Remembering JOHN LENNON - Murdered 25 yrs ago toda

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Look-alike is hooked on life as Lennon
Wed Dec 7, 2005 5:49 AM ET
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By Mike Collett-White
LIVERPOOL, England, Dec 7 (Reuters) - John Lennon impersonator Neil Harrison says he would find it hard to give up his more famous alter ego, having mimicked the master songwriter for more than 25 years.

Harrison embarked on his bizarre career path in March, 1980, nine months before former Beatle Lennon was slain on Dec. 8 outside his New York apartment, aged 40.

Today, Harrison and his fellow Bootleg Beatles are more popular than they were when they first formed, further proof of the Fab Four's lasting appeal.

"It's just something that happens, is exciting for a while and then actually becomes quite difficult to give up, because we started to become quite successful," he said of his life as Lennon. "And also I love the music."

Harrison, 55, was a founding member of the Bootleg Beatles after appearing in a West End show in London called "Beatlemania".

To this day, they bear an uncanny resemblance to the original quartet in their various 1960s fashions in promotional pictures on the Web site www.bootlegbeatles.com.

Harrison recalls that people once thought the idea "sick" and "sacrilegious", but when it became clear that the Beatles would not reform after Lennon's death there was less resistance.

"It was strange back then, because the Beatles were all alive and there was always the chance they would get back together," Harrison said. "There was not as much interest then as there is now."

He said the appeal of the bootleg version of the most famous band in pop history spans the generations; at a recent concert in the English city of Bristol, he got a request from a five-year-old girl in the audience to play "Penny Lane".

"Possibly their lasting appeal is because music hasn't massively changed since then," Harrison explained. "People have gradually realised over the years that that probably was the best pop music ever written."

Harrison has travelled the world with the Bootleg Beatles, and encountered some embarrassing cases of mistaken identity.

In 1982, the band was invited to the Soviet Union.

"I'm absolutely positive a lot of people did think it was the Beatles," he said.

On a trip to Prague, someone tipped off the local media and airport staff that Mr. Harrison of the Beatles, presumed to be the genuine article George, had arrived.

The Bootleg Beatles were ushered into a VIP lounge and given champagne before someone in the room asked where Mr. Harrison was, and the hosts soon realised their mistake.

"Suddenly the cocktail cabinet closed, we were left to cart our own cases, and the limousine was cancelled," Harrison said.

To mark the 25th anniversary of Lennon's murder on Thursday, he will perform "Imagine" at a gig the following day, breaking the Bootleg Beatles' tradition of only performing Beatles music and not that of its members as solo acts.

Harrison said he found it hard to imagine not being Lennon.

"I've been playing John Lennon longer than John Lennon played him."

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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Yoko keeps grip on Lennon legacy
By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter


Thursday marks the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. His image and music are still extremely potent and popular - but how does his widow Yoko Ono control his legacy?


John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono is in charge of the late star's estate
When musician Ian Watts put together a stage musical to tell John Lennon's life story, he thought he was paying harmless tribute to the greatest artist of the last century.

But Ono was not willing to put her late husband's reputation in the hands of a project she had not approved.

Mr Watts was about to give Lennon: A Day in the Life two low-key test performances when Ono and Sony/ATV, who own publishing rights to the music, found out and stopped him in his tracks.

"Your head's above the parapet and Yoko's crosshairs are firmly fixed on your forehead," he was told by their lawyers.

"It was a very, very scary time," Mr Watts says. "I was amazed that they found out about this.

'Blown away'

"I was absolutely blown away by how hot they are, how quick they were off the mark and how solid it was."

Mr Watts says he was merely "naive" about needing permission from Lennon's estate. But he now agrees they are right to keep a firm grip on Lennon's legacy.

"What they're doing is protecting the names of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And they have to be really looked after.


Yoko Ono backed an ill-fated John Lennon Broadway musical
"So it's important that people like me don't come along and make a mess of it. Of course, we weren't intending to make a mess of it."

He was told to take out any trace of storyline - and so a new tribute band-style concert show, Come Together Right Now, finishes its UK tour at the Liverpool Empire on Sunday.

Ono is notoriously protective of her late husband, threatening to sue a painter and taking legal action against a Tokyo underground operator for using his image.

But, as any Beatles fan will know, products and projects using his name and music are hardly thin on the ground.

US magazine Forbes estimates Lennon's estate earns $22m (£12.7m) per year - mainly from CD sales.

Ono has just put together a new greatest hits compilation, Working Class Hero, which was released in October. She also backed a Broadway musical that closed after just six weeks following poor reviews.

John doesn't belong to the world any more - he belongs completely to Yoko

Bill Harry
John Lennon's friend and writer
Lennon merchandise such as sunglasses, figurines, plates, watches, trainers and baby accessories has also been approved.

But proceeds from many of these go to charity and Ono has also donated some rights to organisations like Amnesty International. Ono's representatives declined to comment on her activities.

Bill Harry, a friend of Lennon who ran the Mersey Beat newspaper in the 1960s and wrote the John Lennon Encyclopaedia, says Ono has an "iron grip" over what is released.

"Yoko controls everything," he says. "John doesn't belong to the world any more. He belongs completely to Yoko, who is able to filter anything that goes out.


Ono named Liverpool airport after her late husband in 2001
"Everybody has to have her permission for anything - which is why we have the most abominable stuff coming out on John."

The Beatles were the first band to create their own merchandise industry, according to The Times chief rock critic Pete Paphides.

But now, Ono is devaluing Lennon's messages by using lyrics on products such as Nike's Converse Peace trainers, which feature words from Imagine, he says.

"I think it's probably a misguided attempt to keep him remembered," Mr Paphides says.

"I think in Yoko's world there's no major conflict between licensing someone's name and keeping their memory alive.

'Cliche'

"There's this sense that by buying a Converse trainer you might somehow be tapping into the message of songs like Imagine and I think that's what sticks in the craw slightly.

"I don't think her intentions are malign, I just think she doesn't see any great conflict in all of this."

