Imagine John Yoko

by John Lennon, Yoko Ono

Personally compiled and curated by Yoko Ono, Imagine John Yoko is the definitive inside story told in revelatory detail of the making of the legendary album and all that surrounded the locations, the creative team, the artworks and the films, in the words of John & Yoko and the people who were there. Features 80% exclusive, hitherto-unpublished archive photos and footage sequences of all the key players in situ, together with lyric sheets, Yoko s art installations, and exclusive new insights and personal testimonies from Yoko and over forty of the musicians, engineers, staff, celebrities, artists and photographers who were there including Julian Lennon, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Jim Keltner, David Bailey, Dick Cavett and Sir Michael Parkinson. A lot has been written about the creation of the song, the album and the film of Imagine, mainly by people who weren t there, so I m very pleased and grateful that now, for the first time, so many of the participants have kindly given their time to gimme some truth in their own words and pictures Yoko Ono Lennon, 2018 In 1971, John Lennon & Yoko Ono conceived and recorded the critically acclaimed album Imagine at their Georgian country home, Tittenhurst Park, in Berkshire, England, in the state-of-the-art studio they built in the grounds, and at the Record Plant in New York. The lyrics of the title track were inspired by Yoko Ono s event scores in her 1964 book Grapefruit , and she was officially co-credited as writer in June 2017. Imagine John Yoko tells the story of John & Yoko s life, work and relationship during this intensely creative period. It transports readers to home and working environments showcasing Yoko s closely guarded archive of photos and artefacts, using artfully compiled narrative film stills, and featuring digitally rendered maps, floorplans and panoramas that recreate the interiors in evocative detail. John & Yoko introduce each chapter and song; Yoko also provides invaluable additional commentary and a preface. All the minutiae is the locations, the key players, the music and lyrics, the production techniques and the artworks including the creative process behind the double exposure polaroids used on the album cover. With a message as universal and pertinent today as it was when the album was created, this landmark publication is a fitting tribute to John & Yoko and their place in cultural history. Table of Contents Preface 1. Tittenhurst 2. Recording Imagine 3. Album Artwork 4. Filming Imagine 5. This Is Not Here 6. Legacy

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Art

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE, was an English singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, and together with Paul McCartney formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager, his first band, The Quarrymen, evolving into The Beatles in 1960. As the group began to undergo the disintegration that led to their break-up towards the end of that decade, Lennon launched a solo career that would span the next decade, punctuated by critically acclaimed albums, including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine".

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, on film, and in interviews, and became controversial through his work as a peace activist. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adapted as anthems by the anti-war movement. Disengaging himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, Lennon reemerged in October 1980 with a new single and a comeback album, Double Fantasy, but was murdered weeks after their release on the sidewalk outside his home in the Dakota. Ironically, "Imagine" (imagine all the people, living life in peace) was a featured cut from this album.

Lennon's album sales in the United States alone stand at 14 million units, and as performer, writer, or co-writer he is responsible for 27 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008 Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

--Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia --

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine John Yoko is almost too much of a Good Thing. It is chock-full of interviews with anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the recording of the album. It's also lavishly illustrated, including photos of notes, tech layouts, houses, gardens, people, art, and just about everything that went into the project. The result is a wonderful, huge book that literally took me all 15 of my library's renewal options to finish. It also required me to clean off a table and put the book on it rather than holding it.

For those of us who remember John, Yoko, the Beatles, and the circus that seemed to be around them at all times, it's a wonderful look back. I highly enjoyed it and even came to understand Yoko Ono and her work a bit more than I already did. (I had known that in some circles Ono was the "rising star" celebrity and Lennon the "hanger-on.") In fact, one of the things I came away from the book with was a better understanding of what John found intellectually challenging about her. The book also noted that while John has often said that he took the lyrics for "Imagine" from some of Yoko's work, it wasn't until 2017 that Yoko got writing credit for it. Shortly before the announcement, Lennon had noted in a BBC interview that "'Actually that should be credited as a Lennon-Ono song because a lot of it — the lyric and the concept — came from Yoko. But those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution. But it was right out of Grapefruit, her book."

