John Lennon

John Lennon was a member of The Beatles and therefore remains immortal in the history of pop. The fact that the singer, songwriter, guitarist and action artist didn´t live past his 40th birthday (*1940; "1980) is one of the most tragic stories of the genre.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9th 1940 in Liverpool and was raised in a difficult home. The emerging rock & roll of the fifties had a cumulative impact on John and particularly Elvis Presley became his idol. Thus John Lennon decided to become a rock & roller himself. The singer and guitarist founded his first band, The Quarry Men in 1955. Paul McCartney (g/voc) and George Harrison (g/voc) joined the band a year later; Stuart Sutcliffe became the bass player in 1958 and drummer Pete Best joined in 1960. When Sutcliffe left the band Paul switched over to the bass and Ringo Starr replaced the drummer in 1962: The Beatles had started their career!

The Beatles got their record contract with EMI/Parlophone in 1962; eight years later, on April 10th 1970, Paul McCartney announced the official breakup of The Beatles.

Lennon, who already released two collections of whimsical, self-drawn short stories in 1964 and 1965 and also had acting experience and had been working on his own material aside from the Beatles, continued working with his wife Yoko Ono on miscellaneous albums and projects. John Lennon was shot dead on December 8th 1980 in front of his apartment building in New York by the disturbed Mark David Chapman.

John Lennon on many occasions played a 12-string Framus Hootenanny acoustic guitar around 1965. Pictures show him in what appears to be a studio with this instrument. If the Hootenanny was used on any of the Beatles recording sessions is not known.