Chapters:

In the final weeks of 1988, an opportunity arose to pursue a pop/symphonic TRIBUTE TO JOHN LENNON to be staged in the autumn of 1990 to celebrate what would have been John’s 50th Birthday and the 10th Anniversary of his tragic death. I asked Sid Bernstein, the promoter of The Beatles at Carnegie Hall in 1964 and then The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965 and 1966, what we should do to produce THE LENNON TRIBUTE. He said that we should meet with those who knew John and ask them what they wanted us to do.

Sid and I gained the support for THE LENNON TRIBUTE from many of those who were John’s friends and collaborators. Beatle Producer George Martin agreed to score and conduct The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the tribute. The Moody Blues said they would open the show by taking the audience “On the Threshold of the Dream.” Michael Jackson agreed to dance with ballet superstar Rudolf Nureyev in a Lennon musical dance duet choreographed by Paula Abdul. Ravi Shankar offered to lead the tribute into an exploration of John’s spiritual adventures. Julian Lennon joined his mother who became a producer of our proposed TRIBUTE TO JOHN LENNON.

The story of the Beatles success was influenced by three incredible men. Each possessed unique historical insight coupled with professional abilities that helped guide the Beatles into the stratosphere of success. I teamed and traveled with one of these Magic Men of Music as we pursued THE LENNON TRIBUTE. He promoted The Beatles at Carnegie Hall and Shea Stadium. It was with this man Sid Bernstein that I met another of the three, George Martin, the man who saw the Beatles potential and signed them to their recording contract. His magic guided the production and innovation of the Beatles revolutionary works of art, their records. Finally, Sid and I traveled to Liverpool to meet with his friends of the family of the man who discovered the Beatles and then managed them, Brian Epstein. He directed the Beatles meteoric race across the heavens for five short years before he died too soon in 1967 at the age of 27. Just two years later, leaderless, the Beatles finished their final album “Abbey Road.”

A teenage Cynthia Powell met and fell in love with John Lennon when they were both students at The Liverpool College of Art. She became Cynthia Lennon when she married John in 1962 giving birth to their son Julian in 1963. Cynthia rode the wave of Beatlemania until her marriage ended in 1968 after John began his relationship with Yoko Ono. Cynthia Lennon became an unlikely ally in THE LENNON TRIBUTE feeling she owed John a public farewell. She stated she remained in love with John for all of her life.

I traveled to New York with Cynthia to meet her son Julian to ask for his support of her efforts. Cynthia accompanied her son to The Dakota, the home that John had shared with Yoko Ono and their son Sean. There Cynthia asked Yoko to embrace THE LENNON TRIBUTE together as The Lennon Family to support the relationship of their sons Julian and Sean. Yoko refused and pursued her own tribute project ordering Cynthia to cease and desist from her work on THE LENNON TRIBUTE.

Word of Cynthia’s plans to celebrate her former husband’s life and music reached The Children of Berlin where The Berlin Wall had just fallen. The children petitioned Cynthia to bring THE LENNON TRIBUTE to The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Since The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, the children and their families had never experienced the music of John Lennon. While in Germany, Cynthia accepted an invitation from Klaus Voormann to visit him and his family in Kiel. I witnessed the two reminisce about the Beatles years when Cynthia, Klaus and photographer Astrid Kirchherr were friends and the Beatles were a five piece band that included Stu Sutcliff and Pete Best.