But her actions have reduced Lennon to a cliche, he says.

"I guess that's part and parcel of iconhood - maybe in order to become an icon you do have to be reduced to this cliched, more well-rounded, smoother version of what you were."



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Imagine Lennon as himself, not an icon
By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | December 7, 2005

Tomorrow marks 25 years since Howard Cosell cut into the Patriots-Dolphins Monday Night Football game to announce that John Lennon had been shot. Expect plenty of file footage on the evening news of teary fans gathered outside the fateful site, lighting candles and singing ''Imagine." Brace for the talk show commentaries about how his death marked the first day of adult reckoning for baby boomers who grew up with the Beatles.

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts I don't know what Lennon's death means in the scope of music history. I'll just tell you what I miss about him.

I wasn't yet born when the Kennedys got shot, and I don't remember where I was the day the Challenger went down. But I do remember the day I heard Lennon died. I was standing in a frosted-over schoolyard in Oslo. The entire fifth grade was lined up for morning call, standard at the British-run school. A buddy named Simon told me about John. I couldn't believe it.

The Beatles were my favorite band. Having come to Oslo for my father's yearlong sabbatical, I had musical options that seemed to begin and end with ABBA. Then one day ''Help!" came on the tube. I grabbed the Radio Shack tape recorder and crammed its speaker up to the TV. Those tapes, dialogue and all, would become my soundtrack for the year.

I write this as someone who believes, as callous as it might sound, that Lennon in death has become just another outdated icon on pop culture's milk carton of consciousness. I see people laughing at the failed ''Lennon" musical, and the idea that 10 different men and women could portray him. I scan the endless line of Lennon merchandise, from hardcover editions of his cavemanish drawings to the baby bedding collection adorned with his name. I look over the pathetic sales figures (42,000) of the latest Lennon compilation, ''Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon." How would John feel to know that Paul McCartney's new album had moved eight times that total?

I miss the human soap opera that Lennon lived, and seemed to thrive on. He was a master manipulator of the press, staging bed-ins as his agit-rock adaptation of the 1960s ''be-in." Rather than make nice, he attacked other musicians. He called Mick Jagger ''a joke" and slammed McCartney, his onetime musical brother, in song and print. ''How Do You Sleep" taunted Paul with lines like ''The only thing you did was yesterday." Did Tupac ever make Notorious B.I.G. feel so small?

Lennon tried heroin and primal scream therapy, medication and macrobiotics. He was an absentee father to his first son, Julian, and then a model of domestic ambition during his second try, with Sean. He wrote loving tributes to Yoko Ono, and sabotaged his artistic legacy by placing her work -- some of it quite good, but none of it meant for a Lennon solo album -- on his records. He also carried on a brutally public affair after Ono kicked him out, wandering around New York City bleary-eyed for a year. He cared as passionately about injustice as Bono. But his abrasive, unpredictable approach to politics would never earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Nixon wanted him kicked out of the country.Continued...

So what if John had lived?

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Sometimes, I like to think he would have made peace with his past. He would have joined the other Beatles for charity projects, or helped deal with the group's legacy. If that didn't work, I imagine he would have fought hard to keep them from harvesting his scratchy demos. I don't think we'd be able to buy ''Real Love," at least legally.

I also believe Lennon would have tried harder to help his sons, both of them finding it hard to grow up. (Neither has spoken about the anniversary of Lennon's death, and both appear to have abandoned their once-promising music careers.)

If Lennon had lived, I suspect Kanye West wouldn't have been the only loose cannon during the Katrina telethon. I have no idea what Lennon would have said in that live spot, and that's the point. He was not a guy to stay on script.

Most of all, I miss the chance to hear more music. Lennon's supposed comeback album, ''Double Fantasy," was a hit. But when I listen to that final record, I hear an artist trying to reconnect but saddled with the lifeless sound of the late '70s New York studio scene. So what? After five years of changing diapers, maybe Lennon needed more time to find himself musically. Bob Dylan snored through most of the '80s. McCartney needed until this year to make anything that could stand up to his best work of the 1970s.

I want to hear Lennon work with new producers, rediscover his talent.

He certainly had some success as a solo artist. Just listen to 1970's ''Plastic Ono Band," on which he confronts his history, not only as a former Beatle but as a heartbroken boy who lost his mother and barely knew his father. He screams over the haunting, gospel groove of ''Mother," grits his teeth through ''Working Class Hero," and, in ''God," snickers at Beatles fans hoping for reconciliation. ''The dream is over," he sings and then, in suitably smug fashion, dismisses virtually every movement before getting to the kicker: ''I just believe in me, Yoko and Me."

''Plastic Ono Band" and 1971's ''Imagine" not only sound good, they offer a window into a tortured, torn and brilliantly talented soul who was willing to share his pain. He mocked us, tried to please us, wanted to be hated, loved, forgotten, and immortalized. And for all of this, I hope he is simply remembered.

© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Dec. 5, 2005 — Animosity over Paul McCartney's stardom was one of the main reasons the Beatles split up, John Lennon says in a newly released interview from 1970.

Lennon was 30, and the Beatles had broken up just months before, when he and wife Yoko Ono talked to Rolling Stone editor/founder Jann Wenner. Lennon explained how strained the relationships between the "Fab Four" had become when they shot their last film, a documentary called "Let it Be."



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"I felt sad," Lennon said. "That film was set up by Paul, for Paul. That's one of the main reasons the Beatles ended, 'cause … I can't speak for George [Harrison], but I pretty d— well know, we got fed up being sidemen for Paul. And the camera work was set up to show Paul and not show anybody else. That's how I felt about it. And on top of that, the people that cut it, cut it as 'Paul is God' and we're just lying around there. I felt sick."

Lennon also said he was deeply hurt by the band's reaction to his 38-year-old wife.

"They despised her, they insulted her, and they still do," Lennon said.

In the nearly seven-hour interview, Lennon also expressed his frustration with his mega-stardom.


