John Lennon

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980), (born John Winston Lennon, known as John Ono Lennon) was an iconic English 20th century rock and roll songwriter and singer, best known as the founding member of The Beatles. Between 1960 and 1966, the story of Lennon’s life and that of his group were one. Their constant re-inventing of rock music, and themselves, evolved The Beatles from pop quartet to movie stars, explorers of inner-space, spiritual adepts, and then dispersion into individual paths beyond the group.

This path defined the sixties generation and Lennon was an archetype of that decade and the next. The psychedelics and meditation of the 60s did not satisfy him, nor did psychotherapy, politics or drugs and alcohol in the 70s. He left his wife Cynthia for Yoko Ono, a Japanese avant-garde artist, with whom he worked for peace and then, exhausted by his struggle for a US green card, settled down as a family man. His creativity waned and with this his power to shape culture.

He had one son, Julian, with his first wife, Cynthia; and another, Sean, by second wife, Yoko Ono. John Lennon was murdered in New York City on December 8, 1980 by a deranged fan.

Youth

Childhood and upbringing

John Lennon was born in Liverpool to Julia Stanley Lennon and Alfred "Alf" Lennon. Lennon's father, a merchant seaman, walked out on the family when John was five years old. Due to a lack of home space and concerns expressed about her relationship with a male friend, John's mother handed over his care to her sister, Mary Smith (known as Mimi). Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi and her husband, George Smith in a fairly middle class section of Liverpool. He was raised an Anglican.

On July 15, 1958, when Lennon was 17, his mother Julia was struck and killed by a car. Her death was one of the factors that cemented his friendship with McCartney, who had lost his own mother to breast cancer in 1956, when he was 14.

Lennon was a troublemaker in school and did little work, sinking to the "C-stream." Though failing at his exams by one grade at grammar school, Lennon was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art. It was there that he met his future wife, Cynthia Powell. Lennon would steadily grow to hate the conformity of art school and he dropped out.

Early bands

He devoted himself to music, inspired by Americans such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Little Richard. Lennon started a skiffle band in grammar school that was called The Quarry Men after his alma mater, Quarry Bank Grammar School. With the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, the band switched to playing rock 'n' roll, taking the name "Johnny and The Moondogs," followed by "The Silver Beetles," a knock-off on Buddy Holly's band The Crickets. This was later shortened to The Beatles spelled with an "a" in reference to their identification with "beat groups."

Role in the Beatles

John Lennon in 1964.

Role in the Beatles

Lennon was usually considered the leader of The Beatles, as he founded the original group, inviting his art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe and Paul McCartney to join; McCartney in turn invited Harrison. Ringo Starr was brought into the group last.

At age 17, Lennon led The Beatles to pay their dues in the waterfront bars of Hamburg, a life filled with amphetamines and sex. After two years they returned to steady work at Liverpool’s Cavern Club where they met the manager who took them to stardom, Brian Epstein. A young woman they met in Hamburg gave them their distinctive “pudding basin” haircuts and Epstein guided them to engagements in larger venues, the recording studio and regular concerts on the BBC. Within a year they had polished their sound and song writing and reached the top of the charts. A tour of America, a non-stop succession of smashing singles, and the appearance of a dozen or more look-alike English bands confirmed their status. By the time Lennon was 24, the group not only dominated the rock’n’roll world, they invested that art form with a power it had never before achieved. Their hair, attitude and music defined the identity of the young generation. They were invited to a command performance for the British royalty and soon thereafter awarded the by the Queen the MBE Award (Member of the British Empire).

The group’s unique and recognizable sound was the three-part harmony with Lennon or McCartney at lead. He and McCartney formed the massively successful Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. His songwriting was full of pain and hope, at times beautiful and at times dark. As a writing pair, Lennon's hard-edged rock and McCartney's optimistic lyricism complemented one another. The Beatles’ lyrics, instrumentation, harmony, and electronic effects created a series of new paradigms for popular music and propelled their music—and rock in general—into the center of culture-creation. They constantly re-invented their music, and themselves, from pop quartet to movie stars, explorers of inner-space, serious composers and spiritual adepts, before their dispersion into individual paths beyond the group.