Again, if you love the Beatles, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Plastic Ono Band, and -- most of all -- the song "Imagine," you will want to read this one. It's definitely worth the time and effort.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually read dirty old used paperbacks that I get at thrift stores for a dollar, so when I got a free copy of this from goodreads the first thing I noticed was that it's a freaking beautiful book. I was worried as I read this giant immaculate white book that I might have residual grease on my hands from work and soil it. As a coffee table book, its design is great. As a book-book it was quite interesting to get into the heads of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the Imagine recording phase. Of course when people think of Yoko Ono they think of The Beatles breaking up. This book made me think that is B.S. Based on the words of this book from people who were there, it seems he was happier as Yoko's other than he was as Beatle John. I can also see the reasons why his mediocre solo songs were worse than bad Beatles songs (while his good solo songs were as good as any Beatles songs). He recorded his solo stuff in a few days and said he was sick of spending six months in the studio. Thus, the weak stuff was weaker having not been studio tweaked. One unrelated anecdote that stuck out to me was when a former soldier showed up at their mansion. John and Yoko went out and spoke to the obviously emotionally disturbed young man and first convinced him in a loving way that the songs weren't about him personally and then asked him if he was hungry and brought him in and fed him. Maybe actually believing all the peace and love stuff got Lennon killed. A star with a bunch of bodyguards wouldn't be in the situation after all, but it seems like a pretty good way to live. A fine book of pics and stories.

[Gustavo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro para fans y coleccionistas. No cabe duda. En ese sentido cumple perfectamente su cometido y por eso le doy las cinco estrellas. Una edición de lujo, full color en pasta dura, una compilación de letras, fotografías, detalles técnicos, planos de la casa y el estudio y testimonios de todas las personas involucradas con John y Yoko durante la creación del icónico álbum "Imagine" (1971). Junto con la "ultimate mix" del álbum (2018), también en edición de lujo con seis discos, más los tres documentales existentes hasta ahora, este libro es el recuento definitivo del proceso artístico de John y Yoko desde que se conocieron en 1966 hasta la grabación de esta obra y un poco más allá. La mayoría de la información y muchos datos son harto conocidos, pero lo que adquiere valor es precisamente la compilación, curada por Yoko. Una experiencia fascinante.

[Stan Prager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of: Imagine John Yoko, by John & Yoko Lennon
by Stan Prager (2-3-19)