"They're just sucking us to death," Lennon said of his fans. "About all we can do is do it like … circus animals. I resent being an artist in that respect. I resent performing for … idiots who won't know — who don't know — anything. 'Cause they can't feel — I'm the one that's feeling, 'cause I'm the one expressing what they are trying to. They live vicariously through me and other artists."

Wenner said the singer felt things deeply.

"John was a man of extreme passions," he said. "He would feel something, something and then change his mind. He was angry at the whole experience — the lies and the dishonesty. He was angry at the hypocrisy, the false fronts. It bled him dry."

Lennon also spoke of rivalries between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

"I think Mick [Jagger] got jealous," Lennon said. "I always was very respectful of Mick, of the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by, because I can knock the Beatles, but don't let Mick Jagger knock them. Because I just like to … list what we did and what the Stones did two months after, on every … album and every … thing we did, Mick does exactly the same. He imitates us."

Despite all he had achieved by 1970, Lennon still harbored intense resentment toward those who never appreciated him as a child.

"People like me are aware of their genius (so-called) at 10, 8, 9," he told Wenner. "I had always thought why hadn't anyone discovered me? In school can't they see that I'm cleverer than anyone else in this school? That the teachers are stupid too?! I used to say to Auntie 'you throw my … poetry out and you'll be sorry when I'm famous.' I was different. I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? It comes out that people like me have to save themselves because you get … kicked and say to themselves look at me. I'm a genius …. What do I have to do to prove to you … who I am? And don't you dare criticize my work like that. You who don't know anything about it."

Wenner said Lennon "was a volcanic individual to begin with," but did have a softer side. When Wenner asked him where he would be when he was 64, (a question inspired by the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four") Lennon answered that he and Ono would be living alone, looking back on their "scrapbook of madness."

Lennon was shot dead 25 years ago in front of his apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The full interview is available at via podcast.

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Still the coolest
Twenty-five years after his assassination, it's clear that John Lennon is the Beatle who matters the most
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Font: * * * * Robert Sandall, The Daily Telegraph
Published: Monday, December 05, 2005
In those old playground arguments about which of the four was fabbest, I was always for John Lennon because of the way he came across so sarcastic, yet serious: the essence of what impressionable male adolescents regard as "cool." And however much it may irk Paul McCartney, Lennon -- the man whose name precedes his own on all of the Beatles' songwriting credits -- still fascinates in a way that no other Beatle, not even the indefatigably media-conscious Macca, has quite managed to do.

Of all of them, Lennon was the one whose music spoke most directly and eloquently about him. With Lennon, the best songs were nearly always a transparent product of his complicated, borderline depressive personality -- and he knew it. After he and McCartney began to write separately, he defined the difference between them as follows: "These stories about boring people doing boring things -- being postmen and secretaries and writing home. I'm not interested in third-party songs. I like to write about me. 'Cos I know me.'' This remark provides the starting point for a series of programs I am presenting for BBC Radio 4 over the coming week, one of many TV and radio tributes marking the 25th anniversary of Lennon's murder on the doorstep of his Manhattan home on Dec. 8, 1980. The idea behind Songs In the Key of Lennon is to look at the man and his relationships through five key songs, and to talk about them, and him, with some of the people who knew him best.

But which songs, and which people? There are around 80 Lennon compositions in the Beatles' catalogue, and 50-odd in his solo output. I decided to focus mainly on things Lennon wrote and recorded while he was still a Beatle. The solo stuff seems less interesting in what it says about John Lennon, either because, as in the case of the ubiquitous Imagine, it feels a bit too Yoko (he wanted to give his wife a credit for her contribution to the lyrics), or because many of the other solo works sound so artlessly personal as hardly to need unpacking in a speech radio program. The Lennon heard howling in pain at the end of the song Mother -- about the father he never knew and the mom who surrendered him to the care of her older sister, Aunt Mimi, when he was five -- is an altogether less intriguing proposition than the dreamy character addressing his birth mother like a lover on his haunting track from the Beatles' White Album, Julia.

I also wanted to interview people who knew Lennon before the madness of Beatlemania took hold, rather than those who encountered him after the strategies he put in place to deal with such unprecedented stardom kicked in. Given that Lennon spent more than half of his life in Liverpool -- he left for London when he was 24 and died only 16 years later -- it seemed a good idea to talk to friends and family who could remember the bright but rowdy teenage Scouser from a peculiarly broken home.

I spoke to Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, and his younger half-sister, also named Julia. Relations between Yoko and these feisty members of Lennon's old Liverpool clan are still strained -- although Julia pointedly declines to blame Yoko for what she sees as John's decision to turn his back on his English family.

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Both Cynthia and Julia described how, in different ways, they suffered the effects of the traumatic event in Lennon's early life that became central to his creativity: the death of his mother in a road accident when he was 17. At the time he was rebuilding a relationship with this loving but wayward absentee figure.

She had done much more to foster his love of music than the sternly respectable Mimi, who so disapproved of her beautiful, unconventional sister. Lennon later said that he felt he had lost his mother twice. In an interview, his half-sister Julia said that beneath the shell of wit and rock-'n'-roll bravado, which he put up as a protective barrier, she sensed that "John was like an unset jelly.'' It all started to come out in the songs once the money rolled in, slackening the bonds that had kept the Beatles' gang -- and the songwriting partnership that lay at its heart -- together.

The group eventually moved to London, and by 1965, Lennon was living with his wife Cynthia in suburban seclusion in Weybridge, in the heart of the Surrey stockbroker belt. Home from yet another mad world tour, he found that the endless distractions of being head Beatle only deepened the void he felt inside. So he wrote Help!, the first pop song -- but by no means the last -- to articulate the downside of being famous. Never before had a major pop star sung in public, "But now and then I get to feel so insecure,'' and then seen such a plaintive cri de coeur bolted to the front of such a thoroughly silly film as the Beatles' second feature, Help! But John Lennon had found his voice. Help! is the subject of my first program.

