Rock Stars Roll in Weath but Keep Working Anyway (1976)

 

This is part of a larger article written about wealthy rock stars in the 1970s and how they balance performing and home life and if it is necessary to keep performing.  I just took out the part about John and Paul because it is all that is of interest on this site.   I don't know of many John interviews in 1976, so it caught my eye. 

Rock Stars Roll in Wealth but Keep Working Anyway

By Lisa Robinson

April 9, 1976

    John Lennon has been through the whole thing, up, down, sideways, fame, touring, adulation, girls, money, marriages, lawsuits, immigration problems. Since the Beatles' breakup, he's been through various wild stages and has recently settled down with his wife, Yoko, and newborn son, Sean, in New York City.

     Lennon traded an active rock-and-roll life for a peaceful family existence, with no regrets. But he's still a rock and roller at heart, even though he doesn't miss the road. 

    "When I think of 38 cities and all the sweating around, I don't miss it," John told me over tea in his sprawling New York apartment, which overlooked Central Park." Also, the gigs now are so big," added John. "I might want to do a club, but then people would say, 'Oh, Lennon couldn't make it in the big halls.' I couldn't do that 38 city thing. Even though I know it sells records, I prefer the recording studio where you can control things."

     As his audience has grown up and calmed down a bit, would a Beatles reunion concert ever be possible? "Well," smiled the man who never has to work again. "I can see the headlines now, but I know we'd get an audience. When we see each other these days, there isn't any tension. So you never know. But as Ringo said," Lennon added. "If you say yes, then it's positive, and if you say no, then it's negative. So there's no talk about it. But when we're together, we're happy. 

    "It would be hard to do a Beatles concert, because it could never be good enough for all those people who have this dream of how wonderful we were and how good it was. Our music would sound the same, only better, though, because we're all better now."

     Would you ever do "I want to hold your hand?"

     "Yes," John laughed, "We'd do a good version of that."

     Although former Beatle, Paul McCartney, does tour with his group Wings, and his solo and Wings albums have sold well into the millions, he also spends much of his year in Scotland, with his wife and current musical partner, Linda and their three daughters. 

    "I have to tour in a way that doesn't make me nervous," McCartney told me last year. "Do a gradual build up. Smallish dates before the big ones. Yes, I get nervous about all kinds of things.

     "The real truth about any kind of Beatles stuff is that we're going to have to wait and see," McCartney smiled, talking in his Abbey Road Studio with Linda by his side. "I wouldn't like the group to reform and carry on full time, because it went full circle, but I think it was a great band, even though technically and funk-wise, it could have been better, but we were quite jolly."