knows, Lennon complained that he had always hated doing a second take to double the sound of his vocals, so Townsend, the studio technical manager, created the world's first ADT system by taking the signal from the playback and recording heads and delaying them slightly, thereby creating two sound images and not just one. By altering the speed and frequencies he could also create other different types of effects, which The Beatles used throughout the recording of Revolver.
wn.com/Ken_Townsend -
Larry Parnes
Laurence Maurice "Larry" Parnes (1930 - 4 August 1989) was an English pop manager and impresario. He has been described as "the first major British rock manager... Parnes' stable encompassed most of the most successful pre-Beatles British rock singers."
Parnes was born in Willesden, London. After leaving school he began work in a clothing store, and by the age of 18 ran a women's clothing shop in Romford, Essex. He then bought a share in a bar in Romilly Street, Soho. He agreed to invest in a touring play, The House of Shame, which became both successful and notorious in 1954 after its publicist, John Kennedy, persuaded two actresses to stand outside the theatre dressed as prostitutes. In 1956, with Kennedy, he started to manage young rock and roll singer Tommy Hicks, who anglicised the name of his Swedish grandfather to become known as Tommy Steele. Steele achieved popular success, some of his songs being co-written by Parnes' friend Lionel Bart, and Parnes succeeded in presenting Steele as an "all-round entertainer".
wn.com/Larry_Parnes -
Lee Eastman
Lee Eastman, born Leopold Vail Epstein, (12 January 1910 - 30 July 1991) was a New York show business attorney, and art collector the son of Louis (b. Russia ~1887, imm. 1906) and Stella (Freyer) Epstein. His sisters were Emmaline and Rose. He married Louise Lindner, heiress to the Lindner Department Store fortune; they had four children, including John Eastman and Linda McCartney, the late wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney. Eastman became McCartney's business manager shortly before the breakup of The Beatles while his son John represented McCartney during his 1970 lawsuit to legally dissolve the Beatles. He is the maternal grandfather of potter Heather McCartney, photographer Mary McCartney, fashion designer Stella McCartney, and musician/sculptor James Louis McCartney. Eastman was also the friend and longtime lawyer for and collector of the works of the Abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning.
When the Beatles' company Apple Corps was in business trouble early in 1969, Eastman and Allen Klein were both considered to take the reins of the company, and of the band's careers. John Lennon favoured Klein. Lennon said he was impressed that Klein knew Lennon's lyrics, and understood them, and that Klein was very intelligent.George Harrison and Ringo Starr chose Klein, though Lennon said in 1970 that he maneuvered Klein into Apple. McCartney wanted Eastman, but was out-voted 3-1. For a short period, Klein managed Apple and the personal careers of Lennon, Harrison, and Starr while Eastman was the corporate counsel and managed McCartney. The Klein/Eastman combination did not work, and after a contentious meeting, Eastman was out. Subsequent disagreements over decisions made by Klein and the other Beatles prompted McCartney—represented by Eastman—to sue them to dissolve the partnership, and he eventually succeeded.
wn.com/Lee_Eastman -
Magic Alex
Yanni (later John) Alexis Mardas (Greek: Αλέξης Μάρδας; born May 5, 1942, Athens, Greece), better known as Magic Alex, the name given him by The Beatles when he knew the group between 1965 and 1969, is a self-styled electronics wizard and one-time head of The Beatles' Apple Electronics.
Mardas arrived in England in 1965, exhibiting his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. Mardas impressed John Lennon with the Nothing Box; a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights, and said that he could build a 72-track tape machine, so was given the job of designing the new Apple Studio in Savile Row. He was involved in the hasty departure of Lennon and George Harrison from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in India, and Lennon's divorce of his first wife, Cynthia Lennon.
In the 1970s, the anti-terrorism industry offered bullet-proof vehicles, bugging devices and security hardware, and Mardas set up various companies offering these products to royalty and VIPs. King Hussein of Jordan bought a fleet of cars that Mardas had customised, but the cars proved to be more life-threatening than ordinary cars, as bullets easily pierced the supposed armour-plating, and the glass splintered. In 1987, Mardas was a managing director of Alcom Ltd, which specialised in electronic communications and security. He now lives in Greece.
wn.com/Magic_Alex -
Mal Evans
Malcolm Frederick 'Mal' Evans (27 May 1935 – 5 January 1976) was best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of The Beatles.
In the early 1960s, Evans was employed as a telephone engineer, and also worked part-time as a bouncer at the Cavern Club, where The Beatles performed. Manager Brian Epstein later hired Evans as their assistant road manager, in tandem with Neil Aspinall. Evans was tall and heavily-built, and Peter Brown (one of Epstein's staff) later wrote of Evans as "a kindly, but menacing-looking young man". Evans contributed to many Beatle recordings, and appeared in some of the films they made. Although The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, Evans carried on assisting the band until their 1970 break-up. From 1969 forward, Evans had also found work as a record producer (most notably with Badfinger's top 10 hit "No Matter What"), and as an occasional songwriter.
Evans was killed by police on 5 January 1976 at his home in Los Angeles. Officers were called when his girlfriend phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused and had a gun. The police believed that the air rifle Evans was holding was a rifle and shot him dead.
wn.com/Mal_Evans -
Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn (born 16 June 1958) is an English author and historian, regarded as the world's leading authority on the English rock band The Beatles.
Over the course of his career, Mark Lewisohn has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple, and has written many reference books about The Beatles. He has been referred to as the world's leading authority on the subject, renowned for his meticulous research and integrity. He is credited with discovering such facts as the precise date when John Lennon first met Paul McCartney.
In 1986, Lewisohn's book The Beatles Live! was published. This featured a complete history of all the Beatles' live performances, in a format which Lewisohn would follow for his subsequent books. After being invited by EMI to listen to all of The Beatles' original session tapes, Lewisohn wrote The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years, which was published in 1987. The book was in the form of a diary, detailing every recording session The Beatles had at Abbey Road Studios chronologically. It included details such as who played on each track and how many takes were recorded in each session. The book featured an introductory interview by Paul McCartney.
wn.com/Mark_Lewisohn -
Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin (born 3 May 1950), credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti, is a Welsh folk singer best known for her 1968 UK number one single "Those Were The Days". She was one of the first musicians to sign to The Beatles' Apple label.
Hopkin was born in Pontardawe, Wales into a Welsh-speaking family; her father worked as a housing officer. She took weekly singing lessons as a child and began her musical career as a folk singer with a local group called the Selby Set and Mary. She released an EP of Welsh-language songs for a local record label called Cambrian, based in her home town, before signing to The Beatles' Apple Records. The model Twiggy saw her winning the British ITV television talent show, Opportunity Knocks and recommended her to Paul McCartney. She became one of the first artists to record on the Beatles' Apple record label.
Her debut single, "Those Were the Days", produced by McCartney, was released in the UK on 30 August 1968 (catalogue number APPLE 2). Despite competition from a well-established star, Sandie Shaw, who released her version of the same song as a single that same year, Hopkin's version became a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart, and reached Number 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100. It sold over a million and a half copies in the United States alone, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A.. Global sales topped the eight million mark.
wn.com/Mary_Hopkin -
Maureen Starkey
Maureen "Mo" Starkey Tigrett, née Mary Cox, (4 August 1946 – 30 December 1994) was the first wife of The Beatles' drummer, Ringo Starr. She met Starr at The Cavern Club, where The Beatles were playing, when she was a trainee hairdresser in Liverpool. Starr proposed marriage at the Ad-Lib Club in London, on 20 January 1965. They were married at the Caxton Hall Register Office, London, in 1965, but were divorced in 1975.
First living at 34 Montagu Square, Marylebone, the Starrs bought Sunny Heights, in St George's Hill, Weybridge. In 1973, they bought Tittenhurst Park from John Lennon. They had three children together: Zak, Jason, and a daughter, Lee. As a favour to Starr, Frank Sinatra recorded a special version of "The Lady Is a Tramp", for her 22nd birthday in 1968.
She started living with Isaac Tigrett in 1976—one of the founders of the Hard Rock Cafe and the House of Blues—and married him in 1989. They had one daughter, Augusta. Maureen died at home of leukaemia on 30 December 1994, after receiving treatment at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. Her four children, mother, husband and ex-husband Starr were at her bedside when she died.
wn.com/Maureen_Starkey -
May Pang
May Fung Yee Pang (born October 24, 1950) is best known as the former girlfriend of John Lennon. She had previously worked as a personal assistant and production coordinator for Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono.
In 1973, Lennon and Ono separated, and Lennon and Pang had a relationship that lasted over 18 months, which Lennon later referred to as his "Lost Weekend." Pang produced two books about their relationship: a memoir called Loving John (Warner, 1983) and a book of photographs, Instamatic Karma (St. Martins, 2008).
Pang was married to producer Tony Visconti from 1989 to 2000 and had two children, Sebastian and Lara.
Pang is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and grew up in New York's Spanish Harlem area with an elder sister and an adopted brother (both of whom were born in China). Pang's mother had a laundry business in the area, but the Pang family left when the tenements where they lived were scheduled to be torn down, and moved to an apartment near 97th Street and 3rd Avenue, in Manhattan.
wn.com/May_Pang -
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger, (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead vocalist and a founder member of The Rolling Stones.
Jagger's career has spanned over fifty years. Allmusic has described Jagger as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". His distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of The Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Rolling Stones.
Jagger gained much press notoriety for admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a counterculture figure. In the late 1960s Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In 1985, Jagger released his first solo album, She's the Boss, and was knighted in 2003. In early 2009, he joined the eclectic supergroup SuperHeavy.
Jagger was born into a middle class family at Livingstone Hospital, in Dartford, Kent, England. His father, Basil Fanshawe ("Joe") Jagger (13 April 1913 – 11 November 2006), and his grandfather David Ernest Jagger were both teachers. His mother, Eva Ensley Mary (née Scutts; 6 April 1913 – 18 May 2000), born in New South Wales, Australia, was a hairdresser and an active member of the Conservative Party. Jagger is the elder of two sons (his brother Chris Jagger was born on 19 December 1947) and was raised to follow in his father's career path.
wn.com/Mick_Jagger -
Mimi Smith
Mary Elizabeth "Mimi" Smith (née Stanley) (24 April 1903 – 6 December 1991) was the maternal aunt and parental guardian of the English musician John Lennon. Mimi was born in Liverpool, England and was the oldest of five daughters. She became a resident trainee nurse at the Woolton Convalescent Hospital, and later worked as a private secretary. On 15 September 1939, she married George Smith, who ran his family's dairy farm and a shop in Woolton; a suburb of Liverpool.
After Mimi's younger sister, Julia Lennon, separated from her husband, she and her son (Lennon) moved in with a new partner, but Mimi contacted Liverpool's Social Services and complained about little John sleeping in the same bed as the two adults. Julia was eventually persuaded to hand the care of Lennon over to the Smiths. Lennon lived with them for most of his childhood, and remained close to her, even though she was highly dismissive of his musical ambitions, his girlfriends, and wives.
She often told the teenage Lennon that "The guitar's all right John, but you'll never make a living out of it". Despite later losing touch with other family members, Lennon kept in close contact and telephoned Mimi every week until his death in 1980. Lennon bought her a bungalow in Poole, Dorset, where she lived until her death in 1991. The Smiths' house in Liverpool was later donated to the The National Trust.
wn.com/Mimi_Smith -
Mona Best
Mona "Mo" Best (3 January 1924 – 9 September 1988) was born in India and is best known as the mother of Pete Best (b. 24 November 1941), who was an early member of The Beatles. Mona also had two other sons, Rory (born 1945) and Vincent "Roag" Best (born 1962). It was later confirmed that Roag's father was The Beatles' associate Neil Aspinall, although he was not registered as the father on Roag's birth certificate.
After moving to Liverpool from India, the Best family claim that Mona pawned all of her jewellery in 1954, and used the money to place a 33–1 bet on a horse named "Never Say Die", and used her winnings to buy a house in 1957. Mona later opened The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the house as a venue for Rock 'n' Roll music. It was planned as a members-only club for her sons and their friends. The club was often referred to as The Casbah Club, or The Casbah.
The Quarrymen—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ken Brown—frequently played at The Casbah instead of the The Cavern Club, which had a jazz-only policy at that time. The Casbah Club cellar—with its original decoration—still exists. In 2006, the property was accorded a Grade II Heritage listing. Mona died in 1988, after a heart attack following a long illness.
wn.com/Mona_Best -
Murray the K
Murray Kaufman (February 14, 1922 – February 21, 1982), professionally known as Murray the K, was an influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. During the early days of Beatlemania, he frequently referred to himself as the fifth Beatle.
Murray Kaufman came from a show business family: his mother, Jean, played piano in vaudeville and wrote music and his aunt was a character actress on the stage and in film. He was a child actor - an extra - in several 1930s Hollywood films. He attended a military boarding school, and later was inducted into the United States Army where he arranged entertainment for the troops. Following the war, he put together shows in the Catskills' "Borscht Belt", also doing warm-ups for the headline performers.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he worked in public relations and as a song plugger, helping to promote tunes like Bob Merrill's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window." From there, he worked as a radio producer and co-host at WMCA (and briefly thereafter at WMGM), working with personalities such as Laraine Day on the late night interview program "Day At Night" and with Eva Gabor. At the same time, he was doing promotion for several baseball players, including Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, and his radio beginnings may be attributable to his connection with the New York Giants, whose manager, Leo Durocher, was the husband of Laraine Day. His work on those shows earned him his own late-night show that often featured his wife as co-host, as was popular at the time. For a while in the 1950s he was president of the National Conference of Disk Jockeys.
wn.com/Murray_the_K -
Neil Aspinall
Neil Stanley Aspinall (13 October 1941 – 24 March 2008) was a British music industry executive. A school friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he went on to head The Beatles' company Apple Corps.
The Beatles employed Aspinall as their road manager and personal assistant, which included driving his old Commer van to and from shows, both day and night. After Mal Evans started work for The Beatles, Aspinall was promoted to become their personal assistant, later becoming chief executive of their company, Apple Corps.
On behalf of Apple, Aspinall was involved in notable court cases against Allen Klein, EMI, and Apple Computer. He supervised the marketing of music, videos, and merchandising, as well being a director of Standby Films, which was run from his home in Twickenham, London. On 10 April 2007, Aspinall retired from Apple Corps. He died of lung cancer in New York City in 2008.
Aspinall was born in Prestatyn, North Wales, after his mother had been evacuated from the family home in Liverpool because of the air-raids on Liverpool during the Second World War, while Aspinall's father was away at sea with the Royal Navy. Aspinall and his mother returned to Liverpool later in 1942 after the bombing had subsided. Aspinall later attended West Derby School, where he passed his 11-plus exams. When he was twelve years old, Aspinall gained a place at the Liverpool Institute in Mount Street, and was in the same class as Paul McCartney for English and Art lessons.
wn.com/Neil_Aspinall -
Nicky Hopkins
Nicholas Christian "Nicky" Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist.
Hopkins recorded and performed on many notable British and American pop and rock music releases from the 1960s through the 1990s including many notable Rolling Stones releases.
Hopkins was born in Perivale, Middlesex, England. His musical talent emerged early and he began playing piano at age three. He was initially tutored by a local piano teacher and in his teens he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London. He suffered from Crohn's disease from his youth. Poor health and ongoing surgery made it difficult for him to tour. This resulted in his working primarily as a studio player for most of his career.
Hopkins' studies were interrupted in 1960 when he left school at 16 to became the pianist with Screaming Lord Sutch's Savages until, two years later, he and fellow Savages Bernie Watson, Rick Brown (Fenson) and Carlo Little, joined the renowned blues harmonica player Cyril Davies, who had just left Blues Incorporated, and became the Cyril Davies R&B All Stars. Hopkins played piano on their first single, Davies' much-admired theme tune "Country Line Special". However he was forced to leave the All Stars in May 1963 for a series of operations that almost cost him his life and was bed-ridden for nineteen months in his late 'teens. During his convalescence Davies died of leukaemia and The All Stars disbanded.
wn.com/Nicky_Hopkins -
Nigel Walley
Nigel Walley (born Christopher Nigel Walley, 30 June 1941, in Vale Road, Woolton, Liverpool, Lancashire) was briefly a tea-chest bass player of The Quarrymen, which included John Lennon. Walley later became manager of the group. His surname has often been spelt incorrectly as 'Whalley' in numerous books and on web pages.
Walley's father was Chief Superintendent Harold Walley, who was the head of Liverpool's Police 'A' Division. The Walley family lived in Vale Road, Liverpool, which was at the back of Lennon's home at 251 Menlove Avenue, belonging to his aunt and guardian, Mimi Smith. Walley and Lennon became friends at the age of five, even though Walley and Pete Shotton (who also lived in Vale Road) went to Mosspits Lane Infant/Junior School, while Lennon and Ivan Vaughan attended Dovedale Infant School. Note: Lennon had originally attended Mosspits Lane School, but was expelled for bullying another infant, Polly Hipshaw. Walley and Lennon both went on to sing in the Sunday school and church choir at St. Peter's Church, Woolton. Walley left Bluecoat Grammar School at 15-years-old to become an apprentice golf professional at the Lee Park Golf Club, in Liverpool.
wn.com/Nigel_Walley -
P.J. Proby
P.J. Proby (born James Marcus Smith, November 6, 1938) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor, who has portrayed Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison in musical theater productions as well as recording career in his own right. The stage name P.J. Proby was suggested to him by his friend Sharon Sheeley, who had had a boyfriend of the same name at high school.
Proby recorded the singles "Hold Me", "Somewhere" and "Maria" (the later two songs are from the Broadway musical West Side Story). In 2008, Proby celebrated his 70th birthday and EMI released the Best Of The EMI Years 1961-1972. The Proby of today continues to write and record music on his own independent record label Select Records as well as perform across the UK on various Sixties themed concerts.
Proby was born in Houston, Texas, United States, and was educated at San Marcos Military Academy, Culver Naval Academy and Western Military Academy. After graduation he moved to California to become a motion picture actor and recording artist. Given the stage name Jett Powers by top Hollywood agents Gabey, Lutz, Heller and Loeb, he took acting and singing lessons, and appeared in movies with small roles. Two singles, "Go, Girl, Go" and "Loud Perfume", were released on an independent label. Proby was brought by Sharon Sheeley to audition at Liberty Records in 1961 and he recorded a number of unsuccessful singles for the label. In 1962 he began writing songs and recording demos for artists such as Elvis Presley and Bobby Vee.
wn.com/P.J._Proby -
Pattie Boyd
Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd (born 17 March 1944) is an English model, photographer and author. She began her fashion career in 1962, and worked in London, New York, and Paris, modelling in London, New York, and Paris (for Mary Quant and others), and was photographed by David Bailey, and Terence Donovan. She appeared on the cover of Vogue and wrote for 16 Magazine.
She is the former wife of musicians George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and claims that she was the inspiration for songs written by both musicians: Harrison's "Something", "I Need You", "For You Blue" and "Isn't It a Pity", and Clapton's "Layla", "Wonderful Tonight" and "Bell Bottom Blues".
An exhibition of photographs taken by Boyd during her relationships with Harrison and Clapton opened at the San Francisco, California San Francisco Art Exchange on February 14, 2005, titled Through the Eye of a Muse. They have been exhibited worldwide, including shows in San Francisco, Dublin, Sydney, Toronto, Moscow, London, and throughout the USA. Boyd's autobiography, Wonderful Today: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, was published in England on 23 August 2007 (in the U.S. as Wonderful Tonight).
wn.com/Pattie_Boyd -
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.
According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness. As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.
wn.com/Paul_McCartney -
Pete Best
Pete Best (born 24 November 1941) is a British musician, principally known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in the city of Madras, which was then part of British India. After his mother moved to Liverpool in 1945, Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), opened The Casbah Coffee Club, in the cellar of the Bests' large house in Liverpool, which became very popular, having a membership of over 1,000. The Beatles (at the time known as The Quarrymen) played some of their earliest concerts at the club. Best played there with his first band, The Black Jacks, and later with The Beatles.
Best was invited to join The Beatles on 12 August 1960, on the eve of the group's first Hamburg season of club dates. He was eventually replaced by Ringo Starr on 16 August 1962, when The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, dismissed Best under the direction of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, following The Beatles' first recording session at Abbey Road Studios. After working in a number of commercially unsuccessful groups he gave up the music industry to work as a civil servant for twenty years, before starting The Pete Best Band. He has been married for over 45 years to Kathy Best; they have two daughters and four grandchildren. Best is sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Beatle".
wn.com/Pete_Best -
Pete Shotton
Peter Shotton (born 4 August 1941), commonly referred to as Pete Shotton, is an English businessman and former musician, best known for his long friendship with John Lennon of The Beatles. He was a close childhood friend of Lennon's, and attended Dovedale Infants School and Quarry Bank Grammar School at the same time as the future Beatle. The two boys were frequently in trouble with their teachers and with their headmaster, and they came to be known at Quarry Bank as "Shennon and Lotton" or "Lotton and Shennon."
In 1957, Shotton was Lennon's bandmate in The Quarrymen, playing percussion (specifically, a washboard), until Paul McCartney joined. He was "fired" from the band when, after confiding that he really did not enjoy playing, Lennon smashed the washboard over his head at a party. However, he remained a friend and confidant – as he became friends with all of the Beatles as the group formed.
After the Beatles became famous, Lennon and George Harrison bought a supermarket on Hayling Island, and gave it to Shotton to run. Later, he served as manager of the Apple Boutique, then as the first managing director of Apple Corps.
wn.com/Pete_Shotton -
Peter Shotton
Peter Shotton (born 4 August 1941), commonly referred to as Pete Shotton, is an English businessman and former musician, best known for his long friendship with John Lennon of The Beatles. He was a close childhood friend of Lennon's, and attended Dovedale Infants School and Quarry Bank Grammar School at the same time as the future Beatle. The two boys were frequently in trouble with their teachers and with their headmaster, and they came to be known at Quarry Bank as "Shennon and Lotton" or "Lotton and Shennon."
In 1957, Shotton was Lennon's bandmate in The Quarrymen, playing percussion (specifically, a washboard), until Paul McCartney joined. He was "fired" from the band when, after confiding that he really did not enjoy playing, Lennon smashed the washboard over his head at a party. However, he remained a friend and confidant – as he became friends with all of the Beatles as the group formed.
After the Beatles became famous, Lennon and George Harrison bought a supermarket on Hayling Island, and gave it to Shotton to run. Later, he served as manager of the Apple Boutique, then as the first managing director of Apple Corps.
wn.com/Peter_Shotton -
Phil McDonald
Philip McDonald is an English recording studio audio engineer, best known as the engineer for EMI and later for Apple during The Beatles studio years alongside with Neil Aspinall, Geoff Emerick, Mal Evans, and others. In Apple, McDonald joined as senior balance engineer. He was just 25. He was responsible at EMI for engineering work on albums by John Lennon, The Shadows, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Roy Harper and George Harrison.
wn.com/Phil_McDonald -
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector (born Harvey Phillip Spector on December 26, 1939) is an American record producer and songwriter.
The originator of the "Wall of Sound" production technique, Spector was a pioneer of the 1960s girl-group sound and produced over 25 Top 40 hits in 1960–1965. Some of his famous girl groups are The Ronettes and The Crystals. After this initial success, Spector later worked with artists including Ike and Tina Turner, John Lennon, George Harrison, and the Ramones with similar acclaim. He produced The Beatles' Academy Award winning album Let It Be, and the Grammy Award–winning Concert for Bangladesh by former Beatle George Harrison. In 1989, Spector was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. The 1965 song "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", produced and co-written by Spector for The Righteous Brothers, is listed by BMI as the song with the most U.S. airplay in the 20th century.
In 2009 Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra, California home. He is serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life.
wn.com/Phil_Spector -
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920), often referred to with the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the most known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.
In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.
wn.com/Ravi_Shankar -
Ray Connolly
Ray Connolly is an English novelist, screenwriter and journalist.
He is perhaps best known for writing the screenplays for the films That'll Be the Day and the sequel Stardust, for which he won a Writers Guild of Great Britain best screenplay award, and for his many interviews with the Beatles. He was due to interview John Lennon on the day the ex-Beatle was murdered, an event he wrote about in the BBC radio play Unimaginable. In addition to the biography John Lennon 1940-1980, he wrote the introduction to The Beatles Complete songbook.
Ray Connolly was born and brought up in Lancashire and educated at the London School of Economics where he read social anthropology. After entering journalism at the Liverpool Daily Post, he then moved to the London Evening Standard where he interviewed, among others, many Sixties and Seventies rock stars. Many of his interviews with the Beatles are collected in his eBook The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive, while other interviews are collected in Stardust Memories - Talking About My Generation, which is also now available as an eBook
wn.com/Ray_Connolly -
Richard Lester
Richard Lester (born 19 January 1932) is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.
Lester was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A child prodigy, he began studies at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 15. He started in television in 1950, working as a stage hand, floor manager, assistant director, and then to director in less than a year, because no one else was around that knew how to do the work. In 1953, Lester moved to London and began work as a director in independent television, working for the legendary low cost television producers The Danziger Brothers on episodes of Mark Saber, a half-hour detective series.
A variety show he produced caught the eye of Peter Sellers, who enlisted Lester's help in translating The Goon Show to television as The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d. It was a hit, as were two follow-up shows, A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred. Lester recalls that A Show Called Fred was "broadcast live and that's why I went into film directing where you can do a second take!"
wn.com/Richard_Lester -
Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger (born 1962) is an American author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.
Having worked as a DJ at WXPN in Philadelphia, he started reviewing records for Op magazine in 1983. From 1985 to 1991, Unterberger was an editor for Option.
Since 1993, he has been a prolific contributor to allmusic, the on-line database of music biographies and album reviews for which he has written thousands of entries. (Many of Unterberger's on-line contributions have also found their way into the print versions of Allmusics.) Unterberger contributes to various local and national publications, including Mojo, Record Collector, Rolling Stone, Oxford American, and No Depression. He has written liner notes to dozens of CD reissues for labels like Rhino, Collectors' Choice, and Sundazed.
Unterberger's books draw extensively upon first-hand interviews with musicians and their associates.
Unterberger has given numerous talks on music and popular culture at public libraries throughout San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Mateo County, California. He is also a speaker at area bookstores, including The Booksmith in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.
wn.com/Richie_Unterberger -
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940), better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for the Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He joined the Beatles in August 1962, taking the place of Pete Best. In addition to his drumming, Starr is featured on lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and the Beatles version of "Act Naturally"). He is credited as a co-writer of the songs "What Goes On" and "Flying", and as the writer of "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".
As drummer for the Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills". Drummer Steve Smith said that Starr's popularity "brought forth a new paradigm" where "we started to see the drummer as an equal participant in the compositional aspect" and that Starr "composed unique, stylistic drum parts for The Beatles songs". In 2011, Starr was picked as the fifth-best drummer of all-time by Rolling Stone readers.
wn.com/Ringo_Starr -
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott (28 January 1927 – 23 December 1996) was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.
Ronnie Scott (originally Ronald Schatt) was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of sixteen. (His claim to fame being, he was taught to play by "Vera Lynn's father-in-law!") He toured with Johnny Claes, the trumpeter, from 1944 to 1945 and with Ted Heath in 1946, as well as working with Ambrose, Cab Kaye, and Tito Burns. He was involved in the short-lived musicians' co-operative Club Eleven band and club (1948–1950), with Johnny Dankworth and others, and was a member of the generation of British musicians who worked on the Cunard liner Queen Mary (intermittently 1946–c. 1950) in order to visit New York and hear the new music directly. Scott was among the earliest British musicians to be influenced in his playing style by Charlie Parker and other bebop musicians.
wn.com/Ronnie_Scott -
Rory Storm
Rory Storm (21 September 1939 – 28 September 1972) was an English singer and musician. Born Alan Caldwell in Liverpool, Storm was the singer and leader of Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, a Liverpudlian band who were contemporaries of The Beatles in the late 1950s, and early 1960s. Ringo Starr was the drummer for The Hurricanes before joining The Beatles in August 1962.
The Hurricanes were one of the most popular acts on the Liverpool and Hamburg club scenes during their existence, although their attempt at a recording career was not successful. They released only two singles, the second one being a version of the West Side Story song "America", which was produced by The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein.