It was late and I was on my way home, rock n’ roll blasting on the car radio. It was the one-week anniversary of our very first apartment together as a couple, so there was a kind of glow around the day. Then the music cut off abruptly and the news broke: John Lennon had been shot. John Lennon was dead. When the tunes resumed, it was all Beatles and Lennon solo stuff. One of the songs was, of course, Imagine. Tears streamed down my face. It was December 8, 1980.
Imagine had been recorded and released in 1971, but as the year 1980 closed out that already felt like fifty years ago. The Vietnam War and Nixon were long gone. The sense of radicalism, of tumult—as well as innovative creative expression in music and the arts—had slipped away, its wake littered with the detritus of cocaine, schlocky pop music, and a kind of national ennui. Most men, including myself, didn’t wear their hair shoulder-length anymore. Almost exactly a month before Lennon’s murder, Ronald Reagan was elected President, leaving many of us far more shaken than stirred.
John Lennon had recently reemerged after a long hiatus from the studio and public life. He was just forty, but he looked much older than that. Double Fantasy—his first album in five years, featuring songs by John and Yoko—was released just three weeks before his death. I personally found it weak and disappointing. But I bought it just days after it hit the record stores—of course—it was music from John Lennon! Lennon had been my favorite Beatle, as well as a kind of personal hero: a peace activist, an iconoclast, a man who found himself trapped by the money and fame and lifestyle that others salivated for, a man willing to throw it all away (well, perhaps not all the money) for the love of his life, avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, even if many of us were puzzled by his obsession with her. It turned out that the sum of its parts that was the Beatles would ever far outshine the solo work of its members, including Lennon, but perhaps his best work was the album Imagine that featured that eponymous song of hope that remains a soft-rock national anthem. John’s murder sent Double Fantasy skyrocketing on the charts, if not to critical acclaim, but Imagine is the real legacy of John Lennon.
Thirty-eight Christmases after Lennon’s assassination, the stark white cover of the beautiful outsize volume Imagine John Yoko emerged beneath festive wrapping paper, a gift from my wife. Compiled by Yoko, but with author credits to John and Yoko Lennon, this gorgeous coffee table edition boasts extensive interviews, black and white photography, liner notes, illustrations, and ephemera, crafted to tell the “definitive inside story” of the making of the Imagine album and film of the same name at their English country mansion estate, Tittenhurst Park.
The spotlight is not only upon John and Yoko, but also on a generous cast of characters, including co-producer Phil Spector, then-giants of the music scene such as George Harrison, Nicky Hopkins and Mike Pinder, as well as lesser-known figures, plus all sorts of production assistants and the often uncredited folks who each play a significant if not always acknowledged role in the final cut of a masterpiece like Imagine. Interview excerpts are not dated; some are contemporary to production, while others look back from decades ahead. Sadly, like Lennon, many have passed on, including Harrison and Hopkins; King Curtis, who sat in on saxophone, was murdered in late summer of that same year. Ironically, Phil Spector and drummer Jim Gordon—of Derek and the Dominos fame—are both in prison serving life sentences for murder. Almost all the rest who are still alive have faded into obscurity. But thumbing through this magnificent book, for a moment it is the early part of 1971 again: John Lennon is just thirty, madly and obsessively in love with the older Yoko Ono, who just as madly and obsessively reciprocates. John has left the Beatles behind, his long collaboration and once-close friendship with Paul McCartney on the rocks, but there is a palpable sense of great promise in what the future holds for John and Yoko.
The very next day after I began perusing Imagine John Yoko—and before it turned into a cover-to-cover read for me—I dug out my old vinyl copy of Imagine and gave it a spin. I had not listened to it in many years and I had forgotten what a truly great album it is. The title track tends to get all the attention, but to my mind Gimme Some Truth is the best song on the record. Other iconic tunes include Crippled Inside, Jealous Guy and I Don’t Want to be a Soldier. Some might argue that none of it lives up to Strawberry Fields Forever or Happiness is a Warm Gun, but there’s little doubt that the collection of songs on Imagine is outstanding and certainly Lennon’s best post-Beatles work. It was re-listening to the album after all this time that led me to carefully read, rather than skim, the entire book. Along the way, I also screened the Blu-ray DVD that contains the full length “rockumentary” film Imagine, replete with innovative music videos from the Imagine album as well as selections from Yoko’s Fly album, as well as a companion “making-of-Imagine” film entitled Gimme Some Truth. Icing on the cake includes cameos from Andy Warhol, Fred Astaire, Dick Cavett and Jack Palance. I highly recommend these audio-visual companions to the book to help to make it come to life in all its brilliance once more.
The highlight of the book and the film is John in the “White Room” at Tittenhurst recording Imagine, singing and playing on the all-white Steinway grand piano that he gave to Yoko for her birthday that year, while Yoko slowly opens a series of white shutters to let light stream in. At the end, Yoko is seated beside John at the piano, and they exchange looks that reflect such a degree of genuine mutual love and affection and admiration that that one single moment serves to validate the entire project. The combined experience of immersing myself in the book, the album and the films made me not only come to better appreciate the superlative achievement of Imagine, but also the integral role that Yoko represented as artist and inspiration throughout. Like much of the public, back in the day I found it difficult to grasp John’s utter infatuation with Yoko, but the testimony of so many in this book underscores Yoko’s essential piece in the creation of this masterpiece. At the same time, listening to her vocals on portions of the Imagine film have yet to convince me that she has talent as a singer. Still, Yoko was clearly full partner to Imagine, not some assistant. It would never have been if not for her presence in John’s life.
One of my favorite bits in the book and in the Gimme Some Truth film feature Claudio, a Vietnam Vet suffering from PTSD, who was found to be living for some days in the woods at Tittenhurst. Claudio had become convinced that John was communicating with him through his lyrics. Disheveled and confused, he is brought before John, who tells him that “I’m just a guy who writes songs,” and patiently explains to an obviously crestfallen Claudio that the lyrics have nothing to do with him. There is a brief pause, and then John, with much empathy, asks: “Are you hungry?” John then brings him in and feeds him at his table. Claudio was both disturbed and obsessed with John Lennon, and the recounting of this episode made me wonder how things might have turned out differently if John had managed to similarly engage someone else who was disturbed and obsessed with him—Mark David Chapman—before it was too late.
On the final pages of Imagine John Yoko, they each speak to us. There’s an excerpt from an interview with John saying of he and Yoko that “We’d like to be remembered as the Romeo and Juliet of the 1970s.” When asked if he had a picture of “When I’m 64,” John replied:
“I hope we’re a nice old couple living off the coast of Ireland or something like that—looking at our scrapbook of madness. My ultimate goal is for Yoko and I to be happy and try and make other people happy through our happiness. I’d like everyone to remember us with a smile . . . The whole of life is a preparation for death. I’m not worried about dying. When we go, we’d like to leave behind a better place.” [p298]
Those days of turning scrapbook pages were, sadly, not to be. As a fan, as a reviewer, I would urge you to buy this book and to read it, but it is not for me but rather for Yoko to deliver the coda, of course:
“It was such an incredible loss when I think about it . . . See, most people think, ‘Well, he’s a rocker and just kind of rough, maybe,’ but no. At home he was a very gentle person and extremely concerned about me but also concerned about the world too. I still miss him, especially now because the world is not quite right and everybody seems to be suffering. And if he was here it would have been different, I think. I think that in many ways John was a simple Liverpool man right to the end. He was a chameleon, a bit of a chauvinist, but so human. In our fourteen years together he never stopped trying to improve himself from within. We were best friends. To me, he is still alive. Death alone doesn’t extinguish a flame and a spirit like John.” [p298]


