Mature Talk: The Yoko Ono Legacy

[majormilo]

YOKO ONO LEGACY:

Why is she Famous?
Yoko Ono will fairly or unfairly be cast as the woman that came between the greatest band of all-time, the Beatles. But beneath the surface, Yoko is
so much more.

Quick Bio:

Born into a wealthy aristocratic family on February 18, 1933, in Tokyo, Japan, Yoko Ono is the eldest of three children. With a degree in philosophy from Tokyo's Gakushuin University, Ono -- whose first name means "ocean child" -- crossed the ocean and pursued philosophy and music at Sarah Lawrence College after her father was appointed president of a bank in New York. Soon afterwards, she married Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi in 1956.

This was followed by a second marriage with art promoter Tony Cox in 1963. Concurrently, Ono was making a name for herself in performance art, which is what ultimately led to her meeting third husband John Lennon, at a progressive art show in London in 1966. The psychological bond between the artistically gifted Ono and the popular Lennon blossomed into marriage after news of the affair became public in 1968. The "Ballad of John & Yoko" marked a most utopian of relationships. One would channel their creativity through the other, that is, until Lennon's untimely assassination in 1980.

Ono not only influenced Lennon, but also an entire generation of bands, from Talking Heads and Blondie to The B-52's. Lennon and Ono's agenda crossed over from music to social commentary, as evidenced by their numerous "bed-ins" -- most notably during their honeymoon in Amsterdam in 1969. In the years that followed, Ono has been busy with everything from films and concerts, to albums of her own.


Q: Does it bother you that some people ask you what role you played regarding the fate of the band?

Are you tiptoeing around the word "break up" and I was responsible? (laughs)

Q: Hey, you said it, not me (laughs)...

It was what you were thinking, no? But I do think that it was very unfair to blame any one person... no one person could have broken up a band, especially one the size of the Beatles. And it was not just John, some of the other guys were having some thoughts about the band, so it happened.

Q: What did you think about the Barenaked Ladies writing "Be My Yoko Ono" and would you ever sing it live?
I thought that it was cute, but I would never sing it at one of my shows... (laughs).

Q: Is there any style you would not try?

I just go with the flow, so any style can be in my music -- that makes it exciting.



Q: You and John seemed to have a great relationship; what advice would you give to couples?

Be understanding of one another and be willing to compromise. I mean, I think that life with another person is always difficult. The alternative however -- being alone -- is also very difficult.

Q: Your children are always going to be in the shadow... how was it, as a parent, to shelter them?

I tell them that they have to think for themselves. Whether they want to be artists, accountants or lawyers, they have to want it themselves.

Q: What do you want people to think when they hear "Yoko Ono"?

Your friend.

Q: What advice do you give people who want to enter show business?

You are in it as soon as you wanna be in it. What you do with it and where you go is the key.

Q: Tell us your thoughts on every decade.

1960s: Discovery. 1970s: Action. 1980s: Solidity. 1990s: Reality. And 2000s: To solidify the wisdom that we have received up to now.

Q: What are your thoughts when the anniversary of John's death passes?

Well, unlike others, I think of John every day, 365 days... we were close, so there is not a day that I do not think of him. I do try to block it, but December 8th is not the only day I think of him.

Q: If John was here with us, what would he be doing?

He would be doing the same: He would be innovating, he would have jumped on computers and the Internet... and he would probably come to the conclusion that they are overrated! (laughs).

Q: Thank you very much for your time Yoko, and we wish you luck in everything you do.



Source Material: Some excerpts from the interview - www.askmen.com/toys/interview/57_yoko_ono_interview.html

[majormilo]

Yoko Ono Biography:
Few women in the history of rock roll have stirred as much controversy as Yoko Ono. Although her romance with John Lennon was hardly the only factor straining the relationships between the individual Beatles, she made a convenient scapegoat for the group's breakup, and was repeatedly raked over the coals in the media for the influence she held over Lennon, both in his life and his music. Ono's own work as an artist and musician didn't mitigate the public's enmity toward her; to the average man on the street, her avant-garde conceptual art seemed bizarre and ridiculous, and her highly experimental rock roll (which often spotlighted her primal, caterwauling vocals) was simply too abrasive to tolerate. That view wasn't necessarily universal (or true), and in fact the merits of her work are still hotly debated. Regardless of individual opinion, Ono has left a lasting legacy; she was an undeniably seminal figure in the history of performance art, and elements of her music prefigured the arty sides of punk and new wave (whether she was a direct influence is still debated, although the B-52's did admit to drawing from her early records). Moreover, between Lennon's assassination and the myriad drubbings she's taken in the press and the court of public opinion, an alternate portrait of Ono as a strong, uncompromising survivor has emerged in more recent years.