Lennon's songs became more specifically personal thereafter. In Strawberry Fields Forever, he revisited the grounds of the children's home that backed on to Mimi's semi in Woolton, a favourite haunt of his early teenage years. In Julia, a song he wrote while on a meditational retreat in India with the Maharishi, he finally broached the source of his adult insecurity. The Ballad of John and Yoko, by contrast, marked the point at which Lennon pointedly began to distance himself from his past, though not, according to my sources, terribly successfully. The song hymned a woman Cynthia believes to be a substitute for the domineering Mimi; and it could never have been finished without the input of Paul McCartney, who played most of the instruments on the last afternoon the two men spent alone together at Abbey Road studio.

By now the Beatles were at loggerheads, and Lennon was falling under the sway of Allan Klein, the American manager who did much to foment the split between him and McCartney. The last of the five highlighted songs, How Do You Sleep?, is one of Lennon's angriest, and shows the depth of bitterness that briefly overcame what was probably the third most important relationship of his life. With McCartney suing to dissolve the group that Lennon regarded as his own, the old sibling rivalry had soured to the point where he composed a lyric naming and shaming particular songs written by his old partner -- Yesterday and Sgt. Pepper -- and aimed a series of taunts at McCartney's Achilles heel: the fact that he was never the "cool'' one.
Lennon later tried to pretend that the "you'' in the title could have referred to anybody, and according to Cynthia and Julia he was preparing to make up with his old Liverpool set when the assassin struck. A Beatles reunion was definitely in the cards, they reckon, a thought that makes the tragedy of his death seem even more poignant.

© National Post 2005

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25 years after John Lennon’s death, his music speaks to a new generation
Thursday, December 8, 2005 BY Melissa Griffy SEETON REPOSITORY EDUCATION WRITER

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Repository Julie Vennitti
IMAGINE, TEEN FANS Josh Forsythe, 17, is a fan of John Lennon and The Beatles. He has an original poster hanging on his wall, a tribute of sorts to The Beatles, in his Canton home. Forsythe has books and records, even old trading cards of the group and individual members like Lennon.



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CANTON - Tammy Forsythe never dreamed her teenage son would agree to listen to music from “her generation.”

But while driving to the New England states for vacation, mother and son sang along to The Beatles’ hits, and shared more than just a moment.

“How weird — I mean, singing it with your child,” said Forsythe, who recalls writing about the experience in her journal that evening a few years ago.

It took just one album, “The Beatles #1 Hits,” to get Forsythe’s son, Josh, hooked on the band that spawned some of the most influential music ever, and social and political activist John Lennon.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Lennon’s death, when he was shot by a crazed fan in New York City. The death rocked a generation that watched The Beatles’ appearance on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” and would come to make a complex band an icon for future generations.

“The melodies that were created by The Beatles are such that they have moved on and continue to have a meaning that is really timeless,” said Patricia Grutzmacher, director of instrumental music and music education at Kent State University Stark Campus. “I think of Paul McCartney and how he has continued to grow and has not been stuck in the same stylistic tendencies. Think of what John Lennon could have done had he not been killed.

“Just imagine what we would have if he had lived.”

SPANNING GENERATIONS

Josh Forsythe is known around McKinley High School as the expert on anything related to The Beatles, including John Lennon. He and some friends even formed their own version of The Beatles.

They learned to play four Beatles songs in less than a month, and performed with the school’s choir a few years back. They played the part, too, wearing handmade Sgt. Pepper’s uniforms. Josh was John Lennon, at least until the band’s version of McCartney graduated.

Josh’s room has an original Beatles’ poster, a hanging tribute of sorts. He has books and records, even old trading cards of the group and individual members like Lennon.

“They are definitely my favorite band,” the McKinley senior said. “I think it’s their lyrics, and their themes. They do not sing about smacking people ... . They are easy to understand. Everything is simple but you are never bored with it.”

He also knows the trivia, including that Lennon came up with the name “Beatles,” spelled with an “a,” in a dream.

McKinley’s choir director, Kirk Hofmeister, said students either love The Beatles and Lennon, or they don’t know a whole lot about them. It’s often one of the two extremes.

“There are pockets of students who know their music,” said Hofmeister, adding his 11-year-old son is familiar with the music, and is a fan.

Kate Powers and Ginny Baughman are two students who love The Beatles and Lennon’s solo music. They grew up listening to it.

“I went through all of my parents’ old records,” said Powers, a McKinley senior. “I think it’s great. Especially ‘Imagine.’ It’s such a culturally relevant song, even today.”

Baughman, 16, agreed. “If you think about it, it’s like time hasn’t really changed. It almost has come full circle. That raw sound, the clothing, even the war.”

FOREVER #1

Steve Smith is encouraged when he sees young people come into Borders Books at The Strip in Jackson Township asking for music by The Beatles and Lennon.

“Kids do still very actively seek out their music, even junior high kids,” said Smith, Borders’ inventory manager. “The Beatles, largely because of John Lennon, will always be ingrained in society whether they (kids) know it or not. They are being influenced by him. Lennon was the more political element, but it was about the balance of the four of them. Even someone popular now, like Britney Spears, indirectly The Beatles have paved the way.”

Smith said even the fact that music by The Beatles and Lennon continues to be repackaged in double disc and boxed sets shows its staying power.

“They don’t call it classic rock because it’s a genre,” Smith said. “It is because it is transcends the test of time.”

Kent State’s Grutzmacher called Lennon’s death “a great loss” for not only her generation, but for young people today.

“The music (he) wrote is really intergenerational,” she said. “Of all of his songs, ‘Imagine’ is the one that really affects so many different people in so many different ways.”

Whether it’s the lyrics, or the raw emotion behind them, young and old alike agree Lennon’s music is as telling today as it was when it was first released.

“It’s nice to have a song like ‘Imagine’ to just sit back and listen to,” Josh Forsythe said of his favorite Lennon tune. “Just to think, that’s what it would be like.

“I hope as time passes that doesn’t die — even when I’m old.”

