Rest in Peace Alan White

 

Sad news today -- drummer Alan White who played with John and George has passed away.

Instant Karma's gonna make you smile

Knitting together a new hit song

More than just the house hippie

When you hear of the name "Richard Dilello" in the world of the Beatles you think of the "house hippie" that hung around Apple in 1969.   He even wrote an entire book about being the house hippie.   He appeared at Beatle conventions in the mid 1970's to talk to fans about it.   However, he also took a lot of photographs of the Beatles and I have been slowly discovering what a great photographer he really was.   For example, he took this shot of John and Yoko, which is really good.   It isn't ever day that you see a photo of Yoko from 1970 and she is smiling.    

Just breathe

One to One

I recently obtained a bunch of fanzines through ebay.   One batch that I got was a lot of Instant Karma.  I will be posting photos and stories from those magazines in the upcoming months.   This one came from the 1990 memorial issue for John.   I decided to keep what Linda Aiello wrote along with her amazing photo of John and Yoko.

Did any of you see the One to One concert? 

Yoko's Birthday

I typically don't share stories of meet a Beatle wife because I know you all are here for the goods:  the Beatles themselves.   However, this story of meeting Yoko Ono on her birthday in 1983 really struck me.   This story comes from the June/July 1983 issue of "Instant Karma" magazine.  It was written by Paula Leach.   What really strikes me about this story is that Yoko really took the time to still talk to the fans that were hanging outside the Dakota.   As when John was alive on his birthday, Yoko sent cake down to the fans (why they bought her more cake is beyond me).   It was only a little over 2 years since John had been murdered by someone hanging around the Dakota.   No one would have blamed Yoko if she chose to ignore the fans.  But she understood that not all of the fans are crazy and still reached out to them.   I think that is amazing.

Yoko on her 50th birthday.  Photo by Diane Carroll

Diane Carroll, Yoko and Paula Leach.  Photo by Sam Havadtoy

Yoko, Sean and Sam Havadtoy.  Photo  by Diane Carroll

Yoko’s birthday

By Paula Leach

February 18^th of this year (1983) had to be the best day of my life.  There was a group of Beatlefans in Strawberry Fields (I’d say a little more than a dozen).  I got there about 12:30.  We were all talking and signing birthday messages for Yoko on the back of a painting a guy did for her.  As I was sitting in the park, I saw a truck stop and a guy carrying a bunch of balloons into the Dakota.  

I knew those had to be for Yoko so I told everyone.  We all knew she was there having a party.  Then after a while we decided to go to the front of the Dakota to drop off the cards, letters and presents for her.  We hung around the Dakota for a few minutes, then I noticed a bodyguard of Yoko’s standing right at the archway, so I went up to him and said, “Excuse me, is Yoko coming out?”  He said, “Yes, she’ll be coming down in a couple of minutes.”   So when he said that, I felt like I was hit over the head!   I couldn’t believe it!  I turned around and told my friends that she was coming out.  We were all going nuts (to say the least).  Then all of a sudden, Yoko came out with a bright red shirt and black pants and Sean carrying tons of balloons with a bodyguard and assistants carrying the birthday cake and napkins.  The first thing I noticed was Yoko had her hair cut a lot shorter.  I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at her and Sean.  He’s so cute.  He’s a lot smaller in person than in pictures.  Then all of a sudden, as Yoko and her crew were walking towards us, Yoko said, “There’s some cake left I brought for you.”  Then I said, “Happy birthday” and Yoko said, “Thank you.”  As this was going on, Yoko had a video crew filming this whole event.  Then Yoko was holding a big bunch of balloons and she handed them to Sean and then Sean took them to the sidewalk and let’s go of them.  The balloons flew up in the air and everyone cheered and Sean yelled, “Don’t crash!”   then he ran back to Yoko and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to her.  As we were singing it, I got chocked up because she looked so happy Then Sean looked up at her face and Yoko looked down and smiled to him as we were singing.  As soon as we stopped singing, Yoko said, “thank you thank you!”  And then some kids handed her cards and Sean kept yelling “Don’t crash” to the balloons, as he and Yoko walked quickly into the Dakota.  My friends and I turned around and screamed and hugged one another.  We couldn’t believe it all. Then we went over to the assistant who was handing out the cake and I swathe guy with the video camera filming us.  The assistant handed us napkins with rainbows on them and after everyone took a piece of cake, the assistants went in.  

 We were all so happy!  It was the greatest feeling.  You could fee John’s presence there, the warmth and happiness from it all.  Then the video crew came back out and said “Yoko wants to know what do you want to be when you’re 50?”  He asked a couple of people then came to me and I said, “I just wanted to be relaxed and happy.  Fifty’s just a number.  You can be as old as you want to or as young as you want to, as the old saying goes ‘Life Begins at 40.’”  Then he went to a few more people.

After all the excitement, we decided to chip in and send a cake up to Yoko.  After we did that, we hung around Strawberry Fields, then later we found out she was going to be going out somewhere so we stood around the front of the Dakota and waited a while.  Finally her limo came out and we could hardly see her because of the dark widows.  Everyone was waving and Yoko waved back.  Then the limo went up the street.  After that, we stayed around a bit longer playing Beatles music.  Then we decided to leave.  Everyone felt happy – we felt a natural high from it all.  I really didn’t’ think she would come

Mind Games 1980

I spotted this in a copy of Instant Karma.  Looks like a few photos of John from 1980 that I was not familiar with.