When Storm's father died, he returned from Amsterdam to Liverpool to be with his mother at Stormsville, at 54 Broadgreen Road, Broadgreen, Liverpool. On 27 September 1972, Storm developed a chest infection and could not sleep properly, so he took sleeping pills. The next day Storm and his mother were both found dead. A post mortem determined that Storm had not taken enough pills to kill himself, but it was suspected that his mother had, after finding her son's body.
wn.com/Rory_Storm -
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with coming up with the name "The Beatles", as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets. As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Beatle".
When The Beatles played in Hamburg, he met photographer Astrid Kirchherr, to whom he was later engaged. He later enrolled in the Hamburg College of Art after leaving The Beatles, and studied under future pop art artist, Eduardo Paolozzi. He earned praise for his paintings, which mostly explored a style related to abstract expressionism. In 1962, Sutcliffe collapsed in the middle of an art class in Hamburg after complaining of head pains. German doctors performed various checks on him, but were unable to determine exactly what was causing the headaches. On 10 April 1962, he was taken to hospital, but died in the ambulance on the way.
wn.com/Stuart_Sutcliffe -
Tommy Quickly
Tommy Quickly (born Thomas Quigley, 7 July 1943, Liverpool, Lancashire, England) was a Liverpool rock and roll singer in the early 1960s. He was a later signing of artist manager Brian Epstein, whose biggest act was The Beatles.
Spotted as the vocalist with local group the Challengers, Epstein liked Quigley but not the band, suggesting first a name change (to "Tommy Quickly and the Stops"), then pairing him instead with The Remo Four. The next change was in song selection; whilst Quickly's voice was best suited to rhythm and blues, Epstein steered him toward pop songs, starting with his first single, "Tip of My Tongue", written by the Beatles songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He then made the usual round of appearances on-stage and in public, and was promoted by Epstein as part of his NEMS Enterprises artist stable.
"Tip of My Tongue" was a flop, as were his next four singles. His fifth single, "Wild Side of Life", charted in the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart, spending eight weeks in the chart. Described as young, naive and impulsive, and seemingly overwhelmed with matters since parting with the Challengers, Quickly was ill-prepared for the spotlight.[citation needed] When follow-up hits did not materialise, and with manager Epstein unable to push him further, Quickly retired from the music industry in 1965. İn 1966 he spent tıme in Walton Hospital, Liverpool suffering from a breakdown.
wn.com/Tommy_Quickly -
Tony Sheridan
Tony Sheridan (born Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinnity on 21 May 1940 in Norwich, Norfolk), is an English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as an early collaborator of The Beatles, (though the record was labelled as being with "The Beat Brothers"), one of two non-Beatles (the other being Billy Preston) to receive label performance credit on a record with the group, and the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording which charted as a single.
In his early life, Sheridan was influenced by his parents' interest in classical music, and by age seven, he had learned to play the violin. He eventually came to play guitar, and in 1956, formed his first band. He showed enough talent that he soon found himself playing in London's "Two I's" club for some six months straight, but at the same time he also found himself reduced to sleeping in doorways. In 1958, at 18, he began appearing on the BBC's Oh Boy, playing electric guitar on such early Rock classics as "Blue Suede Shoes", "Glad All Over", "Mighty Mighty Man" and "Oh Boy!". Sheridan was soon viewed as a very promising guitarist and as such was employed backing a number of singers, reportedly including Gene Vincent and Conway Twitty while they were in England. Early in 1960, Sheridan performed in a package tour of the United Kingdom which also included Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. On April 17, Vincent and Cochran rebuffed his request to ride along with them to the next venue, but he thereby escaped the road accident which would leave Cochran dead and Vincent badly injured. He also played guitar for Cherry Wainer on her recording of "Happy Organ".
wn.com/Tony_Sheridan -
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono (オノ・ヨーコ（小野 洋子）, Ono Yōko?, born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese artist, author, and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon. Ono brought feminism to the forefront in her music which prefigured New Wave music and is known for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace and AIDS outreach programs.
Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933 to mother Isoko Ono, the great-granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda of the Yasuda banking family, and to father Yeisuke Ono, a banker and one-time classical pianist who was a descendant of an Emperor of Japan. The name "Yoko" means "ocean child". Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco by his employer, the Yokohama Specie Bank. The rest of the family followed soon after and Yoko met her father when she was two. Her younger brother Keisuke was born in December 1936. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at Tokyo's Gakushuin (also known as the Peers School), one of the most exclusive schools in Japan.
wn.com/Yoko_Ono
RELEASE
ALBUMS
- Believe
- What I've Seen
- 4:16
- Seasons (revisited)
- Elevator Music
- Elevators
- Liberty City
- The Word
- Anon
- Like That
- Porcelain Dolls
- No Escape
- Bonus Track: Like That (feat. EPonym)
- Service Announcement
- The Changing
- Commercial Break
- Mind Rain
- Our Fascination
- Work.
- Down
- Right and Wrong
- Pretzels
- Forgetful
- Four-in
- Exodus
- The Storm
- Eternity
- Odyssey
- Elements
- Still Gettin' Mine
- Where Do I Fit In (Infinitebeat2 mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Iridium Soul Search mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (God KISS FM mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (I Am album mix) (feat. Travis Meeks)
- Where Do I Fit In (Cynic mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Legion mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (5:30 Saturday Morning album mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (DJ Lopez mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Drummondj mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Andreas Johnson mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Damaged Goods album mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Tranquilkaos mix)
- Where Do I Fit In (Mulambo mix)
- No One Knows
- Where Do I Fit In
- I Say
- Goodbye
- Just One
- Nothing Out of Me
- Down the Line
- Rain
- Long Run
- Reason
- Finish What We Start
- One or the Other
- My Sins
- Another for Another
- Brake of Your Car
- Over & Over
- Wrong Way
- Rain
- Nothing Out of Me
- One or the Other
- Reason
- And You (acoustic)
- Worth It (acoustic)
- Property of Goatfucker (Warped Tour Performance)
- Morning (Warped Tour Performance)
- My Beautiful (feat. Travis Meeks)
- Brake of Your Car
- One or the Other
- Nothing Out of Me
- Goodbye
- Down the Line
- Rain
- The Long Run
- Reason
- No One Knows
- Another for Another
- Wrong Way
- Worth It
- Jacob (acoustic)
- I Hear (acoustic)
- What You're Saying (acoustic)
- Goodbye (acoustic)
- Couldn't Breathe (acoustic)
- Main Gravel Road (acoustic)
- And You (acoustic)
- Brake of Your Car (acoustic)
- Morning (acoustic)
- Asking You (acoustic)
- Jacob (acoustic)
- I Hear (acoustic)
- What You're Saying (acoustic)
- Goodbye (acoustic)
- Couldn't Breathe (acoustic)
- Main Gravel Road (acoustic)
- And You (acoustic)
- Brake of Your Car (acoustic)
- Morning (acoustic)
- Asking You (acoustic)
- Property of Goatfucker
- Trying to Make Me
- Brake of Your Car
- My Beautiful
- Those Days
- Asking You
- Morning
- I Hear
- Thank You
- Couldn't Breathe
- These Days
- 5:30 Saturday Morning
Send this Playlist by SMS
Email this Page
Across The Universe (Lennon-McCartney) Austin Durack (Instrumental Guitar Version)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:45
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
Remembering John Lennon on this 8th December 2012
http://wn.com/Across_The_Universe_Lennon-McCartney_Austin_Durack_Instrumental_Guitar_Version
Remembering John Lennon on this 8th December 2012
Don't Let Me Down (Lennon-McCartney) - Bossa Nova Beatniks
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:23
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
The John Lennon penned tune as performed by Tom Gould on bass and vocals, Drew Zingg on guitar, Danny Wilensky on Sax and George Vahamonde on drums. The arrangement was inspired by Eddie and Bob O'Rourke and their band The Electric Nomads.
http://wn.com/Don't_Let_Me_Down_Lennon-McCartney_Bossa_Nova_Beatniks
The John Lennon penned tune as performed by Tom Gould on bass and vocals, Drew Zingg on guitar, Danny Wilensky on Sax and George Vahamonde on drums. The arrangement was inspired by Eddie and Bob O'Rourke and their band The Electric Nomads.
- published: 08 Dec 2012
- views: 23
- author: ElvisNight1111
The Beatles- The music of Lennon and McCartney (1965 show)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:53
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
This is a programme The Beatles filmed on October*, 1965. The show was a one-hour-long TV special (a tribute to their music) and featured other singers and bands that sang their songs. Here you only can see a few parts: The Beatles' performances, some of John and Paul's moments and Peter Sellers' recitation of 'A hard day's night' as Richard III. Enjoy and please comment! *(or November. In the Anthology Paul says it was on November, but they also say it was on October 27th. Close dates anyway.)
http://wn.com/The_Beatles_The_music_of_Lennon_and_McCartney_1965_show
This is a programme The Beatles filmed on October*, 1965. The show was a one-hour-long TV special (a tribute to their music) and featured other singers and bands that sang their songs. Here you only can see a few parts: The Beatles' performances, some of John and Paul's moments and Peter Sellers' recitation of 'A hard day's night' as Richard III. Enjoy and please comment! *(or November. In the Anthology Paul says it was on November, but they also say it was on October 27th. Close dates anyway.)
- published: 11 Mar 2007
- views: 195757
- author: Beacoro
Julian Lennon slams Yoko Ono and talks of John Lennon and Paul McCartney (part1)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:55
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
This is an interview with Julian Lennon from March 18th 1999 with Dini Petty. He speaks of his new album, his TRUE feelings of Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Paul McCartney and his father John Lennon. A very interesting interview where Julian speaks very openly on Yoko Ono and his relationship with her. He also touches on his relationship with Sean Lennon, Paul McCartney and his mother Cynthia. A must watch for all Beatle fans.
http://wn.com/Julian_Lennon_slams_Yoko_Ono_and_talks_of_John_Lennon_and_Paul_McCartney_part1
This is an interview with Julian Lennon from March 18th 1999 with Dini Petty. He speaks of his new album, his TRUE feelings of Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Paul McCartney and his father John Lennon. A very interesting interview where Julian speaks very openly on Yoko Ono and his relationship with her. He also touches on his relationship with Sean Lennon, Paul McCartney and his mother Cynthia. A must watch for all Beatle fans.
- published: 23 Jan 2009
- views: 555292
- author: Dustin Smith
Paul McCartney about John Lennon on Tv-AM Good Morning Britain [9.12.1985]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:21
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
Paul talks about his relationship with John Lennon
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney_about_John_Lennon_on_Tv-AM_Good_Morning_Britain_9121985_
Paul talks about his relationship with John Lennon
- published: 07 Mar 2011
- views: 200656
- author: jacenty841
Lennon and McCartney Discuss Their Songwriting Partnership (1966)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:51
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
An interesting interview of John Lennon and Paul McCartney for a 1966 BBC Radio show, recorded at Paul's newly-purchased townhome on Cavendish Avenue. About mid-way through the interview, a very young "Martha My Dear" can be heard howling from another room.
http://wn.com/Lennon_and_McCartney_Discuss_Their_Songwriting_Partnership_1966
An interesting interview of John Lennon and Paul McCartney for a 1966 BBC Radio show, recorded at Paul's newly-purchased townhome on Cavendish Avenue. About mid-way through the interview, a very young "Martha My Dear" can be heard howling from another room.
- published: 04 Mar 2012
- views: 9134
- author: lennonista9
Dala - Lennon and McCartney [Official Video]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:00
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
Official Video for "Lennon and McCartney" by Dala From the 2012 release Best Day BUY "BEST DAY" US: itunes.apple.com Canada: itunes.apple.com www.dalagirls.com twitter.com Video shot, directed and animated by Josh Lyon - www.akaflk.com Lyric and Chord chart available here www.dalagirls.com
http://wn.com/Dala_Lennon_and_McCartney_Official_Video_
Official Video for "Lennon and McCartney" by Dala From the 2012 release Best Day BUY "BEST DAY" US: itunes.apple.com Canada: itunes.apple.com www.dalagirls.com twitter.com Video shot, directed and animated by Josh Lyon - www.akaflk.com Lyric and Chord chart available here www.dalagirls.com
- published: 11 Jul 2012
- views: 20758
- author: dalamusic
Lennon/McCartney - Two of Us
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:08
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
A tribute to one of the greatest friendships ever (:
http://wn.com/Lennon_McCartney_Two_of_Us
A tribute to one of the greatest friendships ever (:
- published: 05 Nov 2011
- views: 2668
- author: PeaceLoveRockabilly
Paul McCartney inducts John Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:16
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
Paul McCartney inducts John Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the 1994 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when Lennon was honored as a solo artist. Visit us! rockhall.com Subscribe to RockHall : www.youtube.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google +: plus.google.com Check out all the inductees: rockhall.com Upcoming events: rockhall.com
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney_inducts_John_Lennon_into_the_Rock_and_Roll_Hall_of_Fame
Paul McCartney inducts John Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the 1994 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when Lennon was honored as a solo artist. Visit us! rockhall.com Subscribe to RockHall : www.youtube.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google +: plus.google.com Check out all the inductees: rockhall.com Upcoming events: rockhall.com
- published: 22 Nov 2011
- views: 87727
- author: rockhall
Lennon/McCartney - It's Okay to Be Gay
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:29
- Updated: 05 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/Lennon_McCartney_It's_Okay_to_Be_Gay
Venus and Mars ~ McCartney and Lennon
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:33
- Updated: 07 Dec 2012
A video tribute to the Lennon/McCartney relationship. Much has been said regarding the bitter "divorce" that dissolved the most successful songwriting partnership in history: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. On March 28, 1974, during John Lennon's infamous "Lost Weekend" phase, he was renting a Malibu home where he lived with May Pang, Yoko's former assistant. John was working with Harry Nilsson on a project with several other musicians, including Stevie Wonder. As they were preparing to wrap-up, in walks Paul McCartney ... out of the blue! A jam session ensued, of course, that resulted in a bootleg recording entitled "A Toot and a Snore in '74." The weekend didn't end there, though. Paul and Linda McCartney, along with the kids, stayed in town and spent the following day hanging out with John, May Pang and several friends (including RINGO!!) at the Malibu beach house. This reunion was apparently a catalyst for mending the rift that had developed between Paul and John after the Beatles split. Years after John's senseless murder, May Pang told Paul that, in early 1975, John had wanted to surprise Paul in New Orleans where Paul was working on his latest LP. May told Paul that John had missed writing with Paul and wanted to give it another go. By early 1975, though, John had reconciled with Yoko Ono, who told him that "the stars" indicated it was the perfect time for him to start a smoking cessation program instead. We'll never know what might have been if John had just ...
http://wn.com/Venus_and_Mars_~_McCartney_and_Lennon
A video tribute to the Lennon/McCartney relationship. Much has been said regarding the bitter "divorce" that dissolved the most successful songwriting partnership in history: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. On March 28, 1974, during John Lennon's infamous "Lost Weekend" phase, he was renting a Malibu home where he lived with May Pang, Yoko's former assistant. John was working with Harry Nilsson on a project with several other musicians, including Stevie Wonder. As they were preparing to wrap-up, in walks Paul McCartney ... out of the blue! A jam session ensued, of course, that resulted in a bootleg recording entitled "A Toot and a Snore in '74." The weekend didn't end there, though. Paul and Linda McCartney, along with the kids, stayed in town and spent the following day hanging out with John, May Pang and several friends (including RINGO!!) at the Malibu beach house. This reunion was apparently a catalyst for mending the rift that had developed between Paul and John after the Beatles split. Years after John's senseless murder, May Pang told Paul that, in early 1975, John had wanted to surprise Paul in New Orleans where Paul was working on his latest LP. May told Paul that John had missed writing with Paul and wanted to give it another go. By early 1975, though, John had reconciled with Yoko Ono, who told him that "the stars" indicated it was the perfect time for him to start a smoking cessation program instead. We'll never know what might have been if John had just ...
- published: 11 Aug 2011
- views: 5372
- author: juskym
Paul McCartney and John Lennon Brothers Always
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:28
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
A wonderful song called 'Here Today' is written and performed by Paul McCartney in loving memory of his best friend/brother John Lennon. My little tribute video is dedicated to both of them. :)
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney_and_John_Lennon_Brothers_Always
A wonderful song called 'Here Today' is written and performed by Paul McCartney in loving memory of his best friend/brother John Lennon. My little tribute video is dedicated to both of them. :)
- published: 03 Jul 2012
- views: 2151
- author: funnygal200
Paul McCartney - Tribute To John Lennon
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:07
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon--McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home.[1] "Strawberry Fields Forever" was intended for the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), as it was the first song recorded for it, but was instead released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with Paul McCartney's "Penny Lane". "Strawberry Fields Forever" reached number eight in the United States, with numerous critics describing it as one of the group's best recordings.[2][3] It is one of the defining works of the psychedelic rock genre and has been covered by many other artists. The song was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney_Tribute_To_John_Lennon
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon--McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home.[1] "Strawberry Fields Forever" was intended for the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), as it was the first song recorded for it, but was instead released in February 1967 as a double A-side single with Paul McCartney's "Penny Lane". "Strawberry Fields Forever" reached number eight in the United States, with numerous critics describing it as one of the group's best recordings.[2][3] It is one of the defining works of the psychedelic rock genre and has been covered by many other artists. The song was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour
- published: 03 Dec 2011
- views: 5425
- author: MrHomerunholmes
John Lennon and Paul McCartney scene-Nowhere Boy
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:36
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
lennon/mccartney from the movie nowhere boy RIP john lennon :(
http://wn.com/John_Lennon_and_Paul_McCartney_scene-Nowhere_Boy
lennon/mccartney from the movie nowhere boy RIP john lennon :(
- published: 16 Mar 2012
- views: 8121
- author: jonas12361321
Lennon/McCartney - The Lovers that Never Were (Movie Trailer)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:27
- Updated: 04 Dec 2012
Something I whipped up in about twenty minutes on Windows Movie Maker. I used an outdated version of the program, so it's not too good. Hopefully you all enjoy.
http://wn.com/Lennon_McCartney_The_Lovers_that_Never_Were_Movie_Trailer
Something I whipped up in about twenty minutes on Windows Movie Maker. I used an outdated version of the program, so it's not too good. Hopefully you all enjoy.
- published: 03 Apr 2012
- views: 531
- author: StarrisonMcLennon
The Beatles - Composing The Beatles Songbook: Lennon And McCartney 1957 - 1965
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 79:25
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
A documentary film about the finest songwriters the world has ever known. - This independent documentary film reviews the partnership, music and impact of Lennon and McCartney as composers. From the day they met in 1957 until the release of the Rubber Soul album at the end of 1965, the film dissects and contrasts, reassesses and ultimately provides one of the finest films made about the band during this period. Drawing on rare footage, classic performances and penetrating revelations from friends of the pair, Beatles academics and musicologists, this program discovers the true story of how those classic songs were written. It features contributions from; friends Barry Miles, Klaus Voorman and Maureen Cleaves; musicians Alan Moore and Chris Ingham; journalists Robert Christgau [Village Voice] and Anthony De Curtis [Rolling Stone]; authors Johnny Rogan, Pete Doggett, Steve Turner and Nigel Williamson and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini.
http://wn.com/The_Beatles_Composing_The_Beatles_Songbook_Lennon_And_McCartney_1957_1965
A documentary film about the finest songwriters the world has ever known. - This independent documentary film reviews the partnership, music and impact of Lennon and McCartney as composers. From the day they met in 1957 until the release of the Rubber Soul album at the end of 1965, the film dissects and contrasts, reassesses and ultimately provides one of the finest films made about the band during this period. Drawing on rare footage, classic performances and penetrating revelations from friends of the pair, Beatles academics and musicologists, this program discovers the true story of how those classic songs were written. It features contributions from; friends Barry Miles, Klaus Voorman and Maureen Cleaves; musicians Alan Moore and Chris Ingham; journalists Robert Christgau [Village Voice] and Anthony De Curtis [Rolling Stone]; authors Johnny Rogan, Pete Doggett, Steve Turner and Nigel Williamson and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini.
- published: 26 Sep 2012
- views: 3133
- author: MVDmusicdocs
The Beatles - Blackbird Acoustic Guitar Cover
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:01
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
Dan Mahoney playing his arrangement of "Blackbird" (Lennon/McCartney) at Studio bCd in Eugene, Oregon on 8.20.12 Happy Anniversary Mark and Jen! www.danmahoneymusic.com www.basinandrangeband.com www.bazilrathbone.com www.studiobcd.com
http://wn.com/The_Beatles_Blackbird_Acoustic_Guitar_Cover
Dan Mahoney playing his arrangement of "Blackbird" (Lennon/McCartney) at Studio bCd in Eugene, Oregon on 8.20.12 Happy Anniversary Mark and Jen! www.danmahoneymusic.com www.basinandrangeband.com www.bazilrathbone.com www.studiobcd.com
- published: 04 Nov 2012
- views: 179
- author: Dan Mahoney
Lennon McCartney - They Conquered the World Together
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:10
- Updated: 21 Nov 2012
Lennon/McCartney - A tribute to the greatest songwriters in history
http://wn.com/Lennon_McCartney_They_Conquered_the_World_Together
Lennon/McCartney - A tribute to the greatest songwriters in history
- published: 04 Mar 2012
- views: 251
- author: tryme958
Paul McCartney Hey Jude London Olympics Summer 2012 (High Quality)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:05
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
THE DELAY/ECHO in the beginning of "Hey Jude" was because they (IOC) wanted Paul to lip sync/play over a backing track, but McCartney decided against it and played it completely live.I dubbed someone else's high quality television recording of the performance with a high quality recording of "Hey Jude" from the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics together, with this as the result. I do not own or have any rights to these recordings for they belong to the International Olympic Committee & "The End" and "Hey Jude" belong to Paul McCartney & John Lennon, Apple Corps, and EMI.
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney_Hey_Jude_London_Olympics_Summer_2012_High_Quality
THE DELAY/ECHO in the beginning of "Hey Jude" was because they (IOC) wanted Paul to lip sync/play over a backing track, but McCartney decided against it and played it completely live.I dubbed someone else's high quality television recording of the performance with a high quality recording of "Hey Jude" from the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics together, with this as the result. I do not own or have any rights to these recordings for they belong to the International Olympic Committee & "The End" and "Hey Jude" belong to Paul McCartney & John Lennon, Apple Corps, and EMI.
- published: 16 Aug 2012
- views: 72346
- author: ChingersHDTV
Bruce Johnston brings Pet Sounds to Lennon & McCartney in London
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:36
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Bruce Jonhston talks of bringing an acetate of Pet Sounds for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Keith Moon to listen to for the first time. From the extra features on Brian Wilson: Songwriter (1962-1969). No copyright infringement intended.
http://wn.com/Bruce_Johnston_brings_Pet_Sounds_to_Lennon_McCartney_in_London
Bruce Jonhston talks of bringing an acetate of Pet Sounds for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Keith Moon to listen to for the first time. From the extra features on Brian Wilson: Songwriter (1962-1969). No copyright infringement intended.
- published: 01 Feb 2012
- views: 14990
- author: TarCharms
How to Play the Solo From Let it Be by The Beatles
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:48
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
More Stuff www.guitarjamz.com How to Play the Solo From Let it Be by The Beatles george harrison paul mccartney john lennon ringo starr marty schwartz guitarjamz
http://wn.com/How_to_Play_the_Solo_From_Let_it_Be_by_The_Beatles
More Stuff www.guitarjamz.com How to Play the Solo From Let it Be by The Beatles george harrison paul mccartney john lennon ringo starr marty schwartz guitarjamz
- published: 23 Jul 2012
- views: 97461
- author: martyzsongs
MAURO DIRAGO 'DRIVE MY CAR'
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:51
- Updated: 13 Dec 2012
Celebrating 50 years of THE BEATLES From the Album 'REWIND' out soon Lennon/McCartney www.maurodirago.com
http://wn.com/MAURO_DIRAGO_'DRIVE_MY_CAR'
Celebrating 50 years of THE BEATLES From the Album 'REWIND' out soon Lennon/McCartney www.maurodirago.com
- published: 08 Nov 2012
- views: 27
- author: maurodirago
A Toot And A Snore In '74 John Lennon Paul McCartney FULL CD. VERY RARE
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 28:45
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
A Toot And A Snore In '74 (Lennon-McCartney) FULL CD. VERY RARE
http://wn.com/A_Toot_And_A_Snore_In_'74_John_Lennon_Paul_McCartney_FULL_CD_VERY_RARE
A Toot And A Snore In '74 (Lennon-McCartney) FULL CD. VERY RARE
- published: 19 Dec 2011
- views: 11436
- author: smoking5744
photo: AP / Bullit Marquez
11 Dec 2012
The death toll brought about by typhoon “Pablo” continued to rise with 714 persons confirmed dead by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) yesterday while those missing ballooned to 890 as massive search, retrieval and relief operations continue in the typhoon-ravaged areas in Mindanao ... 4 ... They were subsequently brought to Caraga Regional Hospital ... (NHMFC) (P100,000) ... With AFP ....(size: 5.4Kb)
photo: USAF / Staff Sgt. Jonathan Lovelady
10 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. In the desert of central Australia still resides a primitive tribe known as the Arunta. This non-technological and stateless group, which mainly depends on hunting and gathering, had suffered several inexplicable deaths ... Therefore, they organized an atinga, or revenge group ... When the guiltless tribe learned of their approach, they sent out a delegation of young women as a token of peace....(size: 5.8Kb)
photo: AP / Manu Brabo
13 Dec 2012
MOSCOW, December 13 (RIA Novosti) – Syrian rebels behind the kidnapping of Ukrainian journalist Ankhar Kochneva have released a video threatening more attacks on Russians and Ukrainians, as a deadline for her execution approaches on Thursday. Kochneva, a 40-year-old Ukrainian citizen, was abducted in October by Syrian rebels as she traveled to the city of Homs, and has been held there by them since, they claim ... ....(size: 2.1Kb)
photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
12 Dec 2012
MOSCOW. Russia President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday denounced opponents who receive financial assistance from abroad and vowed that the country would not allow democracy to be imposed from the outside. Putin said in his first annual state-of-the-nation address since he returned to the Kremlin for a third term that it should be illegal for anyone who receives money from abroad to be a politician in Russia ... ....(size: 3.9Kb)
photo: AP / Ahn Young-joon
12 Dec 2012
North Korea defied international warnings and fired a long-range rocket on Wednesday, the second launch under its new leader and a clear sign Pyongyang is pushing forward with its quest to develop the technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead ... But South Korea and Japan said they couldn’t immediately confirm that ... officials could determine whether a North Korean satellite was circling the Earth ... Kim said ... Keywords....(size: 2.7Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
13 Dec 2012
While hordes of revelers head to Times Square, those seeking a New Year’s celebration outside the norm head to Vermont ... From VermontVacation.com, here’s Vermont’s 13 Events to Ring in ’13.. MONTPELIER, Vt. (PRWEB) December 13, 2012 13 ... StoweMountainLodge.com. 12 ... 11 ... This New Year's Eve Classical Concert in Manchester features classical and pop music by Vivaldi, Strauss, Oscar Peterson, Lennon-McCartney, Mendelssohn, and popular standards ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)
Canberra Times
12 Dec 2012
Chris Camilleri as Ringo Starr; Jim Owen playing John Lennon; Tony Kishman doing Paul McCartney and George Harrison, played by John Brosnan ... “They just quit [touring] in '66,” says Jim Owen , who plays John Lennon in Classical Mystery Tour ... He believes George Harrison's role is often overlooked compared to Lennon and McCartney's writing brilliance....(size: 3.6Kb)
Yahoo Music
12 Dec 2012
Just one day after his death at age 92, Indian music legend Ravi Shankar has been named as a recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Shankar learned of the honor last week, when he received a call from Neil Portnow, President and CEO of the Recording Academy ... She follows Burt Bacharach, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. Lennon and McCartney were honored on their own and as part of the Beatles ... 10. ....(size: 5.4Kb)
Jazzwise Magazine
12 Dec 2012
Beginning jauntily with Lennon and McCartney’s ‘The Word’ from Rubber Soul, an early settling point was on Bob Dylan’s ‘Everything Is Broken’, a song featured to effect on LaVette’s latest album Thankful N’ Thoughtful, with the Detroiter also covering a pair of Neil Young songs (including as she self deprecatingly said her “minor hit” ‘Heart of Gold’), and Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ ... – Stephen Graham....(size: 3.4Kb)
Huffington Post
10 Dec 2012
Paul McCartney has explained the confusion surrounding his performance at the 2012 London Olympics ... McCartney reportedly missed his cue to begin singing "Hey Jude." ... In his 2001 film, "The Royal Tenenbaums," Wes had the Mutato Muzika Orchestra cover the Beatles' "Hey Jude," (a song credited to Lennon-McCartney, but mainly written by Sir Paul, himself).'Yellow Submarine'....(size: 7.6Kb)
The Examiner
10 Dec 2012
It is a classic example of the natural Lennon-McCartney collaborative songwriting style ... It includes a baroque-styled piano solo, is one of Harrison's favorite Beatles tunes, was written in part for former Beatle Stu Sutcliffe and is one of only two songs about which Lennon and McCartney disagree about the origins of the melody ... "Something"--This is one of the only non-Lennon-McCartney tracks present on many "top" Beatles song lists....(size: 10.9Kb)
The Hollywood Reporter
09 Dec 2012
share. The Rolling Stones. The Bottom Line. Mick, Keith and company prove that they've still got it in their first U.S. date in years. Venue. Barclays Center,. Brooklyn. (Saturday, Dec. 8) ... Blige and Gary Clark Jr ... They reprised their version of Lennon and McCartney’s “I Wanna Be Your Man” and delivered an epic rendition of the menacing “Midnight Rambler,” with Jagger contributing sterling harmonica playing ... ....(size: 7.5Kb)
Billboard
09 Dec 2012
The group then eased into a short showcase of '60s highlights, leading with their second single and first British hit, the Lennon/McCartney-penned "I Wanna Be Your Man" (you know a band's got confidence in its catalog when the second song in the set is a Beatles cover); following with their first American hit, "The Last Time" (Keith messed up the ......(size: 9.0Kb)
The Examiner
08 Dec 2012
On December 8 of every year, millions of fans remember John Lennon on the anniversary of his death in 1980 ... John was my favourite Beatle, but of course both Lennon and McCartney were musical geniuses ... Since 9th October 2012, John Lennon’s birthday, I have been surfing You Tube watching old Beatles performances I had not seen in years--and also solo work by John Lennon and Paul McCartney....(size: 8.3Kb)
Vanity Fair
07 Dec 2012
The recent accusations of sexual abuse against Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash have been tragic for all concerned, especially the alleged teenage victims ... Here are five reasons I hate Elmo. You may well have you own ... Jim and Pam serve much the same purpose on The Office ... Elmo’s high-pitched voice is a sonic desecration ... (Which put Sesame Street at No ... *** ... Like Lennon and McCartney, neither Brubeck nor Desmond was as good without the other ... ....(size: 7.1Kb)
Entertainment Weekly
04 Dec 2012
They would have seen that Morrissey and Marr led the band, and they would have no problem with that, because Jagger and Richards led The Rolling Stones, and Strummer and Jones led The Clash, and Lennon and McCartney led The Beatles ... In the UK, are Morrissey and Marr considered in the same echelon as Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards? ... So Lennon and McCartney wrote more, but not a lot more....(size: 9.0Kb)
Rollingstone
04 Dec 2012
There's been no word on what other guests may join the Stones, but Paul McCartney will be in town for the "12-12-12" Hurricane Sandy benefit show and Saturday Night Live – and the Stones did open their first London show with the Lennon/McCartney-penned "I Wanna Be Your Man." Fingers crossed ... ....(size: 1.8Kb)
Tampa Bay Online
04 Dec 2012
Eddie Vedder doesn't need theatrics to entertain his fans ... As far as his health, Vedder seemed to be feeling fine ... Vedder wraps up his tour today with the final date at Ruth Eckerd before playing a star-studded Hurricane Sandy benefit show at New York City's Madison Square Garden alongside Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl and others on Dec. 12. SETLIST ... "Can't Keep" ... "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" (Lennon, McCartney) ... ....(size: 3.4Kb)
The Lennon–McCartney (also written Lennon/McCartney) songwriting partnership is one of the best-known and most successful musical collaborations in history. Between 1962 and 1969, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by The Beatles and form the bulk of their catalogue.
Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise separate lyricist and composer,[1] both John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote words and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball". Later, it became more common for one of the two credited authors to write all or most of a song with limited input from the other. However, by an agreement made before the Beatles became famous, Lennon and McCartney agreed to share equal writing credit on songs that either one of them wrote while their partnership lasted.
Lennon–McCartney compositions have been the subject of numerous cover versions. According to Guinness World Records, "Yesterday" has been recorded by more artists than any other song.[2]
Lennon–McCartney was officially dissolved at the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. The exact location is not known as May Pang (Lennon's girlfriend and assistant at the time) cannot recall it. A young Julian Lennon was also present, but can't recall it either.
From May Pang's memoirs:
"John, Julian and I left New York the following day to spend Christmas in Florida. On December 29, 1974, the voluminous documents were brought down to John in Florida by one of Apple's lawyers. "Take out your camera," he joked to me. Then he called Harold to go over some final points. When John hung up the phone, he looked wistfully out the window. I could almost see him replaying the entire Beatles experience in his mind. He finally picked up his pen and, in the unlikely backdrop of the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World, ended the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history by simply scrawling John Lennon at the bottom of the page."[3]
Contents |
Working partnership[link]
Lennon and McCartney's first musical idols were the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and they learned many of their songs and imitated their sound.[4] Their first compositions were written at McCartney's home (20 Forthlin Road), at Lennon's aunt Mimi's house at 251 Menlove Avenue, or at the Liverpool Institute.[5] They often invited friends—including George Harrison, Nigel Walley, Barbara Baker, and Lennon's art school colleagues—to listen to performances of their new songs.[6]
Although Lennon and McCartney often wrote independently—and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other—it was rare that a song would be completed without some input from both writers. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and take it to the other to finish or improve; in some cases, two incomplete songs or song ideas that each had worked on individually would be combined into a complete song. Often one of the pair would add a so-called middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse and chorus.[7] Lennon called it "Writing eyeball-to-eyeball",[7] and "Playing into each other's noses".[8] This approach of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team—with elements of competitiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration and creative merging of musical ideas—is often cited as a key reason for The Beatles' innovation and popular success.
As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternate chord. "A Day in the Life" is a notable and well-known example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song fragment by McCartney ("Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...") was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition ("I read the news today, oh boy..."). "Hey Jude" is another example of a later Paul McCartney song that had input from Lennon: while auditioning the song for Lennon, when McCartney came to the lyric "the movement you need is on your shoulder," McCartney assured Lennon that he would change the line—which McCartney felt was nonsensical—as soon as he could come up with a better lyric. Lennon advised McCartney to leave that line alone, saying it was one of the strongest in the song.[9]
In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said of the partnership, "he provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs—"In My Life", or some of the early stuff, "This Boy"—I was writing melody with the best of them."[10]
However, Lennon said the main intention of The Beatles' music was to communicate, and that, to this effect, he and McCartney had a shared purpose. The book Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips Used by The Beatles, points out that at least half of all Lennon–McCartney lyrics have the words "you" and/or "your" in the first line.[11]
The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership makes up the majority of The Beatles' catalogue. The first two UK studio albums included twelve cover tunes and fifteen Lennon–McCartney songs,[12][13] with one track ("Don't Bother Me") credited to George Harrison.[13] Their third UK album, A Hard Day's Night is made up entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions.[14] The next album released, Beatles For Sale included six covers and eight Lennon–McCartney originals.[15] The subsequent release Help! had two covers and two Harrison compositions along with ten Lennon–McCartney tracks. Beginning with Rubber Soul, The Beatles released only original material on their studio albums,[16] with George Harrison contributing between one and four songs on each record, Ringo Starr writing two songs ("Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden") and being given joint credit with Lennon and McCartney for a third ("What Goes On"), and a fourth joint credit on Flying (credited to all four Beatles), and the rest of the catalogue coming from Lennon and McCartney.
Lennon and McCartney gave songs to Starr to sing, and to Harrison before he started writing his own material. As for the songs they kept for themselves, each partner sang his own composition, often with the other providing harmonies, or they shared lead vocal. If each contributed a fragment to make a whole song, he might sing his portion (see "I've Got a Feeling" and "A Day in the Life"). "Every Little Thing" (written by Paul, sung by John) is a very rare example of a Lennon–McCartney composition written by one member of the partnership and sung by the other.[17]
Joint credit[link]
McCartney and Lennon met in July 1957 as teenagers and began writing songs together;[18] they agreed that all songs written by them (whether individually or jointly) should be credited to both of them.[18] The precise date of the agreement is unknown; however, Lennon spoke in 1980 of an informal agreement between him and McCartney made "when we were fifteen or sixteen".[19] Two songs written (primarily by Lennon) in 1957, "Hello Little Girl" and "One After 909", were credited to the partnership when published in the following decade.[20] The earliest Beatles recording credited to Lennon–McCartney to be officially released is "You'll Be Mine", recorded at home in 1960 and included on Anthology 1 35 years later.[21]
However, some other compositions from the band's early years are not credited to the partnership. "In Spite of All the Danger", a 1958 composition that the band (then The Quarrymen) paid to record to disc, is attributed to McCartney and George Harrison. "Cayenne", recorded at the same time as "You'll Be Mine", is a solo McCartney composition. "Cry for a Shadow", recorded during The Beatles' sessions with Tony Sheridan in June 1961, was written by Lennon and Harrison.
By 1962, the joint credit agreement was in effect. From the time of The Beatles' first A&R audition in January that year, until Lennon's announcement in September 1969 that he was leaving the band, virtually all songs by McCartney or Lennon were published with joint credit. The only exceptions were a handful of the McCartney compositions released by other artists (viz. "Woman" by Peter and Gordon in 1966, "Cat Call" by Chris Barber in 1967, and "Penina" by Carlos Mendes in 1969).
After the partnership had ended, Lennon and McCartney each gave account of their individual contribution to each jointly-credited song. In only four known cases is there a substantial difference between their recollections:
- "Help!" has been universally recognized as solely a Lennon penned composition. However, Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the "countermelody", estimating the song as "70-30" to Lennon.[22][23][24] During an interview with Playboy in 1984, McCartney stated that "John and I wrote it at his house in Weybridge for the film".[24]
- Although Lennon said that McCartney helped only with "the middle eight" (implying a short section) of "In My Life",[25] McCartney has said that he wrote the (entire) melody, taking inspiration from Smokey Robinson songs.[26]
- McCartney said that he wrote "Eleanor Rigby" on a piano in the Ashers' music room in Wimpole Street,[27] and later played it to Donovan before it was finished—a claim which Donovan confirmed.[28] Lennon said, in 1972, that he wrote 70 percent of the "Eleanor Rigby" lyrics,[29] but Pete Shotton, Lennon's childhood friend, remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil".[30]
- Whilst Lennon said that McCartney's contribution to "Ticket to Ride" was limited to "the way Ringo played the drums,"[31] McCartney said "we sat down and wrote it together... give him 60 percent of it."[32]
- The song "And Your Bird Can Sing" is supposedly primarily by John Lennon, however Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the lyric, estimating the song as "80-20" to Lennon. [33]
- According to McCartney, "Tell Me What You See" was written 60% by him, 40% by Lennon.[34] In a 1994 interview however, McCartney claimed it entirely as his.[35]
Lennon–McCartney vs McCartney–Lennon[link]
In October 1962, the Beatles released their first single in the UK, "Love Me Do", credited to "Lennon–McCartney". However, on their next three releases (viz. the single "Please Please Me", the Please Please Me LP, and the single From Me To You), the credit was given as "McCartney–Lennon".[36] With the "She Loves You" single, released in August 1963, the credit reverted to "Lennon–McCartney", and all subsequent official Beatles singles and albums list "Lennon–McCartney" (UK) or "J.Lennon/P.McCartney" (US) as the author of songs written by the two.
In 1976, after the Beatles had disbanded, McCartney released his live album Wings over America with songwriting credits for five Beatles songs reversed to place McCartney's name first. Neither Lennon nor Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it".[18] Several years after Lennon's death however, in the late 1990s, McCartney and Ono became involved in a dispute over the credit order.[37] McCartney's 2002 live album, Back in the U.S., also used the credit "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for all of the Beatles songs.[38] When Ono objected to McCartney's request for the reversed credit to be used for the song "Yesterday", McCartney said that he and Lennon had agreed in the past that the credits could be reversed, if either of them wanted to, on any future releases. Later, however, he relented, saying "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of—in the order it has always been."[37] An in-depth analysis of the legal issues surrounding the dispute is the subject of a sixty-six page Pepperdine Law Review article from 2006.[39]
Other credits[link]
 |
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011) |
A number of songs written primarily by the duo and recorded by The Beatles were credited as follows:
- "What Goes On" (1965) Lennon–McCartney–Starkey[40]
- "Flying" (1967) Harrison–Lennon–McCartney–Starkey
- "Dig It" (1969) Lennon–McCartney–Starkey–Harrison
- "Free as a Bird" (1995) Original composition by John Lennon, Beatles version by John Lennon/Paul McCartney/George Harrison/Ringo Starr
- "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)" (1995 edit of 1967 fan club version) Lennon–McCartney–Harrison–Starr
The German-language versions of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" were also credited to additional songwriters for assisting with the translation: "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicholas–Heller and "Sie Liebt Dich" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicholas–Montague.
Non-Beatles songs[link]
Several songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released by artists other than The Beatles, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped launch new artists' careers. Many of the recordings below were included on the 1979 compilation album The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away.[41] Beatles versions of some of these were recorded; some were not released until after their split, on compilations such as Live at the BBC (1993) and The Beatles Anthology (1995-6).
| Year | Artist | Song | Peak Chart Position |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | The Rolling Stones | "I Wanna Be Your Man" | UK #12 | Beatles version released later in 1963 on With The Beatles |
| 1963 | Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas | "I'll Be on My Way" | (B-side) | Beatles version released on Live at the BBC |
| 1963 | Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas | "Bad to Me" | UK #1 | |
| 1963 | Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas | "I Call Your Name" | (B-side) | Beatles version released on Long Tall Sally EP in 1964 |
| 1963 | Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas | "I'll Keep You Satisfied" | UK #4 | |
| 1964 | Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas | "From a Window" | UK #10 | |
| 1963 | Tommy Quickly | "Tip of My Tongue" | — | |
| 1963 | The Fourmost | "Hello Little Girl" | UK #9 | Beatles version released on Anthology 1 |
| 1963 | The Fourmost | "I'm in Love" | UK #17 | |
| 1963 | Cilla Black | "Love of the Loved" | UK #35 | |
| 1964 | Cilla Black | "It's for You" | UK #7 | |
| 1968 | Cilla Black | "Step Inside Love" | UK #8 | Beatles version released on Anthology 3 |
| 1964 | The Strangers with Mike Shannon | "One and One Is Two" | — | |
| 1964 | Peter & Gordon | "A World Without Love" | UK #1 | |
| 1964 | Peter & Gordon | "Nobody I Know" | UK #10 | |
| 1964 | Peter & Gordon | "I Don't Want to See You Again" | — | |
| 1964 | The Applejacks | "Like Dreamers Do" | UK #20 | Beatles version released on Anthology 1 |
| 1965 | P.J. Proby | "That Means a Lot" | UK #30 | Beatles version released on Anthology 2 |
| 1968 | Black Dyke Mills Band | "Thingumybob" | — | |
| 1969 | Mary Hopkin | "Goodbye" | UK #2 |
See also[link]
 |
Book: Lennon–McCartney |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
Notes[link]
- ^ Such as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
- ^ "Most Recorded Song". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original on 2006-09-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20060910071729/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=50867. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
- ^ "'My lost weekend with Lennon': May Pang breaks her silence over their relationship". Daily Mail (London). 9 February 2008. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-513300/My-lost-weekend-Lennon-May-Pang-breaks-silence-relationship.html#ixzz1fctbk5yB.
- ^ Spitz (2005), p. 131-132.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 34.
- ^ Spitz (2005), p. 135.
- ^ a b Miles (1997), p. 107.
- ^ Spitz (2005), p. 133.
- ^ The Beatles Anthology documentary
- ^ Sheff, p. 136
- ^ Rowley (2008), p. 3.
- ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Overview of Please Please Me". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1502. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
- ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Review of With the Beatles". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1503/review. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
- ^ "Overview of A Hard Day’s Night". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1506.
- ^ "Overview of Beatles for Sale". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1508.
- ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Review of Rubber Soul". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1515. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 128.
- ^ a b c Garcia, Gilbert (27 January 2003). "The ballad of Paul and Yoko". salon.com. http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/music/feature/2003/01/27/paul_yoko/index.html. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
- ^ Sheff, p. 214
- ^ MacDonald (2005), p. 53
- ^ Unterberger, Richie. The unreleased Beatles: music & film. Hal Leonard Corp., 2006, ISBN 978-0-87930-892-6, p. 5-6
- ^ MacDonald 2003, p. 153.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 199.
- ^ a b Beatles Interview Database 1984, p. 2.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 278.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 277.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 281.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 282.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 283.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 284.
- ^ Sheff (2000), p. 196.
- ^ Miles (1997), p. 193.
- ^ MacDonald 2003, p. 199.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 200.
- ^ "Beatles Songwriting & Recording Database: Help!". Beatlesinterviews.org. 1965-08-06. http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dba05help.html. Retrieved 2011-08-20.
- ^ Lewisohn (1988), pp. 23, 32
- ^ a b "McCartney makes up with Ono". BBC News. 1 June 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2953620.stm.
- ^ Lister, David (28 December 2002). "Let it be, Sir Paul (as someone or other once said)". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-lister/let-it-be-sir-paul-as-someone-or-other-once-said-612138.html.
- ^ Landes, Ezra D. (2006). "I Am the Walrus - No. I Am!: Can Paul McCartney Transpose the Ubiquitous 'Lennon–McCartney' Songwriting Credit to Read 'McCartney/Lennon?" An Exploration of the Surviving Beatle's Attempt to Re-Write Music Lore, as it Pertains to the Bundle of Intellectual Property Rights". Pepperdine Law Review 34: 185.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 28.
- ^ Calkin, Graham. "The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away". JPGR. http://www.jpgr.co.uk/col_nut18.html. Retrieved 14 December 2009.
References[link]
- Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
- Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3.
- Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-80352-9.
- Rowley, David (2008). Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips used by the Beatles. Matador. ISBN 978-1-906221-37-9.
- "Playboy Interview With Paul and Linda McCartney". Beatles Interview Database. 1984. http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbpm.int2.html. Retrieved 6 December 2009.
External links[link]
- "Two of Us: Inside the Lennon/McCartney Connection", by Joshua Wolf Shenk, Slate.com
- The Lennon-McCartney Songwriting Partnership
- Songs the Beatles Didn't Do compiled by Joseph Brennan; includes Lennon–McCartney songs and others
- A list of the songs John Lennon and Paul McCartney gave to other artists during the Beatle years originally posted on Usenet rec.music.beatles 9 November 1994.
http://wn.com/Lennon–McCartney
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Lennon-McCartney
http://cs.wn.com/Lennon McCartney
http://id.wn.com/Lennon-McCartney
http://es.wn.com/Lennon—McCartney
http://ru.wn.com/Леннон — Маккартни
http://nl.wn.com/Lennon-McCartney
http://pt.wn.com/Parceria Lennon e McCartney
http://pl.wn.com/Lennon McCartney
http://fr.wn.com/Lennon McCartney
http://de.wn.com/Lennon McCartney
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennon–McCartney
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.
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.
"Lennon" redirects here. For other uses, see Lennon (disambiguation).
For other people named John Lennon, see John Lennon (disambiguation).
| John Lennon MBE |
|
|---|---|
 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 |
|
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]
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]
Further information: The Quarrymen, Lennon–McCartney, Brian Epstein, The Beatles, Beatlemania, British Invasion, and More popular than Jesus
1957–65: Formation, commercial break-out, and touring years[link]
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]
 |
Sample of "Give Peace a Chance", recorded in 1969 during Lennon and Ono's second Bed-In for Peace. As described by biographer Bill Harry, Lennon wanted to "write a peace anthem that would take over from the song 'We Shall Overcome'—and he succeeded ... it became the main anti-Vietnam protest song."[73]
|
| Problems listening to this file? See media help. | |
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]
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]
|
|
Sample of "Imagine", Lennon's "most famous post-Beatles' track."[93] Like "Give Peace a Chance", the song became an anti-war anthem, but its lyrics offended religious groups. Lennon's explanation was, "If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion, but without this 'my God is bigger than your God' thing—then it can be true."[94]
|
| Problems listening to this file? See media help. | |
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]
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]
Main article: Death of John Lennon
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]
Further information: Cynthia Lennon
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
Further information: Brian Epstein
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]
Further information: Julian Lennon
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]
Further information: Yoko Ono
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]
Further information: 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]
Further information: Sean Lennon
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]
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 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]
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]
-
Further information: Jon_Wiener#Wiener_battles_with_the_FBI
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]
Further information: John Lennon's musical instruments and List of The Beatles' instruments
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]
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]
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]
Main article: John Lennon discography
See also: The Beatles discography
- Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (with Yoko Ono) (1968)
- Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions (with Yoko Ono) (1969)
- Wedding Album (with Yoko Ono) (1969)
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
- Imagine (1971)
- Some Time in New York City (with Yoko Ono) (1972)
- Mind Games (1973)
- Walls and Bridges (1974)
- Rock 'n' Roll (1975)
- Double Fantasy (with Yoko Ono) (1980)
- Milk and Honey (with Yoko Ono) (1984)
- Menlove Ave. (1986)
Notes[link]
^ Note a: Lennon was responsible for 25 Billboard Hot 100 number one singles as performer, writer or co-writer.
- Solo (2): "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", "(Just Like) Starting Over".[248]
- With The Beatles (20): "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", "A Hard Day's Night", "Eight Days a Week", "Help!", "Ticket to Ride", "Yesterday", "Paperback Writer", "We Can Work It Out", "All You Need Is Love", "Hello Goodbye", "Penny Lane", "Hey Jude", "Something/"Come Together", "Get Back", "Let It Be", "The Long and Winding Road"/"For You Blue".[249]
- As co-writer of and performer on release by another artist (1): "Fame" (David Bowie).[250]
- As co-writer of releases by other artists (2): "A World Without Love" (Peter and Gordon),[251] "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Elton John).[252]
Citations[link]
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 504.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 24: "Julia offered the name in honour of... Winston Churchill".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 24: "The entire Stanley clan gathered nightly at Newcastle Road".
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 54: "Until then he had sent her money each month from his wages, but now it stopped".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 26: "In February 1944 ... he was arrested and imprisoned. Freddie subsequently disappeared for six months".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 27.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 56: "Alf admitted to her that he had planned to take John to live in New Zealand".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 30: "Julia went out of the door... John ran after her".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 497.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 56: "Hard to see why Mimi wanted John, as she had always said she didn't want children".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 32: "When he was old enough, taught John how to solve crossword puzzles".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 48: "To get them started, she applied the triad to 'Ain't That a Shame'".
- ^ a b c d e f g h Sheff 1981.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 32: "Parkes recalled... Leila and John to the cinema as often as three times a day".
- ^ Harry 2009.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 702.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 819.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 411.
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 32–33.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 40.
- ^ ClassReports 2008.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 45.
- ^ Norman 2008, p. 89.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 48.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 100.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 553–555.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 50.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 738.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 95.
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 93–99.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 44.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 32.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 47.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 337–338.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 47, 50.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 47.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 64.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 57.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 53.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 66–67.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 57.
- ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 67.
- ^ Frankel 2007.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 721.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, pp. 24–26: "Twist and Shout, which had to be recorded last because John Lennon had a particularly bad cold".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 376: "He had been struggling all day to reach notes, but this was different, this hurt".
- ^ Doggett 2010, p. 33.
- ^ Shennan 2007.
- ^ Coleman 1984a, pp. 239–240.
- ^ a b London Gazette 1965, p. 5488.
- ^ Coleman 1984a, p. 288.
- ^ Gould 2008, p. 268.
- ^ Lawrence 2005, p. 62.
- ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 171.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 570.
- ^ Cleave 2007.
- ^ Gould 2008, pp. 5–6, 249, 281, 347.
- ^ Brown 1983, p. 222.
- ^ Gould 2008, p. 319.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 281.
- ^ Time 1967.
- ^ BBC News 2007b.
- ^ Brown 1983, p. 276.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 397.
- ^ Hoppa 2010.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 349-373.
- ^ Logan 1967.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 131.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 31.
- ^ TelegraphKlein 2010.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 549: "Paul never did sign the management contract".
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 276–278.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 774–775.
- ^ Fawcett 1976, p. 185.
- ^ Coleman 1984a, p. 279.
- ^ Coleman 1984a, pp. 48–49.
- ^ a b Miles and Badman 2003.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 615–617.
- ^ a b Perone 2001, pp. 57–58.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 160–161.
- ^ Edmondson 2010, pp. 129–130.
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 853–54.
- ^ Loker 2009, p. 348.
- ^ Wenner 2000, p. 32.
- ^ Wenner 2000, p. 24.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 408–410.
- ^ Blaney 2005, p. 56.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 640–641.
- ^ Riley 2002, p. 375.
- ^ Schechter 1997, p. 106.
- ^ Wiener 1990, p. 157.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 382.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, pp. 382–383.
- ^ Gerson 1971.
- ^ Vigilla 2005.
- ^ Goodman 1984.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 354–356.
- ^ Peebles 1981, p. 44.
- ^ Allmusic 2010f.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 960.
- ^ Wiener 1990, p. 204.
- ^ a b BBC News 2006a.
- ^ Landau 1974.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 979–980.
- ^ Deming 2008.
- ^ a b The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 1994.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, pp. 698–699.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 927–929.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 735.
- ^ The Very Best of Mick Jagger liner notes
- ^ Badman 2001, 1974.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 284.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 970.
- ^ The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 1996.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 240, 563.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 758.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 553.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 166.
- ^ Bennahum 1991, p. 87.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 814.
- ^ BBC News 2006b.
- ^ Schinder & Schwartz 2007, p. 178.
- ^ Ginell 2009.
- ^ Badman 2001, 1980.
- ^ Ingham 2006, p. 82.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 145.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 692.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, pp. 510.
- ^ CNN.com 2004.
- ^ BBC News 2010a.
- ^ Lennon 2005, pp. 17–23.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 21.
- ^ Lennon 2005, pp. 89–95.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 492–493.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 91.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 493–495.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 113.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 496–497.
- ^ Warner Brothers 1988.
- ^ Lennon 2005, p. 305–306: "He had agreed that I should have custody of Julian", "He raised his offer to £100,000".
- ^ Harry 2000a, p. 232.
- ^ Harry 2000a, pp. 1165, 1169.
- ^ Lennon 2005, pp. 94, 119–120.
- ^ Harry 2000a, p. 1169.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 232.
- ^ Coleman 1992, pp. 298–299.
- ^ Norman 2008, p. 503.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 206.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 517.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 574.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 341.
- ^ Pang 2008, back cover.
- ^ Lennon 2005, pp. 252–255.
- ^ a b Lennon 2005, p. 258.
- ^ Times Online 2009.
- ^ Badman 2003, p. 393.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 682.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 272.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 683.
- ^ Two Virgins liner notes
- ^ Lennon 1978, p. 183.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 800.
- ^ Kruse 2009, p. 16.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 276.
- ^ Coleman 1992, p. 550.
- ^ Coleman 1984b, p. 64.
- ^ Emerick & Massey 2006, pp. 279–280.
- ^ "John & Yoko's New York | Baby Boomers | iStopOver Magazine". Magazine.istopover.com. 16 August 2010. http://magazine.istopover.com/2010/08/16/john-yoko-new-york/. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
- ^ a b Harry 2000b, p. 700.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 700–701.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 535, 690.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 535.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 195.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 327.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 934–935.
- ^ Cohn 2010–2011, p. 95.
- ^ a b Seaman 1991, p. 122.
- ^ Miles and Badman 2003, 1969: "They were ridiculed by the world's media".
- ^ Anderson 2010, p. 83: "The Bed-In stunt was ridiculed by the press".