Reach Repository writer Melissa Griffy Seeton at [phone] or e-mail: [e-mail]

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John Lennon: 25 Years Later
Posted by James Joyner at 06:19
John Lennon was murdered 25 years ago today. That's a long time; he's been dead longer than he was a professional musician.

I had just turned 15 at the time and had only recently discovered the Beatles, whose brief but impactful tenure started shortly before I was born and was over well before I had any interest in music.

Interestingly, there's relatively little coverage of the anniversary in the big papers. The New York Times, from the city where Lennon lived and died, has three pieces buried deep in the paper:

Dr. Stephan G. Lynn recalls the night he held Lennon's heart in his hand.
Jack Mitchell reflects on a photo shoot of Lennon and Yoko Ono a month before the murder.
Neil Harrison explains why he's hooked on life as a Lennon impersonator.
The Washington Post has nothing today but has had a couple of stories in recent days.

An AP piece, "John Lennon's Death Lingers for Witnesses" from Dec. 4 with the recollections of several people--Lynn, the policemen on the scene, and others--who were there that night.
Another AP story, from Nov. 28, "Lennon's Killer Marks 25 Years of Infamy," that profiles Mark David Chapman.
Bill Nienhuis has a long thought piece looking back on how Lennon's death affected him and a roundup of other reactions.

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Lennon's bookings

New works keep interest in the former Beatle alive 25 years after his murder


First published: Thursday, December 8, 2005

"John Lennon is the best friend I never met."
-- Nils Lofgren, E Street Band guitarist

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"John, as I remember him, was both bright and enor- mously funny."

-- Joan Baez, madonna of folk

"John was extremely talented. He seemed to have a lot on his mind, but it never hurt his music."

-- James Brown, soul brother No. 1

"John was a volcanic genius. He was an explosive personality, full of energy and rages and passions and enthusiasms."

-- Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone magazine

Even now -- on the 25th anniversary of the night he was gunned down in New York City -- it's obvious that John Lennon was (and continues to be) many different things to many people.

The above observations are included in a new book edited by Yoko Ono, "Memories of John Lennon" (Harper Entertainment, $24.95, 303 pages). Among those who offer anecdotes and personal reflections are friends, fans, business associates and fellow musicians. The roster runs the gamut from Loudon Wainwright III to Norman Mailer, Jello Biafra to Alicia Keyes, Dennis Hopper to Paul Reiser, Tom Snyder to Cousin Brucie Morrow.

There are some interesting entries -- especially one from noncelebrity Cynthia O'Neal, Lennon's neighbor in the Dakota -- and a few of them are little more than hero worship. And there are several names notably absent from the list of contributors -- Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, for instance.

Also not offering any reminiscences is Lennon's first wife Cynthia Lennon, although the reason for that is that she's written her own book, "John" (Crown, $25.95, 320 pages). It's actually her second book about her ex-husband, as she wrote "A Twist of Lennon" back in 1978.

Also among the cavalcade of Lennon books that are elbowing each other for space on bookstore shelves this holiday season is a biography aimed at young adults by Elizabeth Partridge, "John Lennon: All I Want Is Some Truth" (Viking, $24.99, 219 pages) and a photographic retrospective from Life magazine, "Life: Remembering John Lennon, 25 Years Later" (Life, $17.95, 128 pages).

But the best of the new Lennon books comes from acclaimed rock photographer Bob Gruen. His "John Lennon: The New York Years" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $29.95, 176 pages) is a great-looking volume featuring lots of photos of Lennon and Ono snapped between 1972-1980. The book includes more than 150 photos (both black-and-white and color), many of them never before published.

Gruen was not only a masterful photographer, but a friend of Lennon and Ono, who had unique access to the famed couple -- not only on stage and in the recording studio, but also in their day-to-day life.

And while Gruen's photos alone are worth the price of the book, he has also written some wonderful anecdotes and personal stories about his time with the former Beatle, beginning with his recording sessions for "Sometime in New York" with Ono, the band Elephant's Memory and producer Phil Spector.

One of the most intimate and moving images in the book is a photograph of Ono, who is sitting on the edge of a bed taking the photograph of Lennon's blood-spattered eyeglasses that became the cover art for her harrowing "Season of Glass" album.
Selected photographs from the book also will be on exhibit at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 20, at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Gruen will be on hand to discuss the photographs and sign copies of his book at the one-night-only exhibition, sponsored by the Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock.

And finally, there's the big -- and I do mean big -- new book about the Beatles. For a review of Bob Spitz's "The Beatles: The Biography" (Little, Brown, $29.95, 992 pages), a whopping study of the Fab Four, check out the Times Union on Sunday, when the megavolume will be reviewed by Skidmore College music professor Gordon Thompson.

And Thompson also has organized a special concert of Beatles music, "Beatlemore Skidmania," which will take place at 8 p.m. Saturday at Skidmore's Filene Recital Hall in Saratoga Springs. The college's fifth annual Beatles concert will feature performances by various bands, a cappella groups, jazz trios and folksingers who are students and faculty members at Skidmore. Admission is free.

Greg Haymes is the pop music writer for the Times Union. His column appears weekly in Preview. Send e-mail to [e-mail] or call 454-5742.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

* "Beatlemore Skidmania" featuring the Bandersnatchers, the Amy Regan Band, the Chickpeas, the Rust Brothers among others. 8 p.m. Saturday. The Filene Recital Hall, Skidmore College, 815 N. Broadway, Saratoga Springs. 580-5000. Free.

* "John Lennon: The New York Years" photography exhibit and book signing by Bob Gruen. 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 20. The Center for Photography at Woodstock, 59 Tinker St., Woodstock. [phone]

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Fans still imagine a world with John Lennon
Singer's death recalled 25 years later
Thursday, December 08, 2005
John Soeder
Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
The night after John Lennon died, Leonard Jufko and some 400 other fans of the ex-Beatle came together for a candlelight vigil at Cleveland's Chester Commons.

Through tears, they sang "Give Peace a Chance," again and again. The scene was repeated around the world.

"Everybody was choked up," Jufko, 51, recalled this week.

