Julian Lennon

John Charles Julian Lennon (born 8 April 1963) is an English singer, musician, photographer and philanthropist. He is the founder of the White Feather Foundation.

Julian Lennon
Lennon in 2018
Background information
Birth nameJohn Charles Julian Lennon
Also known asJules, Jude
Born (1963-04-08) 8 April 1963
Liverpool, England
GenresPop rock
Occupation(s)
  • Singer-songwriter
  • artist
  • photographer
Instruments
Years active1984–present
Labels
Websitejulianlennon.com

He is the son of The Beatles member John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia, and was the direct inspiration for three Beatles' songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), and "Good Night" (1968). His parents divorced in 1968.[1]

He has produced a number of albums starting with Valotte (1984), he has also held exhibitions of his photography.

In 2006, Lennon produced the environmental documentary film WhaleDreamers, and in 2020, Lennon also worked on the documentary film Women of the White Buffalo, as one of the executive producers.[2]

Early life

Julian Lennon was born on 8 April 1963 at Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool, to John Lennon and Cynthia Powell.[3] He was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia Lennon, who died 5 years before his birth. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, was his godfather. Lennon was educated at Ruthin School, a boarding independent school in the town of Ruthin in Denbighshire in North Wales.[4]

Lennon inspired one of his father's most famous songs, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", whose lyrics describe a picture the boy had drawn, a watercolor painting of his friend, Lucy O'Donnell, from nursery school, surrounded by stars. Another composition of his father inspired by him was the lullaby "Good Night", the closing song of The Beatles (also known as The White Album). In 1967, at the age of four, he attended the set of the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour.

When Julian was five years old in 1968, his parents divorced following his father's infidelity with Japanese multimedia artist Yoko Ono.[5][6][7] John Lennon married Ono on 20 March 1969, and Julian has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon.

Paul McCartney wrote "Hey Jude" to console him over the divorce; originally called "Hey Jules", McCartney changed the name because he thought that "Jude" was an easier name to sing.[8] After his parents' divorce, Julian had almost no contact with his father until the early 1970s when, at the request of his father's then-girlfriend, May Pang (Yoko Ono and Lennon had temporarily separated), he began to visit his father regularly. John Lennon bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar and a drum machine for Christmas 1973, and encouraged his interest in music by showing him some chords.[9][10]

Relationship with his father

Following his father's murder on 8 December 1980, Julian Lennon voiced anger and resentment towards him, saying,

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.[11] 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.

Julian chafed at hearing his father's peace and love stance perpetually celebrated. He told the Daily Telegraph, "I have to say that, from my point of view, I felt he was a hypocrite", he said, "Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce? You can't do it, not if you're being true and honest with yourself."[12]

Julian was excluded from his father's will. However, a trust of £100,000 was created by his father to be shared between Julian and his half brother Sean.[13][14] Julian sued his father's estate and in 1996 reached a settlement agreement reportedly worth £20 million.[13]

By 2009, Julian's feelings toward his father had mellowed considerably. Recalling his renewed contact with his father in the mid-1970s, he said,

Dad and I got on a great deal better then. We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang. My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear — they were the happiest time I can remember with him.[15]

Career

Music career
Lennon in 2000
Lennon in 2010

Lennon made his musical debut at age 11 on his father's album Walls and Bridges playing drums on "Ya-Ya", later saying, "Dad, had I known you were going to put it on the album, I would've played much better!"[16] In the 1980s, according to AllMusic, he "parlayed a remarkable vocal similarity to his father into a successful singing career".[17]

Lennon enjoyed immediate success with his debut album, Valotte, released in 1984. Produced by Phil Ramone, it spawned two top 10 hits, the title track and "Too Late for Goodbyes", and earned Lennon a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1985. Music videos for the two hits were made by film director Sam Peckinpah and producer Martin Lewis. After the album's release, Paul McCartney sent Lennon a telegram wishing him good luck.[18]

His second album, 1986's The Secret Value of Daydreaming, was panned by critics. However, it reached number 32 on the Billboard 200 chart, and produced the single "Stick Around", which was Lennon's first number 1 single on the US Album Rock Tracks chart.[19] He recorded the song "Because", previously recorded by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark's 1986 musical Time.

On 1 April 1987, Julian Lennon appeared as the Baker in Mike Batt's musical The Hunting of the Snark (based on Lewis Carroll's poem).[20] The all-star lineup included Roger Daltrey, Justin Hayward and Billy Connolly, with John Hurt as the narrator. The performance, a musical benefit at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of the deaf, was attended by the Duchess of York.[21] Although Lennon never achieved the same level of success in the US as he had enjoyed with Valotte, his 1989 single "Now You're in Heaven" peaked at number 5 in Australia and gave him his second number 1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart in the US.[22]

In 1991, George Harrison played guitar on Lennon's album Help Yourself, which included the single "Saltwater" although he was not directly credited. The single "Saltwater" reached number 6 in the UK and topped the Australian singles charts for four weeks. During this time, Lennon contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" to the soundtrack of the television series The Wonder Years.[23]

Lennon left the music business for several years in the 1990s. He followed his interests in cooking, sailing and sculpting. After he began his performing career, there was occasionally unfounded media speculation that Lennon would undertake performances with McCartney, Harrison and Ringo Starr. In the Beatles Anthology series in 1995, the three surviving Beatles confirmed there was never an idea of having Julian sit in for his father as part of a Beatles reunion, with McCartney saying, "Why would we want to subject him to all of this?"[24]

In May 1998, Lennon released the album Photograph Smile to little commercial success. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album as "well-crafted and melodic", and concluded by saying that it was "the kind of music that would receive greater praise if it weren't made by the son of a Beatle".[25] In 2002, he recorded a version of "When I'm Sixty-Four", from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, for an Allstate Insurance commercial.[19]

