Who is John Lennon: biography, albums, performances, personal life, interesting and unusual facts, date and cause of death

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Many books have been written about the life of this outstanding man; some authors even received degrees for them. His songs, his thoughts and deeds have been repeatedly subjected to careful study and reflection. We will not talk about who John Lennon really is and what he wanted to say with his work - we will just tell his story.

Childhood

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in the maternity hospital on Oxford Street. In almost any biography of John Lennon, they write that this happened during the bombing - there was World War II. However, in fact, there was nothing like that, and the person who first wrote about it in his book about the Beatles, many years later refuted his words. John's mother, Julia, didn't spend much time with the baby. A year and a half later, she divorced the boy's father, Alfred Lennon, and a little later she found herself another man, and Aunt Mimi took John into her house.

Mimi was a strict woman and kept the boy in tight rein. Of course, she loved the boy and wished him the best, but in her own way:her ultimate hope was for John to go to college and find a job. She wanted to raise a decent person out of him, so she strictly followed his morals and tried not to let him "hang out with street punks", while John had already formed his own hooligan gang and fought with all the boys in the area.

When John went to school, he found that the local dull life was not at all for him: he became disgusting to study, frankly engaged in nonsense in the classroom and was in a state of permanent war with teachers. Nevertheless, then his penchant for drawing manifested itself, more precisely - for drawing mocking caricatures and obscene drawings.

Around this time, John becomes close to his mother, Julia. Julia was the "black sheep" of her family - devoid of prejudice, she did as she pleased, living for her own pleasure, and this aroused the admiration of John, who was always a rebel. They became good friends, and the mother always supported any inventions and hobbies of her son.

The Quarrymen

And it was the 50s at that time: Bill Haley's song Rock around the clock came out, Elvis Presley appeared on the scene in 1956, and a wave of rock and roll swept over Britain. However, here it took a slightly different form: skiffle appeared - this style was a little like rock and roll, but it did not require complex instruments or the ability to play well, and therefore became extremely popular with young people.

Did not stay inside and John: he and his friends from school pranks created their own skiffle group. His instrument was the guitar, although he did not know how to play. The only thing is that John's mother showed him a couple of banjo chords (the first song he learned was Buddy Holly's That'll Be The Day).

The guys played from time to time just for fun and did not consider it something serious. People in the group were constantly changing, someone came and went, new faces constantly flashed. And on July 6, 1957, Paul McCartney appeared. Some time later, he brought in George Harrison. George's mother, unlike Mimi, supported the guys in their passion for music: the company always found a warm welcome in the Harrison house.

Art College

Successfully flunking all the exams at school, John, under the patronage of director Pojboy (who sincerely tried to establish contact with an unruly student), somehow entered the art college. There, too, he practically did not study, constantly arranged various tricks and sometimes disrupted classes. He still did not know what he wanted to do, but he already firmly understood that he hated any routine - whether it was work, study, or something else that required work and diligence.

During that period of his life, he experiences the strongest shock - the death of his mother, Julia. In the short period of time that they were friends, John became very attached to her. Julia was one of the few who truly understood him. After the death of his mother, John seemed to have broken the chain: he became hardened, his antics became even angrier, his jokes became evenmore caustic.

Then John met Cynthia Powell. Perhaps he needed her: John was trying to fill the void left by his mother's death. In fact, he just took out all his anger on the girl. John also met Stuart Sutcliffe at the institute: a budding artist, Stu became interested in John's group and took the place of the bassist, although he did not know how to play. He was far more intelligent and intellectual than the rest of the band, and John admired Stu; many elements of the Beatles' style were invented by him.

The band slowly but slowly developed: they played in youth clubs, at parties, once managed to go on tour in Scotland. All this time they did not have a definite name - the Quarrymen were long forgotten, the rest changed, and only after a while did The Silver Beatles appear, composed by John in the manner of Buddy Holly's "Crickets" (The Crickets).

Hamburg

In 1960, the Beatles were very lucky: Alan Williams invited them to go to Hamburg. At that time, he had already put the sending of Liverpool bands "on tour" there on stream, and the guys were not the first. The place where they played was on Hamburg's red-light district, and the Beatles performed all night for 6-8 hours straight, and slept in the cinema.

Hamburg audience initially reacted to the guys standing on the stage like idols with coolness; their manager, Koschmeider, yelled at them, "Mack show" - a twisted "do the show." And the Beatles started to "make a show". They thumped their feet loudly, jumpedaround the stage, rolling in the dust - in a word, they went crazy. Three-minute compositions stretched for a third of an hour. The audience cheered.

It all ended very unexpectedly - George Harrison, a minor, was deported from the country. Behind him, the rest of the group had to leave Germany. The first trip to Hamburg ended unsuccessfully, but it was here that the Beatles grew significantly in their skills and acquired many skills that would come in handy later.