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"My sister brought home Meet the Beatles' when I was 10 and I played it till I warped it. John Lennon was my favorite Beatle by far. He marched to the beat of a different drummer."

"The dream is over," Lennon sang on his stark 1970 album "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," his first post-Fab Four release.

For many Beatlemaniacs, however, the dream lived on, at least until Dec. 8, 1980, when Lennon was gunned down shortly before 11 p.m. outside the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He lived there with his wife, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean.

Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. He was 40. Sportscaster Howard Cosell broke the news to millions during a "Monday Night Football" broadcast.

It was the end of any hope for a Beatles reunion.

The end of a twilight era of peace and love, ushering in a decade whose mantra would be "Greed is good."

A quarter-century later, the loss still lingers, reverberating like that apocalyptic piano chord at the end of the classic Lennon-McCartney tune "A Day in the Life."

"There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of John," Ono said recently in a statement. "We all miss him. . . . John made some great songs with beautiful music and daring words."

Ono edited "Memories of John Lennon," a new book of remembrances by Chuck Berry, Dennis Hopper, Norman Mailer and other high-profile admirers.

The raft of recent Lennon tie-ins also includes "John," a memoir by his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. "I really hope he's at rest, finally at peace," she said by phone in October from a book tour stop in New York City.

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Their six-year marriage ended in divorce in 1968. Her tell-all doesn't shy away from Lennon's violent temper or his failings as a father to their son, Julian.

Lennon "was a unique human being," Cynthia said. "I hope he'll be remembered as a human being, not as a god."

"Lennon," a Broadway musical based on his music, closed shortly after it opened this year. Critics panned it.

As a solo act, Lennon has sold 13.5 million albums, enough to put him on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of all-time best-selling artists, although nowhere near the top spot claimed by the Beatles as a group, with 168.5 million albums sold.

Despite a string of enduring solo hits -- including the anthems "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" -- Lennon has been outsold by dozens of other superstars, ranging from Tupac Shakur to Barry Manilow to Paul McCartney.

Lennon's impact goes deeper than sales figures, said Jim Henke, chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (which mounted a major Lennon exhibit in 2000) and author of the biography "Lennon Legend."

"He took his fame and used it to try to make the world a better place," Henke said.

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Imagine John Lennon Alive

Deprived of his shot at the G8 He'd be 65 and maybe on Oprah. Winking.
By Barry Warne
Published: December 8, 2005

TheTyee.ca
Today marks 25 years since John Lennon was shot dead. He would have been 65 on October 9th of this year.

I imagine John would still be chiming in on world affairs. I just wish he were still around. He might not have done anything, he might have put out a few albums over the years. Hard to say, isn't it? I imagine he might have just lived out his life the way he wanted to. A couple of records here and there, maybe written a book. I imagine he would have turned up on Letterman or Regis or on Oprah with Yoko. Who knows. All speculation. Just wish he had had the chance. I imagine he would have hosted a Saturday Night Live. He would have loved saying "Live from New York!"

I imagine, during Live Aid, the Beatles would have done something. Maybe. Maybe a Beatle on each continent, singing and performing solo songs. Maybe not. I just wish Lennon had gotten the chance to live out his life, and be there when George died.

Funny that. Even though it was horrible when Lennon was shot dead, it seemed so much sadder when George died. George was the first to die of natural causes. Somehow that seemed so much sadder; it would have been the true end of the Beatles no matter what. Maybe, collectively, we were in denial about John's murder. "How could that happen?"

Lennon and Bono?

I imagine that, at 65, Lennon would be out there saying some hardcore, insightful truths with that wink in his eye. I imagine that he might have been beside Geldolf and Bono to challenge the G8 leaders. I imagine he might have turned up here and there to sing on some concerts by Elton John or Oasis maybe. Hard do say what Lennon would have made of Oasis. Probably grinned and called them wankers but played their CD loudly in the Dakota.

I imagine that John might have enjoyed the Internet, but may have never gotten into computers at all. I imagine Sean would have shown him how to Google and then John might have wrecked havoc at some of the Beatle fans chatrooms.

I imagine John and Paul might have scrapped a little bit, off and on in the public press, but still might have done a couple of things together. I imagine John would have shown up to Linda's funeral.

Wish your killer had given you a chance at retirement and peace.

Barry Warne is a writer who works at the School of Journalism at UBC.

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Lennon's legacy thrives 25 years after his death

By Michael A. Brothers
News-Leader

It was 25 years ago today that Mark David Chapman, a crazed fan seeking notoriety, shot and killed rock icon John Lennon outside the former Beatle's apartment home in Manhattan. Lennon had just returned from the recording studio with wife and collaborator Yoko Ono when his life ended for seemingly no reason.
For those who grew up with the Beatles and Lennon — those who came of age as rock music came of age — the shock of Dec. 8, 1980, has yet to wear off.



"It's easily one of the saddest days of my life," says Dale McCoy, a keyboardist and singer in Springfield band Fools Face, which was greatly influenced by Lennon and the Beatles and was coming into its own as the '80s were beginning.

"It touched me deeply," he says of the assassination, "and it's so regrettable."

Today, probably the most enduring pop culture image of Lennon is of the artist sitting behind a white grand piano singing his 1971 single "Imagine." The song was pure Lennon; it questioned religion, capitalism and the status quo. It was widely accepted at the time and became more well known over the years in part because of the sweet melodic packaging Lennon wrapped around his message.

The singer's longtime fans know he was more than an idealist and iconoclast. As McCoy puts it, Lennon "was a two-sided coin." He sang about love but left his first wife, Cynthia, and son, Julian. He was a driving force within the biggest band in the world, and yet had mixed feelings about the group's success and what it had meant. He was politically active but spent the last few years of his life at home, as a "house-husband" raising his second son, Sean.

Maybe that's why Lennon was so compelling as a person and artist, why we're still thinking about him today and why young music-makers are still influenced by him a generation after his death.

