A day like today in Liverpool but the year 1940 in the history of Rock n' Roll a boy named John Lennon was born, the great legend and one of the founding fathers of the history of Rock, as we all know he died back on December 8 of 1989 (he was shot by a fan.) Today in his 77th birthday I would like to remember him by writing about him and how he became the great John Lennon we all know today.
John Lennon a name which brings up so many memories of those whose teenage or youth years took place back in the 60's and even part of the 70s (even for those of us who grew up to listening to The Beatles) either with The Beatles or as a Soloist artist he will always have a special place in our hearts and even in history.
This boy grew up in Liverpool, he was the son of Fred Lennon (a deserter of WWII) and Julia Lennon, however he did not grow up with his parents, due to his father being a deserter and escaping to North Africa he was held there as a prisoner for a couple of years, and his mother joined another man, leaving him in the care of her sister Mary Stanley, better known as Aunt Mimi and her husband George Smith.
In July 1946, his father returned and decided to take John with him to Blackpool, Julia searched for John and when she finally found him she made him choose with who he wanted to stay with, John chose his mother and they went back to Liverpool with Aunt Mimi.
In the year 1952 he began his studies in Quarry Bank high school, where he took an interest for drawing and making stories about the teachers.
His aunt got a recommendation to enter the Liverpool College of Art where in 1956, a friend made him listen to "Hotel of the heartbreakers" by Elvis Presley . His aunt bought him a second-hand guitar. He formed the band " The Quarrymen"with his classmates Pete Shotton, Nigel Walley and Ivan Vaughan.
On July 6, 1957, while the band gave a recital in the gardens of the Woolton Parich church, Ivan introduced him a boy two years younger than him, his name was Paul McCartney . Together, they performed for the first time " Twenty Flight Rock " by Eddie Cochran and " be Bop a Lula " of Gene Vincent he hesitated long before accepting to enter a new guitarist to the band since he was younger than him, but there was an advantage, he knew many more chords than John and Paul, His name was George Harrison.
On February 6, 1958, he became part of group. On July 15, John's mother died in a car accident. The following year they changed the name of the group to " Johnny and the Moondogs ". They performed regularly at the Casbash Club in Liverpool with drummer Ken Brown who decided not to join the group and the son of the owner, Pete Best , came in his place . The payment they received for their recitals consisted of soda. In November they do a casting for the television program "Star Makers", conducted by Carrol Levis in Manchester and were rejected. Shortly after the group dissolved.
John and Paul, also gave some presentations like duo with the name of Nurk Twins. In 1960 John shared an apartment in Liverpool with his friend Stu Sutcliffe, a painter. After Stu won 50 pounds in a painting contest, John convinced him to buy a bass and join the group and as he did not know how to play the instrument he was constantly reproached by Paul.
The group was reconstituted with John, Paul, George, Pete and Stu with the name " The Silver Beatles ". John explained the origin of the name:
"We were fans of Buddy Holly and Crickets. Thinking of that name, I came up with another insect that could be played with double meaning. Suddenly, the word beetles appeared to me and I decided to change it for BEATles so that it sounded like beat music. It was kind of a joke. "
During that time, John called himself Johnny Silver, the group toured Scotland with Johnny Gentle, and
from June 2 the band changed their name to" The Beatles . "
The following month, John left school of Art and on August 16 The Beatles set off for Hamburg , Germany, where they debuted at the Indra Night Club and when the club was closed by the authorities, the group performed with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, whose drummer was Ringo Starr . In 1961 they were already professional musicians and were contracted by " The Cavern ", the best club of Liverpool, where they debuted on March 21.
In June the single " My Bonnie " recorded by Tony Sheridan was recorded in Germany , with choirs of the Beatles. The owner of a record store, Brian Epstein, approached The Cavern after a few girls asked for the record. He saw them act and offered to be their representative. On June 6, John published an article in the magazine Mersey Beat, from that moment he became their collaborator. The following year, Epstein presented them to the best record companies where they were systematically rejected. Stu wrote letters to John where he said that he was Jesus. John, thinking it was a joke, said that he was John the Baptist. Stu began to have severe headaches and died in April at the age of 21 with a stroke. Stu had a tremendous influence on the Beatles in regard to their wardrobe, hairstyle and ideas. John thought Stu was the only artist in the group.
In June they signed a five-year contract with the EMI record company . Immediately, Brian suggested replacing Pete with Ringo Starr. He changed their leather clothes over suits and ties. John married the pregnant, Cynthia Powell in the civil registry of Mount Pleasant. That same night, the group played in Chester. On September 4 they recorded their first single "Love me do", which at 10 days of published was number 48 on the sales charts and came to stand at No. 17. At the end of the year, they performed the last tour in Hamburg.
In 1963 in the return to Germany, they do a tour in Scotland. On January 11, they debuted for the BBC show " Thank you, Lucky stars " and the following day they edited their second single "Please, Please Me"and" Ask Me Why . "In February they began their first British tour and in March" Please, please me "reached the first place in the Melody Maker ranking, which led them to release an LP of the same name who also became number one on April 8. John Charles was born John Charles Julian Lennon, son of John and Cynthia, at Liverpool's Sefton General Hospital.
