John Lennon : Biography
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| John Lennon
John Lennon : Biography
Famed singer-songwriter John Lennon
founded the Beatles, a band that impacted the popular music scene like no other
before, or since.
John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England. He met
Paul McCartney in 1957 and invited McCartney to join his music group. They
eventually formed the most successful songwriting partnership in musical
history. Lennon left the Beatles in 1969 and later released albums with his
wife, Yoko Ono, among others. On December 8, 1980, he was killed by a crazed
fan named Mark David Chapman.
Early Life
Famed singer-songwriter John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940,
in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, during a German air raid in World War II.
When he was 4 years old, Lennon's parents separated and he ended up
living with his Aunt Mimi. Lennon's father was a merchant seaman. He was not
present at his son's birth and did not see a lot of his son when he was small.
Lennon's mother, Julia, remarried, but visited him and Mimi regularly.
She taught Lennon how to play the banjo and the piano and purchased his first
guitar. Lennon was devastated when Julia was fatally struck by a car driven by
an off-duty police officer in July 1958. Her death was one of the most
traumatic events in his life.
As a child, Lennon was a prankster and he enjoyed getting in trouble. As
a boy and young adult,he enjoyed drawing grotesque figures and cripples.
Lennon's school master thought that he could go to an art school for college,
since he did not get good grades in school, but had artistic talent.
Forming the Beatles
Elvis Presley's explosion onto the rock music scene inspired a
16-year-old Lennon to create the skiffle band called the Quarry Men, named
after his school. Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church fete on July 6, 1957.
He soon invited McCartney to join the group, and the two eventually formed one
of the most successful songwriting partnerships in musical history.
McCartney introduced George Harrison to Lennon the following year, and
Harrison and art college buddy Stuart Sutcliffe also joined Lennon's band.
Always in need of a drummer, the group finally settled on Pete Best in 1960.
The first recording they made was Buddy Holly's "That'll be the
Day" in 1958. In fact, it was Holly's group, the Crickets, that inspired
the band to change its name. Lennon would later joke that he had a vision when
he was 12 years old—a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, "From
this day on, you are Beatles with an 'A.'"
The Beatles were discovered by Brian Epstein in 1961 at Liverpool's
Cavern Club, where they were performing on a regular basis. As their new
manager, Epstein secured a record contract with EMI. With a new drummer, Ringo
Starr (Richard Starkey), and George Martin as producer, the group released
their first single, "Love Me Do," in October 1962. It peaked on the
British charts at No. 17.
Lennon wrote the group's follow-up single, "Please Please Me,"
inspired primarily by Roy Orbison, but also fed by Lennon's infatuation with
the pun in Bing Crosby's famous lyrics, "Oh, please, lend your little ears
to my pleas," from the song "Please." The Beatles' "Please
Please Me" topped the charts in Britain. The Beatles went on to become the
most popular band in Britain with the release of such mega-hits as "She
Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
Lennon married Cynthia Powell in August 1962. The couple had one son
together, Julian, who was named after Lennon's mother. Cynthia was forced to
keep a very low profile during Beatlemania. She and Lennon divorced in 1968. He
remarried the following year, on March 20, 1969, to Japanese avant-garde artist
Yoko Ono, whom he had met at the Indica Gallery in November 1966.
Beatlemania
In 1964, the Beatles became the first British band to break out big in
the United States, beginning with their appearance on television's The Ed
Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. Beatlemania launched a "British
Invasion" of rock bands in the United States that also included the
Rolling Stones and the Kinks. Following their appearance on Sullivan,
the Beatles returned to Britain to film their first film, A Hard Day's Night
(1964), and prepare for their first world tour.
The Beatles' second film, Help!, was released in 1965. That June,
Queen Elizabeth II of England announced that the Beatles would be named a
Member of the Order of the British Empire. In August 1965, the foursome
performed to 55,600 fans at New York's Shea Stadium, setting a new record for
largest concert audience in musical history. When the Beatles returned to
England, they recorded the breakthrough album Rubber Soul (1965), noted
for extending beyond the love songs and pop formulas for which the band was
previously well-known.
The magic of Beatlemania had begun to lose its appeal by 1966. The band
members' lives were put in danger when they were accused of snubbing the
presidential family in the Philippines. Then, Lennon's remark that the band was
"more popular than Jesus now" incited denunciations and Beatles
record bonfires in the U.S. Bible belt. The Beatles gave up touring after an
August 29, 1966, concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.
After an extended break, the band returned to the studio to expand their
experimental sound with drug-influenced exotic instrumentation/lyrics and tape
abstractions. The first sample was the single "Penny Lane/Strawberry
Fields Forever," followed by the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band (1967), considered by many to be the greatest rock project in musical
history.
The Beatles Break Up
The Beatles then suffered a huge blow when Epstein died of an accidental
overdose of sleeping pills on August 27, 1967. Shaken by Epstein's death, the
Beatles retrenched under McCartney's leadership in the fall and filmed Magical
Mystery Tour. While the film was panned by critics, the soundtrack album
contained Lennon's "I Am The Walrus," the group's most cryptic work
yet.
Magical Mystery Tour failed to achieve much
commercial success, and the Beatles retreated into Transcendental Meditation
and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which took them to India for two months in early
1968. Their next effort, Apple Corps Ltd., was plagued by mismanagement. That
July, the group faced its last notably hysterical crowd at the premiere of
their film Yellow Submarine. In November 1968, the Beatles' double-album
The Beatles (also known as The White Album) displayed their
divergent directions.
By this time, Lennon's artist partnership with second wife Yoko Ono had
begun to cause serious tensions within the group. Lennon and Ono invented a
form of peace protest by staying in bed while being filmed and interviewed, and
their single "Give Peace a Chance" (1969), recorded under the name
"the Plastic Ono Band," became a national anthem of sorts for
pacifists.
Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969, just after the group
completed recording Abbey Road. The news of the break-up was kept secret
until McCartney announced his departure in April 1970, a month before the band
released Let It Be, recorded just before Abbey Road.
Solo Career
Not long after the Beatles broke up, in 1970, Lennon released his debut
solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, featuring a raw, minimalist
sound that followed "primal-scream" therapy. He followed that project
with 1971's Imagine, the most commercially successful and critically
acclaimed of all Lennon's post-Beatles efforts. The title track was later named
No. 3 on Rolling Stone magazine's "All-Time Best Songs" list.
Peace and love, however, was not always on Lennon's agenda. Imagine
also included the track "How Do You Sleep?," a vehement response to
veiled messages at Lennon in some of McCartney's solo recordings. The friends
and former songwriting duo later buried the hatchet, but never formally worked
together again.
Lennon and Ono moved to the United States in September 1971, but were
constantly threatened with deportation by the Nixon Administration. Lennon was
told that he was being kicked out of the country due to his 1968 marijuana
conviction in Britain, but the singer believed that he was being removed
because of his activism against the unpopular Vietnam War. Documents later
proved him correct. (Two years after Nixon resigned, in 1976, Lennon was
granted permanent U.S. residency.)
In 1972, while battling to stay in America, Lennon performed at Madison
Square Garden in New York City to benefit mentally handicapped children and
continued to promote peace. His immigration battle took a toll on Lennon's
marriage, and in the fall of 1973, he and Ono separated. Lennon went to Los
Angeles, California, where he partied and took a mistress, May Pang. He still
managed to release hit albums, including Mind Games (1973), Walls and
Bridges (1974) and Rock 'n' Roll (1975). During this time, Lennon
famously collaborated with David Bowie and Elton John.
Lennon and Ono reconciled in 1974, and she gave birth to their only
child, a son named Sean, on Lennon's 35th birthday (October 9, 1975). Shortly
thereafter, Lennon decided to leave the music business to focus on being a
father and husband.
Tragic Death
In 1980, John Lennon returned to the music world with the album Double
Fantasy, featuring the hit single "(Just Like) Starting Over."
Tragically, just a few weeks after the album's release, Lennon was shot several
times by a deranged fan in front of his apartment complex in New York City.
Lennon died at New York City's Roosevelt Hospital on December 8, 1980, at the
age of 40.
John Lennon's assassination had, and continues to have, a profound
impact on pop culture. Following the tragic event, millions of fans worldwide
mourned as record sales soared. And Lennon's untimely death still evokes deep
sadness around the globe today, as he continues to be admired by new
generations of fans. Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall
of Fame in 1987, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
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