Nice Guy Paul helps a budding photographer

This short little story and photo appeared in the New York Post on October 18, 1982 and was reproduced in the fanzine, Instant Karma Issue Number 7 (Dec 1983/ January 1984).  Too bad the photo was of such a bad quality...

A dream came true for Queen College photograph student Bruno Chavez as he was walking down Second Avenue the other day.  First he spotted Paul McCartney and wife Linda in a pet store.  Bruno went in and got the ex-Beatles's autograph, then asked him to wait while he ran out to get his camera.  Paul not only waited, but got Linda to take this picture of him with the young lens-man.  Bruno just happened to be wearing his Beatlefest t-shirt that day.   Paul was in town on business for a few days before flying back to London to make a movie.

Lennon Sightings by Pat Simmons

In the Feb/March 1985 issue of the fanzine, Instant Karma!  Beatle fan, Pat Simmons was asked to write about her experiences "sharing air space" with John and/or Yoko.   Pat wrote up the following letter.   Only one of the photos she sent was published in the fanzine.   I would like to hear more about the party after the George concert at the Hippopotamus club.   Recently photos from that event have surfaced. 

Sean and his nanny:  October 8, 1979 (eek! it was my 3rd birthday!)  photo by Pat Deese

Sorry I never told you about seeing John and Yoko.  Actually I never really met them, just saw them so there’s a not a lot to tell.  I saw them at EMI in August 1968 and 1969.  Most of the time then, John would just help Yoko out of the Rolls, wrap himself around her just about, and go up the stairs with her.  He was Very protective of her because “fans” (if you can call them that), would call Yoko various uncouth names.  He never stopped and talked and I can’t really blame him.  None of them would really.  Well, I saw Paul stop a couple times but only to sign autographs on the run from car to stairs.  The crowds were unreal.  In 1968 when we were there, I‘d say about 50 or 60 people were waiting around EMI.  By 1969,, more fans had begun working and of course the first thing you saved up for just about was to go to England!  So the crowds by ’69 were closer to 100, and Emi is on a tiny street.  With a tinier parking lot crowded with cars.  About the most outstanding thing that happened was one time when getting out of the Rolls, Yoko caught her foot and fell forward, colliding into Lynn (my high school friend I was with).   Both Yoko and John apologized, while Lynn looked at John as to say, “Run into me anytime you fool.”  But John hadn’t run into her, Yoko had.

The next time I saw John wasn’t until 1974 when we were in New York for George’s last couple of concerts.  That was funny!  We were waiting around at the club where the after-tour party was with our eyeballs glued to the doorway to see who would arrive.  We’d found out Paul was in town so we were kinda hoping we’d get a double whammy and get to see Paul and George.  Anyway, I was busying staring at the doorway when one of my friends said under her breath, “oh my God, it’s Lennon!”  He had arrived by limo but the limo had pulled over to the curb a fair distance from the club doorway because of the traffic and parked cars. So they had to walk from there to the doorway.  Anyway, after Tempy, the friend of mine, made her announcement, I whipped around and said, “Lennon?”  I was so shocked!  By that time, Mr. Lennon was about a foot away from me with a big smirk on his face – he’d heard me!  I couldn’t have said, “John” right?  I had to say Lennon.  I felt so stupid.  John, meantime, was immensely enjoying watching everybody whip around and their eyeballs popping out of their sockets.  He said, “Keep cool everybody, keep cool.”  And looked at me and grinned, and then I knew he’d heard me.  I wanted to crawl under the pavement!  It lasted a split second, it was embarrassing, but God, it was neat!

The only other time I saw him was for another split second in 1979, the day before his birthday when he took Sean to Tavern on the Green.  We saw him come out of the doorway, get into his limo, which was parked under the archway, and then when he came back, he got out of the car and stopped long enough to take some birthday presents from some fans.  Laura, one of my friends sitting in the car with me, whipped outo f my car, ran up to him, shook his hand until his arm nearly fell out of its socket., and said “happy birthday John God I can’t believe this….”  Despite the crowds, he ate it all up, particularly getting the presents!  Laura managed to babble something about would he mind if she took a photo and when he said no, go ahead, she took one but she was shaking so hard it’s a tad bit blurred.  Knowing Laura, she also probably forgot to focus too!  Poor child.  It meant a lot to see him because we’d been waiting all week and only saw him that once, and after not having seen even a photo of him for so long.  One last thing – when I first saw “the” license plate number (which we’d industriously memorized when the limo picked him up and pulled away earlier) in my rearview mirror and announced John was coming, I opened my door and nearly crammed it into  that limo, which by then was right beside me.  I could just see me putting a big dent in that limo!  Two other friend of mine (Pat Deese and Ann Tishelman) were in the back seat and we were so flustered in getting out of the car (I zipped out into a street full of moving cars without even looking and left my car door wide open!)   I forgot to move the seat lever so that Pat could get out of the back seat.  Pat was so flustered she forgot the seat had a lever, so she contorted her body and squeezed out between the seat and the car, landing on West 72^nd Street on hands and knees, whereupon she crawled over to the curbside.  It must’ve been hilarious!  I laughed for an hour when she told me about it later.

I’m enclosing the photos my friends and I took. I took a whole roll just about at EMI, and that particular roll was in the camera that I LEFT ON THE TRAIN on the way to Liverpool!!!  I was more upset about the film than the cheapo camera, needless to say.