John appeared without The Beatles for the first time in June. the BBC's "Juke Box Jury." The single "She Loves You" was edited and placed in No. 1 in the US rankings and a few days later the single " I want to hold your hand " With The Beatles"On January 9, 1964, John Lennon confessed that he did not expect to have any success in the United States.
" I want to hold your hand "climbed the number one on February 7, The Beatles landed at John F Kennedy Airport, New York, they were greeted by thousands of teenagers on the verge of a massive attack of hysteria, and on February 9 they performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show, " garnering an incredible audience of 73 million viewers, they also offered concerts in Miami and Carnegie Hall in New York.
In March, the first book by John " In his own Write " appeared in June, and the black and white film directed by Richard Lester was released in June "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"(" A Hard Day's Night ") The soundtrack of Lennon and McCartney was nominated for the Oscar . In 1965 comes to the screen a new film, this time in color and again with Lester as a director, its title was " Help " filmed in The Bahamas to avoid taxes and in Austria. The film was accompanied by an LP.
In June he published his second book " A Spaniard in the Works"At age 25, John Lennon was already a millionaire, and in March he gave £ 20,000 to his high school partner and former Quarrymen, Pete Shotton, and together they created Hayling Supermarkets Ltd. In Hampshire, he did not forget his family and bought his Aunt Mimi a bungalow in Poole, Dorset. On August 15, The Beatles appear at Shea Stadium, an impressive baseball field where about 60,000 people followed the performance.
In October the Queen of England decorated The Beatles with the medal " Members of the Order of the British Empire . "After this gesture, many of those who had received it returned it as a sign of protest. In December, the Lp of Rubber Soul was edited. On March 4, 1966, an interview was made in London, interviewed by journalist Maureen Cleave, in which the Beatles were said to be more popular than Jesus Christ. There was no reaction from the British public, but the same report was published mid-year in the United States totally out of context. Radio stations in Birmingham, Alabama, decided not to play more Beatles music and bonfires were set burning the group's records. Lennon refused to let the Beatles perform in South Africa in protest against apartheid. In July while touring the Philippines, John and his companions refused to visit the dictator's wife, Imelda Marcos, since they were resting. This provoked the wrath of Imelda who took charge of putting the whole country against the Beatles. They were driven out of the country badly.
In August the last tour of the Beatles began in North America. In Toronto, Lennon, invited all the young people of the world to declare their rejection to the Vietnam war. In Memphis, the Ku Klux Klan provoked altercations during a concert of the group and on August 29 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, The Beatles, gave their last concert .
On November 9th, he received an invitation from a group of artists called "Symposium on the Destruction of Art" to see a Japanese avant-garde artist holding an exhibition in London. One of the "works of art" presented was titled "hammer and nail" a board with a hammer hanging and a handful of nails underneath. John asked to nail a nail. The artist said no. The owner of the gallery told him it was John Lennon. She had no idea who it was. she came back and told him that he could nail him for five shillings. The woman was Yoko Ono , and they would start dating together a year and a half later. In January of 1967 after meeting Yoko Ono and having problems with his wife Cynthia Powell, he slept several nights in the house of Brian Epstein, with whom experimented a brief homosexual relationship.
In February a single was published with the subject of John, " Strawvberry Fields forever " and in the face B, " Penny Lane ", of Paul Mc Cartney. The musical treatment was totally innovative, but for the first time since 1964, the group released a record that did not occupy the position N ° 1. On June 1 appears in Great Britain the most ambitious and revolutionary Beatles album " Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band ". On August 24 John, Paul and George, visited Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Hilton Hotel in London. Two days later, while the group was still in Bangor, their friend and manager, Brian Epstein died of an overdose of barbiturates.
A film written and directed by Paul came to the screen "The Magical Mystery Tour. " The bad review plunged the film and prestige recently acquired by" Sgt. Pepper's Band. " On January 5, 1968, John found himself in Waybridge with his father Fred. Paul appeared at the Tonight Show in the United States to announce the formation of the Apple record company. He took the opportunity to publicly denounce Guru Maharishi as a fraud. A Cartoon film " Yellow Submarine " is released in London Pavilion of the British Capital.
On August 22, Cynthia filed for divorce from John for adultery with Yoko Ono, who was granted Oct. 28. Ten days earlier John and Yoko were arrested for possessing marijuana, after visiting Ringo Starr's department. On November 22, the Beatles' double white album was released , which quickly entered the charts. A week later, John and Yoko released their first album together, " Two Virgins ". The cover of the disk showed the two in a frontal nude. Thirty thousand copies of the album were confiscated, considering its pornographic cover.