Review of: Imagine John Yoko, by John & Yoko Lennon https://regarp.com/2019/02/03/review-...

[ireadwithlinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautifully put together.

[Krista-Lise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was completely floored as to how beautiful the book is. It totally worth getting if you are a fan of John Lennon. Not only is it filled with brilliant photos but it gives you story of making Imagine.

[Guerino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nel mio approfondimento nella mitologia Beatlesiana di quest anno sicuramente la divinità che mi ha colpito di più è quella di Lennon.

Una delle sue biografie mi ha fatto scoprire sprazzi dell’uomo dietro la stella, questo volume ha continuato su quella strada ma in modo diverso. Tramite le voci di decine di persone che hanno contribuito al progetto Imagine (album, video e film, dai cameramen alla segretaria passando per i musicisti e gli ingegneri del suono), le figure di John e Yoko di inizio anni ‘70 si fanno più concrete. Certo, l’opera è curata da Yoko Ono. Certo, è un’opera che non andrebbe mai a intaccare l’immagine di Lennon. Però ci sono sprazzi di umanità anche qui, come John che, parlando di Jealous Guy, ammette di essere un violento che sta cercando di abbracciare la non violenza.

Una menzione a parte va fatta al volume in sé: un cartonato gigante, curato in ogni minimo dettaglio, con scatti fantastici di John e Yoko, degli ospiti di Tittenhurst, dei cimeli della casa, tutto quello che un fan accanito di Imagine o di Lennon e anche di più sono inseriti in maniera perfetta in un volume che è un vero gioiello tipografico (dalla copertina total white alle pagine che raffigurano il cielo e le nuvole, e ancora la qualità della carta e la cura nella gestione di immagini, didascalie e testo).

[Jose Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro para los fanáticos de John Lennon aunque no me pareció un "imperdible".
Esta bien el libro, las imágenes están de lujo, la edición ni se diga y por ese lado si vale la pena conseguirlo, los comentarios acerca de la creación del álbum y todo lo relacionado me parecieron mas o menos. Contiene comentarios de todos los que tuvieron que ver con el álbum pero algunos me parecieron irrelevantes o que a mi parecer no le aportaban a la historia en si del disco.

Los comentarios y entrevistas a John y Yoko me parecen excelentes pero conocer lo que pensó el editor o el ingeniero de sonido lo podría considerar pasable.

Diría que es para tenerlo en la colección pero no tan relevante como ponerlo como prioridad.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads 1st reads win.Thanks! Absolutely loved this book. As a john Lennon fan, I appreciate the wonderful photographs that go together so well with the writing to lets us see into the life of this legends love for music, Yoko, and life. A truely beautiful coffee table book. Would be enjoyable to anyone who appreciates art-be it music , photography, or drawing . Everyone should be so lucky as John and Yoko to find the person who is not only their true love, but also their muse. This book is a a hearfelt look into their relationship and LOVE.