"More popular than Jesus" controversy

Lennon often spoke his mind freely and the press was used to querying him on a wide range of subjects. On March 4, 1966, in an interview for the London Evening Standard, Lennon made a remark regarding religion.[2] "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. ... I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

When this hit America five months later,[3] a firestorm of protest swelled from the Bible Belt area, as Christian youths publicly burned The Beatles records and memorabilia, radio stations banned The Beatles music and concert venues cancelled performances. Even the Vatican publicly denounced Lennon's comments. On August 11, 1966, Lennon addressed the growing furor at a press conference in Chicago.

Lennon: "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have got away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a journalist friend (Maureen Cleave), and I used the words "Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think — as Beatles, as those other Beatles like other people see us. I just said "they" are having more influence on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way."

Reporter: Some teenagers have repeated your statements: "I like The Beatles more than Jesus Christ." What do you think about that?

Lennon: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this."

Reporter: But are you prepared to apologize?

Lennon: "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."

The governing members of the Vatican accepted his apology, but the episode revealed the tipping point at which The Beatles were situated. Their ever-increasing cultural authority, with the pressure, scrutiny and danger attached, led them to discontinue live concerts. They had reached the top. Lennon sought new ladders to reach a higher goal.

"Turn on, tune in, drop out"

Lennon led the group into the culture’s next phase through the pathway of LSD. The albums Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in the summer of 1966 and spring of 1967, created the genre of psychedelic music, most forcefully through Lennon’s works such as “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and “A Day in the Life.”

The group at the same time sought answers through meditation, studying under India’s Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Lennon’s positive experience with meditation was expressed in songs such as “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Because” and “Across the Universe.” His rejection of gurus was expressed in “Sexy Sadie” (meaning “maharishi”), “I Found Out” (“There ain’t no guru who can see through your eyes”), and “God.”

Lennon’s looking outside the group, including acting on his own in the film “How I Won the War,” created a vacuum McCartney filled with the music and film projects “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Let It Be,” both disliked by Lennon. He quit the group in September, 1969 but agreed not to make an announcement at the time. To Lennon’s chagrin, McCartney went public with his own departure in April 1970, appearing to be the one who dissolved the group. Lennon later wrote, "I started the band. I finished it." McCartney concurred that Lennon had been the first to quit, and in a subsequent Playboy interview[5] said, "We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest and all that kind of thing."

Lennon and his families

The rise of Beatlemania and rigors of touring strained his marriage with Cynthia. On November 9, 1966, Lennon visited a gallery featuring an art exhibit of Yoko Ono's in London. Their love affair began in 1968, when Lennon left his estranged wife. Cynthia filed for divorce later that year, on the grounds of John's adultery with Ono. Lennon and Ono became inseparable in public and private.

The press was extremely unkind to Ono, posting a series of unflattering articles about her, frequently with racist overtones. This infuriated Lennon, who stood ever more staunchly his new partner. At the end of 1968, Lennon and Ono performed as Dirty Mac on The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus. During his last two years with The Beatles, Lennon spent much of his time with Ono partaking in public protests against the Vietnam War. He sent back his MBE. These developments led to friction with the other members of the group, who had separated their wives and girlfriends, as well as politics, from their professional life.

He was distant to his first son, Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to him. As the younger Lennon later said, "I've never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit... more than dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."

John is quoted as saying of his son by Ono: "Sean Lennon|Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will."

The Break-up of The Beatles

File:Lennon Ono Trudeau 1969 b.jpg

John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 22 December, 1969 Ottawa, Ontario

On March 20, 1969, Lennon and Ono were married in Gibraltar and his marriage immediately assumed a place in his life far surpassing that of The Beatles. In the summer of 1969 The Beatles' last album, Abbey Road, was produced, an acclaimed musical work. An interview given in 1970 reveals bitterness towards McCartney’s assuming leadership of the group and the hostility he felt that the other members held towards Yoko Ono.[7]

Solo career

While he was still a Beatle, Lennon and Ono recorded three albums of experimental and difficult music, Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions, and Wedding Album. His first 'solo' album of popular music was Live Peace in Toronto 1969, recorded with The Plastic Ono Band, which included Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann. He also recorded three singles in his initial solo phase, the anti-war anthem "Give Peace a Chance", "Cold Turkey" (about his struggles with heroin addiction) and "Instant Karma!"

