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John Lennon biography, photos find out everything!
Name: John Lennon
Date of birth: October 9, 1940
Zodiac Sign: Libra
Eastern Horoscope: Dragon
Place of birth: Liverpool, United Kingdom
Date of death: December 8, 1980 (40 years old)
Activity: rock musician, poet, composer
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Biography of John Lennon
John Lennon's Childhood
John Lennon was born at the very time when Hitler's air force was raiding Liverpool – at 6: 30 in the morning.
John's parents, Julia and Alfred Lennon, separated shortly after the birth of their son.
John was left to be raised by his mother.
After a while, Julia Lennon met another man and started a new family, and gave four year old John to her aunt Mimi Smith, who did not have a child of her own with her husband George.
Mimi led a very strict upbringing, which was reflected in John's character – he was snide and sarcastic, constantly protesting against his aunt's methods of education.
Mimi condemned the boy's passion for the guitar, saying that the guitar will not help to earn money for a living.
Later, having become rich, the sarcastic Lennon bought a beautiful villa for his aunt and hung a marble plaque with the words of his aunt carved on it in the hall.
John Lennon as a child
Having not found a common language with his aunt, John, however, became very friendly with George, his uncle.
George treated Lennon much more gently, but did not condone him, showing a truly paternal approach to the boy's upbringing.
However, in 1953, Uncle George dies, after which Lennon noticeably gets closer to Julia, his mother, who by that time had already given birth to two children from her second husband.
Despite his intelligence, John could not tolerate school classes, so he studied worse from year to year.
The only subject in which Lennon had the best marks was music.
In addition, John was engaged in the publication of a handwritten magazine with his own illustrations and sang in the choir, having achieved sufficient success in this field.
In 1952, John was transferred to another school, but even there he did not show success in teaching, was distinguished by bad behavior and drew caricatures of teachers.
John Lennon in "The Quarrymen"
At the new school, John heard rock and roll for the first time.
The first song was Bill Haley's composition "Rock around the Clock".
Then Lonnie Donegan's song "Rock Island Line" became his favorite, which marked the beginning of a skiffle that quickly became popular in Liverpool and England as a whole – a type of performance that did not require special musical knowledge and playing skills.
The usual set of musical instruments of skiffle groups of that time included a guitar, a harmonica and a rhythm section, which was usually used as a washing board.
John Lennon imagine that...
Skiffle groups in the mid fifties made up the vast majority of youth music groups in England.
In 1956, Lennon also founded his own group.
The band was named "The Quarrymen" in honor of the school where all the band members studied.
Lennon was the guitarist in the Quarrymen.
In addition to John, there were five other musicians in the band – another guitarist, two drummers, one musician with a banjo and Lennon's best friend, who performed the most important and honorable mission – playing on a washboard.
In 1957, Lennon met Paul McCartney and soon invited him to the Quarrymen.
Then McCartney brings George Harrison into the band.
Meanwhile, school ends and it's time for the final exams, which Lennon completely failed.
As a result, the headmaster helped John to enroll in the Liverpool College of Art, where Lennon meets another future member of the "Quarrymen" Stuart Sutcliffe and his future wife Cynthia Powell.
In the summer of 1958, while crossing the road, John's mother was hit by a police officer's car, dying on the spot from her injuries.
This was a huge grief for Lennon, who later dedicated several songs to this bitter event.
After this accident, Lennon, strongly attached to Julia, tried to find a mother in all his women.
In 1959, the Quarrymen were renamed the Silver Beetles.
The name was later shortened to "The Beatles".
The band, which grew out of a school skiffle band, was destined to change the world of music forever, becoming the most significant musical group of the twentieth century.
The beginning of "Beatles"
A year after the Quarrymen turned into the Beatles, the band went on their first trip abroad.
The band went to perform in the nightclubs of Hamburg.
It was there that Lennon tried drugs for the first time.
