John Lennon

John Lennon is perhaps the most iconic performer of our time. Revered all around the world, the singer/songwriter and leader of The Beatles is the most famous musician Liverpool has ever produced. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney is the most successful of all time and The Beatles are cultural icons, secure in their place at the top table of music. John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool at Oxford Street maternity hospital. He spent his early years at 9 Newcastle Road in Allerton, before moving to Mendips, at Menlove Avenue, in 1944, when his Aunt Mimi took over the responsibility of caring for him. His mother Julia had started a new family after his father, Alfred, had gone away to sea and these few years then defined the rest of Lennon's life. Picking up an interest in the craze of skiffle music in 1957, Lennon let music into his life and met Paul McCartney at a fate in Woolton, at St Peter's Church on July 6. Things were never the same again. After a few name changes and false starts, The Beatles took off when they arrived in Hamburg in August 1960 and returned home to Liverpool and The Cavern as the best rock 'n' roll group in town. The Beatles, under the leadership of Lennon, McCartney and manager Brian Epstein, went on to become the biggest selling group of all time and enjoyed unchartered success. In the eye of this hurricane, Lennon married Cynthia Powell and she gave birth to their only child, a son, Julian, in April 1963. Towards the end of The Beatles' ride, Lennon met avant-garde, Japanese artist Yoko Ono and the couple became inseparable. Cynthia filed for divorce and Lennon and Ono married in 1969. Yoko Ono became Lennon's partner in business, as well as his life, and the couple were rarely apart during the early years of their relationship and had a son together, Sean, in October 1975. Following The Beatles' split in 1970, Lennon released perhaps his best set of songs with Plastic Ono band and when he followed that up with the Imagine album, his solo success was secured. Lennon has sold over 14 million albums in the US alone and released records right up until he was murdered in December 1980. Lennon had just released the Double Fantasy album, following an elongated break from recorded music, when Mark Chapman shot him dead outside of the Dakota Building, Lennon's home, in New York City.