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 745–748.
- ^ Holsinger 1999, p. 389.
- ^ Wenner 2000, p. 43.
- ^ Clark 2002.
- ^ Milmo 2002.
- ^ McGinty 2010.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 344.
- ^ Buchanan 2009.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 789–790, 812–813.
- ^ Glenn 2009.
- ^ Calkin 2002.
- ^ Bright 2000.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 403.
- ^ Ali 2006.
- ^ Brooks 2005.
- ^ Wiener 1999, p. 2.
- ^ BBC News 2000.
- ^ Wiener 1990, p. 225.
- ^ Coleman 1992, pp. 576–583.
- ^ BBC News 2006c.
- ^ Wiener, Jon. "Bob Dylan's defense of John Lennon". The Nation, 8 October 2010
- ^ "Photo Copy of Bob Dylan's 1972 Letter to the INS in Defense of John Lennon". Lennonfbifiles.com. http://lennonfbifiles.com/natl_comm_john_yoko/bob_dylan.html. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
- ^ Wiener 1999, p. 326.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 663.
- ^ Urish & Bielen 2007, p. 143.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 664.
- ^ Coleman 1984a, p. 289.
- ^ Wiener 1999, p. 13.
- ^ Friedman 2005, p. 252.
- ^ Wiener 1999, p. 315.
- ^ a b Wiener 1999, pp. 52–54, 76.
- ^ Wiener 1999, p. 27.
- ^ The Associated Press 2006.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 179–181.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 393–394.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 396–397.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 313.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 738–740.
- ^ Prown and Newquist 2003, p. 213.
- ^ Lawrence 2009, p. 27.
- ^ Everett 1999, p. 297.
- ^ Blaney 2005, p. 83.
- ^ Everett 2001, p. 200.
- ^ Babiuk 2002, pp. 164–165.
- ^ Wenner 2000, p. 14.
- ^ Miles and Badman 2003, p. 90.
- ^ Coleman 1992, pp. 369–370.
- ^ Wiener 1990, p. 143.
- ^ Gregory 2007, p. 75.
- ^ Ryan 1982, pp. 118, 241.
- ^ Wiener 1990, p. 35.
- ^ Urish & Bielen 2007, p. 123.
- ^ Schinder & Schwartz 2007, p. 160.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 265.
- ^ Wiener 2006.
- ^ Urish & Bielen 2007, pp. 121–122.
- ^ The Telegraph (9 October 2010). "Monument to John Lennon unveiled in Liverpool on his '70th birthday'". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8052634/Monument-to-John-Lennon-unveiled-in-Liverpool-on-his-70th-birthday.html.
- ^ RIAA 2010b.
- ^ Greenberg 2010, p. 202.
- ^ RIAA 2010a.
- ^ grammy.com.
- ^ Brit Awards 2010.
- ^ BBC News 2002.
- ^ Browne 2008.
- ^ a b Rolling Stone 2008.
- ^ Rolling Stone 2003.
- ^ Songwriters Hall of Fame 2009.
- ^ Allmusic 2010a.
- ^ "Most No. 1s By Artist (All-Time)". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/specials/hot100/charts/most-no1s-overall.shtml. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Allmusic 2010e.
- ^ Allmusic 2010d.
- ^ Allmusic 2010c.
References[link]
- Ali, Tariq. UK: John Lennon, the FBI and me; 20 December 2006 [cited 18 August 2010].
- Allmusic. David Bowie – Billboard Singles [cited 13 November 2010].
- Allmusic. Elton John – Billboard Singles [cited 13 November 2010].
- Allmusic. John Lennon – Billboard Singles [cited 13 November 2010].
- Allmusic. John Lennon Discography, Singles & EPs, Happy Xmas (War is Over) [cited 13 November 2010].
- Allmusic. Peter and Gordon – Billboard Singles [cited 13 November 2010].
- Allmusic. The Beatles – Billboard Singles [cited 13 November 2010].
- Anderson, Jennifer Joline. John Lennon: Legendary Musician & Beatle. Abdo Publishing Company; 2010 [cited 24 July 2011]. ISBN 978-1-60453-790-1.
- Babiuk, Andy. Beatles Gear. Backbeat; 2002. ISBN 978-0-87930-731-8.
- Badman, Keith. The Beatles Diary, Volume 2 : After the Break-Up, 1970–2001. Omnibus Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6.
- Badman, Keith. The Beatles Off The Record: The Dream Is Over. Omnibus Press; 2003. ISBN 978-0-7119-9199-6.
- BBC News. 100 great British heroes; 21 August 2002 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. 1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium; 15 October 1969 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. Beatles in Bangor [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. Judge releases Lennon letters; 19 February 2000 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. Lennon filmmakers credit campaign; 12 October 2006 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. Lennon ship log book up for sale; 27 March 2006 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. The Lennon–McCartney Songwriting Partnership; 4 November 2005.
- BBC News. US chat show veteran Douglas dies; 12 August 2006 [cited 11 May 2010].
- BBC News. Lennon killer is denied parole for the sixth time; 7 September 2010 [cited 8 September 2010].
- Bennahum, David. The Beatles After the Break-Up: In Their Own Words. Omnibus Press; 1991. ISBN 978-0-7119-2558-8.
- Blaney, John. John Lennon: Listen to this Book. Paper Jukebox; 2005. ISBN 978-0-9544528-1-0.
- Bright, Martin. UK: Lennon aided IRA, claims MI5 renegade; 20 February 2000 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Brooks, Richard. UK: Julian Lennon gives family peace a chance; 13 June 2009 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Brooks, Xan. UK: Lennon too stoned to be a revolutionary; 23 September 2005 [cited 22 December 2010].
- Brown, Peter. The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles. McGraw Hill; 1983. ISBN 0-07-008159-X.
- Browne, Jackson. 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; 12 November 2008 [cited 10 September 2010].
- Buchanan, Jason. Allmovie. Overview of Twenty to Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair; 2009 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Calkin, Graham. Graham Calkin. Anthology; 2002 [cited 9 December 2010].
- Cohen, Claire. UK: Churchill? A troublemaker. Lennon? A useless clown. And as for that girl Thatcher...; 10 January 2008 [cited 7 December 2010].
- Cohn, Jonathan. Rolling Stone magazine. The Lost Lennon Tapes; 23 December 2010 – 6 January 2011, Issue 1120/1121.
- Cleave, Maureen. UK: The John Lennon I Knew; 10 May 2010 [cited 20 December 2007].
- Coleman, Ray. John Winston Lennon. Sidjwick & Jackson; 1984. ISBN 978-0-283-98942-1.
- Coleman, Ray. John Ono Lennon: Volume 2 1967–1980. Sidgwick & Jackson; 1984. ISBN 978-0-283-99082-3.
- Coleman, Ray. Lennon: The Definitive Biography. Harper; 1992. ISBN 0-06-098608-5.
- Deming, Mark. Allmovie. Overview of John Lennon: Live in New York City; 2008 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Doggett, Peter. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup. HarperCollins; 2010. ISBN 978-0-06-177446-1.
- Edmondson, Jacqueline. John Lennon: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group; 2010. ISBN 978-0-313-37938-3.
- Emerick, Geoff; Massey, Howard. Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. Penguin Books; 2006. ISBN 1-59240-179-1.
- Everett, Walter. The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. Oxford University Press; 1999. ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0.
- Everett, Walter. The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men through Rubber Soul. Oxford University Press; 2001. ISBN 0-19-514104-0.
- Fawcett, Anthony. John Lennon: One Day at a Time. Evergreen; 1976. ISBN 978-0-394-17754-0.
- Frankel, Glenn. Nowhere Man (p4); 26 August 2007 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Friedman, John S.. The Secret Histories: Hidden Truths that Challenged the Past and Changed the World. Macmillan; 2005. ISBN 978-0-312-42517-3.
- Gerson, Ben. Imagine; 28 October 1971 [cited 12 November 2010].
- Ginell, Richard S.. Allmusic. Milk and Honey Review; 2009 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Glenn, Alan. The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Day a Beatle Came to Town; 2009 [cited 9 Dec 2010].
- Goldman, Albert Harry. The Lives of John Lennon. Chicago Review Press; 2001. ISBN 978-1-55652-399-1.
- Goodman, Joan. Playboy Interview with Paul and Linda McCartney. December 1984. Playboy.
- Gould, Jonathan. Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. Piatkus; 2008. ISBN 978-0-7499-2988-6.
- Grammy.com. Grammy Award Winners [cited 28 April 2010].
- Gregory, Chris. Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles. The Plotted Plain Press; 2007. ISBN 978-0-9557512-0-2.
- Greenberg, Keith Elliot. December 8, 1980: The Day John Lennon Died. Backbeat Books; 2010. ISBN 978-0-87930-963-3.
- Harry, Bill. The Beatles Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated. Virgin Publishing; 2000a. ISBN 0-7535-0481-2.
- Harry, Bill. The John Lennon Encyclopedia. Virgin; 2000b. ISBN 0-7535-0404-9.
- Harry, Bill. Mersey Beat. John Lennon and Blackpool; 2009 [cited 5 December 2010].
- Holsinger, M. Paul. War and American popular culture: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1998. Greenwood Publishing Group; 1999. ISBN 978-0-313-29908-7.
- Hoppa, Jocelyn. Crawdaddy! Magazine. Celluloid Heroes: John Lennon and How I Won the War; 10 November 2010 [cited 15 November 2010].
- Ingham, Chris. The Rough Guide to The Beatles. Rough Guides; 2006. ISBN 978-1-84353-720-5.
- Kruse, Robert J. II. Geographies of John and Yoko's 1969 Campaign for Peace: An Intersection of Celebrity, Space, Art,and Activism. In: Johansson, Ola, Bell, Thomas L., editors. Sound, Society and the Geography of Popular Music. Ashgate; 2009. ISBN 978-0-7546-7577-8. p. 11–32.
- Landau, Jon. Mind games; 3 January 1974 [cited 12 November 2010].
- Lawrence, Ken. John Lennon: In His Own Words. Andrews McMeel Publishing; 2005. ISBN 978-0-7407-5477-7.
- Lawrence, Robb. The Modern Era of the Les Paul Legacy: 1968–2008. Hal Leonard; 2009. ISBN 978-1-4234-5531-8.
- Lennon, Cynthia. A Twist of Lennon. Avon; 1978. ISBN 978-0-380-45450-1.
- Lennon, Cynthia. John. Crown Publishers; 2005. ISBN 978-0-307-33855-6.
- Lewisohn, Mark. The Beatles Recording Sessions. Harmony Books; 1988. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
- Logan, Nick. Magical Mystery Tour. NME (UK). 25 November 1967.
- Loker, Bradford E.. History with the Beatles. Dog Ear Publishing; 2009. ISBN 978-1-60844-039-9.
- London Gazette (supplement). Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; 4 June 1965 [cited 11 May 2010].
- MacDonald, Ian. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties. Pimlico; 2005. ISBN 1-84413-828-3.
- McGinty, Stephen. UK: Jimmy Reid: A working-class hero and the saviour of Clyde yards; 12 August 2010 [cited 18 August 2010].
- Miles, Barry. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. Henry Holt & Company; 1997. ISBN 0-8050-5248-8.
- Miles, Barry; Badman, Keith. The Beatles Diary: The Beatles Years. Omnibus Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-7119-8308-3.
- Norman, Philip. New York Magazine. A Talk with Yoko; 25 May 1981.
- Norman, Philip. John Lennon: The Life. Ecco; 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-075401-3.
- Pang, May. Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon. St. Martin's Press; 2008. ISBN 978-0-312-37741-0.
- Peebles, Andy; Lennon, John; Ono, Yoko. The Lennon tapes: John Lennon and Yoko Ono in conversation with Andy Peebles, 6 December 1980. British Broadcasting Corporation; 1981. ISBN 978-0-563-17944-3.
- Perone, James E.. Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Greenwood Publishing Group; 2001. ISBN 978-0-313-31528-2.
- Prown, Pete; Newquist, Harvey P.. Legends of Rock Guitar: The Essential Reference of Rock's Greatest Guitarists. Hal Leonard; 1997. ISBN 978-0-7935-4042-6.
- RIAA. RIAA: Searchable database; 2010 [cited 21 February 2010].
- RIAA. RIAA Gold & Platinum Top Selling Artists [cited 5 March 2010].
- Roberts, David. Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles (14th Edition). Guinness World Records Limited; 2001. ISBN 0-85156-156-X.
- Riley, Tim. Tell me why: a Beatles commentary. Da Capo Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-306-81120-3.
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. David Bowie; 1996 [cited 10 May 2010].
- The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; 18 November 2003 [cited 28 April 2010].
- 100 Greatest Artists of All Time; 12 April 2008 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Seaman, Frederic. The Last Days of John Lennon. Birch Lane Press; 1991. ISBN 1-55972-084-0.
- Ryan, David Stuart. John Lennon's Secret. Kozmik Press Centre; 1982. ISBN 978-0-905116-08-2.
- Schechter, Danny. The More You Watch, the Less You Know: News Wars/Submerged Hopes/Media Adventures. Seven Stories Press; 1997. ISBN 1-888363-80-0.
- Schinder, Scott; Schwartz, Andy. Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever. Greenwood Press; 2007. ISBN 978-0-313-33845-8.
- Sheff, David. Playboy. Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono; January 1981 [archived 25 September 2010; cited 11 November 2010].
- Sheff, David; Golson, G. Barry (editor). The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Playboy; 1981. ISBN 978-0-87223-705-6.
- Shennan, Paddy. The Liverpool Echo. What will Liz think of these?; 26 November 2007 [cited 10 May 2010].
- Spitz, Bob. The Beatles: The Biography. Little, Brown; 2005. ISBN 0-316-80352-9.
- Other noises, Other notes; 3 March 1967 [cited 27 November 2010].
- The Beatles. The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books; 2000. ISBN 0-8118-2684-8.
- The Brit Awards. Wins and Nominations by Artist: John Lennon [cited 25 April 2010].
- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. John Lennon; 1994 [cited 10 May 2010].
- The Telegraph. Celebrity Obituaries – Allen Klein; 5 July 2009 [cited 5 December 2010].
- FBI Releases Last Pages From Lennon File; 20 December 2006 [cited 11 May 2010].
- Urish, Ben; Bielen, Kenneth G. The Words and Music of John Lennon. Praeger; 2007. ISBN 978-0-275-99180-7.
- Vigilla, Hubert. Treble. Album Review : John Lennon – Imagine; 29 August 2005 [cited 10 November 2010].
- Wald, Jonathan. CNN. Lennon killer denied parole; 6 October 2004 [cited 11 May 2010].
- Warner Brothers. John Lennon: Imagine, Cynthia Lennon Interview (DVD). Warner Brothers. 1988.
- Wenner, Jann S. Lennon Remembers. Verso; 2000. ISBN 1-85984-600-9.
- Wiener, Jon. Come Together: John Lennon in His Time. University of Illinois Press; 1990. ISBN 978-0-252-06131-8.
- Wiener, Jon. Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files. University of California Press; 1999. ISBN 0-520-22246-6.
- Wiener, Jon. UK: He didn't have to do it. That's one reason he's still admired; 19 December 2006 [cited 18 August 2010].
Further reading[link]
- Kane, Larry (2007). Lennon Revealed. Running Press. ISBN 978-0-7624-2966-0
- Pang, May; Edwards, Henry (1983). Loving John: The Untold Story. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-37916-6.
- Wiener, Jon. The John Lennon FBI Files
- Yorke, Richard (1969). "John Lennon: Ringo's Right, We Can't Tour Again", New Musical Express, 7 June 1969, reproduced by Crawdaddy!, 2007.
External links[link]
|
Book: John Lennon |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Lennon |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Lennon |
- John Lennon at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- John Lennon discography at MusicBrainz
- John Lennon at the Internet Movie Database
- BBC Archive on John Lennon
- NPR Archive on John Lennon
- John Lennon and Yoko Ono – slideshow by Life magazine
- John Lennon hosted by EMI Group Limited
- Unveiling of 'Peace & Harmony', European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lennon, John |
| Alternative names | Lennon, John Winston (birth name); Lennon, John Winston Ono |
| Short description | Rock musician |
| Date of birth | 9 October 1940 |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 8 December 1980 |
| Place of death | New York City, New York, United States of America |
http://wn.com/John_Lennon
Related pages:
http://de.wn.com/John Lennon
http://es.wn.com/John Lennon
http://ru.wn.com/Леннон, Джон
http://cs.wn.com/John Lennon
http://pt.wn.com/John Lennon
http://pl.wn.com/John Lennon
http://it.wn.com/John Lennon
http://id.wn.com/John Lennon
http://nl.wn.com/John Lennon
http://fr.wn.com/John Lennon
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon
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.
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.
| Julian Lennon | |
|---|---|
 Cynthia and Julian Lennon at the unveiling of the John Lennon Peace Monument in Liverpool – 9 October 2010. |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | John Charles Julian Lennon |
| Also known as | Jules, Jude |
| Born | (1963-04-08) 8 April 1963 (age 49) Liverpool, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Rock |
| Occupations | Musician, singer, songwriter, writer, producer, photographer, actor |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, bass, piano, drums, harmonica, banjo |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Labels | Atlantic, Music From Another Room, Charisma, Virgin |
| Website | www.julianlennon.com |
John Charles Julian Lennon (born 8 April 1963) is a British musician, songwriter, actor, and photographer. He is the son of John Lennon and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Powell. Beatles manager Brian Epstein was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon. Lennon was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia.[1][2] He remains close friends with his father's former bandmate Paul McCartney.
Julian directly inspired three Beatles songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Hey Jude" and "Good Night". He is also devoted to philanthropic endeavors, most notably his own White Feather Foundation[3] and the Whaledreamers Organization,[4] both of which promote the co-existence of all species and the health and well-being of the Earth.
His sixth studio album Everything Changes was released on 3 October 2011.
Contents |
Biography[link]
Julian Lennon was born in Liverpool. Initially, the fact that John Lennon was married and had a child was concealed from the public, in keeping with the conventional wisdom of the era that female teenage fans would not be as enamoured of married male pop stars.
Lennon inspired one of his father's most famous songs, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", whose lyrics describe a picture the boy had drawn, a watercolour painting of his friend Lucy O'Donnell from preschool[5] surrounded by stars. Another composition of his father inspired by him was the lullaby "Good Night", the closing song of the "White Album". In 1967, Julian attended the set of The Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour.
When he was five, Lennon's parents divorced, following his father's infidelity with Yoko Ono. Paul McCartney wrote "Hey Jude" to console him over the divorce; originally called "Hey Jules", McCartney changed the name because he thought "Jude" was an easier name to sing.[6]
Lennon had almost no contact with his father after the divorce until the early 1970s, when at the instigation of his father's then girlfriend May Pang Julian began to see his father more regularly. John bought his son a Gibson Les Paul guitar and a drum machine for Christmas in 1973, and encouraged his interest in music by showing him some chords.[7][8]
He made his musical debut at age 11 on his father's album Walls and Bridges playing drums on "Ya-Ya", later saying, "Dad, had I known you were going to put it on the album, I would've played much better!"[9]
Following his father's murder, Lennon voiced anger and resentment toward him, saying
"I've never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me ... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."[10]
He was not included in John Lennon's will, and was annoyed that he had to buy mementos of his father at auctions. A settlement was eventually reached wherein Julian was given "a large but undisclosed sum".[11] By 2009 Lennon's feelings toward his father had mellowed. Recalling his renewed relationship with his father in the mid-1970s, he said,
"Dad and I got on a great deal better then. We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang. My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear — they were the happiest time I can remember with them."[12]
Lennon has been quoted as having a "cordial" relationship with Ono while getting along very well with her son, his half-brother Sean, even spending time together on Sean's tour in 2007.[13]
In commemoration of John Lennon’s 70th Birthday and as a statement for peace, 9 October 2010 saw Julian, alongside his mother Cynthia, unveil the John Lennon Peace Monument in his home town, Liverpool, England.[14]
Musical career[link]
Julian Lennon has had an inconsistent career as a musical artist. He enjoyed immediate success with his debut 1984 album Valotte. The album was produced by Phil Ramone. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1985, and produced two top ten hits, the title track "Valotte", and "Too Late For Goodbyes". Lennon promoted the album with music videos for the two hits made by movie director Sam Peckinpah and producer Martin Lewis. The song "Valotte" has remained a staple on adult contemporary radio stations since its release. After the release, Paul McCartney sent him a telegram wishing him good luck. Later that year, the two met up backstage at the New York studios of the TV show Friday Night Videos.
His second album, 1986's The Secret Value of Daydreaming was panned by critics, but reached number 32 on the Billboard Magazine's album chart, and produced the single "Stick Around", which was his first #1 single on the U.S. Album Rock Tracks chart. He recorded the song "Because", which was made famous by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark's 1986 musical, Time (the single is out of print). Lennon never reached the same level of success in the U.S. post-Valotte, but he hit number five in Australia with the 1989 single "Now You're In Heaven", which also gave him his second #1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart in the USA.
On 1 April 1987, Julian Lennon appeared as The Baker in Mike Batt's musical, The Hunting of the Snark (based on Lewis Carroll's poem). The all-star lineup included Roger Daltrey, Justin Hayward, Billy Connolly. John Hurt played The Narrator. The performance, a musical benefit at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of the deaf, was attended by Prince Andrew's then wife, the Duchess of York.[15]
In 1991, George Harrison played on Lennon's album Help Yourself but was not directly credited. A song off the album, "Saltwater", reached number six in the UK and topped the Australian singles charts for four weeks. Also during this time he contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" to the soundtrack of the television series The Wonder Years. After 1991, Lennon left the music business for several years. He followed his interests in cooking, sailing, and sculpting during his leave from the music industry.
After he began his performing career there was occasionally unfounded media speculation that Julian would undertake performances with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. However, in the Beatles Anthology series in 1996, the three surviving Beatles confirmed that there was never an idea of having Julian sit in for his father as part of a Beatles reunion, with McCartney saying "why would we want to subject him to all of this?"
In May 1998, Lennon released the album Photograph Smile to little commercial success. In 2002, he recorded a version of the Beatles' classic "When I'm Sixty-Four", a song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for an Allstate Insurance commercial.
In 2006 he ventured into Internet businesses, including MyStore.com with Todd Meagher and Bebo founder Michael Birch.[16]
In 2009 Lennon created a new partnership with Todd Meagher and Micheal Birch called theRevolution, LLC. Through this company, Lennon released a tribute song and EP, "Lucy", honoring the memory of Lucy Vodden, the little girl who inspired the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, with 50% of the proceeds going to fund Lupus research.[17][18][19]
Julian Lennon has released a new album called Everything Changes on 3 October 2011.
Film[link]
Lennon's first-ever tour in the spring of 1985 was documented as part of the film Stand By Me: A Portrait Of Julian Lennon — a film profile started by Sam Peckinpah, but completed by Martin Lewis after Peckinpah's death. Lennon has appeared in several other films including The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996, but shot in 1968), Cannes Man (1996), Imagine: John Lennon (1988), Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987) and a cameo in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) as a bartender. Julian provided the voice for the title role in the animated film David Copperfield.[20] He was also the voice of the main character Toby the Teapot in the animated special The Real Story of I'm a Little Teapot (1990).
Julian Lennon is also the producer of the documentary called WhaleDreamers[21] about an aboriginal tribe in Australia and its special relationship to whales. It also touches on many environmental issues. This film has received many awards[22] and was shown at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Sale of father's work[link]
In 2007 Lennon sold off a "significant" share of his stake in his father's catalogue of work,[23] in exchange for an undisclosed sum, and the agreement that the purchasing company, Primary Wave, would market and promote his new material. The stake entitles Primary Wave to a portion of all royalties on the catalogue.
The White Feather Foundation[link]
In 2009, Lennon founded The White Feather Foundation, whose mission "embraces environmental and humanitarian issues and in conjunction with partners from around the world helps to raise funds for the betterment of all life, and to honour those who have truly made a difference."[24] Its name came from a conversation Lennon once had with his father. “Dad once said to me that should he pass away, if there was some way of letting me know he was going to be ok - that we were all going to be ok - the message would come to me in the form of a white feather. ... the white feather has always represented peace to me.”[25]
Photographic work[link]
After photographing his half-brother Sean's music tour in 2007, Lennon took up a serious interest in photography.[26]
On 17 September 2010,[27] Lennon opened an exhibition of 35 photographs called "Timeless: The Photography of Julian Lennon" with help from long-time friend and fellow photographer Timothy White. Originally scheduled to run 17 September through 10 October,[28] the Morrison Hotel Gallery extended it a week to end 17 October.[29] The photographs include shots of his half-brother Sean, actress Kate Hudson, and U2 frontman Bono.[26]
On 3 October 2010, CBS Sunday Morning aired an in-depth interview with Lennon that covered much of his life, including his relationship with his parents and sibling, his career, and his experience growing up as the son of one of the world's most famous celebrities.[30]
Book[link]
Shortly after the death of his father, Lennon began collecting Beatle memorabilia. In 2010, he published a book of his collection, "Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection".[31]
Discography[link]
Albums[link]
| Year | Title | Chart positions | Certifications | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [32] |
UK [33][34] |
AUS [35] |
NZ [36] |
GER [37] |
SWE [38] |
JAPAN | |||
| 1984 | Valotte | 17 | 20 | * | 15 | 60 | 15 | – | Platinum (US) |
| 1986 | The Secret Value of Daydreaming | 32 | 93 | * | – | – | 25 | – | Gold (US) |
| 1989 | Mr. Jordan | 87 | – | 18 | – | – | – | – | |
| 1991 | Help Yourself | – | 42 | 5 | – | – | – | – | |
| 1998 | Photograph Smile | – | 78 | 28 | – | 94 | – | 70 | |
| 2001 | VH-1 – Behind the Music – The Julian Lennon Collection | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| 2011 | Everything Changes[39] | – | 106 | – | – | – | – | – | |
Singles[link]
| Year | Title | Album | Chart positions | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Hot 100 [40] |
US Adult Contemporary [40] |
US Mainstream Rock [40] |
US Modern Rock [40] |
UK [33][34] |
AUS [35] |
NZ [36] |
GER [37] |
SWE [38] |
|||
| 1984 | "Valotte" | Valotte | 9 | 4 | 2 | – | 55 | 75 | 10 | – | – |
| 1985 | "Too Late for Goodbyes" | 5 | 1 | 11 | – | 6 | 13 | 24 | 26 | 17 | |
| "Say You're Wrong" | 21 | 6 | 3 | – | 75 | 31 | – | – | – | ||
| "Jesse" | 54 | – | 24 | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| "Because" | Dave Clark's Time Soundtrack | – | – | – | – | 40 | 66 | – | – | – | |
| 1986 | "Stick Around" | The Secret Value Of Daydreaming | 32 | – | 1 | – | 86 | 79 | – | – | – |
| "Time Will Teach Us All" | Dave Clark's Time Soundtrack | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| "This Is My Day" | The Secret Value Of Daydreaming | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| "Want Your Body" | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| "Midnight Smoke" | Mike Batt's The Hunting of the Snark | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| 1989 | "Now You're in Heaven" | Mr. Jordan | 93 | – | 1 | 27 | 59 | 5 | – | – | – |
| "You're The One" | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| "Mother Mary" | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| 1991 | "Saltwater" | Help Yourself | – | – | – | – | 6 | 1 | – | 58 | – |
| "Help Yourself" | – | – | – | – | 53 | 30 | – | 53 | – | ||
| "Rebel King" | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| "Listen" | – | – | 31 | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| 1992 | "Get a Life" | – | – | – | – | 56 | – | – | – | – | |
| 1993 | "Children Of The World" | Coo – Soundtrack | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 1995 | "Cole's Song" | Mr. Holland's Opus – Soundtrack | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 1998 | "All Alone" (with Bald) | Bald | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| "Day After Day" | Photograph Smile | – | – | – | – | 66 | – | – | – | – | |
| "I Don't Wanna Know" | – | – | – | – | 125 | 64 | – | – | – | ||
| "Photograph Smile" | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
| 2009 | "Lucy" | non-album single | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 2011 | "Lookin' 4 Luv" | Everything Changes | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| "Children of the World"[41] | Shine On! Songs Volume One | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
Other releases[link]
- Dave Clark's Time: Original Soundtrack (1986)
- Mike Batt's The Hunting of the Snark (1986)
- Lennon... and Proud of It – A Conversation with Julian Lennon (1999)
Films[link]
- Producer
- WhaleDreamers (2008)
References[link]
- ^ "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds LSD". snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/music/hidden/lucysky.asp. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
- ^ "VH1 Behind the Music: The Julian Lennon Collection: Julian Lennon: Amazon.co.uk: Music". Amazon.co.uk. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00005N83A. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
- ^ "How it all Started - The White Feather Foundation Meaning". Whitefeatherfoundation.com. http://www.whitefeatherfoundation.com/site/about/index.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "The Return of the Whale Dreamers". I-sis.org.uk. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/WhaleDreamers.php. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds: woman who inspired Beatles song dies". The Daily Telegraph (London). 28 September 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/the-beatles/6239311/Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds-woman-who-inspired-Beatles-song-dies.html. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
- ^ Barry Miles (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 465. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
- ^ "Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection". Lennon.net. http://www.lennon.net/memorabilia/blackguitar.shtml. Retrieved 28 August 2007.
- ^ Lennon (2006) p345
- ^ Pang, Loving John, Warner, 1983
- ^ "Scotsman.com News". Edinburgh: News.scotsman.com. 13 January 2009. http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2328156. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
- ^ Imagine, 1988, Warner
- ^ Brooks, Richard (13 June 2009). "Julian Lennon gives family peace a chance". The Times (London). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6492509.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ Hoyle, Ben (29 September 2009). "Reallife Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds dies at 46". The Times (London). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/beatles/article6852494.ece. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ The Telegraph (9 October 2010). "Monument to John Lennon unveiled in Liverpool on his ‘70th birthday’". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8052634/Monument-to-John-Lennon-unveiled-in-Liverpool-on-his-70th-birthday.html.
- ^ Julian Lennon website, biography section]. Accessed 12 March 2012.
- ^ "Imagine! Julian Lennon Invests In MyStore - Forbes.com". 4 December 2007. http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/04/julian-lennon-mystore-face-markets-cx_cg_1204autofacescan02.html.
- ^ The track can be purchased at www.therevolution.com.
- ^ "Julian Lennon Honors Lucy in the Sky". http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/julian-lennon-honors-lucy-in-the-sky-63938332.html.
- ^ "Lucy Songfacts". Songfacts.com. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=18028. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ Dahl, Roald. "David Copperfield". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009NXV9K. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "at". Whaledreamers.com. http://www.whaledreamers.com/. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "Whaledreamers News". Whaledreamers.com. http://www.whaledreamers.com/news.php. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
- ^ "Lennon's son sells Beatles stake". BBC News. 13 April 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6553113.stm. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ "The White Feather Foundation Mission". Whitefeatherfoundation.com. http://www.whitefeatherfoundation.com/about/mission.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-05.
- ^ "The White Feather Foundation - How It All Started". Whitefeatherfoundation.com. http://www.whitefeatherfoundation.com/about/index.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-05.
- ^ a b Doyle, Patrick (17 September 2010). "Julian Lennon On His New Photos of U2, Kate Hudson". Rolling Stone Magazine. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/17386/205656. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ Cheney, Alexandra (17 September 2010). "Julian Lennon’s Photo Exhibit: ‘Dad was never a photographer’". Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/17/julian-lennons-photo-exhibit-dad-was-never-a-photographer/. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ "Julian Lennon Show at the Bowery". Morrison Hotel Gallery. https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/post/default.aspx?postID=129. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ "Julian Lennon Show at the Bowery". Morrison Hotel Gallery. https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/set/default.aspx?setID=1443. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ "Julian and Sean Come Together". CBS Sunday Morning. 3 October 2010. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/03/sunday/main6923074.shtml. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ "Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection (9781847960184): Brian Southall, Julian Lennon: Books". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Memorabilia-Julian-Lennon-Collection/dp/1847960189. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ "Artist Chart History (albums) – Julian Lennon". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p4745/charts-awards/billboard-albums. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "Chart Stats – Julian Lennon". ChartStats. http://www.chartstats.com/artistinfo.php?id=4201. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "Chart Log UK: DJ Steve L. – LZ Love". zobbel.de. http://zobbel.de/cluk/CLUK_L.HTM. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "australian-charts.com – Discography Julian Lennon". Hung Medien. http://australian-charts.com/showinterpret.asp?interpret=Julian+Lennon. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "charts.org.nz – Discography Julian Lennon". Hung Medien. http://charts.org.nz/showinterpret.asp?interpret=Julian+Lennon. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "Musicline.de – Chartverfolgung – Julian Lennon". Musicline.de. http://www.musicline.de/de/chartverfolgung_summary/artist/LENNON%2CJULIAN/single?sort=entry. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ a b "swedishcharts.com – Discography Julian Lennon". Hung Medien. http://swedishcharts.com/showinterpret.asp?interpret=Julian+Lennon. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ IT (14 January 2006). "Julian's MySpace profile". Myspace.com. http://www.myspace.com/julianlennon. Retrieved 2011-07-15.
- ^ a b c d "Artist Chart History (singles) – Julian Lennon". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p4745/charts-awards/billboard-singles. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ "Julian Lennon, Tin Cup Gypsy, Donna Burke, Mark Ballas, Maxi Priest, Wendy Parr, Monday Michiru, Amber Lily, Tierney Sutton, Rie Fu and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band – Shine On! Songs Volume One". Discogs. 7 October 2011. http://www.discogs.com/Julian-Lennon-Tin-Cup-Gypsy-Donna-Burke-Mark-Ballas-Maxi-Priest-Wendy-Parr-Monday-Michiru-Amber-Lily/release/3219282. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
External links[link]
- Julian Lennon's official website
- White Feather Foundation website
- Julian Lennon at the Internet Movie Database
- Rare 1999 interview with Retro Rewind
- Unveiling of ‘Peace & Harmony’, European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon
- CBS Sunday Morning – interview (3 October 2010)
- Timeless: Julian Lennon photo exhibition at the Morrison Gallery Hotel (17 September – 17 October 2010)
- The watercolour painting that inspired Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
- Julian Lennon's Soundcloud Account with promo material – (As October 2011)
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lennon, Julian |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | British musician, songwriter and actor |
| Date of birth | 8 April 1963 |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Julian_Lennon
Related pages:
http://ru.wn.com/Леннон, Джулиан
http://nl.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://pt.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://de.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://fr.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://it.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://pl.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://cs.wn.com/Julian Lennon
http://es.wn.com/Julian Lennon
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lennon
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.
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.
For the song by Die Ärzte, see Yoko Ono (song).
| Yoko Ono 小野 洋子 |
|
|---|---|
 Yoko Ono at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, Brazil |
|
| Background information | |
| Born | (1933-02-18) February 18, 1933 (age 79) Tokyo, Japan |
| Genres | Avant-garde, rock, pop, electronica, Shibuya kei, Fluxus, dance |
| Occupations | Artist, film director, peace activist |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano |
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Labels | Apple, Geffen, Polydor, Rykodisc, Astralwerks, Chimera Music |
| Associated acts | John Lennon Plastic Ono Band |
Yoko Ono (オノ・ヨーコ（小野 洋子）, Ono Yōko?, born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese[1] artist, author, and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon. Ono brought feminism to the forefront in her music which prefigured New Wave music and is known for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace and AIDS outreach programs.
Contents |
Early life[link]
Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933 to mother Isoko Ono, the great-granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda of the Yasuda banking family, and to father Yeisuke Ono, a banker and one-time classical pianist[2] who was a descendant of an Emperor of Japan.[3] The name "Yoko" means "ocean child".[4][5] Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco by his employer, the Yokohama Specie Bank.[6] The rest of the family followed soon after and Yoko met her father when she was two.[2] Her younger brother Keisuke was born in December 1936. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at Tokyo's Gakushuin (also known as the Peers School), one of the most exclusive schools in Japan.[6]
In 1940, the family moved to New York City, where Ono's father was working. In 1941, her father was transferred to Hanoi and the family returned to Japan. Ono was then enrolled in Keimei Gakuen, an exclusive Christian primary school run by the Mitsui family. She remained in Tokyo through the great fire-bombing of March 9, 1945. During the fire-bombing, she was sheltered with other members of her family in a special bunker in the Azabu district of Tokyo, far from the heavy bombing. After the bombing, Ono went to the Karuizawa mountain resort with members of her family.
Ono has said that she and her family were forced to beg for food while pulling their belongings in a wheelbarrow; and it was during this period in her life that Ono says she developed her "aggressive" attitude and understanding of "outsider" status when children taunted her and her brother, who were once well-to-do. Other stories have her mother bringing a large number of goods with them to the countryside which they bartered for food. One famous anecdote has her mother bartering a German-made sewing machine for sixty kilograms of rice with which to feed the family. Her father remained in the city and, unbeknownst to them, was believed to have been eventually incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in China. In an interview by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman on October 16, 2007, Ono explained, "He was in French Indochina which is Vietnam actually... in Saigon. He was in a concentration camp."
By April 1946, Gakushuin was reopened and Ono was enrolled. The school, located near the imperial palace, had not been damaged by the war, and Ono found herself a classmate of Akihito, the future emperor of Japan.[7] She graduated in 1951 and was accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University, the first woman to enter the department. However, after two semesters, she left the school.[6]
Education and marriages[link]
Ono's family moved to Scarsdale, New York, after the war. She left Japan to rejoin the family and enrolled in nearby Sarah Lawrence College. While her parents approved of her college choice, they were dismayed at her lifestyle, and, according to Ono, chastised her for befriending people they considered to be "beneath" her. In spite of this, Ono loved meeting artists, poets and others who represented the "bohemian" freedom she longed for herself. Visiting galleries and art "happenings" in the city whetted her desire to publicly display her own artistic endeavors. La Monte Young, her first important contact in the New York art world, helped Ono start her career by using her Chambers Street loft in Tribeca as a performance space. At one performance, Ono set a painting on fire; fortunately John Cage had advised her to treat the paper with flame retardant.
In 1956, she married composer Toshi Ichiyanagi. They divorced in 1962 after living apart for several years. On November 28 that same year, Ono married an American named Anthony Cox. Cox was a jazz musician, film producer and art promoter. He had heard of Ono in New York and tracked her down to a mental institution in Japan, where her family had placed her following a suicide attempt. Ono had neglected to finalize her divorce from Ichiyanagi, so their marriage was annulled on March 1, 1963, and Cox and Ono married again on June 6. Their daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, was born two months later on August 8, 1963.[8]
The marriage quickly fell apart, but the Coxes stayed together for the sake of their joint career. They performed at Tokyo's Sogetsu Hall with Ono lying atop a piano played by John Cage. Soon the Coxes returned to New York with Kyoko. In the early years of this marriage, Ono left most of Kyoko's parenting to Cox while she pursued her art full-time and Tony managed publicity. After she divorced Cox on February 2, 1969, Ono and Cox engaged in a bitter legal battle for custody of Kyoko, which resulted in Ono's being awarded full custody. However, in 1971, Cox disappeared with eight-year-old Kyoko, in violation of the custody order. Cox subsequently became a Christian and raised Kyoko in a Christian group known as the Church of the Living Word (or "the Walk"). Cox left the group with Kyoko in 1977. Living an underground existence, Cox changed the girl's name to Rosemary. Cox and Kyoko sent Ono a sympathy message after Lennon's 1980 murder. Afterwards, the bitterness between the parents lessened slightly and Ono publicly announced in People Magazine that she would no longer seek out the now-adult Kyoko, but still wished to make contact with her. In 1994, Kyoko made contact with Ono and established a relationship.[9]
Artwork[link]
Ono was a sometime member of Fluxus, a loose association of Dada-inspired avant-garde artists that developed in the early 1960s. Fluxus founder George Maciunas, a friend of Ono's during the 1960s, admired her work and promoted it with enthusiasm. One of Ono's well known examples is when she took a fly as her alter ego and was inspired by this for her work.[10] Maciunas invited Ono to join the Fluxus group, but she declined because she wanted to remain an independent artist.[11] John Cage was one of the most important influences on Ono's performance art. It was her relationship to Ichiyanagi Toshi, who was a pupil of John Cage's legendary class of Experimental Composition at the New School, that would introduce her to the unconventional avant-garde, neo-Dadaism of John Cage and his protégés in New York City.
Almost immediately after John Cage finished teaching at the New School for Social Research in the summer of 1960, Ono was determined to rent a place to present her works along with the work of other New York avant-garde artists. She eventually found a cheap loft in downtown Manhattan at 112 Chambers Street that she used as a studio and living space.[12] Composer La Monte Young urged Ono to let him organize concerts in the loft, and Ono agreed.[12] Both artists began organizing a series of events in Ono's loft, and both Young and Ono claimed to have been the primary curator of these events,[13] but Ono claims to have been eventually pushed into a subsidiary role by Young.[14] The Chambers Street series hosted some of Ono's earliest conceptual artwork including Painting to Be Stepped On, which was a scrap of canvas on the floor that became a completed artwork upon the accrual of footprints. Ono suggested that a work of art no longer needed to be mounted on a wall, inaccessible, but an irregular piece of canvas to be completed by being stepped on by viewers
Ono was an explorer of conceptual art and performance art. An example of her performance art is "Cut Piece" (this instance of performance art is also known as a "happening"), first performed in 1964 at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. Cut Piece had one destructive verb as its instruction: "Cut." Ono executed the performance in Tokyo by walking on stage and casually kneeling on the floor in a draped garment. Audience members were requested to come on stage and begin cutting until she was naked. Ono performed this piece again in London and other venues, garnering drastically different attention depending on the audience. In Japan, the audience was typically shy and cautious, while London participators were a bit more zealous.
An example of her conceptual art includes her book of instructions called Grapefruit. First published in 1964, the book includes surreal, Zen-like instructions that are to be completed in the mind of the reader, for example: "Hide and seek Piece: Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies." An example of Heuristic art, Grapefruit was published several times, most widely distributed by Simon and Schuster in 1971, and reprinted by them again in 2000. Many of the scenarios in the book would be enacted as performance pieces throughout Ono's career and have formed the basis for her art exhibitions, including one highly publicized show at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, that was nearly closed when besieged by excited Beatle fans who broke several of the art pieces and flooded the toilets.[15]
In addition to conceptual art, Ono has also created participatory art, including her 1996 project entitled "Wish Tree" in Japan.
- "Wish Piece by Yoko Ono (1996)
- Make a wish
- Write it down on a piece of paper
- Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree
- Ask your friends to do the same
- Keep wishing
- Until the branches are covered with wishes".[16]
Ono was also an experimental filmmaker who made sixteen films between 1964 and 1972, and gained particular renown for a 1966 Fluxus film called simply No. 4, but often referred to as "Bottoms."[17] The film consists of a series of close-ups of human buttocks as the subject walks on a treadmill. The screen is divided into four almost equal sections by the elements of the gluteal cleft and the horizontal gluteal crease. The soundtrack consists of interviews with those who are being filmed as well as those considering joining the project. In 1996, the watch manufacturing company Swatch produced a limited edition watch that commemorates this film. (Ono also acted in an obscure exploitation film in 1965, Satan's Bed.)[18]
John Lennon once described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does."[19] Her circle of friends in the New York art world has included Kate Millett, Nam June Paik, Dan Richter, Jonas Mekas, Merce Cunningham, Judith Malina, Erica Abeel, Fred DeAsis, Peggy Guggenheim, Betty Rollin, Shusaku Arakawa, Adrian Morris, Stefan Wolpe, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, as well as Maciunas and Young.
In 2001, YES YOKO ONO, a forty-year retrospective of Ono's work, received the prestigious International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City, considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession. In 2002 Ono was awarded the Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media.[20] In 2005 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York.[21]
Ono received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University in 2001. In 2002, she was presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College.[22]
In 2008, she showed a large retrospective exhibition, Between The Sky And My Head, at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK.
In 2009, she showed a selection of new and old work as part of her show "Anton's Memory" in Venice, Italy.[23] She also received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009.[24]
Wish Tree, her installation in the Sculpture Garden – Museum of Modern Art, New York (since July 2010), has become very popular with contributions from all over the world.
In 2012, Ono was the winner of the 2012 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest award for applied contemporary art.[25]
Life with John Lennon[link]
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.[26] 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."[27] 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 called Notations. McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts, but suggested that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word".[28]
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".[29] 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."[30] When Lennon's wife returned home, she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, "Oh, hi."[31] Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono Lennon II on 21 November 1968,[32] a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.[33]
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,[34] so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance".[35] 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".[36] Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding "Ono" as a middle name. 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.[37] 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.[38]
Ono and Lennon collaborated on many albums, beginning in 1968 when Lennon was still a Beatle, with Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, an album of experimental electronic music. That same year, the couple contributed an experimental piece to The White Album called "Revolution 9." Ono also contributed backing vocals (on "Birthday"), and one line of lead vocals (on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill") to The White Album. Many of the couple's later albums were released under the name the Plastic Ono Band. The couple also appeared together at concerts. When Lennon was invited to play with Frank Zappa at the Fillmore on June 5, 1971, Ono joined in as well.
In 1969, the Plastic Ono Band's first album, Live Peace in Toronto 1969, was recorded during the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival. In addition to Lennon and Ono, this first incarnation of the group consisted of guitarist Eric Clapton, bass player Klaus Voormann, and drummer Alan White. The first half of their performance consisted of rock standards, and during the second half, Ono took the microphone and along with the band performed an avant garde set, ending with music that consisted mainly of feedback, while Ono screamed and sang.[39]
Ono released her first solo album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, as a companion piece to Lennon's better-known John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The two albums have almost identical covers: Ono's featured a photo of her leaning on Lennon, and Lennon's had a photo of him leaning on Ono. Her album included raw and quite harsh vocals that were possibly influenced by Japanese opera, but bear much in common with sounds in nature (especially those made by animals) and free jazz techniques used by wind and brass players. The performers included Ornette Coleman and other renowned free jazz performers. The personnel was supplemented by John Lennon, Ringo Starr and minor performers. Some songs consisted of wordless vocalizations, in a style that would influence Meredith Monk, and other musical artists who have used screams and vocal noise in lieu of words. The album peaked at No. 183 on the US charts.
In 1971, Ono released Fly – a double album. On this release Ono explored slightly more conventional psychedelic rock with tracks like "Midsummer New York" and "Mind Train," in addition to a number of Fluxus experiments. She also received minor airplay with the ballad "Mrs. Lennon". Perhaps the most famous track from the album is "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)," an ode to Ono's kidnapped daughter.
In 1971, while studying with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Majorca, Ono's second husband, Anthony Cox, accused Ono of abducting their daughter Kyoko from his hotel. A large number of accusations were then made by both parents toward each other and the matter of custody. Cox eventually moved to Houston, Texas, and converted to Evangelical Christianity with his new wife, who was originally from Houston. At the end of 1971, a custody hearing in Houston went against Cox. In violation of the order, he took Kyoko and disappeared.[citation needed] Ono then launched a search for her daughter with the aid of the police and private investigators.[40] Ono wrote a song about her daughter, "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)," which appears on Lennon and Ono's album Live Peace In Toronto 1969 and her album Fly. Both versions feature Eric Clapton on guitar. Kyoko is also referenced on the first line of "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" when Yoko whispers "Happy Christmas Kyoko" followed by Lennon whispering "Happy Christmas Julian."
Both the press and the public were critical of her. She was blamed for the breakup of The Beatles and repeatedly criticized for her influence over Lennon and his music. Her experimental art was not popularly understood.[2] After the Beatles disbanded, Lennon and Ono cohabited in London and then in New York. Their relationship was strained by the threat of deportation Lennon faced (due to drug charges filed in Britain), and Ono's separation from her daughter. The couple separated in 1973 and the two began living separate lives, Ono pursuing her career in New York and Lennon living in Los Angeles with personal assistant May Pang in a period commonly referred to as his "lost weekend."
In 1975, the couple reconciled. Their son, Sean, was born on Lennon's 35th birthday, October 9, 1975. After Sean's birth, the couple lived in relative seclusion at the Dakota in New York. Sean has since followed in his parents' footsteps with a musical career, doing solo work and also forming a band The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.[41]
John Lennon retired from music to become a househusband caring for their child, until shortly before his murder in December 1980, which Ono witnessed at close range. Ono has stated that the couple were thinking about going out to dinner (after spending several hours in a recording studio), but were returning to their apartment instead, because John wanted to see Sean before he was put to bed.[42] Following the murder, Ono went into complete seclusion for an extended period.
Following Lennon's murder, Cox and Kyoko sent a message of sympathy to Ono, but did not reveal their location. Ono later printed an open letter to Kyoko saying how she missed her, but that she would cease her attempts to find her.[43] Kyoko would later appear on the 1987 title track of American English by the British pop band Wax.
Memorials[link]
Ono funded the construction and maintenance of the Strawberry Fields memorial in New York City's Central Park, across from where they lived and Lennon died. It was officially dedicated on October 9, 1985, what would have been his 45th birthday. In 1990, Ono collaborated with music consultant Jeff Pollack to honor what would've been Lennon's 50th birthday with a worldwide broadcast of "Imagine". Over one thousand stations in over fifty countries participated in the simultaneous broadcast. Ono felt the timing was perfect considering the escalating conflicts in the Middle East as well as Eastern Europe and Germany.[44] In 2000, she founded the John Lennon Museum in Saitama, Saitama, Japan. On October 9, 2007, Ono dedicated a new memorial called the Imagine Peace Tower, located on the island of Viðey, 1 km outside the Skarfabakki harbour in Reykjavík in Iceland. Each year, between October 9 and December 8, it projects a vertical beam of light high into the sky. In 2009, Ono created an exhibit called John Lennon: THE NEW YORK CITY YEARS for the NYC Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex. The exhibit uses music, photographs and personal items to depict Lennon's life in New York. A portion of the cost of each ticket to the exhibition is donated to Spirit Foundation, a charitable foundation set up by Lennon and Ono.[45]
Musical career[link]
Ono collaborated with experimental luminaries such as John Cage and jazz legend Ornette Coleman. In 1961, years before meeting Lennon, she had her first major public performance in a concert at the 258-seat Carnegie Recital Hall (not the larger "Main Hall"). This concert featured radical experimental music and performances. She had a second engagement at the Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965, in which she debuted "Cut Piece."[46]
In early 1980, Lennon heard Lene Lovich and The B-52's' "Rock Lobster" in a nightclub, and it reminded him of Ono's musical sound. He took this as an indication that her sound had reached the mainstream.[47] Indeed, many musicians, particularly those of the new wave movement, have paid tribute to Ono (both as an artist in her own right, and as a muse and iconic figure). For example, Elvis Costello recorded a version of Ono's song "Walking on Thin Ice," the B-52's who drew from her early recordings[2] covered "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" (shortening the title to "Don't Worry") and Sonic Youth included a performance of Ono's early conceptual "Voice Piece for Soprano" in their experimental album SYR4: Goodbye 20th century. One of Barenaked Ladies's best-known songs is "Be My Yoko Ono", and Dar Williams recorded a song called "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono." The punk rock singer Patti Smith invited Ono to participate in "Meltdown," a two-week music festival that Smith organized in London; Ono performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall.
On December 8, 1980, Lennon and Ono were in the studio working on Ono's song Walking on Thin Ice. When they returned to The Dakota, their home in New York City, Lennon was shot dead by Mark David Chapman, a deranged fan who had been stalking Lennon for two months. "Walking on Thin Ice (For John)" was released as a single less than a month later, and became Ono's first chart success, peaking at No. 58 and gaining major underground airplay. In 1981, she released the album Season of Glass with the striking cover photo of Lennon's bloody spectacles next to a half-filled glass of water, with a window overlooking Central Park in the background. This photograph sold at an auction in London in April 2002 for about $13,000. In the liner notes to Season of Glass, Ono explained that the album is not dedicated to Lennon because "he would have been offended—he was one of us." The album received highly favorable reviews[2] and reflected the public's mood after Lennon's assassination.[48]
Four months after her husband's murder, Ono began a relationship with antiques dealer and interior designer Sam Havadtoy, which lasted until 2001. She had also been linked to art dealer and Greta Garbo confidante Sam Green, who is mentioned in Lennon's will.[49] In 1982, she released It's Alright (I See Rainbows). The cover featured Ono in her famous wrap-around sunglasses, looking towards the sun, while on the back the ghost of Lennon looks over her and their son. The album scored minor chart success and airplay with the singles "My Man" and "Never Say Goodbye".
In 1984, a tribute album titled Every Man Has a Woman was released, featuring a selection of Ono songs performed by artists such as Elvis Costello, Roberta Flack, Eddie Money, Rosanne Cash and Harry Nilsson. It was one of Lennon's projects that he never got to finish. Later that year, Ono and Lennon's final album, Milk and Honey, was released as an unfinished demo.
Ono's final album of the 1980s was Starpeace, a concept album that she intended as an antidote to Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system. On the cover, a warm, smiling Ono holds the Earth in the palm of her hand. Starpeace became Ono's most successful non-Lennon effort: the single "Hell in Paradise" was a hit, reaching No. 16 on the US dance charts and No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as major airplay on MTV.
In 1986, Ono set out on a goodwill world tour for Starpeace, mostly visiting Eastern European countries.
Ono went on hiatus until signing with Rykodisc in 1992 to release the comprehensive six-disc box set Onobox. It included remastered highlights from all of Ono's solo albums, as well as unreleased material from the 1974 "lost weekend" sessions. There was also a one-disc "greatest hits" release of highlights from Onobox, simply titled Walking on Thin Ice. That year, she agreed to sit down for an extensive interview with music journalist Mark Kemp for a cover story in the alternative music magazine Option. The story took a revisionist look at Ono's music for a new generation of fans more accepting of her role as a pioneer in the merger of pop and the avant-garde.
In 1994, Ono produced her own musical entitled New York Rock, featuring Broadway renditions of her songs. In 1995, she released Rising, a collaboration with her son Sean and his band, Ima. Rising spawned a world tour that traveled through Europe, Japan and the United States. The following year, she collaborated with various alternative rock musicians for an EP entitled Rising Mixes. Guest remixers of Rising material included Cibo Matto, Ween, Tricky, and Thurston Moore.
In 1997, Rykodisc reissued all her solo albums on CD, from Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band through Starpeace. Ono and her engineer Rob Stevens personally remastered the audio, and various bonus tracks were added including outtakes, demos and live cuts.
2001 saw the release of Ono's feminist concept album Blueprint for a Sunrise. In 2002, Yoko joined The B-52's in New York for their 25th anniversary concerts. She came out for the encore and performed Rock Lobster with the band. Starting in 2002, some DJs remixed other Ono songs for dance clubs. For the remix project, she dropped her first name and became known as simply "ONO," as a response to the "Oh, no!" jokes that dogged her throughout her career. Ono had great success with new versions of "Walking on Thin Ice", remixed by top DJs and dance artists including Pet Shop Boys, Orange Factory, Peter Rauhofer, and Danny Tenaglia. In April 2003, Ono's Walking on Thin Ice (Remixes) was rated No. 1 on Billboard Magazine's "Dance/Club Play Chart", gaining Ono her first number one hit. On the 12" mix of the original 1981 version of "Walking on Thin Ice", Lennon can be heard remarking "I think we've just got your first No.1, Yoko." She returned to No. 1 on the same charts in November 2004 with "Everyman...Everywoman...," a reworking of her song "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him", in January 2008, with "No No No," and in August 2008, with "Give Peace a Chance." In June 2009, at the age of 76, Ono scored her fifth No. 1 hit on the "Dance/Club Play Chart" with "I'm Not Getting Enough."
Ono released the album Yes, I'm a Witch in 2007, a collection of remixes and covers from her back catalog by various artists including The Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Antony, DJ Spooky, Porcupine Tree and Peaches, released in February 2007, along with a special edition of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band.[50] Yes I'm a Witch has been critically well-received.[51] A similar compilation of Ono dance remixes entitled Open Your Box was also released in April of that year.[52]
In 2009, Ono recorded Between My Head and the Sky, her first album to be released as "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band" since 1973's Feeling the Space. The all-new Plastic Ono Band lineup includes Sean Lennon, Cornelius and Yuka Honda amongst others. On February 16, 2010, Sean organized a concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music called "We Are Plastic Ono Band," at which Yoko performed her music with Sean, Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Jim Keltner, for the first time since the 1970s. Guests including Bette Midler, Paul Simon and his son Harper, and principal members of Sonic Youth interpreted her songs in their own styles.[53]
During her career, Ono has collaborated with a diverse group of artists and musicians including John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada, Naoki Shimizu and Yoko Araki), Frank Zappa, Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Jim Keltner, Earl Slick, Peaches, John Cage, David Tudor, George Maciunas, Ornette Coleman, Charlotte Moorman, George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, Jonas Mekas, Fred DeAsis, Yvonne Rainer, La Monte Young, Richard Maxfield, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Yo La Tengo, and Andy Warhol (in 1987 Ono was one of the speakers at Warhol's funeral). As a dance music artist, Ono has worked with re-mixers/producers such as Basement Jaxx, Pet Shop Boys, Cat Power, Bill Kates, Tricky, Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino, Nick Vernier Band, Cibo Matto, Billy Martin, DJ Spooky, Apples In Stereo, Damien Price, The Flaming Lips, DJ Chernobyl, Bimbo Jones, DJ Dan, Craig Armstrong, Jorge Artajo, Shuji Nabara, and Konrad Behr, among others.
2000s[link]
At the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, Yoko flooded the city with banners, bags, stickers, postcards, flyers, posters and badges, with two images: one of a woman's naked breast, the other of the same woman's vulva. The piece, titled "My Mummy Was Beautiful", was dedicated to Lennon's mother, Julia, who had died when Lennon was a teenager. According to Ono, the work was meant to be innocent, not shocking. She was attempting to replicate the experience of a baby looking up at his or her mother's body: the mother's pudendum and breasts are a child's introduction to humanity. It was created in the spirit of, and seems inspired by Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde.[citation needed]
_by_David_Shankbone.jpg)
Ono performed at the opening ceremony for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy,[54] wearing white, like many of the others who performed during the ceremony, to symbolize the snow that makes the Winter Olympics possible. She read a free verse poem calling for peace in the world. The poem was an intro to a performance of the song "Imagine", Lennon's anthem to world peace.
On December 13, 2006, Ono's bodyguard was arrested after he was taped trying to extort Ono for two million dollars, threatening to release private conversations and photographs.[55]
On June 26, 2007, Ono appeared on Larry King Live along with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison. Ono headlined the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on July 14, 2007, performing a full set that mixed music and performance art. She sang "Mulberry", a song about her time in the countryside after the Japanese collapse in World War II for only the third time in her life, with Thurston Moore. Ono had previously performed the song once with John Lennon and once with Sean Lennon and told the audience of thousands that she will never perform it again.[citation needed]
On October 9, 2007 Ono officially lit the Imagine Peace Tower on Viðey Island in Iceland, dedicated to peace and to Lennon.
Ono returned to Liverpool for the 2008 Liverpool Biennial, where she unveiled "Sky Ladders" in the ruins of Church of St Luke, Liverpool (which was largely destroyed during World War II and now stands roofless as a memorial to those killed in the Liverpool Blitz).[56]
In May 2009, Yoko designed a T-shirt for the second 'Fashion against AIDS' campaign/collection of HIV/AIDS awareness NGO Designers against AIDS and H&M, with the statement 'Imagine Peace' depicted in 21 different languages.[57]
On March 31, 2009, Yoko Ono went to the inauguration of the exhibition: "Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko" to mark the 40th anniversary of Lennon-Ono bed-in at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada from May 26 to June 2, 1969.[citation needed]
Ono appeared on-stage at Microsoft's June 1, 2009 E3 press conference with Olivia Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to promote The Beatles: Rock Band video game.[58]
Ono appears on the new Basement Jaxx album Scars, featuring on the single "Day of the Sunflowers (We March On)".[59]
2010s[link]
On February 16, 2010, Ono revived an early Plastic Ono Band line-up with Eric Clapton and special guests including Paul Simon and Bette Midler.[60] (See "Musical career" above.) On April 1, 2010, she was named the first "Global Autism Ambassador" by the Autism Speaks organization.[61] Ono appeared with Ringo Starr on July 7, 2010 at New York's Radio City Music Hall in celebration of Starr's 70th birthday, performing "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Give Peace a Chance".[62] On October 2, 2010, Ono and the Plastic Ono Band performed at The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California with special guest Lady GaGa.[63]
On her 78th Birthday, February 18, 2011, Ono took out a full page advert in the UK free newspaper Metro for 'Imagine Peace 2011'. It took the form of an open letter, inviting people to think of, and wish for, peace.[64] With son Sean, she held a benefit concert to aid in the relief efforts for earthquake and tsunami-ravaged Japan on March 27 in New York City.[65] In July 2011, Ono was awarded the 8th Hiroshima Art Prize for her contributions in art and for peace.[66] In December 2011, she was awarded the Austrian 20,000-euro ($26,100) Oskar-Kokoschka-Prize.[67]
Political activism[link]
Since the 1960s, Ono has been an activist for peace and human rights. After their wedding, Lennon and Ono held a "Bed-In for Peace" in their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel in March 1969. The press fought to get in, presuming that the two would be having sex for their cameras, but they instead found a pair of newlyweds wearing pajamas and eager to talk about and promote world peace. Another Bed-In in May 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Fairmont in Montreal, Canada, resulted in the recording of their first single, "Give Peace A Chance", a Top 20 hit for the newly christened Plastic Ono Band. Other demonstrations with John included Bagism. Introduced in Vienna, Bagism encouraged a disregard for physical appearance in judging others.
In the 1970s, Ono and Lennon became close to many radical leaders, including Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Michael X, John Sinclair (for whom they organized a benefit after he was imprisoned), Angela Davis, Kate Millett, and David Peel. They appeared on The Mike Douglas Show and took over hosting duties for a week, during which Ono spoke at length about the evils of racism and sexism. Ono remained outspoken in her support of feminism, and openly bitter about the racism she had experienced from rock fans, especially in the United Kingdom. For example, an Esquire article of the period was titled "John Rennon's Excrusive Gloupie" and featured an unflattering David Levine cartoon.
In 2002, Ono inaugurated her own peace award, The LennonOno Grant for Peace, by giving $50,000 (£31,900) prize money to artists living "in regions of conflict." Israeli and Palestinian artists were the first recipients. The award is given out every two years, in conjunction with the lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower.[68]
On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2003, on the eve of the Iraqi invasion by the Americans and the British, Ono heard about a romantic couple holding a love-in protest in their tiny bedroom in Addingham, West Yorkshire. She sent the couple, Andrew and Christine Gale, some flowers and wished them the best.[69]
In 2004, Ono remade her song "Everyman... Everywoman..." to support same-sex marriage, releasing remixes that included "Every Man Has a Man Who Loves Him" and "Every Woman Has a Woman Who Loves Her."
Relationship with Paul McCartney[link]
In 2005, Ono said, "People like to picture Paul and me in a boxing ring, feuding all the time, otherwise it's not exciting or interesting for them. People need light-hearted topics like me and Paul fighting to escape all the horror of the world, but it's not true anymore."[70] However, they have publicly disagreed on several issues.
In late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on.[71] She met McCartney who declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book. John Lennon later gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word", which were subsequently reproduced in Cage's book Notations published in 1969.[28]
Writing credit on Beatles songs was another issue. While the group was together, every song written by Lennon or McCartney was credited as Lennon–McCartney regardless of whether the song was a collaboration or written solely by one of the two (except for those appearing on their first album, Please Please Me, which credited the songs to McCartney–Lennon). In 1976, McCartney released a live album called Wings Over America which credited the five Beatles tracks he included as P. McCartney–J. Lennon compositions. Neither Lennon nor Ono objected. After Lennon's death, McCartney once again attempted to change the order to "McCartney–Lennon" for songs such as "Yesterday" that were solely or predominantly written by him,[72] but Ono would not allow it, saying she felt this broke an agreement that the two had made while Lennon was still alive. However, McCartney argued that such an agreement never existed. The two other Beatles agreed that the credits should remain as they always had been and McCartney withdrew his request. On the 1998 John Lennon anthology, Lennon Legend, the composer credit of "Give Peace a Chance" was changed to "John Lennon" from its original composing credit of Lennon–McCartney. Although the song was written by Lennon during his tenure with the Beatles it was both written and recorded without the help of the band and released as Lennon's first independent single under the "Plastic Ono Band" moniker. Lennon subsequently expressed regret that he had not given co-writing credit to Ono instead, who actually helped him write the song.[73] In 2002, McCartney released another live album, Back in the U.S. Live 2002, and the 19 Beatles' songs included are described as "composed by Paul McCartney and John Lennon".
In 1995, after the Beatles released Lennon's "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" with demos provided by Ono, McCartney and his family collaborated with her and Sean Lennon to create the song "Hiroshima Sky is Always Blue", which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of that Japanese city. Of Ono, McCartney stated: "I thought she was a cold woman. I think that's wrong ... she's just the opposite ... I think she's just more determined than most people to be herself."
In 1997, Ono compared Lennon to Mozart while McCartney, she said, more closely resembled his less-talented rival Salieri.[74] This remark infuriated Linda McCartney, who was battling breast cancer at the time. When she died less than a year later, McCartney pointedly did not invite Ono to a New York memorial service for her.[75]
Accepting an award at the 2005 Q Awards, Ono mentioned that Lennon had once felt insecure about his songwriting, and asked her why other musicians "always cover Paul's songs, and never mine".[70] Ono had responded, "You're a good songwriter; it's not June with spoon that you write. You're a good singer, and most musicians are probably a little bit nervous about covering your songs".[76] McCartney responded by saying, "I don’t take any notice of her. She’s John’s wife so I have to respect her for that, but I don’t think she’s the brightest of buttons. She’s said some particularly daft things in her time. Her life is dedicated to putting me down but I attempt very strongly not to put her down."[77] Ono later issued a statement claiming she did not mean any offense, as her comment was an attempt to console her husband, not attack McCartney; she went on to insist that she respected McCartney and that it was the press who had taken her comments out of context. "[70] At the June 2006 Las Vegas premiere of Cirque du Soleil's Beatles performance "Love", pictures were taken of her and Paul hugging. They appeared again together in July 2007 for the show's first anniversary.
Relationship with Cynthia Lennon[link]
Ono's relationship with John Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Lennon remains strained. In her 2006 biography, John, (London: Hodder; U.S.: Crown Publishing) Cynthia Lennon portrays Ono as a selfish, spiteful woman. In the book, she describes learning about Ono's control over John (who referred to Ono as "mother") in the period in the mid-1970s when Ono chose May Pang to be John's companion. Cynthia hypothesizes that John had a "mother complex," allowing himself to be dominated by strong women and draws a parallel between his relationship with Ono and that with his domineering aunt Mimi Smith in childhood.[verification needed]
Discography[link]
Albums[link]
(number indicates U.S. chart peak positions)
- Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (1970) No. 182
- Fly (1971) No. 199
- Approximately Infinite Universe (1972) No. 193
- Feeling the Space (1973)
- A Story (1974) (Unreleased until 1997)
- Season of Glass (1981) No. 49
- It's Alright (I See Rainbows) (1982) No. 98
- Starpeace (1985)
- Rising (1995)
- Blueprint for a Sunrise (2001)
- Yes, I'm a Witch (2007)
- Open Your Box (2007)
- Between My Head and the Sky (2009)
Albums with John Lennon[link]
- Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968) No. 124
- Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions (1969) No. 174
- Wedding Album (1969) No. 178
- Live Peace in Toronto 1969 (1969) No. 10
- Some Time in New York City (1972) No. 48
- Double Fantasy (1980) No. 1
- Milk and Honey (1984) No. 11
Compilations, Soundtrack albums and EPs[link]
- Onobox (1992)
- Walking on Thin Ice (1992)
- New York Rock (1994) (Original cast recording)
- Rising Mixes (1996)
- Don't Stop Me! EP (2009)
Tribute albums[link]
- Every Man Has a Woman (1984)
- Mrs. Lennon (2010)
Singles[link]
| Year | Song | UK | U.S. Dance | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | "Mrs. Lennon"/"Midsummer New York" | - | - | Fly |
| "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" | - | - | ||
| 1972 | "Now or Never"/"Move on Fast" | - | - | Approximately Infinite Universe |
| "Mind Train"/"Listen, the Snow Is Falling" | - | - | — | |
| 1973 | "Death of Samantha"/"Yang Yang" | - | - | Approximately Infinite Universe |
| "Josejoi Banzai (Part 2)" (Japan-only) | - | - | — | |
| "Woman Power"/"Men, Men, Men" | - | - | Feeling the Space | |
| "Run, Run, Run"/"Men, Men, Men" | - | - | ||
| 1974 | "Yume O Motou (Let's Have A Dream)"/"It Happened" (Japan-only release) | - | - | — |
| 1981 | "Walking on Thin Ice"/"It Happened" | 35 | 13 | Season of Glass (1997 re-release), Double Fantasy (2000 re-release) |
| "No, No, No"/"Will You Touch Me" | - | - | Season of Glass | |
| 1982 | "My Man"/"Let The Tears Dry" | - | - | It's Alright (I See Rainbows) |
| "Never Say Goodbye"/"Loneliness" | - | - | ||
| 1985 | "Hell in Paradise"/"Hell in Paradise" (instrumental) | - | 12 | Starpeace |
| "Cape Clear"/"Walking on Thin Ice" (promo) | - | - | ||
| 2001 | "Open Your Box" (remixes) | 144 | 25 | remixes compiled on Open Your Box (2007) |
| 2002 | "Kiss Kiss Kiss" (remixes) | - | 20 | |
| "Yang Yang" (remixes) | - | 17 | ||
| 2003 | "Walking on Thin Ice" (remixes) | 35 | 1 | |
| "Will I" (remixes)/"Fly" (remixes) | - | 19 | ||
| 2004 | "Hell in Paradise" (remixes) | - | 4 | |
| "Everyman… Everywoman…" (remixes) | - | 1 | ||
| 2007 | "You’re the One" (remixes) | - | 2 | |
| "No, No, No" (remixes) | - | 1 | ||
| 2008 | "Give Peace a Chance" (remixes) | - | 1 | |
| 2009 | "I'm Not Getting Enough" (remixes) | - | 1 | |
| 2010 | "Give Me Something" (remixes) | - | 1 | |
| "Wouldnit (I'm a Star)" (remixes) | - | 1 | — | |
| 2011 | "Move on Fast" (remixes) | - | 1 | — |
| "Talking to the Universe" (remixes) | - | 1 | — | |
| 2012 | "She Gets Down on Her Knees" (remixes) | - | 5 | — |
B-Side appearances on John Lennon singles[link]
- "Remember Love" (on "Give Peace a Chance") (1969)
- "Don't Worry, Kyoko" (on "Cold Turkey") (1969)
- "Who Has Seen the Wind?" (on "Instant Karma!") (1970)
- "Why" (on "Mother") (1971)
- "Open Your Box" (on "Power to the People") (1971)
- "Listen, the Snow is Falling" (on "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)") (1971)
- "Sisters O Sisters" (on "Woman Is the Nigger of the World") (1972)
- "Kiss Kiss Kiss" (on "(Just Like) Starting Over") (1980)
- "Beautiful Boys" (on "Woman") (1981)
- "Yes, I'm Your Angel" (on "Watching the Wheels") (1981)
- "O'Sanity" (on "Nobody Told Me") (1984)
- "Your Hands (あなたの手）" (on "Borrowed Time") (1984)
- "Sleepless Night" (on "I'm Stepping Out") (1984)
- "It's Alright" (on "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him") (1985)
Bibliography[link]
- Grapefruit (1964)
- Summer of 1980 (1983)
- ただの私 (Tada-no Watashi – Just Me!) (1986)
- The John Lennon Family Album (1990)
- Instruction Paintings (1995)
- Grapefruit Juice (1998)
- YES YOKO ONO (2000)
- Odyssey of a Cockroach (2005)
- Imagine Yoko (2005)
- Memories of John Lennon (editor) (2005)
Films[link]
- Satans Bed (as an actress)
- Eye blink (1966, 5 mins)
- Bottoms (1966, 5½ mins)
- Match (1966, 5 mins)
- Cut Piece (1965, 9 mins)
- Wrapping Piece (1967, approx. 20 mins., music by Delia Derbyshire)
- Film No. 4 (Bottoms) (1966/1967, 80 mins)
- Bottoms, advertisement/commercial (1966/1967, approx. 2 mins)
- Two Virgins (1968, approx. 20 mins), a portrait film: superimpositions of John’s and Yoko’s faces.
- Film No. Five (Smile) (1968, 51 mins)
- Rape (1969, 77 mins), filmed by Nick Rowland. A young woman is relentlessly pursued by a camera crew.
- Bed-In, (1969, 74 mins)
- Let It Be, (1970, 81 mins)
- Apotheosis (1970, 18½ mins)
- Freedom (1970, 1 min), a slow-motion film showing a woman attempting to take off her bra.
- Fly (1970 (25 mins), a fly crawls slowly across a woman's naked body. Made with Jonas Mekas and premiered at the Cannes film festival in May, 1971.
- Making of Fly (1970, approx. 30 mins)
- Up Your Legs Forever (1970, 70 mins), a film consisting of continuous panning shots up a series of 367 human legs.
- Erection (1971, 20 mins), a film of a hotel’s construction over many months based on still photographs by Iain McMillan.
- Imagine (1971, 70 mins)
- Sisters O Sisters (1971, 4 mins)
- Luck of the Irish (1971, approx. 4 mins)
- Flipside (TV show) (1972, approx. 25 mins)
- Blueprint for the Sunrise (2000, 28 mins)
- Onochord (2004, non ending loop).[78]
Notes[link]
- ^ Paul Taylor, "Yoko Ono's New Bronze Age At the Whitney", New York Times (Feb. 5, 1989)
- ^ a b c d e Yoko Ono, biography. allmusic.com. Retrieved: October 31, 2010.
- ^ Yoko Ono at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Biography yoko-ono.com. Retrieved: June 27, 2011.
- ^ Yoko Ono Biography The Beatles History.com. Retrieved: June 27, 2011.
- ^ a b c Murray Sayle, "The Importance of Yoko Ono", JPRI Occasional Paper No. 18, Japan Policy Research Institute, November 2000.
- ^ Wilks, Jon (August 27, 2011). "Yoko Ono interview". http://jonwilks.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/yoko-ono-interview/. Retrieved September 2, 2011.
- ^ "Kyoko Ono Cox". Kyoko-ono-cox.fullmoviereview.com. August 8, 1963. http://kyoko-ono-cox.fullmoviereview.com/. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
- ^ Doherty, Steve, "Oh, Yes! Yoko Ono Turns 70" People Magazine, March 31, 2003, Vol. 59, No. 12
- ^ Frank, Peter. Yoko Ono: One Woman Show
- ^ Newhall, Edith. "A Long and Winding Road". ARTnews Oct., 2000: 163.
- ^ a b Munroe, Alexandra, and John Hendricks. YES YOKO ONO. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 2000. (p. 233)
- ^ Kotz, Liz (Winter, 2001). "Post-Cagean Aesthetics and the "Event" Score". October 95: 55–89. JSTOR 779200.
- ^ Munroe, Alexandra, and John Hendricks. YES YOKO ONO. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 2000. (p. 65)
- ^ Pang, May | title=Loving John | publisher=Warner Books (Paperback)| year=1983 | isbn=978-0-446-37916-8|ref=CITEREFPang1983}}
- ^ "a yoko ono website. wishing in yoko ono's art". aiu. http://www.a-i-u.net/wishtree2.html. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062510/
- ^ Satan's Bed. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved: October 31, 2010.
- ^ "Yoko Ono: Rebirth of a renaissance rebel". Asian heroes section of TIME Magazine's website. From the April 28, 2003 issue of TIME Magazine.
- ^ "Interior Design". Artists in Residence. http://www.interiordesign.net/article/482315-Artists_in_Residence.php. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
- ^ "The Japan Times Online". Yoko Ono wins achievement award. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20050408b1.html. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
- ^ "Bard College Press Release". Visual and Recording Artist Yoko Ono To Be Awarded An Honorary Degree At Bard College on Tuesday, October 29. http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=490. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
- ^ Image Peace. imaginepeace.com
- ^ "La Biennale di Venezia". 53rd International Art Exhibition: Jury and Awards. http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/archive/exhibition/awards/. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
- ^ "Yoko Ono wins prize for applied contemporary art". Acn.liveauctioneers.com. 2012-03-01. http://acn.liveauctioneers.com/index.php/features/people/6723?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ACNlatestnews+%28Auction+Central+News+-+Latest+News%29. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 682.
- ^ Sheff 1981.
- ^ a b Miles 1997, p. 272.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 683.
- ^ Two Virgins liner notes
- ^ Lennon 1978, p. 183.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 510.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 800.
- ^ Kruse 2009, p. 16.
- ^ Harry 2000b, p. 276.
- ^ Coleman 1992, p. 550.
- ^ Coleman 1984b, p. 64.
- ^ Emerick & Massey 2006, pp. 279–280.
- ^ "Live Peace In Toronto 1969 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono". Beatles.ncf.ca. http://beatles.ncf.ca/live_peace_in_toronto_p1.html. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
- ^ Press conference with Lennon and Ono discussing the progress of their search (video)
- ^ H, Erika. "Sean Ono Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl to release debut as Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger; win award for worst band name since Dogs Die in Hot Cars". tinymixtapes.com. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/sean-ono-lennon-and-charlotte-kemp-muhl-release-debut-ghost-saber-tooth-tiger-win-award-worst-b. Retrieved September 28, 2011.
- ^ "Yoko Ono Tells of Last Night With Lennon". http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=entertainment&id=5385885.
- ^ Croce, Maria. "Weekend Life: The Lost Daughter of Ono; I Thought About My Daughter Every Day of My Life" Daily Record April 2000; (Glasgow, Scotland) from Questia Online Library, subscriber access only
- ^ "Worldwide Broadcast Planned In Honor of Lennon's 50th Birthday". Associated Press. http://repository01.lib.tufts.edu:8080/fedora/get/tufts:UP029.011.017.00021/bdef:TuftsPDF/getPDF. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
- ^ Spirit Foundation
- ^ Ono Performs Cut Piece at Carnegie Hall in 1965[dead link]
- ^ "Rolling Stone: Review of Double Fantasy". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/johnlennon/albums/album/204269/review/6067626/double_fantasy. Retrieved February 13, 2007.
- ^ Allmusic Season of Glass Review. Allmusic.com. Retrieved on January 1, 2012.
- ^ court TV becomes truTV. Courttv.com. Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Plastic Ono Band (Mlps): Yoko Ono: Music. Amazon.com. Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Petridis, Alexis (February 16, 2007). "Yoko Ono, Yes, I'm a Witch". The Guardian (London). http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2013581,00.html.
- ^ Basement Jaxx, Pet Shop Boys Remix Yoko Ono, 03–05–07
- ^ Pareles, Jon (February 18, 2010). "Review: "Amid All That Experience, Innocence"". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/arts/music/18yoko-xx.html. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ Doug Elfman (February 22, 2006). "Agony of defeat: Coverage of "oh no" Games seems lackluster to callous generation of American viewers". Chicago Sun-Times (Sun-Times Media). http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CSTB&p_theme=cstb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10FF1139BB6CE7E8&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ Nina Pineda (December 13, 2006). "Yoko Ono bodyguard accused of extortion". Eyewitness News. WABC-TV (ABC). http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=4849256. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ Yoko Ono: SKYLADDERS – Articles. Imagine Peace (October 21, 2008). Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Designers against AIDS Website. Designersagainstaids.com. Retrieved on January 1, 2012.
- ^ Daniel Radosh (August 16, 2009). "While My Guitar Gently Beeps". The New York Times: p. MM26. ISSN 0362-4331. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16beatles-t.html. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ "Basement Jaxx feat. Yoko Ono – Day Of The Sunflowers (We March On)". Imagine Peace. September 1, 2009. http://imaginepeace.com/archives/7280. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ Rob Harvilla (February 23, 2010). "Oh, Yoko Ono". The Village Voice (Village Voice). http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-02-23/music/oh-yoko-ono/. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ "Yoko Ono designated as 1st global autism ambassador". Japan Today (Japan Today). April 1, 2010. http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/yoko-ono-designated-as-1st-global-autism-ambassador. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ "Amazing Ringo 70th Birthday show – McCartney, Yoko, Joe Walsh, Little Steven and much more.". Rock Art Show Blog. Rock Art Show. July 8, 2010. http://www.rockartshow.com/blog/amazing-ringo-70th-birthday-show-mccartney-yoko-joe-walsh-little-steven-and-much-more/2010/07/. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ "Lady Gaga Performs With Yoko Ono, Wears Sheer Jumpsuit (PHOTOS)". Huffington Post. October 23, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/lady-gaga-performs-with-y_n_748853.html. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
- ^ Metro, page 30, February 18, 2011
- ^ March 27 JAPAN BENEFIT Concert: YOKO ONO, Sean Lennon, Sonic Youth, Mike Patton, Cibo Matto & more (Miller Theater Columbia University, NY). Imagine Peace (March 24, 2011). Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ The Hiroshima Art Prize – Hiroshima MOCA. Hcmca.cf.city.hiroshima.jp (March 28, 2004). Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Yoko Ono to be awarded Austrian art prize. Acn.liveauctioneers.com (December 22, 2011). Retrieved on January 1, 2012.
- ^ Imagine Peace. (PDF). taipeitimes.com. December 24, 2008. Retrieved on January 1, 2012.
- ^ "Video Nation – YOKO ONO by Andrew Gale". BBC. March 10, 2003. http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/b/bradford_yokoono.shtml. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
- ^ a b c Paul McCartney & Beatle News article: ONO: `THE PRESS INVENTED MY FEUD WITH McCARTNEY` – Thursday, November 3, 2005 MACCA-Central, The Paul McCartney FUNsite. Macca-central.com. Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica 2008.
- ^ "Talking Point | Lennon-McCartney: Who do you give credit to?". BBC News. 2002-12-23. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/2588861.stm. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
- ^ Norman, Philip (2008). John Lennon: The Life. Doubleday Canada. p. 608. ISBN 978-0-385-66100-3.
- ^ Garcia, Gilbert. (January 27, 2003) The ballad of Paul and Yoko – Salon.com. Dir.salon.com. Retrieved on April 4, 2011.
- ^ Williams, Precious (May 19, 2002). "Eternal flame". The Scotsman (UK). http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=531072002.
- ^ Herbert, Ian (October 15, 2005). "Yoko Ono claims she was misquoted over McCartney outburst". The Independent (London). http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/article319727.ece.
- ^ Stuart Heritage (October 18, 2005). "Paul McCartney Vs Yoko Ono – Handbags At Dawn". Hecklerspray. http://www.hecklerspray.com/paul-mccartney-vs-yoko-ono-handbags-at-dawn/20051382.php. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
- ^ Ono, Yoko. "Yoko Ono: Onochord on Vimeo". Vimeo.com. http://vimeo.com/1968140. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
References[link]
- John Lennon: One Day at a Time, by Anthony Fawcett (Grove Press, 1976)
- Come Together: John Lennon in His Time, by Jon Wiener (Random House, 1984)
- The Ballad of John and Yoko, by the Editors of Rolling Stone (Rolling Stone Press, 1982)
- Spitz, Bob. The Beatles. Little, Brown, and Company: New York, 2005.
- Kemp, Mark. "She Who Laughs Last: Yoko Ono Reconsidered." (July/Aug, 1992). Option, p. 74–81.
- "Ono apologises for comment." (November 6, 2005). New Sunday Times, p. 29.
- The Rare Films of Yoko Ono: New York 65–66 Fluxus Films + London 66–67, England 68–69, London 69–71, Around the World 69–71, New York 70 – 71 and Ann Arbor/NYC 71–72 + 2000 at the ICA, London, March 2004.
Further reading[link]
- Ayres, Ian (2004). Van Gogh's Ear: Best World Poetry & Prose (Volume 3 includes Yoko Ono's poetry/artwork). Paris: French Connection. ISBN 978-2-914853-02-6.
- Ayres, Ian (2005). Van Gogh's Ear: Best World Poetry & Prose (Volume 4 includes Yoko Ono's poetry/artwork). Paris: French Connection. ISBN 978-2-914853-03-3.