In the period of 1960-1963, the Beatles came to Hamburg repeatedly, becoming a fairly popular group in the city.
Local popularity also took place in his native Liverpool.
Stuart Sutcliffe met photographer Astrid Kircher during one of these visits.
Astrid and Stuart met for a very short time, deciding to formalize the relationship officially as soon as possible.
As it turned out, they were in a hurry for a reason – the period of happiness was extremely short.
In 1962, Sutcliffe died of a stroke.
Since the beginning of 1962, the band has had a manager – Brian Epstein, who completely changed the image of the Beatles.
Leather jackets are a thing of the past, they were replaced by jackets without lapels.
On stage, the musicians no longer smoked and did not swear.
This cardinal turn in the appearance of the "Beatles" contributed to the rapid growth of the band's popularity.
In August 1962, Lennon marries Cynthia Powell, and in April 1963, the Lennon family gives birth to a son, Julian, named after John's mother, who died in a traffic accident.
In 1963, speaking to the family of the reigning monarchs, Lennon for the first time allowed himself to attack the royal family.
This ended in a scandal, which made the Beatles even more popular.
By 1964, the team already had world fame.
More popular than Christ
From 1964 to 1966, The Beatles were basking in the rays of glory.
In one of the scandalous interviews, John Lennon, who took on the role of the unofficial leader of the band, said: "Now we are more popular than Jesus;
I do not know which will disappear sooner — rock and roll or Christianity."
In Britain, no one attached any importance to this phrase, and in the United States, after the publication of this interview in the Datebook magazine with the headline "The Beatles are more popular than Christ", a storm broke out.
Southerners, who have long been distinguished by their religiosity, publicly burned the band's records, their songs disappeared from radio station rotations, and the band members were threatened with violence.
Lennon had to apologize for his words, as the band was preparing for a tour of the States and could not take any chances.
Despite the apologies, the tour turned out to be a failure – the concert halls were almost empty, and in Memphis an unknown person called The Beatles ' hotel room and promised that John would be killed during the performance.
This concert was the last in the history of the band, the Beatles never performed on stage again.
John Lennon became famous not only thanks to the Beatles
Drugs
Since 1967, John Lennon became seriously interested in drugs, having been impressed by Timothy Leary's book "The Psychedelic Experience".
This contributed to John's distance from the rest of the band members.
Lennon no longer took on the role of an unofficial leader of the team, finding himself in other hobbies.
In the same year, the manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein, dies, after which Paul McCartney takes over the leadership of the group.
He also becomes the new manager of the team.
The best rock album of all Time " Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band "was almost entirely written by Paul, although the songs are signed "Lennon McCartney".
Lennon also wrote his best songs in those years, which went to the "White Album" of 1968.
At the same time, the image of the Beatles began to change.
The musicians grew their hair, moustaches, sideburns, and Lennon began to appear in the legendary round glasses that later became legendary.
In the same 1968, Cynthia Lennon leaves her husband, finding him in bed with his mistress, the avant garde artist Yoko Ono.
Shortly after his divorce from his first wife, Lennon is married to Yoko Ono, which was the reason for the divorce from Cynthia.
Their marriage was registered in March 1969 in Gibraltar.
As part of the honeymoon, the newlyweds visited Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Montreal.
In the fall of the same year, Lennon wrote a song dedicated to Yoko - "The Ballad of John and Yoko".
John Lennon started using drugs in his youth
The breakup of the Beatles
After John's divorce from Cynthia, the situation inside the Beatles escalated to the limit.
Lennon and McCartney took turns accusing each other of all mortal sins, exchanging claims.
The duo's creative collaboration has almost come to naught.
John became interested in avant garde, psychedelic and acid rock, which did not suit Paul.
During the recording of the "White Album", the band was on the verge of breaking up.
Ringo Starr announced his departure from the band, although in the end the departure did not take place.
Some of the songs of the" White Album " were recorded by an incomplete composition, and some of the compositions Lennon wrote alone at all.
