Ok, this bugged me so I ran a check and "if" this is to be believed, here is Lennon's will. From what I understand it's leaving Ono as executor and the one in charge. It mentions children from the marriage only and I think it's leaving it up to Yoko.

It also has a paragraph toward the end saying, in short, anyone contesting the will will receive nothing. No mention of Sean. Now, in fairness, Ono could have given him "his" share, I don't know. Maybe she did.

Still, this is kind of morbid being able to look someone's will up on-line. Shame on me.

TIS


Lennon's Will

One must remember that before Eminem, there were no respected white hip-hop MCs unless you were the Beastie Boys. The ghosts of Vanilla Ice and future Oscar-nominee Marky Mark haunted any cracker who hoped to kick ass and chew bubblegum in the rap world.

Which is why I argue that Eminem being white didn't help his career as much as many believe. In the early 2000s what he offered was a nice breath of fresh creative air in a rap landscape dominated by way too many creatively-lazy rappers bragging about their mansions and their number of bitches and how many suckahs they wasted last night.

Mr. Mathers offered humor, offered self-commentary with not so high self-esteem attributes (like suffering from ED), offered sadist controversial imagery like the infamous "Stan" and "Kim" and even though this ties nothing directly to the music's supposed quality,, his music videos were usually must see.

God knows he had to deliver something to everybody (including the all-time best selling rap single "Lose Yourself") which to make people wait 5 years for RELAPSE.



They are from what I understand. And looking back at their chart sales, they were crazy big. Hell at one point they even had the most successful released single ("Mull of Kintrye") in UK history. Ironically that song flopped in America.

Yeah, this is the pic I took of the Dakota Building as we passed it:



Second storey up (as we look at it), from the first brown shutters to the far right, is Yoko's apartment.

During the same trip I also visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame NYC Annex, which was quite an experience; I recommend it to anyone in the region with an interest in modern commercial music. It contained an exhibition of Yoko Ono called 'John Lennon: The NYC Years', which was unsurprisingly pretentious, self-loving, arrogant and banal.

Hmm. They were big but as I thought it looks like other folks were a bit bigger.
Top 100 Albums

Best Selling music artists

Best Selling albums in the US

I forgot about Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, The Doobie Brothers and Boston.

Makes sense.

I think The Wings were the 2nd most successful singles act in the uk after status quo in the 70's..

Now I've read somewhere (hopefully accurate this time) which claims McCartney/Wings was #2 most successful in 1970s U.S. charts according to Billboard. #1 was Elton John (or Bee Gees, those hacks.)

Maybe I should shut up now. Cue Geoff smartass remark.

Of the top selling acts of the 70s, I always had thought that ABBA had outsold those mentioned.

Abba have sold more since the 70's but not in the 70's if that makes sense..

In fact they weren't that big in America at least until some compilation records in the 1990s went platinum. So thus we can blame that for MAMMA MIA.

Nowhere Boy is finally playing around here and I hope to see it next week

I finally got to see Nowhere Boy. In a nutshell:

I really didn't know much about Lennon's young personal life except that his aunt raised him, so everything I learned was new to me.

With a free-spirited and neglectful mother and an unknown father, John lived with his somewhat strict aunt Mimi ( in between going to live with his mother and then basically getting kicked out and went back with his aunt). As the movie progresses you get a better sense of John, Aunt Mimi and John's mother. It's the final scenes when family secrets are revealed and marks another turning point for John.

Although we do see a young John and his interest in music and we see Paul & George as part of "The Quarrymen", the movie focuses mostly on John facing his demons and making adjustments in his life from a young boy. One can not help but feel sorry for him after hearing his story.

The movie was not without good ol' 50's rock & roll though. Starting from the beginning scenes with "Mr. Sandman", Shake Rattle & Roll, Be-Bop-A-lu-la and add a little Buddy Holly and some Elvis footage and the era is tied together. Not only that, you get the British version of the 50's.

TIS

I haven't seen the film, but would love to. Lennon was a man of extraordinary talent and vision with a complex personality. As a very young boy he was forced to make a decision literally at a seaport, whether to go with his father to New Zealand or live with his mother in Liverpool. He chose to go with his dad, but when he saw his mother crying, he ran off to her at the last moment. Of course, he ended up with his aunt. But I wonder how history would have been altered if he had gone to New Zealand.

If I could witness one event from the beginnings of the band it would be the moment McCartney introduced Lennon to George Harrison. Lennon had doubts about having a kid so young play guitar in his band until Harrison played a little for him (on a bus, I believe), and completely blew him away.

TIS

If you want to learn about Lennon's next chapter in his life then you should see Backbeat which focuses on his time in Hamburg and his relationship with Stuart Sutcliffe..
Backbeat

Thanks DeNiro! Although I heard of "Backbeat, I have not seen it. I will try to check it out.




TIS