- Clayson, Alan et al. Woman: The Incredible Life of Yoko Ono
- Goldman, Albert. The Lives of John Lennon
- Green, John. Dakota Days
- Hendricks, Geoffrey. Fluxus Codex
- Hendricks, Geoffrey. Yoko Ono: Arias and Objects
- Hopkins, Jerry. Yoko Ono
- Klin, Richard, and Lily Prince, photos. "'I Remembered Carrying a Glass Key to Open the Sky.'" In Something to Say: Thoughts on Art and Politics in America. (Leapfrog Press, 2011)
- Millett, Kate. Flying
- Pang, May (1983). Loving John. Warner Books (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-446-37916-8.
- Norman, Philip, John Lennon : the life, 1st ed., New York : Ecco, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-075401-3.
- Norman, Philip, Days in the life : John Lennon remembered, London : Century, 1990. ISBN 0-7126-3922-5
- Haskell, Barbara. Yoko Ono: Arias and Objects. Exhibition Catalogue. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1991.
- Norman, Philip (May 25, 1981). A Talk with Yoko. http://books.google.com/?id=9uUCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA38.
- Rumaker, Michael. The Butterfly
- Seaman, Frederic. The Last Days of John Lennon
- Sheff, David. John Lennon and Yoko Ono: The Playboy Interviews
- Wiener, Jon. Come Together: John Lennon in His Time
- Wenner, Jann, ed. The Ballad of John and Yoko
- Yoon, Jean. The Yoko Ono Project
External links[link]
|
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Yoko Ono |
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yoko Ono |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lennon, Yoko Ono |
| Alternative names | Ono, Yoko |
| Short description | Artist |
| Date of birth | February 18, 1933 |
| Place of birth | Tokyo, Japan |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Yoko_Ono
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Yōko Ono
http://cs.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://id.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://es.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://ru.wn.com/Оно, Йоко
http://nl.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://pl.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://fr.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://de.wn.com/Yoko Ono
http://pt.wn.com/Yoko Ono
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono
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.
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.
| Sir Paul McCartney MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM |
|
|---|---|
 McCartney performing in England, 2010 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | James Paul McCartney |
| Born | (1942-06-18) 18 June 1942 (age 70) Liverpool, England, UK |
| Genres | Rock, pop, classical, electronica |
| Occupations | Musician, composer, music producer, film producer, businessman |
| Instruments | Vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder |
| Years active | 1957–present |
| Labels | Hear, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay |
| Associated acts | The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine |
| Website | www.paulmccartney.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Höfner 500/1 Rickenbacker 4001S Epiphone Texan Gibson Les Paul Epiphone Casino Martin D-28 |
|
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles.[1] With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.
According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness.[2] As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.
He has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, and released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist. He has taken part in projects to help international charities, and has been an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he has been active in campaigns against landmines and seal hunting, and supported efforts such as Make Poverty History. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 25,000 songs, including those written by Buddy Holly, as well as the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. He is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010. He has been married three times and is the father of five children.
Contents |
Childhood[link]
Main article: Jim and Mary McCartney
McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had twelve years earlier, "satisfied her state registry requirements" for nursing, writes Beatles biographer Bob Spitz.[3] His father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was absent at his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer fire fighter during World War II.[3] McCartney has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944, and though they were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, "religion did not play a part in their upbringing" according to biographer Barry Miles, as McCartney's father was a Protestant turned agnostic.[4]
In 1947 he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School, by 1952 Joseph Williams Junior School,[5] where he passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of ninety examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute.[6] However, when he took his A-level exams at age nineteen, he passed only one subject – Art.[7] In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison,[8] who had also passed the exam, meaning they could both go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work.[9]
In 1955 the McCartneys moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived through 1964.[10] Paul was the first member of his family to own a car and his mother rode a bicycle to houses where she worked as a midwife; he describes an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning" the "streets ... thick with snow".[11] On 31 October 1956, when he was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.[12] The loss of his mother at fourteen was later a point of relation with John Lennon, whose mother Julia also died when he was young, after being struck by a car when he was seventeen.[13]
McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his son to be musical. He kept an upright piano in the front room that he purchased from Epstein's North End Music Stores.[14] His father, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.[15] Jim McCartney used to point out the bass parts in songs on the radio, and often took his son to local brass band concerts.[16] Jim gave his son a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday,[17] but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg,[18] Paul traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, realising it would be too difficult to sing, "with a trumpet stuck in your mouth."[17] Being left-handed, he found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his right-handed guitar strung the opposite way. He then restrung his guitar and after some adjustments, found it easier to play.[17] McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and an early tune which became, "When I'm Sixty-Four", on the piano, for which, despite his father's advice, he took only a couple of lessons for, preferring instead he says, to learn "by ear."[14] He was heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues music, and has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school. The first song he ever sang on a stage in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.[19]
Musical career[link]
Main article: Paul McCartney's musical career
1957–1960: The Quarrymen[link]
Main article: The Quarrymen
McCartney met Lennon and the Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957, when he was fifteen years old.[20] He joined the group soon after, and formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in 1960 by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass.[21] By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "the Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They changed the name of the group to "the Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best on drums prior to the first of what would be five engagements in Hamburg, Germany.[22]
1960–1970: The Beatles[link]
Main article: The Beatles
From August 1960 the Beatles were booked by Allan Williams to perform in Hamburg, and during their extended stays there over the next two years, they performed as the resident group at two of Bruno Koschmider's clubs, the Indra, then the Kaiserkeller, and upon returns to Liverpool, at the Cavern Club.[23] In 1961 Sutcliffe left the band, and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.[24] The Beatles recorded their first published music in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".[25] The recording would later bring them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962.[26] Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May of that year.[27] After replacing Best with Ringo Starr in August, they became increasingly popular in the UK during 1963 and in the US in 1964, in a frenzied adolation that became known as "Beatlemania",[28] during which McCartney was dubbed, "the cute Beatle", according to Miles.[29] In 1965 they were each appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).[30]
After the recording of the Beatles hit "Yesterday" (1965), McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale London, to ask if they would record an electronic version of the song, but he never followed up.[31] When visiting artist John Dunbar's flat in London, he would bring along tapes he had compiled at then girlfriend Jane Asher's home,[32] mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.[33] Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966). He referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".[34] In 1966 he rented a ground floor and basement flat from Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.[35] The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately come of the endeavour as Apple and the Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.[35] After touring almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than 1,400 live performances internationally,[36] the group gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.[37]
They continued to work in the recording studio and before their break-up in 1970 produced what some critics consider to be their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968) and Abbey Road (1969).[38] Between 1963 and 1970 the group released twenty-two UK singles and twelve LPs, of which seventeen of the singles and eleven of the LPs became number ones.[39] The band topped the US Billboard Hot 100 twenty times, and recorded fourteen number one albums.[40] Lennon and McCartney became one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.[41] McCartney's contributions to the band's hit song's include: "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964), "Yesterday" (1965), Paperback Writer" and "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Hello, Goodbye" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), "Get Back (1969)", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" (1970).[42]
In March 1969 he married Linda Eastman, whom he first met in May 1967. The couple had their first child together, Mary, named after Paul's late mother, in August 1969.[43] In October 1969 a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash, but it was quickly proven false when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family with the caption, "Paul is Still With Us."[44]
1970–1981: Wings[link]
Main article: Wings (band)
After the Beatles break-up in 1970 McCartney continued his musical career, releasing his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970, which contained the stand-out track "Maybe I'm Amazed", written for Linda.[45] With the exception of some vocal contributions from her, it is a "one-man album with Paul playing all the instruments" himself, writes Beatles biographer Bill Harry.[46] In 1971 Paul collaborated with Linda on a second album, Ram, a UK number one which included the co-written US number one hit song, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".[47] Later that year, the pair were joined by ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, and release their first album together, Wild Life. In September 1971 the McCartney family added a second child, Stella, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers.[48]
In 1973 McCartney wrote Wings' first US number one, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, and his collaboration with Linda and former Beatles' producer George Martin resulted in the James Bond theme song and Wings hit, "Live and Let Die", which was nominated for an Oscar, and earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.[49] In 1974 Paul wrote a second US number one for Wings, "Band on the Run"; the acclaimed album of the same name, Wings' third, was a massive success that became their first platinum LP.[50] They followed with the chart topping LPs, Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).[51] In September 1977 a third child was born to the McCartneys, a son they named James,[52] and in November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre" was fast becoming "the best-selling single in UK history", writes Beatles biographer Peter Doggett.[53] Achieving double the sales of the previous record holder, "She Loves You", the track would go on to sell 2.5 million copies, and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?".[54] In 1977 he released Thrillington, an orchestral arrangement of Ram, under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington[55], with a cover designed by Hipgnosis.[56]
While London Town (1978) and Back to the Egg (1979) passed with little critical or commercial notice,[57] the latter involved McCartney's collaboration with a rock supergroup dubbed, "the Rockestra", though credited to Wings, that included Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham.[58] Active through 1981, Wings produced seven studio albums, five of which topped the US charts,[59] as well as their live triple LP, Wings over America,[60] one of few live albums ever to achieve the top spot in America.[61] They also recorded six US number one singles including, "Listen to What the Man Said", "Silly Love Songs, "With a Little Luck", and "Coming Up".[62]
1982–1989[link]
In 1980 he released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, and as with his first, he composed all the music and performed the instrumentation himself. The album contained the hit songs "Coming Up", "Waterfalls", and "Temporary Secretary".[63] In 1982 he collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin produced number one hit, "Ebony and Ivory", included on McCartney's Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller.[64] The following year he worked with Jackson on the US number one, "Say Say Say", and he earned a UK number one with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".[65]
In 1984 he wrote, produced, and starred in the feature film Give My Regards to Broad Street, a musical which "was savagely panned by the critics" according to Harry; and described by Variety as: "Characterless, bloodless, and pointless."[66] Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track",[67] which fared much better, reaching number one in the UK, and producing the hit single, "No More Lonely Nights", featuring Gilmour on lead guitar.[68]
He collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), who co-wrote more than half the songs on the LP, and in 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, a Russia-only title that contained eighteen covers which he recorded over the course of two days.[69] In 1989 he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders including Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood to record a new version of "Ferry Cross the Mersey", originally recorded twenty-five years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers, to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred in April that year when ninety-five Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries. The recording was a number one hit in the UK.[70] In 1989 he released Flowers in the Dirt, a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello which included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins.[71]
1990–2000[link]
In 1990 he released the triple LP, Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained select performances from The Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade.[72] The following year he ventured into orchestral music, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio; involving opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral.[73] The Guardian was critical of the work stating that the music is, "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo", and the piece has "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole".[74] In response, McCartney wrote a defensive letter to the paper, which they published, where he states: "Happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to ... let people judge for themselves the merits of the work."[74]
During the 1990s he twice collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the alias the Fireman, and released the electronica albums: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998).[75] Released in 1993, the rock album Off the Ground was supported by "The New World Tour", which produced the album, Paul Is Live later that year.[76] Starting in 1994 he took a four-year hiatus from his solo career to work on Apple's the Beatles Anthology project with Harrison, Starr and Martin. He recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu" in 1995, for the American network Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio".[77] Also in 1995 Prince Charles presented him with an Honorary Fellowship of The Royal College of Music, "kind of amazing for somebody who doesn't read a note of music", commented McCartney,[78] and in December 1996 he was informed that he was to be named in the 1997 New Year Honours and knighted for services to music; his ceremony took place in March 1997.[79]
In 1997 he released the rock album Flaming Pie, and the classical work Standing Stone; in 1998 Rushes, his second electronica album as the Fireman.[80] Run Devil Run (1999), featuring Ian Paice and Gilmour, was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals, something he said he had "wanted to do for years", having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died in April 1998 after losing a seventeen-month battle with cancer.[81] He contributed a song, "Nova", to a tribute album of choral music dedicated to her called, A Garland for Linda (2000).[82] He continued his experimentation with orchestral music on Working Classical (1999), and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in March of the same year.[83] In May 2000 he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and in August he released the electronica album, Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s.[84]
2001–present[link]
In 2001 McCartney released a live album of acoustic-only performances called, Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).[85] Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, he was inspired to take a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City, and his studio album release that year Driving Rain included the song "Freedom", written for the event as a response to the tragedy.[86] He toured in support of Driving Rain and in 2002 released the double live album Back in the U.S. (released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World.[87] In November 2002, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.[88] He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing "Freedom" in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI[89] and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.[90]
In 2005 he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and the electronica offering, Twin Freaks; a collaborative project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career.[91] In 2006 he released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum; the rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007, and in 2008, his third Fireman release, Electric Arguments. In 2008 he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture.[92] In 2009, more than forty-five years after the Beatles first appeared on American television during The Ed Sullivan Show, he returned to the same New York theatre to perform on Late Show with David Letterman.[93] In 2010 he was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and others.[94] He returned to the White House later that year as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
McCartney's enduring fame has made him a popular choice to open new venues. In 2009 he played three sold out concerts at the newly built Citi Field in Queens, New York, constructed to replace Shea Stadium, and he released a double live album culled from those performances called, Good Evening New York City later that year.[95] In 2010 he opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[96] and in 2011 he performed the first concerts at the new Yankee Stadium, and released the classical work, "Ocean's Kingdom". He has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr. An upcoming tribute album is expected in June 2012, to coincide with his 70th birthday, featuring recordings of his songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, Brian Wilson, Willie Nelson, Steve Miller, B.B. King and others.[97] Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, was released in February 2012,[98] that same month he was honoured as MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Grammy Awards.[99]
Musicianship[link]
As a musician, McCartney was largely self-taught, musicologist Ian MacDonald describes his approach as, "by nature drawn to music's formal aspects yet wholly untutoured ... [He] produced technically 'finished' work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears."[100]
- Bass guitar
He has been acknowledged by a diverse group of bass players including, Sting, long-time Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo, and Colin Moulding of XTC.[101] McCartney is known to play using a plectrum, or pick almost exclusively, but he occasionally plays fingerstyle as well.[102] During his early years with the Beatles he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass live and when recording, though in 1965 he began using a Rickenbacker 4001s for recording, while consistently using Vox amplifiers.[103] In recent years he has used Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers live and while recording. McCartney confirms the influence of Motown on his playing, in particular that of James Jamerson, whom he described as a "hero", and included with Brian Wilson as his "two biggest influences".[104]
"He's an egomaniac about everything else but his bass playing he'd always been a bit coy about".[105]
~ John Lennon
Whereas MacDonald identifies "She's a Woman" as the point in time which McCartney's bass playing began to evolve dramatically,[106] Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singles out Rubber Soul as the time when his bass playing, "began to come into its own", particularly on "The Word".[105] Authors Tony Bacon and Gareth Morgan agree, calling his "groove" on the track, "a high point in pop bass playing" and "the first proof on a recording of his serious technical ability on the instrument."[107] MacDonald infers the influence of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", and Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour", American soul tracks from which McCartney absorbed elements and drew inspiration as he "delivers his most spontaneous bass-part to date". He also played piano on the recording.[108]
Bacon and Morgan describe his bassline for the Beatles' song "Rain" as "an astonishing piece of playing ... [McCartney] thinking in terms of both rhythm and 'lead bass' ... [choosing] the area of the neck ... he correctly perceives will give him clarity for melody without rendering his sound too thin for groove."[109] MacDonald calls it the Beatles "finest B-side", its "clangorously saturated texture resona[ting] around McCartney's bass".[110] He describes the bassline as "so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track", and he draws attention to the influence of Indian classical music in "exotic melismas in the bass part".[110]
- Acoustic guitar
Examples of his acoustic guitar playing on Beatles tracks include: "Yesterday", "I'm Looking Through You", "Michelle", "Blackbird", "I Will", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Rocky Raccoon".[111] He played an Epiphone Texan on many, if not most of his acoustic recordings, but he has also used a Martin D-28.[112]
- Electric guitar
He played lead electric guitar on several Beatles' recordings, including what MacDonald describes as a "fiercely angular slide guitar solo" on "Drive My Car",[113] which he played on an Epiphone Casino, about which McCartney said: "If I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this."[114] He also contributed what MacDonald calls "a startling guitar solo" on the Harrison composition, "Taxman", and the "shrieking" guitar on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Helter Skelter", as well as "a coruscating pseudo-Indian" solo on "Good Morning Good Morning".[115] In recent years he has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly while performing live.
- Piano
He played a piano on many Beatles' songs including, "Every Little Thing", "For No One", "A Day in the Life", "Hello, Goodbye", "Hey Jude", "Lady Madonna", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road".[116]
Creative outlets[link]
During the 1960s, McCartney delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through artist John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists.[117] He later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London — where Lennon first met Yoko Ono.[118] The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Miles, whose underground newspaper, the International Times, McCartney helped to start.[119] Miles would become de facto manager of Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label,[120] and he wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1997).[121]
While living at then girlfriend Jane Asher's parent's house, he took piano lessons arranged by Jane's mother, provided by a teacher from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a school Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended.[122] McCartney studied composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.[123] He later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, as well as writing poetry and painting. He is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys. The 1837 building, which he attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s, however, on 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.[124]
- Painting
In 1966 he met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists, some of which McCartney met, including; Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton, and it was at Fraser's flat where McCartney first learned about art appreciation.[125] He later started buying paintings by Magritte, using his painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo, and McCartney now owns one of Magritte's easels and a pair of his spectacles.[126]
McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio.[127] He took up painting in 1983,[128] and in 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries.[129] The first UK exhibition of his work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint" – as Lennon had.[129]
In October 2000, Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."[130] McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post in 2002, and according to BBC News, he is the first major rock star in the world to do so.[131]
- Writing and poetry
When he was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books, and his father was interested in crosswords and invited he and his brother Michael to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power", says McCartney.[132] He was later inspired – in his school years – by Alan Durband, an English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute.[133] Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works.[134]
In 2001 he published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.[135] In the foreword of the book, he explains: "When I was a teenager ... I had an overwhelming desire to have a poem published in the school magazine. I wrote something deep and meaningful——which was promptly rejected——and I suppose I have been trying to get my own back ever since."[136] Years later, he wrote a poem about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.[136] In 2005 he collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write, High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, which The Guardian labelled an "anti-capitalist children's book".[137]
- Film
He was interested in animated films as a child, and in 1981 he asked Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song. McCartney was the writer and producer and he also added some of the character voices.[138] In 1992 he worked with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, which won both of them a BAFTA award.[139] In 2004 they worked together on the animated short film, Tropic Island Hum. In 1995 he made a guest appearance in the "Lisa the Vegetarian" episode of The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about the Grateful Dead.[140]
In May 2000 he released Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes film and photographs that he and Linda took of their family and bands.[141] Interspersed throughout the eighty-eight minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, McCartney, and was one of the producers of the documentary.[142]
Lifestyle[link]
- Drugs
McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany, when the Beatles would play for long hours and were often using Preludin to maintain energy, sometimes supplied by friend Astrid Kirchherr. According to McCartney, he would usually take only one, but Lennon would often take four or five by the end of a night.[143] He recalls getting "very high" and "giggling uncontrollably" when the Beatles were introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in a New York hotel room in 1964.[144] His use of which soon after became habitual,[145] and according to Miles, any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life".[146] During the filming of Help!, he claims he occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines.[147] Director Dick Lester says that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into using heroin, but he refused.[147] He was introduced to cocaine by art dealer Robert Fraser, and it was readily available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[148] McCartney admits that he used the drug for about a year but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt after the drug wore off.[149]
While initially reluctant to try LSD, he eventually did so in the fall of 1966 with friend Tara Browne.[150] He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a Sgt. Pepper studio session.[151] He later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society."[152] His attitude about cannabis was made public in 1967, when he added his name to a 24 July advertisement in The Times which called for its legalisation, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was produced by a group called Soma and was signed by sixty-five people, including Members of Parliament, the Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, Francis Crick, and Graham Greene.[153]
Though never arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as Lennon, Harrison, and Mick Jagger had been,[154] in 1972 Swedish police fined him for cannabis possession, and soon after Scottish police found plants growing on his farm.[155] He was again arrested for marijuana possession in 1975, and in January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for an eleven concert tour of Japan, as McCartney was going through customs, officials found approximately 8 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage, and he was arrested and taken to a local jail while the Japanese government decided what to do. After ten days, he was released without charge and deported.[156] He was again arrested for possession of marijuana in 1984 and in 1997, he spoke out in support of decriminalisation, stating "People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong."[157]
- Activism
Paul and Linda became outspoken animal rights activists after their vegetarianism was realised when Paul happened to notice through a window, lambs in a field, as they ate a meal of lamb.[158] He has also credited the 1942 Disney film Bambi, in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter, as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights.[159] In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights.[160] In 1999 he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.[161]
Following his marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against landmines, becoming patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield.[162] In 2003 he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity.[163] He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt during the Back in the World tour.[164] In 2006 the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt, this would be their final public appearance together. Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance.[165] The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show Larry King Live. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business.[166] McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade[167] and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.[168]
He has been involved with several charity recordings and performances, such as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.[169] In 2004 he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi,[170] and in 2008 he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami.[171]
In 2009, he wrote to the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and asked him why he wasn't a vegetarian, McCartney explains: "He wrote back very kindly, saying, my doctors tell me that I must eat meat. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don't think that's right. So we had a little correspondence [and] I think now he's vegetarian most of the time. I think he's now being told ... that he can get his protein somewhere else. It's a little old-fashioned to think that he can only get it from meat [and] It just doesn't seem right – the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, 'Hey guys, don't harm sentient beings ... Oh, and by the way, I'm having a steak.'"[172]
- Football
He attended the 1968 FA Cup Final played by West Bromwich Albion against the Everton Football Club, and after the match, shared cigarettes and whisky with other fans.[173] Though he has publicly professed support for Everton,[174] he has also shown support for Liverpool F.C., as in 1968 when he was photographed wearing their rosette.[175] The ex-Liverpool footballer, Albert Stubbins, was shown on the Sgt. Pepper cover,[176] and the video for his song "Pipes of Peace" (1983) recreated the 1915 Christmas football game played between German and British troops during World War I.[177] At the end of "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" the crowd chants "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes it to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to then Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player for the Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish"[178]
He attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton,[173] and performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium in 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on "Band on the Run", and played drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R.".[179] Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.[180] In 2008 he ended speculation about his allegiance when he said: "Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool."[181]
- Meditation
On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM).[182] "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra ... I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get."[183] The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as nearly all of the songs that would later be recorded for The White Album and Abbey Road were composed there.[184] Although he was told never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he admitted he told Linda, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan.[185] In 2009 McCartney and Starr headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.[186]
Personal relationships[link]
Main article: Personal relationships of Paul McCartney
Girlfriends[link]
- Dot Rhone
McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.[187] According to Spitz, Rhone feels McCartney had a compulsion to control situations, chosing clothes and make-up for Rhone, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot's,[188] and at least once insisting she have it re-styled, to disappointing effect.[189] When he first went to Hamburg with the Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when they played there again in 1962.[190] The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage, when according to Spitz, McCartney now "free of obligation", ended the engagement.[191]
- Jane Asher
He first met the British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[192] The two began a relationship and he took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in St. John's Wood.[193] He wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me", and "I'm Looking Through You".[194] They had a five-year relationship, and planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement after she discovered he had become involved with another woman, Francie Schwartz.[195]
Wives[link]
- Linda Eastman
Linda Eastman was a music fan who once commented: "All my teen years were spent with an ear to the radio", and who would at times be truant from school to instead see artists such as: Fabian, Bobby Darin, and Chuck Berry.[196] She was a popular photographer with groups such as: the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, and the Beatles, whom she first met at Shea Stadium in 1966, about which she commented: "It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the facination faded fast and I found it was Paul I liked."[197] The pair first properly met in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club,[198] during her UK assignment to take photographs of rock musicians in London,[199] Paul remembers: "The night Linda and I met, I spotted her across a crowded club, and although I would normally have been nervous chatting her up, I realised I had to ... Pushiness worked for me that night!"[197] Linda said this about their meeting: "I was quite shameless really. I was with somebody else [that night] ... and I saw Paul at the other side of the room. He looked so beautiful that I made up my mind I would have to pick him up."[197] The pair were married in 1969; he describes their relationship: "We had a lot of fun together ... just the nature of how we are, our favourite thing really is to just hang, to have fun. And Linda's very big on just following the moment."[200] He also added, "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married and it was nearly called off ... [its] miraculous that we made it. But we did."[201]
They collaborated musically after the break-up of the Beatles, and later formed Wings together in 1971, a commercially successful band that was active through 1981.[202] They were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation PETA.[203] They had four children – Linda's daughter Heather (legally adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James – and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998.[204] After her death, Paul stated in The Daily Mail: "I got a counsellor because I knew that I would need some help. He was great, particularly in helping me get rid of my guilt [about wishing I'd been] perfect all the time ... a real bugger. But then I thought, hang on a minute. We're just human. That was the beautiful thing about our marriage. We were just a boyfriend and girlfriend having babies."[205]
- Heather Mills
In 2002 he married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner.[206] In 2003, the couple had a child, Beatrice Milly, the first name in honour of Heather's late mother, the second for one of Paul's aunts.[207] They separated in April 2006 and were divorced in March 2008.[208] In 2004 he commented on media animosity toward his partners, "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."[209]
- Nancy Shevell
He married New Yorker Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London on 9 October 2011. The wedding was a "low-key affair" attended by a group of around 30 family and friends.[210] The couple had been dating since November 2007.[211] A breast cancer survivor,[212] she is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight.[213]
Beatles[link]
This section is about social and other general interactions. For creative collaborations, see Collaborations between ex-Beatles.