[Erlend Bergsagel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The making of the album Imagine by John Lennon.
The story is told by the people who was there. From musicians and the helping hands and technicians.
It seems everybody is telling how old they were at the time, what they had done before, how they ended up working with John Lennon & Yoko Ono and what imagine means for them.

Loved it.
Oh, and by the way, lots of great photos

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is focused on the writing of Imagine and the album. It is a collection of interviews, photos, letters, and such compiled by Yoko Ono. I git more insight into the man, the music, and the couple.

[Carol High · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great big completely lovely coffee table book, full of photos and insider details that tell of the lives of John and Yoko and their companions around the time that the Imagine album came into being and was recorded. I absolutely loved it.

[Tony Jemmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it as a first hand account of an event in time. Maybe viewed with rose tinted glasses, but not dramatised or written to keep a reader engaged throughout. The insights into how spontanious creative output can be were inspiring. I came out knowing more than i went in with.

[Ryan VDE · Rating 4 out of 5]

really wonderful to get insights from a whole array of people around this period in their lives with John and Yoko! what a treat and in such a cool format
praise people for not buying this i guess, means i got it at a discount book store- proper premium format too !!

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories, great pictures, perfect book

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lecture très intéressante, j’ai beaucoup appris sur la personnalité de John et sa relation avec Yoko.

[susan akalan]

Just love John Lennon so everything about him is good to me.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book (at a great price!). Won't lie though, the Imagine No Hunger NGO corporate-speak PR marketing blurb at the end, brought to you by the Hard Rock Cafe, really killed the mood.

[Jase · Rating 5 out of 5]

One time I bought this book for $3.33 and saw John and Yoko naked. Would do again.

[Missy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now see Yoko Ono in a different light. Such an amazing artist herself. Also it was eerie to read John's words from 1971 and realize how they still apply to this day.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

The vast majority of this is non-vital. The first person accounts are mostly generalizations.

[Claude Vecht-Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a really beautiful book which provides a comprehensive overview of the creation of the Imagine album and film. It is a must for any John Lennon fan.

[Ugo Cappadonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molto interessante, fornisce retroscena inediti anche per chi ha letto tutto sui Beatles. Foto meravigliose.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEAUTIFUL BOOK -- possibly more than you would ever want to know, but it is worth buying just to slowly flip through the pages when you are on your couch. Take it in in little chunks. It is absolutely beautiful

[Gary Lang · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ironically, this book has done more than any other thing to make me question John Lennon in the sense of being a truthful artist.

A great deal of the book is spent on a huge volume of photographs, floor plans, and other activities that highlight the immense wealth that Lennon had accumulated over the term of his career with The Beatles.

I found the content to be interesting, until I went back and started listening to the music, particularly the song “Imagine”, which asks us to, “imagine no possessions”. Why I would love to John! But I just spent an hour looking at pictures of you and Yoko in furs, swimming on your huge estate with enough room for 20 but only housing 2 people.

I still love John Lennon, but they weren't thinking clearly about the juxtaposition of the track and these photographs.

[Yenta Knows · Rating 4 out of 5]

You learn a lot about John and Yoko in this coffee table book. It's big and heavy. Each page is elegantly designed. The photos are luminously beautiful. It may be a little more than you want to know.

Here's the thing I learned about John Lennon that I liked the most: he was very nervous -- he donned a suit -- when he was about to meet Fred Astaire, whom he described as "a real movie star." Right he was.

But I'm vegan so I have to say this. Despite all the words from Joko on peace and love, neither was a vegetarian. Yoko's knee high leather boots and white fur jacket are just props for her. But they were life itself to the animals who were sacrificed. Where's the peace and love in that?

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful hardcover coffee table book, which is a companion to the documentary "John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky." (Not sure why some of the reviews here are for the children's picture book based on the "Imagine" song.)

This is much more than a photo album; it includes detailed recollections from most of the people involved with the making of the classic Imagine album (and movie)—musicians, engineers, photographers, assistants, etc. Well done.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing.