John Lennon

Through his exceptional career with The Beatles and as a solo artist before his assassination in 1980, John Lennon is one of rock's major personalities. Born in bombed-out Liverpool on October 9, 1940, John Winston Lennon was an enthusiastic skiffle player and self-taught guitarist. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, in which Paul McCartney and then George Harrison joined. The loss of his mother in 1958 affected him as he turned to rock'n'roll. After four years of playing clubs from Liverpool to Hamburg, the band achieved worldwide popularity when they met producer George Martin, who accompanied them in all their sonic innovations. Between 1962 and 1970, the "Fab Four" enjoyed a "Beatlemania" of successes and sales records, revolutionizing popular music with their sense of experimentation on the albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and the double album The Beatles (aka The White Album, 1968), before breaking up due to competition from the Lennon/McCartney tandem and internal tensions. From 1968 onwards, John Lennon distanced himself from The Beatles and embarked on an avant-garde career with his visual artist wife Yoko Ono, in parallel with their last albums, Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970). After making three experimental albums together, the New York-based couple initiated a peace movement that gave rise to odes such as "Give Peace a Chance" (1969), "Instant Karma!" (1970) and "Happy Xmas (The War Is Over)" (1972). The political commitment evident in "Working Class Hero" and "Power to the People", from the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album (1970) and the double album Some Time in New York City (1972), is matched by the utopian "Imagine" (1971), from the album of the same name, which became a universal anthem. Between the recordings of Mind Games (1973) and Walls and Bridges (1974), the couple's marital crisis led to Lennon's escape to Los Angeles for an eighteen-month "lost weekend". On his return to the Dakota Building, opposite Central Park, John Lennon recorded a tribute to the rock'n'roll of his youth with the album Rock'n'Roll (1975), then devoted himself to family life and the upbringing of his second son Sean, until his return to the studio in 1980 for the duet album Double Fantasy. While the public had not forgotten him and gave him a warm welcome, the musician was murdered in front of his home by an unbalanced fan. His death on December 8, 1980 at the age of forty sent shockwaves that extinguished all hope of a Beatles reformation. In addition to the posthumous album Milk and Honey (1984), the group's compilations included a number of compositions that had been put aside, such as "Free as a Bird" for Anthology 1 in 1995, "Real Love" on Anthology 2 in 1996 and "Now and Then" in 2023.