- John Lennon
Despite a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in 1974, and played music together on two occasions, the only times since the Beatles break-up in 1970.[214] In later years however, the two grew apart.[215] While McCartney would often phone, he was apprehensive about the reception he would receive, as during one call when he was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!"[216] In McCartney's effort to avoid talking with him only about business, they often spoke of cats, baking bread, or babies.[217]
On 24 April 1976,[218] the two were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live together at Lennon's home in New York City, during which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer for the Beatles to reunite, and while they seriously considered going to the SNL studio just a few blocks away, they decided it was "too late" and according to Lennon, this was the last time he and McCartney ever spent time together.[219] This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us.[220] His last telephone call to Lennon, just days before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly, he said this about the phone call: "[It is] a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up."[221]
-
- Reaction to Lennon's murder
Main article: Death of John Lennon
On the morning of 9 December 1980, he awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered the previous night, his death creating a media frenzy around the surviving members of the band.[222] During the evening of 9 December, as he was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for a reaction. He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be a superficial response: "It's a drag".[218] He later explained, "When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: 'What do you think about it?' I said, 'It's a dra-a-ag' and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, 'McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, "It's a drag."' It seemed a very flippant comment to make."[218] He describes his first exchange with Ono after the murder, and his last conversation with Lennon:
I talked to Yoko the day after he was killed and the first thing she said was, "John was really fond of you." The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, "It's only me." They were like a wall, you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure.[218]
In 1983, he said: "I would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his "mask" and have a better relationship with him."[218] He said that he went home that night and watched the news on television – while sitting with his children – crying most of the evening. In 1997, he admitted the ex-Beatles were nervous at the time that they might be the "next" one murdered.[223] In 2002 he told Mojo magazine that Lennon was his greatest "hero".[224] In June 1981, six months after the murder, McCartney sang backup on Harrison's tribute to their ex-bandmate, "All Those Years Ago", which also featured Starr on drums.[225] In 1982 McCartney released "Here Today", a song musicologist Walter Everett describes as "a haunting tribute" to their friendship.[226]
- George Harrison
Harrison said this about working with McCartney: "Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs—then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually ... There were a lot of tracks, though, where I played bass ... because what Paul would do—if he'd written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say (sometimes he was very difficult): "Do this." He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something.[227]
In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer, and upon his death on 29 November 2001, McCartney issued a statement outside his home in St. John's Wood, calling him "a lovely guy and a very brave man who had a wonderful sense of humour", "We grew up together and we just had so many beautiful times together – that's what I am going to remember. I'll always love him, he's my baby brother."[228] Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney.[229] On the first anniversary of his death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.[88] He also performed "For You Blue" and "All Things Must Pass", as well as playing the piano on Eric Clapton's rendition of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".[230]
- Ringo Starr
Though Starr once described McCartney as "pleasantly insincere", the two generally enjoy each other's company, and at least once vacationed together in Greece, including stops in Athens and on the islands Corfu and Rhodes.[231] Starr recalls: "We couldn't understand a word of the songs the hotel band were playing, so on the last night Paul and I did a few rockers like "What'd I Say." [231] There was at times discord between them as well, particularly during Beatles' sessions for "The White Album", as Apple's Peter Brown recalls, "It was a poorly kept secret among Beatle intimates that after Ringo left the studio Paul would often dub in the drum tracks himself ... [Starr] would pretend not to notice".[232] In August 1968 the two got into an argument over McCartney's critique of Starr's drum part for "Back in the USSR", which led to Starr temporarily leaving the band.[232] He returned in September[233] to find bouquets of flowers on his drum kit. Starr comments on working with McCartney: "Paul is the greatest bass player in the world. But he is also very determined ... [to] get his own way ... [thus] musical disagreements inevitably arose from time to time."[232]
Recognition and achievements[link]
Main article: List of awards received by Paul McCartney
McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million albums, 100 million singles, and a writer's credit on forty-three songs that have sold over one million copies each.[1] According to Guinness, he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK singles chart history, and has written or co-written "188 charted records, of which 129 are different songs. Of these records, 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1. In total, the songs have spent 1,662 weeks on the chart (up to the beginning of 2007)."[2] In 1986 he received acclaim from the Guinness Book of Records Hall of Fame, "as the most successful musician of all-time."[234]
In the US, as a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100; including twenty with the Beatles and nine solo and/or with Wings,[235] one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds",[236] and one as a co-writer of "A World Without Love", a number one single for Peter and Gordon.[237] As of 2012, he has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.[238]
Although Elvis Presley has achieved the most UK number-ones as a solo artist with eighteen,[239] McCartney has been involved in more number-ones in the UK than any other artist under a variety of credits, totalling twenty-four singles: including seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings, Stevie Wonder, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and one with "The Christians et all".[240] He is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Wonder), trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", the Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", the Beatles with Billy Preston), and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (Ferry Aid).[241]
His song "Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions,[242] and according to the BBC, "The track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list ... [and] is the most played song by a British writer this century in the US."[243] His 1968 Beatles composition, "Hey Jude", is also a career highlight. It achieved the highest sales in the UK that year, and topped the US charts for nine weeks, longer than any other Beatles' single. It was also the longest single ever released by the band, and at seven minutes fifteen seconds was the longest of any number one to that point. Its been covered by several notable artists, including Presley, Bing Crosby, Count Basie, and Wilson Pickett.[244] It is the best-selling Beatles' single of all-time, with sales of over five million copies achieved soon after its release.[245]
He played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 21 April 1990,[246] that year the minor planet 4148, was named "McCartney" in his honour.[247] In July 2005 he was involved with the fastest-released single in history, when his performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released before the concert was over. The single reached number six on the Billboard charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world.[248]
On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a milestone that was the subject of a tune he wrote at the age of sixteen, which would later become the Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-Four".[249] In 2008 he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music,[250] as well as an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University.[251] In 2012 he became the last of the "Fab Four" to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[252]
- Business
McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.[253] In addition to an interest in Apple Corps, MPL Communications, an umbrella company for his business interests, owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights,[254] including the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease.[255] He earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner.[256] This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.[257] In 2006 the Trademarks Registry reported that MPL had started a process to secure the protections associated with registering the name "Paul McCartney" as a trademark.[258]
- Northern Songs
Northern Songs was established in 1963 by Dick James to publish the songs of Lennon–McCartney.[259] The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a jointly held company, Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests. Northern Songs was purchased by Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to Michael Jackson. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.[260]
Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of his Beatles' songs, he continues to receive his respective share of the writers' royalties, which together are 33⅓% of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere around the world between 50 and 55%.[261] Two of the Beatles' earliest songs—"Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You"—were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before signing with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in the mid 1980s,[262] and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by MPL Communications.[263]
Discography[link]
- Solo
|
|
|
- Wings, live, and compilations
|
|
|
Tours[link]
Main article: List of Paul McCartney concert tours
See also: List of The Beatles' live performances
|
|
Arms[link]
|
||||||||||||||||
Citations[link]
- ^ a b Harry 2002, pp. 388–389.
- ^ a b Guinness: World Records 2009. Guinness World Records. 2008. p. 168. ISBN 978-1-904994-37-4.
- ^ a b Spitz 2005, p. 75.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 4.
- ^ "Beatle's schoolboy photo auction". BBC. 16 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/8203923.stm. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 9.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 205.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 125.
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 82–83.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 340–341.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 6.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 20.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 31.
- ^ a b Miles 1997, p. 22.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 71.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 23–24.
- ^ a b c Miles 1997, p. 21.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 86.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 509: McCartney: "The first song I ever sang in public was "Long Tall Sally"., 533–534: Harry: "Long Tall Sally", was "The first number Paul ever sang on stage".
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 93.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, p. 18.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, pp. 17–25.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, pp. 21–25: Hamburg, 31: the Cavern Club.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 74: McCartney: "Nobody wants to play bass, or nobody did in those days."; Gould 2007, pp. 89: On McCartney playing bass when Sutcliff was indisposed., 94: "Sutcliff gradually began to withdraw from active participation in the Beatles, ceding his role as the group's bassist to Paul McCartney."
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 249–251.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 84–88.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 330.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, pp. 75: Replacing Best with Starr., 88–94: "Beatlemania" in the UK., 136–140: "Beatlemania" in the US.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 470.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, p. 180.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 207.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 218.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 217.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 219–220.
- ^ a b Miles 1997, pp. 238–239.
- ^ Gould 2007, p. 347.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 293–295.
- ^ Harry 2000a, pp. 1–3: Abbey Road, 107–109: The Beatles, 916–917: Revolver, 969–979: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Levy 2005, pp. 8–11: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 14–15: Revolver, 28–29: The Beatles, 33: Abbey Road
- ^ Roberts 2005, p. 54.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, pp. 350–351.
- ^ Gould 2007, p. 8–9: "one of the greatest phenomena in the history of mass entertainment", "widely regarded as the greatest concentration of singing, songwriting, and all-around musical talent that the rock'n'roll era has produced"; Spitz 2005, p. 856: "not anything like anything else ... [a] vastness of talent ... of genius, incomprehensible"
- ^ For song authorship see, Harry 2002, pp. 90: "Can't Buy Me Love", 313–316: "Eleanor Rigby", 358–359: "Get Back", 410–411: "Hello, Goodbye", 415–416: "Hey Jude", 508: "Let it Be", 533: "The Long and Winding Road", 678–679: "Paperback Writer", 925–929: "Yesterday". For release dates, US and UK peak chart positions of the preceding songs see, Lewisohn 1992, pp. 350–351
- ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 171–172: Paul and Linda's first meeting., 245–248: On their wedding., 261: On the birth of their first child Mary.
- ^ Gould 2007, pp. 593–594.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 556.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 556–563.
- ^ Ingham 2009, pp. 105: Ram, 114–115: "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 613–615.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 515–516: "Live and Let Die", 641–642: "My Love".
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 51–54.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 882–883: Venus and Mars, 910–911: Wings at the Speed of Sound.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 583–584.
- ^ Doggett 2009, p. 264.
- ^ Ingham 2009, pp. 107–108.
- ^ Lewisohn 2002, p. 168.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 840–841.
- ^ Ingham 2009, p. 108.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 42–43: Back to the Egg, 530–532: London Town, 758–760: the Rockestra.
- ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 326–327.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 904–910: Wings, 912–913: Wings over America.
- ^ Lewisohn 2002, p. 163.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 265–266: "Coming Up", 511–512: "Listen to What the Man Said", 788: "Silly Love Songs", 915: "With a Little Luck".
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 578.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 311: "Ebony and Ivory", 361–362: "The Girl Is Mine", 820: Eric Stewart.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 720–722: Pipes of Peace album and song., 776–777: "Say Say Say".
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 365–374.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (1 January 1984). "Give My Regards to Broad Street review". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19840101/REVIEWS/401010342/1023. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 368–369.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 100: Снова в СССР, 728: Press to Play, 820: Eric Stewart.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 327–328.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 272–273: Elvis Costello, 337–338: Flowers in the Dirt.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 851.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 526–528: Liverpool Oratorio, 861–862: Tripping the Live Fantastic.
- ^ a b Harry 2002, p. 528.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 332–334.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 656: Off the Ground, 685–686: Paul Is Live, 687: The New World Tour.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 218–219.
- ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 458: Honorary Fellowship, 477: McCartney; "Yeah, its kind of amazing for somebody who doesn't read a note of music".
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 226–227.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 335–336: Flaming Pie, 807: Standing Stone, 770: Rushes.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 593–595: Linda's battle with cancer., 765–766: Run Devil Run.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 350–351.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 238: "as a solo artist", 710–711: Working Classical, 756–758: McCartney's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 38, 242: Music fellowship, 528–529: Liverpool Sound Collage.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 873–874.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 268–270: The Concert for New York City, 346–347: "Freedom".
- ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 517–518.
- ^ a b Doggett 2009, pp. 332–333.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 825–826.
- ^ Sandford 2006, p. 396.
- ^ Raymer 2010, p. 82.
- ^ "Paul McCartney Treats Liverpool to "A Day in the Life" Live Debut". Rolling Stone. 2 June 2008. Archived from the original on 1 July 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080701222334/http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/06/02/paul-mccartney-treats-liverpool-to-a-day-in-the-life-live-debut/. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Paul McCartney Stuns Manhattan With Set on Letterman's Marquee". Rolling Stone. 16 July 2009. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/paul-mccartney-stuns-manhattan-with-set-on-lettermans-marquee-20090716. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Pareles, Jon (2 June 2010). "McCartney Is Honored at White House". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/arts/music/03mccartney.html?src=mv. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Sounes 2010, p. 560.
- ^ Mervis, Scott (14 June 2010). "Paul McCartney sells out two shows at Consol". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10165/1065544-100.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Joel among stars recording McCartney tribute album". Orange News. 10 February 2012. http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/joel_among_stars_recording_mccartney_tribute_album. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Paul McCartney – Kisses On The Bottom". paulmccartney.com. http://www.paulmccartney.com/web/guest/album-details?p_p_id=AlbumDetails_WAR_AlbumDetailsportlet&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_count=1&p_r_p_564233524_tag=album-kisses+on+the+bottom&#p_AlbumDetails_WAR_AlbumDetailsportlet#TOP. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
- ^ "Paul McCartney Is 2012 MusiCares Person Of The Year". grammy.com. 13 September 2011. http://www.grammy.com/news/paul-mccartney-is-2012-musicares-person-of-the-year. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 13.
- ^ Bacon & Morgan 2006, p. 8.
- ^ Bacon & Morgan 2006, p. 28.
- ^ Babiuk & Bacon 2002, pp. 16–17: Höfner 500/1, 44–45: Rickenbacker 4001, 85–86, 92–93, 103, 116, 134, 140, 173, 175, 187, 211: Vox amplifiers.
- ^ Bacon & Morgan 2006, pp. 38–39.
- ^ a b Ingham 2009, p. 299.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 133–134.
- ^ Bacon & Morgan 2006, pp. 10, 44: Rubber Soul as the starting point for McCartney's bass improvement, 98: "a high point in pop bass playing".
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 178–180.
- ^ Bacon & Morgan 2006, pp. 112–113.
- ^ a b MacDonald 2005, pp. 196–198.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 157–158: "Yesterday", 174–175: "I'm Looking Through You", 175–176: "Michelle", 291–292: "Blackbird", 305–306: "Mother Nature's Son", 308: "Rocky Raccoon", 315: "I Will".
- ^ Babiuk & Bacon 2002, pp. 146–147, 152, 161, 164: Epiphone Texan. 215, 218, 222, 239: Martin D-28.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 166–167: "Drive My Car".
- ^ Babiuk & Bacon 2002, p. 149.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 200–201: "Taxman", 232–234: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", 234–235: "Good Morning Good Morning", 297–298: "Helter Skelter".
- ^ MacDonald 2005, pp. 128–129: "Every Little Thing", 205–206: "For No One", 227–232: "A Day In The Life", 272–273: "Hello, Goodbye", 275–276: "Lady Madonna", 337–338: "Let It Be", 239–241: "The Long and Winding Road", 302–304: "Hey Jude".
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 307.
- ^ Harry 2000a, pp. 549–550.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 232.
- ^ Harry 2000a, pp. 1196–1198.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 549–550.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 104–106: McCartney living at the Asher home. 110: Martin at Guildhall, 281: McCartney's piano lessons.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 597.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 517–526.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 243.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 256–267.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 84.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 266.
- ^ a b "McCartney gets arty". BBC. 30 April 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/331611.stm. Retrieved 29 January 2007.
- ^ "McCartney and Yoko art exhibitions, 20 October 2000". BBC News. 20 October 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/981721.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012. ; "Walker Gallery Exhibition: 24 May – 4 August 2002". liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/mccartney/home.asp. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "McCartney stamps to go on sale". BBC. 18 February 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1826691.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 12: "word power" (primary source); Spitz 2005, p. 82: "word power" (secondary source)
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 40.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 41.
- ^ Horovitz, Michael (14 October 2006). "Roll over, Andrew Motion". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/17/poetry.music. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
- ^ a b McCartney & Mitchell 2001, p. 13.
- ^ Merritt, Stephanie (17 December 2005). "It took him years to write ...". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/18/booksforchildrenandteenagers.features. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 767.
- ^ "McCartney releases frog follow-up". BBC News. 29 February 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3520421.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 386–387: the Grateful Dead documentary, 789: "Lisa the Vegetarian", 862: Tropic Island Hum.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 914.
- ^ Lewisohn 2002, p. 21.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 66–67.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 186–189.
- ^ Brown & Gaines 2002, p. 182.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 190.
- ^ a b Miles 1997, pp. 67–68.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 247.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 384–385.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 379–380.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 382.
- ^ Brown & Gaines 2002, p. 228.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 386–387.
- ^ Harry 2000b, pp. 712–713.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 395.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 459–461.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 300–307.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 880–882.
- ^ "'Bambi' was cruel". BBC News. 12 December 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4520658.stm. Retrieved 29 January 2007.
- ^ "McCartney vows to keep animal rights torch alight". BBC News. 5 August 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/145974.stm. Retrieved 29 January 2007.
- ^ "GM-free ingredients". BBC News. 10 June 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/365947.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ "McCartney calls for landmine ban". BBC News. 20 April 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1287128.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ "McCartney plays for Ralph Whitworth". BBC News. 24 February 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2793191.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ "McCartney divorce battle: The full judgement part 2". Daily Mail (UK). 18 March 2008. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-538255/McCartney-divorce-battle-The-judgement-2.html. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
- ^ "Paul and Heather call for seal cull ban, Friday, 3 March 2006". BBC News. 3 March 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4769628.stm. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
- ^ "Interview transcript, McCartney and Heather, Larry King Live, Seal cull". CNN. 3 March 2006. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/03/lkl.01.html. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ Addison, Adrian (28 November 2005). "McCartney attacks China over fur". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4476664.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ "Make Poverty History". http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/index.shtml?entry=cornerwhitebandsmallright&referrer=www.paulmccartney.com. Retrieved 2 December 2006.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 270: Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, 327–328: "Ferry Cross the Mersey", 514–515: Live Aid; Roberts 2005, pp. 49: Band Aid & Band Aid 20, 187: Ferry Aid
- ^ "US campaign for Burma protest". BBC News. 20 June 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4110628.stm. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
- ^ "Aid Still Required". Aid Still Required. http://aidstillrequired.org/music. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Ellen, Barbara (17 July 2010). "Interview: Paul McCartney". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/18/paul-mccartney-vegetarianism. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
- ^ a b Ingle, Sean; Turner, Georgina; Aldred), Tanya (9 January 2004). "The Beatles and Football: Part Two". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2004/jan/09/theknowledge.sport. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
- ^ "Macca's a blue". Everton Football Club. http://www.evertonfc.com/news/archive/macca-s-a-blue.html. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
- ^ "Did The Beatles Hide Their Footballing Love Away?". Haymarket Media Group. http://stage.hn.haymarketnetwork.com/editorial/features/didthebeatleshidetheirfootballingloveaway.aspx. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
- ^ Aldred, Tanya; Ingle, Sean (11 December 2003). "Did The Beatles Like Football?". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2003/dec/11/theknowledge.sport. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
- ^ Murray, Scott (21 December 2007). "Joy of Six: Great Christmas Matches". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/dec/21/1. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
- ^ "We Loved Them, Yeah Yeah, Yeah". DailyRecord. 9 November 2008. http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/lifestyle/lifestyle-catchall/2008/11/09/we-loved-them-yeah-yeah-yeah-78057-20880483/. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
- ^ Petridis, Alexis (2 June 2008). "Paul McCartney: Anfield". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jun/02/popandrock.europeancapitalofculture2008. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
- ^ Reynolds, Gillian (2 June 2008). "Sir Paul McCartney rocks Anfield stadium". The Daily Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2063298/Sir-Paul-McCartney-rocks-Anfield-stadium.html. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
- ^ Prentice, David (5 July 2008). "Sir Paul McCartney's Everton 'secret' was no surprise". Everton Banter. http://www.evertonbanter.co.uk/2008/07/sir-paul-mccartneys-everton-se.html. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, p. 261.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 396.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 397.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 396–404.
- ^ Pareles, Jon (6 April 2009). "Just Say 'Om': The Fab Two Give a Little Help to a Cause". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/arts/music/06mcca.html. Retrieved 17 July 2009.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 163.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 69.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 171.
- ^ Spitz 2005, pp. 239–240.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 348.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 101–102.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 106.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 108.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 27–32: Jane Asher, 777–778: Francie Schwartz.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 585.
- ^ a b c Harry 2002, p. 587.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 45.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 432–434.
- ^ Miles 1997, pp. 514–515.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 525.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 904–910.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 716–718: PETA, 880–882: Vegetarianism.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 585–601.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 600–601.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 568–578.
- ^ Sounes 2010, p. 523.
- ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 532: Separation, 546: Divorce.
- ^ "McCartney's lament: I can't buy your love". Sydney Morning Herald. 12 June 2004. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/11/1086749891275.html.
- ^ "Sir Paul McCartney marrying for the third time". BBC News. 9 October 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15230730. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
- ^ Chan, Sewell (7 November 2007). "Former Beatle Linked to Member of M.T.A. Unit". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/nyregion/07beatle.html. Retrieved 5 May 2012.
- ^ Smith, Emily; Wells, Tom (7 November 2007). "Macca's Nancy fought cancer". The Sun (United Kingdom). http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article435293.ece. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
- ^ "Nancy Shevell – Vice President – Administration". NEMF.com. http://www.nemf.com/nancy.html. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
- ^ Sandford 2006, pp. 227–229.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 587.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 588.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 590.
- ^ a b c d e Harry 2002, p. 505.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 592.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 869–870.
- ^ Goodman, Joan. "Playboy Interview: Paul and Linda McCartney". Playboy 31, no. 12 (December 1984): 82.
- ^ Carlin 2009, pp. 255–257.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 594.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 506.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 20.
- ^ Everett 1999, p. 10.
- ^ Glazer, Mitchell. "Growing Up at 33⅓: The George Harrison Interview". Crawdaddy (February 1977): 35–36.
- ^ Poole, Oliver; Davies, Hugh (1 December 2001). "I'll always love him, he's my baby brother, says tearful McCartney". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1363989/Ill-always-love-him-hes-my-baby-brother-says-tearful-McCartney.html. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ "Harrison death mystery solved". BBC News. 13 February 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1817780.stm. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Harry 2003, pp. 138–139.
- ^ a b Harry 2002, p. 815.
- ^ a b c Harry 2002, p. 816.
- ^ Lewisohn 1992, p. 296.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 388.
- ^ "Most No. 1s By Artist (All-Time)". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/specials/hot100/charts/most-no1s-overall.shtml. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Chart History: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds – Elton John". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/#/song/elton-john/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/6679060. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Peter & Gordon". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/peter-gordon/5409. Retrieved 3 May 2012. ; Harry 2002, p. 922; Gould 2007, p. 250
- ^ "Top Selling Artists". RIAA. http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinum.php?content_selector=top-selling-artists. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Roberts 2005, pp. 398–400.
- ^ Roberts 2005, pp. 49: Band Aid & Band Aid 20, 54–55: the Beatles, 187: Ferry Aid, 311–312: Solo, Wings, Stevie Wonder and "The Christians et all".
- ^ Roberts 2005, pp. 311–312.
- ^ "Sir Paul is Your Millennium's greatest composer". BBC. 3 May 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/334373.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "McCartney's Yesterday earns US accolade". BBC. 17 December 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/569537.stm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Harry 2000a, pp. 516–518.
- ^ Sounes 2010, p. 223.
- ^ Badman 1999, p. 444.
- ^ "Minor planet number 4148 has been named in honor of former Beatle Paul McCartney". IAU Minor Planet Center. http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/special/rocknroll/0004148.html. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
- ^ "Live 8 single". BBC. 13 July 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4680000/newsid_4680500/4680519.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 319.
- ^ "Sir Paul McCartney picks up special Brit award in London". UK: NME. 20 February 2008. http://www.nme.com/news/brit-awards-2008/34542/. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Yale gives Paul McCartney honorary music degree". USA Today. 26 May 2008. http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2008-05-26-3778562167_x.htm. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ^ Sinha, Piya (9 February 2012). "Paul McCartney finally gets Walk of Fame star". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-paulmccartney-star-idUSTRE81902K20120210. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
- ^ "Sunday Times Rich List 2010: Music millionaires". The Daily Telegraph (UK). 24 April 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/7628082/Sunday-Times-Rich-List-2010-Music-millionaires.html. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
- ^ "Sir Paul is 'pop billionaire'". BBC News. 6 January 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1745647.stm. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 630–632.
- ^ "McCartney tops media rich list". BBC News. 30 October 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/3227171.stm. Retrieved 3 January 2010.
- ^ "48 million in 2005". London: The Telegraph. 18 May 2006. Archived from the original on 7 May 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080507193103/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/18/nmacca18.xml. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ Muir, Hugh (14 October 2006). "Paul McCartney Trademark". The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1922412,00.html. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ Spitz 2005, p. 365.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 456–459.
- ^ Southall & Perry 2006, p. 195.
- ^ Southall & Perry 2006, pp. 192–193.
- ^ Harry 2002, p. 536.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 845–851.
- ^ Harry 2002, pp. 851–861.
- ^ a b "Ex-Beatle granted coat of arms". BBC News: World Edition. 22 December 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2599041.stm. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
Sources[link]
- Babiuk, Andy; Bacon, Tony (editor) (2002). Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments, from Stage to Studio (Revised ed.). Backbeat UK/Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-731-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=Eo743Uh2UOEC&dq.
- Bacon, Tony; Morgan, Gareth (2006). Paul McCartney – Bass Master – Playing the Great Beatles Basslines (1st ed.). Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-884-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=V-BG7p7xPTQC&dq.
- Badman, Keith (1999). The Beatles After the Breakup 1970–2000: A Day-by-Day Diary (2001 ed.). Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6.
- Brown, Peter; Gaines, Steven (2002). The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles. New American Library. ISBN 978-0-451-20735-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=tVht7mPxbeAC&dq.
- Carlin, Peter Ames (2009). Paul McCartney: A Life. Touchstone. ISBN 978-1-4165-6209-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=W8R4LS2LYxYC&dq.
- Doggett, Peter (2009). You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup (1st US hardcover ed.). Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-177446-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=luOMJFxe-bYC&dq.
- Everett, Walter (1999). The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512941-0. http://books.google.ca/books?id=eTkHAldi4bEC&lpg=PP1&dq.
- Gould, Jonathan (2007). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America (First Paperback ed.). Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-307-35338-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=gTAjZ235qfsC&dq.
- Harry, Bill (2000a). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0481-9.
- Harry, Bill (2003). The George Harrison Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0822-0.
- Harry, Bill (2000b). The John Lennon Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0404-8.
- Harry, Bill (2002). The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0716-2.
- Ingham, Chris (2009). The Rough Guide to The Beatles (3rd ed.). Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-84836-525-4.
- Levy, Joe (editor) (2005). Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (First Paperback ed.). Wenner Books. ISBN 978-1-932958-61-4.
- Lewisohn, Mark (1992). The Complete Beatles Chronicle:The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To The Beatles' Entire Career (Revised 2010 ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-56976-534-0.
- Lewisohn, Mark (editor) (2002). Wingspan: Paul McCartney's Band on the Run. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-86032-1.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (3rd (2007) ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-733-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=YJUWJhIbkccC&dq.
- McCartney, Paul; Mitchell, Adrian (editor) (2001). Blackbird singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965–1999. W.W. Norton and Company Inc.. ISBN 978-0-393-02049-6.
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1st Hardcover ed.). Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-5248-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=-eh8BedNtLgC&dq.
- Miles, Barry (1998). The Beatles: A Diary—An Intimate Day by Day History (2009 ed.). JG Press. ISBN 978-1-57215-010-2.
- Miles, Barry (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years. Omnibus. ISBN 978-0-7119-8308-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=trRB-lo4qR8C&dq.
- Raymer, Miles (2010). How to Analyze the Music of Paul McCartney. Abdo Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-61613-531-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=23jlYDQOz2sC&dq.
- Roberts, David (editor) (2005). British Hit Singles & Albums (18 ed.). Guinness World Records Limited. ISBN 978-1-904994-00-8.
- Sandford, Christopher (2006). McCartney. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-1614-2.
- Sounes, Howard (2010). Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81783-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=jQJk-qRy5IUC&dq.
- Southall, Brian; Perry, Rupert (contributor) (2006). Northern Songs: The True Story of the Beatles Song Publishing Empire. Omnibus. ISBN 978-1-84609-237-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=HWSRvGfa3-sC&dq.
- Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-80352-6.
- The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-3636-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=HWuQu8EMDKcC&dq.
Further reading[link]
- Barrow, Tony (2005). John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story. Thunder's Mouth. ISBN 1-56025-882-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=BNnzcGw8JQsC&dq.
- Barrow, Tony (2004). Paul McCartney. Carlton Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84442-822-9.
- Benitez, Vincent Perez (2010). The Words and Music of Paul McCartney: The Solo Years. Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-34969-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=bYxJWNiLO94C&dq.
- Davies, Hunter (2009). The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (3rd revised ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-33874-4.
- Gambaccini, Paul (1993). Paul McCartney: In His Own Words. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-86001-239-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=FikUAQAAIAAJ&q.
- Gambaccini, Paul (1996). The McCartney Interviews: After the Break-Up (2 ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-7119-5494-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=xKPEyk1WXFUC&q.
- Gracen, Jorie B. (2000). Paul McCartney: I Saw Him Standing There. Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 978-0-8230-8372-5.
- Kirchherr, Astrid; Voormann, Klaus (1999). Hamburg Days. Guildford, Surrey: Genesis Publications. ISBN 978-0-904351-73-6.
- Martin, George (1979). All You Need Is Ears. New York: St. Marten's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-11482-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=4Yoio9MewhcC&dq.
- McGee, Garry (2003). Band on the Run: A History of Paul McCartney and Wings. Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87833-304-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=UG0IAQAAMAAJ&q.
- Pawlowski, Gareth L. (1989). How They Became The Beatles (1st ed.). E. P. Dutton. ISBN 978-0-525-24823-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=7IkIAQAAMAAJ&q.
- Peel, Ian (2002). The Unknown Paul McCartney: McCartney and the avant-garde. Reynolds & Hearn. ISBN 978-1-903111-36-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=uS4UAQAAIAAJ&q.
External links[link]
|
Book: Paul McCartney |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul McCartney |
|
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Paul McCartney |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | McCartney, Paul |
| Alternative names | Sir James Paul McCartney |
| Short description | English rock musician |
| Date of birth | 18 June 1942 |
| Place of birth | Liverpool, UK |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Paul_McCartney
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://cs.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://id.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://es.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://ru.wn.com/Маккартни, Пол
http://pl.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://fr.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://de.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://hi.wn.com/पॉल मॅक्कार्टनी
http://pt.wn.com/Paul McCartney
http://nl.wn.com/Paul McCartney
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney
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.
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.
