Stratos' Beatle Bios: John
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"I always felt I'd make it. There were some moments of doubt, but I knew something would eventually happen. When Mimi used to throw away things I'd written or drawn, I used to say 'You'll regret that when I'm famous', and I meant it." --John Lennon
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The founder of the Beatles, John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 during a German bombing raid, to Julia Stanley and Alfred Lennon. John's parents had married in 1938, but Alfred, a merchant seaman, was absent for long stretches during John's early years. Julia seemed to be somewhat of a flighty spirit, so it was decided that in the spring of 1941 John would be brought up by Julia's sister Mary Elizabeth, known as Mimi, and her husband George Smith, in Woolton, a Liverpool suburb. Because of this, John was protected from the breakup of his parents' marriage in 1942. He saw his father occasionally until he was five, but his mother Julia was often times around. It was she that encouraged his interest in music, much to Mimi's disappointment.
Many musicians influenced the young John Lennon, including Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bill Haley. But no musician made more of an impact on John than Elvis Presley. After getting his first guitar, John formed his own skiffle band in 1957 named the Black Jacks. A week later the name was changed to the Quarry Men, in honor of the Quarry Bank High School for Boys, which John attended. The Quarry Men performed at parties and contests in the spring of 1957 with John as its lead guitarist and singer, and the band's practices were most often held at Julia's house, as Mimi would have objected to the idea of John leading a band.
It was on July 6, 1957 during a performance that Mimi finally found out about John's secret life, but more importantly, it was also the day that John Lennon met a young Paul McCartney for the first time. Paul was immediately intrigued by John, and after about a week passed, Paul was a member of the Quarry Men. It was in early 1958 that Paul brought in a guitarist he knew from school, George Harrison. When he first played, he struck John as a child, but George found his way into the group the same way Paul did: by playing things that John could not. By mid 1958, George was a member.
Soon John, Paul, and George began writing songs, and it seemed as though everything was working out. But on July 15, 1958, John's mother Julia was hit and killed by a car. Her death had a profound effect on him, which he expressed in his songs and in his attitude. John soon enrolled at the Liverpool College of Art. It was here that he met Cynthia Powell, who he married in 1962 after learning that she was pregnant with his first son Julian, born on April 8, 1963. Married life was tough for John and Cynthia, as tour dates kept them away from one another for long periods of time. Still, everything seemed to be going along smoothly--until July 4, 1966.
It was on this date in 1966 that in an interview for a London newspaper John told reporter Maureen Cleave: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know what will go first, rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them that ruin it for me." These comments made little headlines in England, but it was another story in the U.S. Upon hearing these comments made by John, thousands of Beatles fans burned and destroyed their Beatles records and memorabilia, and members of the Ku Klux Klan began to march outside the Beatles' concerts. After this began to escalate, John went on American television and, more or less, apologized. But, it was mainly because of this that the group decided to stop touring all together in late 1966.
In November 1966 John met Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono when he attended an exhibition of her work at a London art gallery. The two kept in contact with one another, mainly by writing letters. But by 1968, John and Yoko had become a couple, and Cynthia, much to her distress, divorced John. From the moment John and Yoko became a couple, they were inseparable. Yoko became a "fifth Beatle", if you will, except she didn't do much at the Beatles' practices but sit with John. This caused much tension between the four Beatles, but John stuck by her until the end. On March 20, 1969 the couple were married in Gibraltar.
Soon after the Beatles breakup, John began making more solo albums, which he had been doing with Yoko for some time, the first of which was their experimental
Two Virgins
album. John, with the Plastic Ono Band, released such hit singles as 'Cold Turkey' and 'Instant Karma' and showed the world that he could do just fine without the Beatles.
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