For Philip Dickey, drummer and guitarist in Springfield indie pop band Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, it's the dichotomy of sincerity and superstardom that makes Lennon so appealing.

"To me he's one of the most interesting people in pop music," says Dickey, 23. "He was such a rock star, but I think a lot of people still related to him very personally."

Lennon's passing was like a death in the family for Springfield musician Ron Butler, who for years organized a local benefit show called "Imagine" on Dec. 8 in memory of the slain singer.

It was "maybe the first death in my family because I was so young" he says.

Butler was about 25 at the time, and was in the middle of a band practice in his hometown of Joplin when the news broke. He and his bandmates had just picked up "Double Fantasy," the new album Lennon recorded with wife Yoko Ono, which signaled a return to public life after five years off devoted to being a father and husband.

"It was just so shocking," Butler recalls.

"At the time I thought, 'Well, this is the worst day of my life. Nothing will get worse than this.' That stuck with me for a while. Every year on Dec. 8, I would be in mourning, which was kind of the impetus for the 'Imagine' shows."

The benefit shows began in 1985 and had Ono's blessing. She even matched the money raised for local charities. The show has fallen by the wayside in the last few years because Butler doesn't have the time to plan it because of family and job obligations.

Butler was inspired to start the concerts because of what Lennon often stood for: attempting to make the world a better place, no matter how crazy or idealistic it sometimes sounded.

"It meant something to me," he says. "The loss meant something, and that made it easy to get interested because it was a shared loss and a respect and a love of the music and the music-maker.

"He always had integrity and honesty. ... He was unapologetic."

Lennon's unapologetic idealism defined the times as much as the times defined him, McCoy says. The rise of the baby boom generation, the Vietnam War, disposable income and political polarization made it possible for Lennon to speak out against the establishment in song and on the talk show circuit, McCoy says.

His status as a Beatle and the changing times led people to listen.

Lennon's fans understood him and the times, McCoy says, and that's why he isn't deified today in the same way as Elvis Presley or other pop culture figures whose lives were cut short.

"If he was a leader in any sense it was because it was thrust upon him," McCoy says. "It was because of that perfect storm."

Today, only U2 is really carrying the torch of rock activism that Lennon did, Butler says. Given similar circumstances today to Lennon's day — war, polarization — McCoy can't help but wonder, "What would John have to say about it all?"

"That's what's so regrettable," McCoy says. "The artistic voice is gone."
News Leader

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After John Lennon was shot dead, a grieving world wanted -- indeed, needed -- to see Paul McCartney, with a wrenched heart, struggling to cope with the sudden loss of his dear friend. Like the rest of us.

But pretty much the opposite transpired. Caught by a camera crew leaving a London recording studio a day after Lennon's murder in New York City, McCartney said with all matter-of-factness:

"It's a drag."

No emotion. No "I can't believe my best mate is gone." No sign of love behind the missing tears.

Just: "It's a drag."


If millions of people worldwide found themselves sobbing, unable to come to grips with the tragedy, how was it McCartney --Lennon's soulmate for more than a decade -- could be so seemingly cold and unaffected? His reaction still outrages many Beatles fans.

WENT TO WORK

In 1984 McCartney and wife Linda gave Playboy magazine an in-depth interview, during which he explained his infamous public utterance.

"What happened was we heard the news that morning and, strangely enough, all of us ... the three Beatles, friends of John's ... all of us reacted in the same way. Separately," McCartney told Playboy. "Everyone just went to work that day ... Nobody could stay home with that news.

"As I was coming out of the studio later, there was a reporter, and as we were driving away, he just stuck the microphone in the window and shouted, 'What do you think about John's death?' I had just finished a whole day in shock and I said, 'It's a drag.' I meant drag in the heaviest sense of the word, you know: 'It's a -- DRAG.' But when you look at that in print, it says, 'Yes, it's a drag.' Matter of fact.

"What could you say? ... I still haven't taken it in. I don't want to."

He was in denial. Just as when his mother died when he was 14. His way of dealing with that enormous loss was to lock up his emotions in public, and not talk about it even in private. The same thing was happening again.

"(Linda and I) just looked at all the news on the telly, and we sat there with all the kids, just crying all evening. Just couldn't handle it, really."

LEFT ON GOOD NOTE

McCartney said it was "a consoling factor" to know that his last phone chat with Lennon was pleasant and didn't end, as so many of their post-Beatles conversations had, with them blowing up at each other and slamming down the phone.

To Rolling Stone magazine in 1986, McCartney elaborated.

"The last couple of phone calls (John and I) had were getting very nice. I remember once he said to me, 'Do they play me against you like they play you against me?' Because there were always people in the background pitting us against each other.

"And I said, 'Yeah, they do. They sure do.' That was a couple of months before he ... it's still weird even to say, 'before he died.' I still can't come to terms with that. I still don't believe it.

"It's like, you know, those dreams you have where he's still alive, then you wake up and ... 'Oh.' "

Ottawa Sun

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John Lennon's legacy




Question for Lynne,

Bob Baldori remembers exactly where he was on Dec. 8, 1980, shortly after 11 p.m.

He was driving down Grand River Avenue, with the radio on. The DJ came on with horrifying news: John Lennon had been shot.

"I couldn't believe it, and it choked me up immediately," he said. "They announced it and they played 'Imagine' and it was just a heartbreaking song, and it was like the end of an era."

Baldori went home.

Like music fans across the country, he turned on the TV to learn more about what had just happened.

The facts were simple: Mark David Chapman had shot the former Beatle and his former idol four times. Lennon did not survive the trip to the hospital.

But that December night 25 years ago still resonates with music fans of all ages.

Baldori, a contemporary of the Beatles, grew up playing and performing R&B and had his own radio hit with the Woolies in 1966, singing "Who Do You Love?"

He recalls well the Beatles' impact on music: "They were a marketing phenomenon and they wrote phenomenal songs," he said. "As songwriters, there was never anybody better. Plus, they captured the spirit of the times."

Jeremy Sprague also recalls in detail the night Lennon died.