The trend of "album sharing" between Lennon and McCartney reached its apogee in 1969, when Paul recorded the album "Abbey Road", which became in fact the last album of the band.
"Let It Be", released a year later, was based on material recorded back in January 1969.
By the time "Let It Be" was released, both Lennon and McCartney had left the Beatles.
John Lennon's Solo career
Back in 1968, Lennon began a solo career.
The first joint album of John and Yoko Ono appeared in the same year.
The record was a chaotic set of noise and moans accompanying the couple's lovemaking, and was recorded in one night.
The album cover featured Lennon and Ono completely naked.
The next joint albums of the spouses also contained everything except music.
Subsequently, Lennon and Ono put together a group "Plastic Ono Band".
John Lennon excerpt from the interview
John Lennon's political activities
In addition to his activities in the field of musical art, Lennon became quite a significant political activist in a short time.
He promoted his views on society and politics not only in songs, but also in public speeches, interviews, etc.
Lennon was close to the ideas based on brotherhood, freedom and world peace, which made John an idol among hippies and put the musician on a par with the most prominent public figures of the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1969, Lennon and Yoko Ono announced during their honeymoon in Amsterdam that they would give a "bed interview" for journalists.
Within the framework of this "interview" everything turned out to be much more decent than the journalists thought – Lennon and Ono talked about the ideas of world peace, sitting in bed in white pajamas.
The couple held the same actions in Toronto and Montreal.
In the post weekend city, Lennon impromptu composed the song "Give Peace a Chance", which became the anthem of the pacifist movement.
In December 1969, the Lennons organized an anti war concert "The war will end if You Want It".
In the early seventies, John began a psychological crisis, from which he was brought out by Dr. A. Janov.
Yanov's treatment methods inspired John to create the album "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band", which became one of the best solo records of the musician.
Lennon's last political album "Imagine"was released in 1971 and contained songs in the lyrics of which the main leitmotif was John's utopian dreams.
Emigration
Since the fall of 1971, the couple has been living in New York.
After fighting for the right to live in the States for a long time, the Lennons finally got the right to enter the country, after which John never appeared in Britain.
Having moved to the American continent, Lennon immediately proved himself as a political activist, quickly becoming involved in the socio political problems of the United States.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
In 1973, Yoko Ono received a residence permit in the States, and Lennon was ordered to leave the country within two months.
The couple separated for more than a year.
After receiving an official residence permit in the States and the birth of his son, Lennon left the field of view of the public and journalists for five years, saying that he wanted to devote the next years to raising his son.
In 1980, "Double Fantasy" was released, the last lifetime album of the musician.
A few weeks after the release of the album, John's life was cut short.
The death of John Lennon.
Memory
On December 8, 1980, the musician was shot and killed by Mark Chapman, a citizen of the United States.
A few hours before his death, John held his last press conference, then visited the recording studio "Hit Factory" and at 22 hours 50 minutes local time, he was returning home with Yoko.
At the moment when the couple entered the archway near their home, Mark Chapman fired five shots from a pistol into Lennon's back.
Of the five shots fired, the killer, who earlier in the day took an autograph from Lennon, asking him to sign the cover of the new album, missed only once.
A police car was called by the gatekeeper, who promptly took Lennon to the Roosevelt Hospital.
However, the blood loss was incompatible with life – at 23 hours and 15 minutes, Lennon died.
John Lennon stand by me
The musician was cremated, Lennon's ashes were given to his wife.
John's killer is serving a life sentence in a New York prison.
Chapman applied for early release seven times, but all these petitions were rejected.
The name of John Lennon is immortalized in many cities and countries of the world, including in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
In St. Petersburg, there is an art project dedicated to John Lennon, at Pushkinskaya, 10.
in Lviv, one of the city streets is named after the musician, and in Mogilev Podolsky there is a monument to Lennon in the city park.
A similar monument has been installed in Yekaterinburg since 2009.
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