In 2006 he ventured into Internet businesses, including MyStore.com with Todd Meagher and Bebo founder Michael Birch.[26] In 2009 Lennon created a new partnership with Meagher and Birch called theRevolution, LLC. Through this company, Lennon released a tribute song and EP, "Lucy", honouring the memory of Lucy Vodden (née O'Donnell), the little girl who inspired the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to fund Lupus research.[27][28][29][30][31]

In October 2011, Lennon released the album Everything Changes. In 2012 he worked with music film director Dick Carruthers on the feature-length video documentary Through the Picture Window, which followed Lennon's journey in the making of Everything Changes and includes interviews with Steven Tyler, Bono, and Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile. Through the Picture Window was also released as an app in all formats with bespoke videos for all 14 tracks from the album.[32][33][34]

Film

Lennon's first-ever tour in early 1985 was documented as part of the film Stand By Me: A Portrait Of Julian Lennon — a film profile started by Sam Peckinpah, but completed by Martin Lewis after Peckinpah's death. Lennon has appeared in several other films including The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996, but shot in 1968), Cannes Man (1996), Imagine: John Lennon (1988), Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987), and a cameo in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) as a bartender. Julian provided the voice for the title role in the animated film David Copperfield (1993).[35] He was also the voice of the main character Toby the Teapot in the animated special The Real Story of I'm a Little Teapot (1990).

Lennon is also the producer of the documentary called WhaleDreamers[36] about an aboriginal tribe in Australia and its special relationship to whales. It also touches on many environmental issues. This film has received many awards[37] and was shown at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2020, Lennon worked on the documentary film, Women of the White Buffalo as an executive producer.[2] The documentary film focused on the Lakota women living Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, how they are used and how they preserve and protect their ancestral values and wisdom.[38][39][40]

Photography

After photographing his half-brother Sean's music tour in 2007, Lennon took up a serious interest in photography.[41]

On 17 September 2010,[42] Lennon opened an exhibition of 35 photographs called "Timeless: The Photography of Julian Lennon" with help from long-time friend and fellow photographer Timothy White. Originally scheduled to run from 17 September to 10 October,[43] the Morrison Hotel Gallery extended it a week to end 17 October.[44] The photographs include shots of his brother Sean and U2 frontman Bono.[41]

Lennon's "Horizons" series was featured at the Emmanuel Fremin Gallery, NYC, 12 March – 2 May 2015.[45]

Books

Shortly after the death of his father, Lennon began collecting Beatles memorabilia. In 2010, he published a book describing his collection, entitled: Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection.[46][47]

In 2017, Lennon began a New York Times Bestselling trilogy,[48][49] Touch the Earth, Heal the Earth and Love the Earth which he completed in 2019.[50][51]

Philanthropy

A conversation Lennon once had with his father: "Dad once said to me that should he pass away, if there was some way of letting me know he was going to be OK – that we were all going to be OK – the message would come to me in the form of a white feather. ... the white feather has always represented peace to me" inspired him greatly.[52][53] Then Lennon, while on a tour in Australia[54], received a white feather gift from an indigenous elderly member of the Mirning tribe in Australia,[55] which also turned out to be an inspirational message to him.[56] In 2007, he founded The White Feather Foundation (TWFF).[57] [58] Its mission "embraces environmental and humanitarian issues and in conjunction with partners from around the world helps to raise funds for the betterment of all life, and to honor those who have truly made a difference."[59]

TWFF partners with philanthropists and charities around the world to raise funds for various environmental and humanitarian projects such as clean water, indigenous cultures, education and health.[60] In 2008, the Prince of Monaco Albert II presented TWFF with the Better World Environmental Award.[61][62]

In 2015, after the Nepal earthquake, TWFF contributed $106,347.52 to the Music for Relief's Nepal aid fund to support the victims of the earthquake.[63][64]

Cynthia visited Kenya and Ethopia in 2014 to witness the education and environmental initiatives by TWFF.[65] After her death, Lennon announced that he would be naming TWFF's scholarship program to Kenyan girls after his mother: "The Cynthia Lennon Scholarship for Girls".[66][67]

In 2019, Julian contributed his voice and music to the soundtrack of narrative feature film “One Little Finger“, which has the initiative to spread awareness about ‘ability in disability’. It shows how important and powerful music is to support societal and cognitive development of people with disabilities. [68]

Personal life
Lennon in 2015

Lennon has been quoted as having a reasonably "cordial" relationship with Ono, while getting along very well with her son, Julian’s half-brother Sean. Julian saw Sean perform live for the first time in Paris, on 12 November 2006 at La Boule Noire and he and Sean spent time together on Sean's tour in 2007.[69]

Lennon has never married or had children, revealing that his difficult relationship with his famous father had discouraged him from doing so. He said that, unlike his father, he wanted to be mature enough to cope with fatherhood. "He was young and didn't know what the hell he was doing," Lennon said. "That's the reason I haven't had children yet. I didn't want to do the same thing. No, I'm not ready. I want to know who I am first."[70]

In commemoration of John Lennon's 70th birthday and as a statement for peace, Lennon and his mother, Cynthia, unveiled the John Lennon Peace Monument in his home town of Liverpool, on 9 October 2010.[71]

Lennon remains friends with his father's former bandmate, Paul McCartney, though they experienced a public falling out in 2011 when Lennon was not invited to McCartney's wedding to Nancy Shevell.[72]

Discography
Main article: Julian Lennon discography

Other releases

Source:[73]

Films
Producer
  • WhaleDreamers (2008)
  • Women of the White Buffalo (2020)

Television appearances

References
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  2. "Women of the White Buffalo - A documentary by Deborah Anderson". Women of the White Buffalo - A documentary by Deborah Anderson. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
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