Although her link with John Lennon will always be foremost in the public's mind, Ono's own life story is fascinating in its own right. She was born February 18, 1933, into a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo. Her childhood was somewhat lonely and isolated; her father, a banker and onetime classical pianist, was transferred to San Francisco a few weeks before she was born, and her socialite mother was often busy throwing elaborate parties. She didn't meet her father until age two, when the whole family moved to San Francisco. However, they returned to Tokyo three years later to avoid the anti-Japanese backlash that was beginning in the United States in response to Japan's growing military expansionism. Ono was educated at the Gakushuin School, the most exclusive private school in Japan (the Emperor's sons were her classmates). She began classical piano lessons at a very young age, and later received vocal training in opera. In 1945, her mother took the family to the countryside to escape Tokyo, in time to survive the massive Allied bombing of the city; however, rich city dwellers were unwelcome, and the Ono children were often forced to beg for food.

(excerpts)
Source material: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Ono,_Yoko/Biography/

[majormilo]

Once back in New York, Ono resumed her art career to considerable attention from the avant-garde community; by this time, George Maciunas had become the leader of an art movement dubbed Fluxus, whose philosophies were compatible with (and even influenced by) Ono's, prizing abstraction and audience interaction. Ono performed at the Carnegie Recital Hall for a second time in early 1965, and debuted her seminal "Cut Piece," in which audience members were invited to cut off pieces of her clothing with scissors. In September 1966, she traveled to England for an art symposium, and "Cut Piece" helped make her a sensation in the London art world. In November, she got her own exhibition at the famed Indica Gallery, which was ardently patronized by John Lennon. Lennon was impressed by her work, particularly a piece where the viewer was required to climb a ladder and hold up a magnifying glass to read a small inscription on the ceiling that said "Yes!" The two read each other's writings, and Lennon financed an exhibition in which Ono painted various everyday objects white and cut them in half. In the meantime, Ono and Cox had begun making experimental films, usually centered on the repetition of simple movements; their fourth effort, Bottoms, consisted of 365 close-ups of nude buttocks (the idea was to fill the screen with motion when the subjects walked). British film censors were scandalized, and Ono became an even more notorious public figure with "Wrapping Event," in which she wrapped the lion statues beneath Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square with white cloth and tied herself to one. She also sang in concert with pioneering free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman at the Royal Albert Hall. The avant-garde was becoming increasingly suspicious of her visibility, which only intensified when Ono and Lennon began having an affair that spring.

Fans of Lennon the pop musician couldn't understand what he saw in Ono, but it's important to know that Lennon was an art student prior to falling in love with rock roll, and had long harbored an interest in avant-garde art. The difficulty with understanding Ono's art was that its impact came largely from her ideas; from putting new contextual frames around everyday objects, or asking her audience to complete an experience with their own imaginations. For example, most of Ono's pieces were white, so that the audience could imagine their own colors (or, in the case of her all-white chess set "Play It By Trust," to create ambiguity); even her so-called "Blue Room" was all-white (viewers were supposed to stay in the room until it turned blue). Her first musical composition, 1955's "Secret Piece," existed only in her mind (she was unable to transcribe the notes of a bird song effectively), and, in 1968, she announced a 13-day dance festival that would take place entirely in the imaginations of anyone who participated. In 1971, she took things a step further by presenting an imaginary art exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and filmed the spectators as the real works of art. As an artist, Ono dealt in concepts, not craft (i.e., practiced, developed technique and training in a specific medium). Her work wasn't what most people recognized as art, which was why many Beatles fans dismissed her as a talentless charlatan. Lennon, on the other hand, saw someone who could help him find a new direction.

Source material: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Ono,_Yoko/Biography/

[majormilo]

Lennon and Ono's first musical collaboration was on the highly experimental Unfinished Music, No. 1: Two Virgins, which was recorded around the beginning of their affair and released toward the end of 1968. None of Lennon's fans knew what to make of any aspect of the album; not the odd snippets of noise, faint dialogue, and sounds from the immediate environment, and not the fully nude photographs of the couple on the record jacket, taken from the front and rear. They were further dismayed with Lennon's participation in Ono's bizarre public events, such as appearing together in black plastic bags as a statement about judging by appearances. (Ono herself long suspected that fans' hostility was due to their discomfort seeing Lennon with a woman who was not only strong-willed, but of a different race.) After Ono's divorce from Cox, the couple married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969, and took advantage of the publicity surrounding their honeymoon to hold "Bed-Ins for Peace" in Amsterdam and Montreal (the latter of which produced the single "Give Peace a Chance"). Cox was later able to gain custody of Kyoko, pointing to Lennon and Ono's drug intake, and disappeared with the child, whom Ono would not see again for 25 years.

The second Lennon/Ono album, Unfinished Music, No. 2: Life With the Lions, was released not long after their wedding; it spotlighted Ono's cathartic, wailing vocal improvisations, as well as addressing her first of several miscarriages. It was quickly followed by The Wedding Album, one side of which featured more Ono improv, the other of which consisted of nothing but the couple calling each other's names. Over the next few years, Lennon and Ono continued their peace activism, and entered primal-scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, which began to inform both of their individual careers. In 1970, they each recorded an album backed by the Plastic Ono Band; predictably, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band was the less structured, more avant-garde of the two. Ono followed it in 1971 with the double-LP Fly, which featured more conventionally structured songs as well as her typical experimentalism. 1972 brought the Lennon/Ono protest-song album Sometime in New York City, which was roasted for the simplicity of its sentiments. Ono returned in 1973 with two of her strongest solo statements, the brutally intense, explicitly feminist Feeling the Space and the more varied Approximately Infinite Universe, both of which featured less musical involvement from Lennon. Perhaps that was symptomatic of the problems the couple had been having; they split up for a year and a half toward the end of 1973, exhausted from their constant time together and their battles with U.S. immigration over Lennon's threatened deportation. Ono recorded a more accessible album, A Story, in 1974, but it was shelved and remained unavailable until 1997.