Following The Beatles' split in 1970, Lennon released the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, a raw, brutally personal recording, which was directly inspired by what he had experienced earlier that year while going through Primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles. The centerpiece of the album is "God," in which he lists all of the people and things he no longer believed in, including Jesus, Buddha, kings, magic, and ending with "Elvis, Dylan, [and] The Beatles." Many consider Plastic Ono Band to be a major influence on later hard rock and punk music.

That album was followed in 1971 by “Imagine,” Lennon's most successful solo album, which alternates in tone between dreaminess and anger. The title track has become an anthem for anti-religion and anti-war movements. He specifically wrote one track, "How Do You Sleep?" as a biting personal attack against McCartney, but later admitted that, in the end, it was really about himself. His next album, “Some Time in New York City” (1972), was loud, raucous, and explicitly political. Lennon had been interested in left-wing politics since the late 1960s, and was said to have given donations to the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party.[8]

It was during the period of the recording of this album that his links to this group were perhaps at their strongest. On August 30, 1972 Lennon and his backing band Elephant's Memory staged two benefit concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In 1972, Lennon released an anti-sexism song, "Woman Is the Nigger of the World.” Radio refused to broadcast the song, and it was banned nearly everywhere.

Lennon rebounded in 1973 with Mind Games, which featured a strong title tune and some vague mumblings about a "conceptual country" called "Nutopia", which satirized his ongoing immigration case.

The Anti-War Years and the Deportation Battle

Recording "Give Peace A Chance", by Roy Kerwood

The Vietnam War mobilized a generation of young people to take a stand opposing US government policy and Lennon was determined to use his power as a superstar to help end the war. Lennon and Ono spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam in a "Bed-In" for peace. They followed up their honeymoon with another "Bed-In,” this time held in Montreal at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During the second "Bed-In" the couple recorded "Give Peace a Chance," which became an international anthem for the peace movement. They were mainly patronized as eccentrics by the media, yet they did a great deal for the peace movement, as well as for other related causes, such as feminism and racial harmony.

When John and Yoko moved to New York City in August 1971, they became friends with antiwar leaders Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and others, and planned a national concert tour to coincide with the 1972 presidential election. The tour was to combine rock music with anti-war organizing and registration of the new electorate of 18-year olds. Lennon had transformed from loveable mop-top to anti-war activist. The next month the Immigration and Naturalization Service began deportation proceedings against Lennon. The 1972 concert tour never happened, but Lennon and his friends did do one of the events they had been thinking about: the "Free John Sinclair" concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December 1971. 20,000 attended; two days after the concert, the state of Michigan released John Sinclair from prison.

While his deportation battle was going on, Lennon spoke often against the Vietnam War. He was tailed by a team of FBI agents, who concluded "Lennon appears to be radically oriented however he does not give the impression he is a true revolutionist since he is constantly under the influence of narcotics."

Lennon obtained his green card in 1975. The full story didn't come out until after Lennon’s murder, when historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information request for FBI files on Lennon. The story is told in the documentary, "The U.S. Versus John Lennon," by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, released by Lions Gate in September, 2006.

The "lost weekend" period

In 1973, Yoko approached May Pang, their personal assistant, and asked her to "be with John and to help him out and see to it that he gets whatever he wanted." Soon thereafter Yoko kicked him out of the house. He moved with Pang to Los Angeles until the beginning of 1975. Pang encouraged Lennon to spend time with his son, Julian Lennon, and she became friends with Cynthia Lennon.

Lennon also spent his time during these months with his close friend, the singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, and an assortment of his drinking buddies (Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Micky Dolenz and others). The period included a jam session with Paul McCartney. Despite publicized episodes of drunkenness, Lennon put together the well-received album, Walls and Bridges (1974) and produced Nilsson's Pussy Cats album. He capped the year by making a surprise appearance at an Elton John concert in Madison Square Garden, his last concert appearance in front of a rock audience. Following the Christmas holidays, he returned to Yoko Ono in New York.

On April 18, 1975, John Lennon made his last public appearance on ATV's special A Salute to Lew Grade. In 1975, Lennon released the Rock 'n' Roll album of cover versions of old songs of his youth. Also in 1975, David Bowie achieved his first US number one hit with "Fame", co-written by Bowie, Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals and guitar) and Carlos Alomar.

