Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your
contribution is not tax-deductible.)
PayPal Acct: 
Feedback: 
Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):
| [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, [8] ] |
Subject:  John Winston Lennon was the founder and the leader of The Beatles. He was a man with all the qualities of a modern hero, a man who captivated the world with his art, his quest for world peace, and his love for humanity. David Levi Celebrity Entertainment NEWS Network |
|
Author: David Harrison Levi Copyright © 2006 David Levi Celebrity Entertainment NEWS Network | [ Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
] Date Posted: 20:21:21 04/04/06 Tue Author Host/IP: cache-ntc-ad04.proxy.aol.com/207.200.116.198 John Winston Lennon was the founder and the leader of The Beatles. He was a man with all the qualities of a modern hero, a man who captivated the world with his art, his quest for world peace, and his love for humanity. And yet, he was still a man, for he was not without his human flaws, his penchant for women, drugs, and rebellion. The next few pages detail his simple and yet perplexing life as part of the story of four young men who searched for a better world. At 7:00 a.m. on October 9, 1940, John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool England. It was a time when England was involved in the Second World War, a time of blackouts and air raids, a time of great darkness for all the world. On that dreary fall morning, however, there was a lull in the bombing after a night of fearful air raids. It was as if the madness had paused for a moment of peace. The peace of the moment was short lived. At the time of John's birth, his father, Fred Lennon, was at sea. Julia, John's mother, felt unable to care for a newborn, and so she asked John's Aunt Mimi and Uncle George to care for the child. In essence, John was orphaned by his own parents, and was displaced from the moment of his birth to the care of surrogate parents. John would later write: Mother, you had me, But I didn't have you, I wanted you, You didn't want me. . . ("Mother" John Lennon) Fred Lennon returned to Liverpool five years after John's birth. In 1946, he took the young John to Blackpool, and he made plans to emigrate with John to New Zealand. John's mother, however, intervened, and John was returned to live with his Aunt Mimi. John's childhood was troubled by his own sense of displacement from his parents and a streak of rebelliousness that he had developed under the strict rules of his Aunt Mimi. He became an unwilling student at Dovedale Primary School, preferring drawing cartoons and sketches over his studies. This pattern continued until Mimi was able to persuade the principal at Quarry Bank Grammar School to writer a letter of recommendation for John to attend the Liverpool Art College. "My whole school life was a case of -'I couldn't care less.' It was a joke as far as I was concerned. Art was the only thing I could do, and my headmaster told me that if I didn't go to art school, I might as well give up life." (John Lennon) By 1955, a new musical interest was sweeping across Britain. "Skiffle groups" would play on the street with only few instruments, often simply a guitar or two, a washboard, and a simple snare drum. In the U.K., these groups were the forerunners of the rock 'n' roll band. For John, skiffle music became an obsession. He asked his Aunt Mimi for a guitar, but she refused to waste her money on what she saw was just a "craze." Undaunted, John remembered that his mother played the banjo, and so went to Julia for a guitar. She bought him one, and she even taught him banjo chords. The first song John learned was "That'll Be The Day." Aunt Mimi was not pleased with John's new passion. She wouldn't allow him to play or practice the guitar in her house. He had to stand in the glass porch at the front, playing and singing to himself. She would tell him: "A guitar's all right, John, but you'll never earn your living by it." (Aunt Mimi) It wasn't long before John started his own skiffle band with his best friend, Pete Shotton and some other friends from the Liverpool Institute. They called themselves "The Quarrymen," and they played for free or "a few bob" at local parties. The band was going nowhere, often because John would be the cause of arguments among the members. "It was all just a joke, setting up a group. Skiffle was in, so everybody was trying to do something. I was on washboard because I had no idea about music. I was John's friend, so I had to be in." (Pete Shotton) The Quarrymen's first major "gig" was on July 6, 1957 at an outdoor party at the Woolton Parish Church. Ivan Vaughan, one of John's friends, introduced John to another young musician after the band had finished for the day. That was the day that John Lennon met Paul McCartney. In September, 1957, John enrolled in The Liverpool Art College. There he met Cynthia Powell, who later became his first wife. He also met Stuart Sutcliffe, who quickly became his friend and the "Fifth Beatle." By 1960, George Harrison and Pete Best had joined the Quarrymen, now renamed as The Beatles. That year, the group travelled to Hamburg, Germany, where they played at four different clubs on the infamous Reeperbahn, a street offering drugs and prostitution to tourists. Stuart, more involved in his artwork and his relationship with a German girl named Astrid Kirchherr, quit the band. It was in Hamburg where John quickly lost his innocence about the music industry. He began to see it not as just a pastime, but as a somewhat disreputable business, one that required the shrewd talents of a legitimate business man. In 1961, The Beatles had become a local favourite in Liverpool at The Cavern Club. It was there that John first met Brian Epstein whom John asked to become their manager. Later that year, they signed with Parlphone Records, but only after John had to "fire" his drummer Pete Best because a young producer at Parlphone preferred another drummer. The new drummer was Ringo Starr, the producer George Martin. With his music career bridging on success and against the wishes of his Aunt Mimi, John married his "high school sweetheart," Cynthia Powell on August 23, 1962. She gave birth to their son, Julian, eight months later on April 8, 1963. Cynthia would later read about John's affair with Yoko Ono, and she filed for divorce. The divorce became final in November, 1968. John married Yoko Ono in March, 1969. The two tried many times to have a child, but it was not until after several miscarriages that Yoko gave birth to John's second son, Sean, on John's birthday in 1975. It was then that John Lennon disappeared from public life. He planned to care for his son, and become a "house-husband." In August, 1980, John came out of retirement to record his first album in six years. John was back in the public eye, and he seemed to have achieved the happiness that he had sought after all his life. On December 8, 1980, at around 11:00 p.m., John's new life was snatched away from him. While returning from a late-night recording session, John was shot by Mark David Chapman outside his apartment building, The Dakota. He was rushed to the hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival due to a massive loss of blood. For many, the world moved on. For others, the world stood still, as one of music's greatest heroes passed beyond us. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |