Remembering John Lennon on his birthday
Today (October 9th) marks what would have been John Lennon's 67th birthday. Today in Iceland, Lennon's widow Yoko Ono will be joined by surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to unveil the John Lennon Imagine Peace Tower.
Ono plans to have the tower lit each year between Lennon's birthday and the date of his death (December 8th). The tower will beam the words "imagine peace" in 24 languages. For more information on the Peace Tower, log on to imaginepeace.com.
The official "lighting" of the tower, which consists of gigantic beams of light, will take place on Videy Island off Reykjavik. The event marks the first time that the former Beatles have taken part in an official Lennon memorial.
By nightfall, hundreds of fans will have made the pilgrimage to Central Park's Strawberry Fields in New York City for a day of remembrance, sing-alongs, and celebrations dedicated to the memory of Lennon.
Strawberry Fields, a triangular patch of land dedicated to Lennon by the city of New York and named after the Beatles' 1967 hit, sits directly across the street from the Dakota, Lennon's Manhattan apartment building, where he was gunned down on December 8th, 1980 at the age 40.
Today is also Lennon and Ono's son Sean Lennon's 32nd birthday.
Last year a critically acclaimed documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon was released, shedding new light on Lennon's four-year battle against the Nixon administration to remain in America. The film features a soundtrack of Lennon solo songs, including "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)," "Imagine," "Give Peace A Chance," "Power To The People," "Nobody Told Me," and others. The film was produced with the support of Ono, who was interviewed extensively for the film.
At the time of Lennon's death, on December 8th 1980, he and Ono had just released Double Fantasy, his first new music in over five years.
Although Ono has made it her mission to keep Lennon's artwork and unreleased music available to fans, she has held off on releasing a box set of Lennon's acoustic home demos and work tapes made over the years.
Lennon's first wife Cynthia Lennon recently released her second book on him, titled John, in which she portrays him as a tormented soul who never got over his childhood abandonment by his parents, when he was left at the age of four to be raised by an aunt. She says that Lennon never overcame the circumstances of his childhood: "He was crippled inside. When you think about what he did as an art student -- all his drawings and cartoons, he would do cartoons of cripples, he would imitate disabled people because he was disabled inside himself."
Cynthia was asked how he was able to express his feelings of loss and self-doubt: "Well, usually with the music, with the lyrics. His expressions to the world. I mean he was saying to the world, 'Help! I need somebody.'"
George Harrison's first wife Pattie Boyd, who spent time with Lennon in the '60s, said how she remembers him: "Very funny. Very funny. Cruel as well. If anybody got on the wrong side of him, or (if) they were complete idiots, then he wouldn't fail to let them know."
Pete Best, the Beatles' original drummer, says that, although he never spoke to Lennon after the group fired him in 1962, he cherishes his times in Liverpool and Hamburg with Lennon during their all-night drinking sessions: "(My) best friend in the band was always John. (I was) friends with all of them but I was closest to John. We had an affinity which started back at the opening of the Casbah Club in 1959, it grew when we went out to Germany, you know we were the last two propping up the bars together (laughs). And of course I got to know another side of John, which was a very tender and a very loving side -- which the world realized many, many years afterwards."
Lennon's recording engineer Dennis Ferrante, who worked with Lennon throughout the 1970's on such albums as Imagine, Some Time In New York City, Mind Games, Walls And Bridges, and Rock 'N' Roll remembers Lennon for his talent and humor: "He knew what he wanted, he knew what sounded good, he wrote what he felt. One of the nicest guys I've ever worked with in the studio -- the more experimenting in the studio, the better he was. He was the most creative person I ever worked with. And he had a hell of a sense of humor, (laughs) he really had a dry wit. He really was very funny."
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Ono plans to have the tower lit each year between Lennon's birthday and the date of his death (December 8th). The tower will beam the words "imagine peace" in 24 languages. For more information on the Peace Tower, log on to imaginepeace.com.
The official "lighting" of the tower, which consists of gigantic beams of light, will take place on Videy Island off Reykjavik. The event marks the first time that the former Beatles have taken part in an official Lennon memorial.
By nightfall, hundreds of fans will have made the pilgrimage to Central Park's Strawberry Fields in New York City for a day of remembrance, sing-alongs, and celebrations dedicated to the memory of Lennon.
Strawberry Fields, a triangular patch of land dedicated to Lennon by the city of New York and named after the Beatles' 1967 hit, sits directly across the street from the Dakota, Lennon's Manhattan apartment building, where he was gunned down on December 8th, 1980 at the age 40.
Today is also Lennon and Ono's son Sean Lennon's 32nd birthday.
Last year a critically acclaimed documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon was released, shedding new light on Lennon's four-year battle against the Nixon administration to remain in America. The film features a soundtrack of Lennon solo songs, including "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)," "Imagine," "Give Peace A Chance," "Power To The People," "Nobody Told Me," and others. The film was produced with the support of Ono, who was interviewed extensively for the film.
At the time of Lennon's death, on December 8th 1980, he and Ono had just released Double Fantasy, his first new music in over five years.
Although Ono has made it her mission to keep Lennon's artwork and unreleased music available to fans, she has held off on releasing a box set of Lennon's acoustic home demos and work tapes made over the years.
Lennon's first wife Cynthia Lennon recently released her second book on him, titled John, in which she portrays him as a tormented soul who never got over his childhood abandonment by his parents, when he was left at the age of four to be raised by an aunt. She says that Lennon never overcame the circumstances of his childhood: "He was crippled inside. When you think about what he did as an art student -- all his drawings and cartoons, he would do cartoons of cripples, he would imitate disabled people because he was disabled inside himself."
Cynthia was asked how he was able to express his feelings of loss and self-doubt: "Well, usually with the music, with the lyrics. His expressions to the world. I mean he was saying to the world, 'Help! I need somebody.'"
George Harrison's first wife Pattie Boyd, who spent time with Lennon in the '60s, said how she remembers him: "Very funny. Very funny. Cruel as well. If anybody got on the wrong side of him, or (if) they were complete idiots, then he wouldn't fail to let them know."
Pete Best, the Beatles' original drummer, says that, although he never spoke to Lennon after the group fired him in 1962, he cherishes his times in Liverpool and Hamburg with Lennon during their all-night drinking sessions: "(My) best friend in the band was always John. (I was) friends with all of them but I was closest to John. We had an affinity which started back at the opening of the Casbah Club in 1959, it grew when we went out to Germany, you know we were the last two propping up the bars together (laughs). And of course I got to know another side of John, which was a very tender and a very loving side -- which the world realized many, many years afterwards."
Lennon's recording engineer Dennis Ferrante, who worked with Lennon throughout the 1970's on such albums as Imagine, Some Time In New York City, Mind Games, Walls And Bridges, and Rock 'N' Roll remembers Lennon for his talent and humor: "He knew what he wanted, he knew what sounded good, he wrote what he felt. One of the nicest guys I've ever worked with in the studio -- the more experimenting in the studio, the better he was. He was the most creative person I ever worked with. And he had a hell of a sense of humor, (laughs) he really had a dry wit. He really was very funny."
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