House-husband

Yoko Ono was pregnant with what would be their only child. Lennon retired from music and dedicated himself to family life. In the last major interview of his life conducted in September 1980, three months before his death — published in the January 1981 issue of Playboy— Lennon said that he'd always been very macho and had never questioned his chauvinistic attitudes towards women until he met Yoko Ono. By the end of his life, he had embraced the role of househusband and even said that he had taken on the role of wife and mother in their relationship. While Lennon was always distant with his first son (Julian) he was very close to his second son (Sean), and called him "my pride". Lennon also spoke about having a child with Ono: "We were both finally unselfish enough to want to have a child."

Both Julian and Sean Lennon went on to have recording careers years after their father's death. When Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as President on Jan. 20, 1977, John and Yoko were invited to attend the Inaugural Ball, signaling the end of hostility from the U.S. government. After this appearance, Lennon was rarely seen in public until his 1980 comeback.

Starting over

Lennon's retirement, which he began following the birth of his second son, Sean in 1975, lasted until 1980, when Lennon wrote an impressive amount of material during a lengthy Bermuda vacation. For this comeback, he and Ono produced Double Fantasy, a concept album dealing with their relationship.

The Lennons began a series of interviews and video footage to promote the album. “(Just Like) Starting Over" began climbing the singles charts, and Lennon started thinking about a brand new world tour. Lennon also commenced work on Milk and Honey, which Ono completed after his death.

Murder

Entrance to the Dakota building where Lennon lived.

At 10:50 p.m. on December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shot and fatally wounded John Lennon in front of Lennon's residence, the Dakota, when Lennon and Ono returned from recording Ono's single "Walking on Thin Ice" for their next album. According to police, upon being hit by four bullets, Lennon staggered up six steps, said, "I'm shot," and then collapsed. After shooting Lennon, Chapman calmly sat down on the sidewalk and waited. The doorman walked to Chapman and reportedly said, "Do you know what you've just done?" Chapman replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I just shot John Lennon."

The first policemen at the scene found Chapman sitting "very calmly" on the sidewalk. They reported that Chapman had dropped the revolver after firing it, and that he had a cassette recorder with over 10 audio cassettes, which had 14 hours of The Beatles songs on them.

The second police team at the Dakota — Officers Bill Gamble and James Moran — rushed Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital. Officer Moran said they stretched Lennon out on the back seat and that the singer was "moaning." Moran asked, "Do you know who you are?" Lennon nodded slightly and tried to speak, but could only manage to make a gurgling sound. Lennon lost consciousness shortly after.

John Lennon, at the age of forty, was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital at approximately 11:15 p.m. by Dr. Stephen Lynn. Yoko Ono, crying "Tell me it's not true", was taken to Roosevelt Hospital and led away in shock after she learned that her husband was dead. Geffen later issued a statement in her behalf: "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him." Within the first minutes after the news broadcasts announcing the shooting, people began to gather at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota, reciting prayers, singing Lennon's songs and burning candles.

On 14 December 1980, all around the world, people paused to stand alone or come together in silence, heeding a plea from Yoko Ono that they take 10 minutes to remember the former Beatle.

Lennon was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, and his ashes were kept by Yoko Ono. Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life. He has been denied parole several times and remains incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility.

Memorials and tributes

Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park, New York City.

A much-missed figure, Lennon has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes, principally the Strawberry Fields Memorial, constructed in Central Park across the street from the Dakota building where he lived and where he was shot. In 2002, Liverpool also renamed its airport the Liverpool John Lennon Airport, and adopted the motto "Above us only sky".

Every December 8 - the anniversary of his death - there is a memorial in front of Capitol Records on Vine Street in Hollywood, California. It includes speakers discussing Lennon, musical tributes, and group singing. A similar gathering takes place every year on his birthday, as well as on the anniversary of his death, at Strawberry Fields.

In 2002, the BBC polled the British public about the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. Respondents voted Lennon into eighth place.

The 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death on December 8, 2005, was a particularly emotional milestone for Beatles and Lennon fans. Celebrations of John Lennon's life and music occurred in London, New York City, Cleveland, and Seattle. A tribute concert took place at John Lennon Park at Havana, Cuba.

