Artist

John Lennon

The Beatles

Liverpool Maternity Hospital, United Kingdom • 1940 – 1980

John Lennon is a musician from Liverpool Maternity Hospital, United Kingdom, active 1940–1980. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

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Albums tracked

608

In collections

1940

Since

Biography

John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. His work included music, writing, drawings and film. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager.

The Arc of John Lennon

The pivots — what forced John Lennon to reinvent.

The Primal Scream
Fresh off Arthur Janov's therapy and the acrimonious split of The Beatles, Lennon booked Abbey Road with Ringo Starr and Klaus Voormann to strip away every pop illusion. Phil Spector was in the booth, but instead of his Wall of Sound, he captured a stark, skeletal trio on Plastic Ono Band. Lennon shredded his voice on tracks like 'Mother' and explicitly denounced his past on 'God'. It remains one of the most abrasive, unvarnished confessionals ever committed to vinyl.
The Radical Agitprop
Moving to Greenwich Village in 1971 threw Lennon headfirst into American anti-war activism and radical politics. Backed by New York street-rockers Elephant's Memory, he traded personal vulnerability for ripped-from-the-headlines polemics on Some Time in New York City. The production was murky, the songwriting rushed, and the critical backlash was immediate and brutal. It was his most chaotic, divisive period, turning a global pop star into a target for federal deportation.
The Lost Weekend
Separated from Yoko Ono in late 1973, Lennon relocated to Los Angeles with May Pang for an eighteen-month haze of booze and session chaos. Phil Spector famously pulled a gun in the studio during the abortive Rock 'n' Roll oldies sessions, forcing Lennon to scrap the tapes and produce Walls and Bridges himself back in New York. The resulting tracks brought Elton John in for 'Whatever Gets You Thru the Night' and delivered a polished, brass-heavy comeback. It was a commercial triumph pulled straight out of personal freefall.
The Dakota Househusband
After five years of total silence baking bread and raising his son Sean in the Dakota, Lennon resurfaced at The Hit Factory in 1980 with producer Jack Douglas. He split Double Fantasy down the middle with Yoko Ono, trading breezy adult-contemporary tracks like '(Just Like) Starting Over' with her avant-garde dance-pop. The sessions used razor-sharp New York session pros like Tony Levin and Hugh McCracken, giving the record a clean, modern sheen. It showed an artist finally comfortable in his own skin just weeks before it was cut short.

Influences

Chuck Berry — Lennon lifted the opening guitar lick and vocal cadence of 'You Can't Catch Me' directly into The Beatles' 'Come Together', which led to a copyright lawsuit from Morris Levy and forced him to cut the 1975 Rock 'n' Roll covers album. Berry's lyrical economy and double-stop riffs were the core template for Lennon's rhythm guitar work. You can hear that aggressive, driving right-hand chop across every rocker he ever cut.
Buddy Holly — Lennon learned to play guitar by figuring out Holly's three-chord progressions, famously covering 'That'll Be the Day' with The Quarrymen in 1958 and cutting 'Peggy Sue' in 1975. Holly proved to him that you could write your own hits while playing your own rhythm guitar and wearing thick glasses on stage. His hiccuping vocal style on 'Everyday' is stamped all over Lennon's early vocal inflections.
Little Richard — Lennon spent weeks watching Little Richard perform up close when the American star shared a residency bill with The Beatles at the Star-Club in Hamburg in 1962. That feral, throat-shredding falsetto whoop became Lennon's go-to vocal trick for injecting immediate danger into a track. You hear that exact Hamburg roar tearing through the vocal take on 'Cold Turkey'.
Arthur Alexander — Lennon championed Alexander's country-soul sound from the moment he heard 'You Better Move On', immediately leading the charge to record Alexander's 'Anna (Go to Him)' for The Beatles' 1963 debut album. That vulnerable, pleading vocal delivery showed Lennon how to channel raw emotional insecurity without losing the groove. It is the direct ancestor to the wounded rasp on 'Jealous Guy'.
Lonnie Donegan — Donegan's 1955 hit 'Rock Island Line' sparked the UK skiffle craze that drove Lennon to beg his Aunt Mimi for his first mail-order Gallotone Champion guitar and form The Quarrymen. Donegan's frantic acoustic strumming and DIY ethos gave British working-class kids permission to make noise with washboards and cheap wood. Without Donegan's skiffle boom, Lennon never picks up a six-string in the first place.