"I get choked up just thinking about it," he said. Sprague, 33, grew up performing with his brother, Josh, 32, and his father, Jerry, billed as Jerry and the Juveniles. Today, the brothers perform solo and together.

That night, all three Spragues had been reading in their bedrooms.

"It was like we had just gone to sleep, we were just going to sleep, and my dad shouted out our names," Sprague said. "We ran out of our room into his room. He had his radio on and he said, 'John Lennon was just shot and killed.'

"It was wild, because I think that he was kind of teary. I remember that night pretty vividly because he was pretty upset. We were upset, too."

Sprague remembers listening to the Beatles as a child, and in younger days, he and Josh would play Beatles songs from "Helter Skelter" to "Blackbird."

As an adult, he looks at John Lennon not only as a musician, but a man.

"He was not a perfect person," Sprague said. "He wasn't a very good dad or partner all of the time."

But: "He wrote some amazing songs that touched so many of us. It was sad he had to end so violently."

John Robinson remembers Lennon as "the angry Beatle" for his outspoken positions.

"He was the more outspoken one, and I think that's why people seemed to idolize him more than the other three," said Robinson, a DJ at WFMK-FM (99.1) and a longtime Beatles fan. "His music was a little edgier than McCartney's. You could always recognize it because he sang lead and also because it was heavier."

Robinson was watching a football game on ABC when he learned the news, thanks to an announcement by sportscaster Howard Cosell. Before the age of all-day cable news networks, that was the quickest way for the network to deliver the news.

Kate Peterson was just a year old when Lennon was killed. But the Lansing singer- songwriter, now 26, still appreciates Lennon's legacy.

"My mom was a Beatles fan, so she listened a little bit, but it wasn't until high school that I fully became aware and appreciate of the Beatles' existence," she said.

In London on an MSU study-abroad program, she visited the famed Abbey Road studios where the Beatles recorded, where fans from around the world leave gifts and remembrances for the Beatles.

"It was powerful to see the impact that they have had on so many people," she said.

She admires Lennon's songwriting talents, too.

"Songs like 'Imagine' really stood out for me," she said. "Their music is timeless."

Contact Kathleen Lavey at 377-1251 or [e-mail].

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Imagine

25 years in a world without Lennon, and still we mourn

By MARK LAYMAN

Staff Writer


A quarter-century has passed since John Lennon was murdered outside his New York City apartment.

“Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses,” Howard Cosell said before breaking the news of “an unspeakable tragedy” to millions watching “Monday Night Football.”

The outpouring of grief was like that following the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King.

But what was it, really, that we mourned? What did we lose that night?

A generation had come of age with the Beatles, from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “Strawberry Fields Forever” to “Revolution.” Like their idols, they had let their hair grow long and dabbled in drugs and Eastern mysticism. But they also had seen the dream of “All You Need Is Love” turn into the nightmare of the Manson family and “Helter Skelter.”

And, finally, they had seen Lennon turn his back on it all: “I don’t believe in Beatles.”

For him, though, pop stardom was just the beginning. While Paul McCartney tended sheep in Scotland, Bob Dylan lay low in Woodstock and Mick Jagger danced with Mr. D, Lennon reached higher. He married an avant garde Japanese artist and the two, inseparable, embarked on ... a campaign for world peace.

They held news conferences in bed, or covered by bags. They sent acorns to world leaders and put up billboards proclaiming “War Is Over! If You Want It.” In a room in Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel filled with such celebrity guests as Timothy Leary and Tommy Smothers, they recorded “Give Peace a Chance.”

Naive? Of course.

But sly as well.

“It’s gimmicks and salesmanship,” Lennon freely admitted.

On another occasion, before another roomful of bemused reporters, he said, “If the least we can do is give somebody a laugh, we’re willing to be the world’s clowns, because it’s a bit serious at the moment.”

By the early ’70s, Lennon and Yoko Ono were living in an apartment in the Dakota, the Gothic fortress on Central Park West. But battles with American immigration authorities and a separation from Ono that turned into a year-and-a-half-long “lost weekend” distracted Lennon from loftier pursuits. He and Ono reunited, though, and on his 35th birthday — Oct. 9, 1975 — their son, Sean, was born.

Not much was heard from Lennon over the next 3½ years as he settled into the role of “househusband.” Then, on a Sunday in May 1979, a full-page “love letter from John and Yoko” appeared in The New York Times.

“Sean is beautiful,” they wrote. “The plants are growing. The cats are purring. The town is shining, sun, rain or snow. We live in a beautiful universe. ...

“We understand that we, the city, the country, the earth are facing very hard times, and there is panic in the air. Still the sun is shining and we are here together, and there is love between us, our city, the country, the earth.”

It was a declaration of Lennon’s return to public life at the dawn of a new decade. The following year would bring a new album, “Double Fantasy,” its songs celebrating the simple joys of family. There would be a flurry of interviews and photo sessions — including one at the Dakota with Annie Leibovitz, on Dec. 8, 1980.

That night, as he returned from the studio, Lennon was shot. The photograph Leibovitz had taken just a few hours earlier, of a naked Lennon curled up in bed beside Ono, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone’s tribute edition.

Later that month in the Village Voice, a weekly paper in New York, critic Robert Christgau recounted a conversation he had with his despondent wife the night of Lennon’s murder.

“Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon?,” she had asked. “Why isn’t it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?”

That angered a lot of readers, but Christgau’s answer was exactly right: It’s never Nixon, or McCartney, or Graham Nash, or Neil Diamond, he wrote, because unlike them, “John Lennon held out hope. ... But when you hold out hope, people get real disappointed if you can’t deliver ... and a certain percentage of them will resent or hate you for it.”

The loss of that bold voice of hope was what we mourned as, all around the world, we paused for 10 minutes of silence six days after Lennon’s death.

And today, in a world still at war with itself, in a time when expectations are so diminished, we again will pause to imagine how, if John Lennon were still around, things might have been different.

Reach arts and entertainment editor Mark Layman at [phone] or [e-mail].