The minor planet 4147, discovered January 12, 1983 by B. A. Skiff at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory, was named in memory of John Lennon.

Literature

Numerous biographies of John Lennon have been published. Notable are Lennon: The Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman and the relentlessly hostile The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman.

John Lennon wrote three books himself: John Lennon: In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works, and Skywriting by Word of Mouth (the last published posthumously). A personal sketchbook with Lennon's familiar cartoons illustrating definitions of Japanese words, Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes, was published posthumously. The Beatles Anthology also contains writings, drawings, and interview transcripts by Lennon, along with the other three Beatles.

• John Lennon, Yoko Ono, David Sheff and G. Barry Olson (1981), The Playboy interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: Playboy Press/Putnam, 1981. ISBN 0872237052 - includes unpublished conversations and Lennon's song-by-song analysis of his work
• Julia Baird (with Geoffrey Giuliano), John Lennon My Brother— 1989, Grafton Books. ISBN 0-586-20566-7
• Fenton Bresler, The Murder of John Lennon — 1989, Mandarin, ISBN 0-7493-0357-3
• Ray Coleman, Lennon: the definitive biography, 1992, Harper
• E. Thomson and D. Gutman (editors), The Lennon Companion: Twenty-Five Years of the Comment — 2004, ISBN 0-333-43965-5
• Albert Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon — 2001, Chicago, ISBN 1-55652-399-8
• Jordi Sierra i Fabra El joven Lennon (The young Lennon); 1997, Ediciones SM. ISBN 987-578-038-3
• Larry Kane, Lennon Revealed — 2005, Running Press, ISBN 0-7624-2364-1
• Cynthia Lennon, John — 2005, Crown Publishers, ISBN 030733855X
• Elizabeth Partridge, John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth — 2005, Viking Juvenile, ISBN 0-670-05954-4
• Steven Roseta, (Just Like) Starting Over — A 2006, stage play, largely based on an unpublished John Lennon and Yoko Ono interview from 8 December 1980.
• Jon Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon In His Time, 1985, Random House
• Jon Wiener, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, 2000, Univ. of California
• Rosaura Lopez En casa de John Lennon (At John Lennon's House), 2005, Hercules Ediciones , ISBN 8496314189

Documentaries and films

• The U.S. Versus John Lennon
• Imagine: John Lennon

External links

• Official John Lennon website
• Petition to create John Lennon postage stamp
• Bagism
• Official website of the "Liverpool Lennons" - John, Cynthia & Julian
• BBC Lennon Site
• John Lennon at the Notable Names Database
• John Lennon at the Internet Movie Database
• John Lennon as an artist
• Lennon FBI files
• Reference: deed poll name change to John Ono Lennon.
• "Man of the Decade" interview transcript
• "Power to the People: The Lost John Lennon Interview" by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn
• Absolute Elsewhere: The Spirit of John Lennon
• Radio Dial Scan of the night Lennon died
• British TV's reaction to the death of John Lennon
• The US Versus John Lennon
• John Lennon's Will, 12 November, 1979
• Roy Kerwood's Montreal Bed In Site May 1969 (Rehersal Photo above)
• Accordion Beatles A different take on Beatles classics
• Strawberry Fields Station
• John Lennon Discography
• John Lennon Photos Montreal 1969 Bed In For Peace and Yoko Ono
• 9 Newcastle Road, John was apparently conceived here on the kitchen floor in January 1940
• 251 Menlove Avenue ('Mendips'). John grew up in this house with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George.
• 3 Gambier Terrace, where John used to share a flat with Stuart Sutcliffe.
• 36 Falkner Street, after their marriage in August 1962, John and Cynthia lived here for a short while.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Template:John Lennon

The Beatles
John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe
Management
Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Neil Aspinall | Apple Records
Production
George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Phil Spector | Abbey Road Studios | Jeff Lynne
Official studio albums
Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) | Revolver (1966)  | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (The White Album) (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970)
Filmography
A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let It Be (1970)
Related articles
Line-ups | Bootlegs | Discography | Love (Cirque du Soleil) | Lennon/McCartney | Anthology | Influence | The Quarrymen | London | Beatlemania | Fifth Beatle | Paul is dead | British Invasion | Apple Corps | Northern Songs | Yoko Ono | Billy Preston | Tony Sheridan | Jimmy Nicol

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