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Source material: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Ono,_Yoko/Biography/

[OldiesLover]

Yoko Ono...

[majormilo]

The couple got back together in early 1975, and Ono was finally able to bear a child, Sean Taro Ono Lennon, who was born on John's birthday, October 9. Lennon dropped out of show business for several years to raise his son and effectively become a house-husband, while Ono took charge of his business affairs. Although she contributed some of her most accessible songs to his 1980 comeback album Double Fantasy, she did not return to solo recording until after Lennon's assassination on December 8, 1980. The harrowing, grief-stricken Season of Glass was released the following year to highly complimentary reviews. Ono followed it in 1982 with the more hopeful, pop-oriented It's Alright (I See Rainbows), and had a minor success with the single "Never Say Goodbye." 1985's Starpeace continued that optimistic trend, and teamed Ono with producer Bill Laswell and other downtown New York scenesters, but failed to connect as her previous two efforts had.

Ono gradually returned to visual art, creating installations and also exploring photography. Interest in her previous work led to several retrospectives over the course of the '90s, and in 1992, Rykodisc reissued her complete back catalog on CD, as well as the six-CD box set retrospective Onobox. In 1995, she recorded a new album for Capitol called Rising, which featured son Sean and recalled the harsh experimentalism of her early recordings. The same year, her musical play +New York Rock debuted off Broadway. 2001 brought another new album, Blueprint for a Sunrise, which updated the feminist tone of Feeling the Space while being somewhat more accessible. Steve Huey, All Music Guide



Source material: http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Ono,_Yoko/Biography/

[majormilo]

When I sit and think myself about what Yoko and John did it is truly amazing - from both the pop music (rock and roll world) to the jazz and movie world - to the many facets of life that both of these people touched on - When you think about the period of time that this was and what was going on in our world at that time, it was amazing what these two did in not only the music world but also in the environment and about relationships -

so many people did not understand this realtionship and still to this day I do not think they do - (my own opinion about NOT) - but as Lennon was prior to the rock and roll days an artist first - John had a true love for Yoko - OldiesLover and I talked about this for quite some time, and I just felt it was a time to pay a true homage to a woman who has changed many things about art - rock and roll - music - and relationships - she is in her 70's now so it is worth paying a homage to a mature asian woman.

thank you -

[OldiesLover]

I once saw Yoko Ono and John Lennon in-person. I actually shook John's hand and nodded to Yoko. It was 1970 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They had come to town to do a Concert to Free a 60's Radical named John Sinclair, who had been put in prison for 25 years for 2 joints.

My store issued tickets for the Concert. John and Yoko, along with some other musicians, stopped by my store while they were walking around town enjoying the hippie scene.

It's one of those things you don't think about when it's happening... but it sticks in your brain forever.

I have always been a big fan of the one & only... Yoko Ono.

[majormilo]

Here are some nice pictures of Yoko

[majormilo]

“When people get cynical about love, they should look at us [Yoko and John Lennon] and see it is possible”

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“I believe in people so much that if the whole of civilization is burned so we don't have any memory of it, even then people will start to build their own art. It is a necessity -- a function. We don't need history.

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“At this time I think it's important that we remember John for what he contributed to the world. For people who still love John's music and for those now getting into John's music, this opens up a whole new world in which they can appreciate John's music again.”

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“If he's observing me from up there, I'm sure he's proud of me. It's going to go on and on. This is what I love now, so it's great.”

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“Remember, each one of us has the power to change the world. Just start thinking peace, and the message will spread quicker than you think.”

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“So many people have approached me and said, 'Can I do a musical of John,' ... It's a very simple idea, you know - wow, a musical of John! But I've said no. This time, I said yes, because I liked the idea of having these different actors playing John. Because in the years after John's passing, John has transformed into something else. People in Asia think of him as their hero. People in Africa think of him as their hero. He was a hero for the whole world, and not just a white hero. So it's great to have a black performer singing as John. For me, this play is a revolution, a quiet revolution.”

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“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

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“I saw that nothing was permanent. You don't want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.”

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Everybody's an artist. Everybody's God. It's just that they're inhibited.”

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I wonder why men get serious at all. They have this delicate, long thing hanging outside their bodies which goes up and down by its own will. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself.”

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“Cosmetics is a boon to every woman, but a girl's best beauty aid is still a near-sighted man”

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“All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!”

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Source Material: http://ww.thinkexist.com/quotes/yoko_ono/