John Lennon singer, songwriter, guitarist, The Beatles who have sold over 20m singles in the UK (1962-1970), and scored more UK & US No.1 albums than any other group. Their 1967 Sgt. Pepper is the UK’s biggest selling album ever. In 1990 Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ was played simultaneously in 130 countries to commemorate what would’ve been Lennon’s 50th birthday. He was shot dead in New York by Mark Chapman on 8th December 1980.
The first Beatles recording session took place at EMI studios. The group recorded four tracks, one of which was ‘Love Me Do’ the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.
The Beatles started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with the Paul McCartney ballad ‘Yesterday’ giving the group their tenth US No.1. The track was not released as a single in the UK until 1976.
Beach Boy Brian Wilson finished recording the future classic song ‘Good Vibrations’, which went on to become the band’s third US number-one hit. As a child, his mother told him that dogs could pick up “vibrations” from people, so that the dog would bark at “bad vibrations” Wilson turned this into the general idea for the song.
Sean Taro Ono Lennon was born, the only child of John Lennon by Yoko Ono. John Lennon retired from music for five years to become a house-husband. Sean went on to become a singer, songwriter, musician and actor.
Marking what would have been John Lennon’s 45th birthday, Yoko Ono formally opened the three and a half acre garden at the Strawberry Fields site in New York’s Central Park. The area was planted with trees, shrubs and flowers gathered from across the world and with a $1m donation from Yoko.
On what would have been John Lennon’s 60th birthday, the book Lennon Remembers, The Complete Rolling Stone Interviews is released, containing material too controversial to publish years earlier.