In January of 1969 the Beatles began recording a film and a disc with the same name " Let it be " which ended with a surprise concert on the roof of the London Apple Studios . On March 20, John and Yoko traveled 70 minutes to get married in Gibraltar , the only place where they were allowed to get married. Four days later they had lunch with Salvador Dalí, and a campaign for peace, called " Bed-in " , began in Amsterdam from the 25th to 31st of March . They stayed in room 902 of the Amsterdam Hilton, got naked in bed and gave hundreds of interviews inside the bed. From there they traveled to Vienna for the presentation of the documentary " Rape" His only appearance in public was a press conference at the Sacher Hotel, tucked inside two large bags. The reporters did not know if they really were they asked John to sing a song and he sang" Maggie May. " Yoko sang several Japanese songs and then said goodbye to the press without leaving the bags.
on April 22 , John Winston Lennon changed his name to John Ono Lennon and recorded with Paul McCartney, " the ballad of John and Yoko ." in May John and Yoko released their second album " Life with the Lions ." They traveled to Canada to make a new Bed-in. There, John and Yoko recorded from the bed of a hotel in Montreal, " Give Peace a Chance"In September the album" Abbey Road " was released in Britain , which contained the novelty that one of the faces was totally hooked, with no separations between song and song.In October appeared a single from John with Plastic Ono Band : " Cold Turkey ." On November 14, Apple released " Marriage Album, " which contained not only a John and Yoko album, but a copy of the marriage certificate and a photo of the wedding cake.The musical content was once again surprising: For example, in the song " Amsterdam " recorded the gasps of both making love.
On the 25th of the same month, John returned his British Empire Order medal "in protest of British interference in the Biafra and Vietnam wars and the fall of the simple Cold Turkey on the charts." The letter was signed: "With love, John Lennon of the bag". In December Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber(the authors of Evita) offered Lennon the role of Jesus in his Opera Rock "Jesus Christ Superstar", but before the doubt of the Beatle they offered the paper to him to an unknown actor. On January 16, 1970, an exhibition with Lennon's erotic lithographs was opened, which was closed down by Scotland Yard. Four days later John and Yoko shaved their heads and proclaimed the arrival of year 1 of a new era. On April 10 Paul resigned the group and on May 8 was published the last official album of The Beatles: Let it Be . It was the end of The Beatles as a group and the beginning of solo careers.
On December 11 the album " John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band " was released with great critical acclaim. One of the best tracks on the album "Hero of the working class "., Was banned by the BBC in March 1971 goes on sale the single" Power to the people "appears in November." Imagine , "which Lennon said:
" I really would have to be accredited as a Lennon / Ono song. Much of it is from Yoko. "Imagine" became the almost generational anthem of the seventies and the most lauded and well-known song of Lennon. In June 1972, " Some Time in New York City "
On the cover of the disc was a tricky picture of Mao and Nixon dancing naked together. One of the songs on the album " Woman is the Black of the World""It was banned in the US because they could not say the word black. The following year, John and Yoko separated. John, took refuge in his Japanese secretary, May Pang .
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On November 10 , " Mind Games " was edited and released. He did not play any instruments, he only started singing, he only made it to the discreet number 26. On 1974, he settled provisionally in Los Angeles with May Pang and began working on the album" Walls and Bridges " in which among other artists collaborated, such as Elton John. In one of the songs, " Ya Ya ", Julian Lennon, who was then only 11 years old, sang along with his father. On November 28, he performed with Elton John at Madison Square Garden in New York. Among those in attendance was Yoko, who had been separated for two years. Yoko approached John at the exit of the recital and returned to conquer him with only a drop of eyes.
The 21st of February of 1975 published the disc " Rock'n'Roll ". Tribute to the great pioneers of Rock. Finally, John and Yoko managed to have a son, after several spontaneous abortions. Sean Ono Lennon was born on November 9th. During the next five years John, Yoko and Sean lived in New York with their residence permit. They bought land worth of two hundred thousand dollars to raise Hilstein cows, houses and more properties in California. All this alternates with trips around the world with Sean. The manager of business and finance was Yoko. John devoted himself to raising and seeing his son Sean growing up, as he had not been able to do with Julian.
On November 21, 1980, " Double Fantasy " was released worldwide with seven songs by John and seven by Yoko. The main theme was " Woman " which quickly became number 1.
In the early afternoon of December 8 of that year, John and Yoko left the Dakota House for recording studios. As on many other occasions, the couple met with some fans around the car trying to get an autograph of the ex Beatle. Among the admirers was Mark David Chapman. When John and Yoko returned from the studio, around 11 pm to dine with Sean, Chapman tackled the couple again and fired five shots at John's body. The last words uttered by Lennon were "I have been shot, I have been shot!" When he was transferred to Roosvelt Hospital, an agent asked him if it was John Lennon, who responded with a brief "Yeah". It was his farewell to the world. It was a few minutes to midnight when the radio and TV stations began to spread the news. The people, without being able to believe it, spontaneously went out into the street. They placed rose petals on the blood stains and sang "Give peace a chance". There was no public funeral. Only ten minutes of silent meditation.
(source:metamorphosis slideshow)
Below I leave you with his works as a soloist.
Solo discography
1970 John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band
1971 Imagine
1972 Some Time in New York City
1973 Mind Games
1974 Walls and Bridges
1975 Rock 'n' Roll
1980 Double Fantasy
1984 Milk and Honey
All my image and video sources are from Google, Pinterest and Youtube, as for my text source its from Wikipedia and other music blogs where I work at.
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