English musician, photographer, and philanthropist (born 1963)
Julian Charles John Lennon (born John Charles Julian Lennon; 8 April 1963) is an English musician, photographer, author, and philanthropist. He is the son of Beatles member John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, and he is named after his paternal grandmother, Julia Lennon. Julian inspired three Beatles songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), and "Good Night" (1968). His parents divorced in 1968 after his father had an affair with Yoko Ono. 
Lennon started a music career in 1984 with the album "Valotte", best known for "Too Late for Goodbyes" and the title track, and has since released six more albums. He has held exhibitions of his fine-art photography and has written several children's books. In 2006, Lennon produced the environmental documentary film "Whaledreamers", which won eight international awards. In 2007, he founded The White Feather Foundation (TWFF), whose stated mission goal is to address "environmental and humanitarian issues".
In 2020, Lennon was executive producer of the Netflix documentary "Kiss the Ground" about regenerative agriculture and the follow-up film "Common Ground". In 2022, Lennon was executive producer of the documentary film "Women of the White Buffalo", which chronicles the lives of women living on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Early life.
Julian Lennon was born John Charles Julian Lennon on 8 April 1963 at Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool, to John Lennon and Cynthia Powell. He was named after his paternal grandmother, Julia Lennon, who died five years before his birth. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, was his godfather. Lennon was educated firstly at Kingsmead School, Hoylake, during 1974–1975; then, when his mother remarried, he moved to Wales and attended Ruthin School, a boarding private school in the town of Ruthin, Denbighshire, in North Wales.
Lennon inspired one of his father's most famous songs, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", whose lyrics describe a picture the boy had drawn, a watercolour painting of his friend, Lucy O'Donnell, from nursery school, surrounded by stars. Another composition of his father inspired by him was the lullaby "Good Night", the closing song of "The Beatles" (also known as The White Album). In 1967, at the age of four, he attended the set of the Beatles' film "Magical Mystery Tour".
When Julian was five years old, in 1968, his parents divorced, following his father's infidelity with Japanese multimedia artist Yoko Ono. John Lennon married Ono on 20 March 1969. Julian would later have a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon.
Paul McCartney wrote "Hey Jude" to console him over the divorce; originally called "Hey Jules", McCartney changed the name because he thought that "Jude" was an easier name to sing. After his parents' divorce, Julian had almost no contact with his father until the early 1970s when, at the request of his father's then-girlfriend, May Pang (Yoko Ono and Lennon had temporarily separated), he began to visit his father regularly. John Lennon bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and a drum machine for Christmas 1973 and encouraged his interest in music by showing him some chords.
Relationship with his father.
Following his father's murder on 8 December 1980, Julian Lennon voiced anger and resentment toward him, saying, "I've never really wanted to know the truth about how Dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me ... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."
Julian chafed at hearing his father's 'peace and love' stance perpetually celebrated. He told "The Daily Telegraph," "I have to say that, from my point of view, I felt he was a hypocrite. Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce? You can't do it, not if you're being true and honest with yourself." Julian added, "Mum was more about love than Dad. He sang about it, he spoke about, but he never really gave it, at least not to me as his son. The darker side definitely comes from Dad. Whenever I get too aggressive, which comes from Dad's side, I try to calm myself down, be more positive."
Recalling his renewed contact with his father in the mid-1970s, Julian said in 2009, "Dad and I got on a great deal better then. We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang. My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear—they were the happiest time I can remember with him."
Julian was excluded from his father's will. However, a trust of £100,000 was created by his father to be shared between Julian and his half-brother, Sean. Julian sued his father's estate and in 1996 reached a settlement agreement, authorised by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, reportedly worth £20 million.
In an interview with CBS News in 2009, Julian stated, "I realised if I continued to feel that anger and bitterness towards my dad, I would have a constant cloud hanging over my head my whole life. After recording the song 'Lucy,' almost by nature, it felt right to fulfill the circle, forgive Dad, put the pain, anger and bitterness in the past, and focus and appreciate the good things. Writing is therapy for me and, for the first time in my life, I'm actually feeling it and believing it. It also has allowed me to actually embrace Dad and the Beatles."
Career.
Music career.
Aside from The Beatles, Lennon was influenced by David Bowie, Keith Jarrett, Steely Dan, and AC/DC.
Lennon made his musical debut at age 11 on his father's album "Walls and Bridges" playing drums on "Ya-Ya", later saying, "Dad, had I known you were going to put it on the album, I would've played much better!" In the sleeve notes in the album the song is credited to Julian Lennon "starring on drums" with "dad on piano".
Lennon enjoyed immediate success with his debut album, "Valotte", released in 1984. Produced by Phil Ramone, it spawned two top 10 hits, (the title track and "Too Late for Goodbyes") and earned Lennon a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1985. Music videos for the two hits were made by film director Sam Peckinpah and producer Martin Lewis. After the album's release, Paul McCartney sent Lennon a telegram wishing him good luck.
His second album, 1986's "The Secret Value of Daydreaming", was panned by critics. However, it reached number 32 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and produced the single "Stick Around", which was Lennon's first number-one single on the US Album Rock Tracks chart. He recorded the song "Because", previously recorded by The Dave Clark Five, in the UK for Clark's 1986 musical "Time".
On 1 April 1987, Julian Lennon appeared as the Baker in Mike Batt's musical "The Hunting of the Snark" (based on Lewis Carroll's poem). The all-star lineup included Roger Daltrey, Justin Hayward and Billy Connolly, with John Hurt as the narrator. The performance, a musical benefit at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of the deaf, was attended by the Duchess of York. In October the same year he performed with Chuck Berry. Although Lennon never achieved the same level of success in the US as he had enjoyed with "Valotte", his 1989 single "Now You're in Heaven" peaked at number 5 in Australia and gave him his second number 1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart in the US.
In 1991, George Harrison sent some ideas for Lennon's album "Help Yourself", although he did not play or receive any credits. The single "Saltwater" reached number 6 in the UK and topped the Australian singles charts for four weeks. During this time, Lennon contributed a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" to the soundtrack of the television series "The Wonder Years".
Lennon left the music business for several years in the 1990s to focus on philanthropy after his encounter with elders from the Mirning people of Australia. After he began his performing career, there was occasionally unfounded media speculation that Lennon would undertake performances with McCartney, Harrison and Ringo Starr. In the "Beatles Anthology" series in 1995, the three surviving Beatles confirmed there was never an idea of having Julian sit in for his father as part of a Beatles reunion, with McCartney saying, "Why would we want to subject him to all of this?"
In May 1998, Lennon released the album "Photograph Smile" on his own record label. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album as "well-crafted and melodic", and concluded by saying that it was "the kind of music that would receive greater praise if it weren't made by the son of a Beatle". In 2002, he recorded a version of "When I'm Sixty-Four", from the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, for an Allstate Insurance commercial.
In 2006, he ventured into Internet businesses, including MyStore.com with Todd Meagher and Bebo founder Michael Birch. In 2009, Lennon created a new partnership with Meagher and Birch called theRevolution, LLC. Through this company, Lennon released a tribute song and EP, "Lucy", honouring the memory of Lucy Vodden (née O'Donnell), the little girl who inspired the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to fund Lupus research.
In October 2011, Lennon released the album "Everything Changes". In 2012 he worked with music film director Dick Carruthers on the feature-length video documentary "Through the Picture Window", which followed Lennon's journey in the making of "Everything Changes" and includes interviews with Steven Tyler, Bono, Gregory Darling, Mark Spiro and Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile. "Through the Picture Window" was also released as an app in all formats with bespoke videos for all 14 tracks from the album.
On September 9, 2022, Lennon's album "Jude" was released on BMG. It included the singles "Freedom" and "Every Little Moment". "Goldmine" wrote about the release, "With his new album, the first in 11 years, Julian advances his body of work that has always simultaneously explored personal and global themes, but for the first time in his life, he's embracing his inner status as someone's son...[an] introspective masterwork from a diversely talented artist." The title is a reference to the Beatles song "Hey Jude", which Paul McCartney wrote in 1968 to give Julian Lennon hope for the future. Lennon said about his album title, "Calling it "Jude" was very coming of age for me in that regard because it was very much facing up to who I am...The content came from over three decades of songwriting. The themes and issues mostly being the same, generally about the wars within and the wars without."
On 23 August 2024, Lennon released a new version of "I Should Have Known", which was remixed by Spike Stent. Lennon shared, "[the song] was always a favourite of mine,” says Lennon. “I loved the way the new album ['Jude'] sounded in particular. (...) I thought maybe Mark 'Spike' Stent will remix this for me and give it a new life. I want it to breathe life into the world again."
Film.
Lennon's first tour as a solo musician, in early 1985, was documented as part of the film "Stand by Me: A Portrait of Julian Lennon" – a film profile started by Sam Peckinpah, but completed by Martin Lewis after Peckinpah's death. Lennon has appeared in several other films including "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" (released 1996, originally filmed in 1968), "Cannes Man" (1996), "" (1988), "Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll" (1987) and a cameo in "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995) as a bartender. Julian provided the voice for the title role in the animated film "David Copperfield" (1993). He was also the voice of the main character Toby the Teapot in the animated special "The Real Story of I'm a Little Teapot" (1990).
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