Under Epstein's wing

Back in Liverpool with hardened German clubs, the Beatles made a splash. They firmly settled in the most famous club of the local hooligan youth, and there they acquired a crowd of fans. Their liberated behavior on stage, free communication with the public, rocking music produced an unprecedented effect: all performances ended in a grand brawl. It was there that they were picked up by the sleek white hand Brian Epstein, who later became their manager. Under his strict guidance, the group completely changed its image: from leather-covered, unwashed, foul-mouthed "teddy-boys" of the Beatles, they turned into neat, sleek young people in suits. Subsequently, Lennon regretted that the group "succumbed" to show business: with a new image, they lost part of themselves - their unique spontaneity, simplicity and liveliness. John was annoyed that they were now twiddling their thumbs for "publicity", which they used to despise. With a new image, he will forget for a long time who John Lennon really is - a rebel and an implacable enemy of decency andpublic.

At this time they went to Hamburg a few more times. During the second tour upon arrival, John learned that Sutcliffe, who had stayed there with his girlfriend Astrid, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The death of a close friend knocked Lennon down: according to the recollections of friends, he burst into tears after the words of Astrid; it was a rare occasion when John showed emotion in public.

Beatlemania

Meanwhile, the Beatles were noticed by George Martin, and under his strict guidance they recorded a record, then another, a third, and finally a fourth, She Loves You, which definitely marked the beginning of that three-year madness that was called "Beatlemania". The band traveled the world wreaking havoc, rioting ticket lines and freaking out fans. John and his friends enjoyed the success with might and main: we will not give the facts, scrupulously collected by the fans, about what poured into the glasses, how the pipes were stuffed and how many girls spent the night in each of the hotels where the Beatles stayed. However, in show business, the group remained a company of slick, rosy-cheeked boys singing sugary love songs. Subsequently, John will call this the worst time in his life: he was forced to be not what he is, for the sake of commerce they turned a rebel rocker into a good boy, literally took away his real personality. Despite the external brilliance and triumph, inside the Beatles there was an absolute moral degradation.

Acid and end of concert activity

Having finishedtour and returning to England, John at first did not know what to do with himself. After the frantic pace of life on the verge of human capabilities, he felt empty and restless. It was then that John became interested in psychedelic experiences, marijuana and LSD. Perhaps in this way he tried to destroy everything that made up his life before, and discover his destiny - to re-understand who John Lennon really is. By the way, at about the same time, an attribute appears, which later became an indispensable detail of the image of a musician. These were John Lennon's famous round glasses.

After some time, the band's concert career also ended. They have grown significantly musically and moved on to more intelligent studio albums. Then John showed a craving for the avant-garde and psychedelic, or acid rock. The results of his experiments were, for example, the fantastic I Am The Walrus and the hippie anthem All You Need Is Love.

Yoko Ono and the breakup of the Beatles

John's interest in the avant-garde was taken advantage of by Yoko Ono. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were perfect for each other - a determined Japanese woman whose main passion was attracting attention, and a restless superstar who needed a muse or a genius to replace the simple Cynthia. They literally found each other. The Beatles at that time were in discord both in financial matters and in relations within the group. The result was a breakup with litigation. However, by that timeJohn was already glad to leave the Beatles: interests took him in a completely different direction.

Solo career and political activism

The first joint album of John and Yoko consisted of sound experiments, noise and interference, and people remembered it more simply for the cover, where the couple appeared completely naked. This was only the beginning of the protest, the challenge that they threw to the whole world. Subsequently, they will hold an unusual number of different actions and performances designed to draw attention to the problems of violence in the world. The most famous of them is the "bed interview", which took place in several cities; during it, John and Yoko sat in their hotel room (which anyone could enter) on a white bed in pajamas adorned with flowers, and talked to countless journalists. Also in 1969, Lennon returned to the Queen the Order of the Commander of the British Empire, received four years earlier, in protest against the participation in the armed conflict between Nigeria and Biafra and the support of the United States in Vietnam. After moving to New York, he actively participated in local anti-war activities, which brought him under surveillance by the government.

John continued to create - after vague experimental albums, he released, while in the US, Walls And Bridges, which had significant success. After a long time - a break made in connection with the birth of his son Sean - his second album (with the participation of Yoko) Double Fantasy is released, which has become one of the pearls of the joint work of the spouses. Before them openedenticing creative prospects. Perhaps the best period of creativity for John Lennon began. However, everything ended unexpectedly.

Death of John Lennon

Lennon was assassinated on December 8, 1980. Returning late at night from the recording studio, he heard a mysterious man call out to him. Without waiting for an answer, he fired five bullets from a revolver at the musician. Lennon was taken to the hospital, where he died from blood loss. This is a rare posthumous photo of John Lennon taken in the mortuary.

Crowds of thousands gathered on the streets. His songs have been broadcast all over the world. A little later, in New York's Central Park, 400,000 people honored the memory of the musician with a ten-minute silence. The murder of John Lennon shocked the whole world.

Lennon's integrity, honesty and straightforwardness truly deserve respect. His personal work has always been inextricably linked with his immediate state, way of thinking. The extraordinary inner strength that made him what he became, who John Lennon is, carried away millions of people who preserved not only his memory, but also a particle of his soul.