How Radio Personality Howard Stern Became An Unlikely Hero To Julian And Cynthia Lennon :

Now I am not much of a fan of Howard Stern (long story and we don’t get him in Europe or the UK) but this? Sheesh painful read from an early hero. Come one Yoko what WERE you thinking!?

"Many Beatles fans might not know about this story, but both Julian and Cynthia Lennon considered legendary radio personality Howard Stern as the instrumental figure in helping Julian to finally receive his long overdue inheritance from Yoko Ono. 

When John Lennon was tragically killed he left a will leaving everything to Yoko Ono’s discretion which meant she could dictate the terms of what to leave Julian, Sean, and even her daughter Kyoko with no interference from anyone else. Up until 1993 Julian was now 30 years old and the only things that Yoko had given John Lennon’s firstborn son was two guitars that really didn’t mean anything to John (Julian had requested another one that he knew was one of his father’s favorites, but was told no and given these two instead while Sean would get to use all of John’s musical equipment,) and a weekly allowance for a short time of $100 a week. 

Once Julian got his record deal Yoko stopped the $100 a week payments and had given him nothing else up to that point in the early 1990s. What was truly shocking even before that was that when John was alive both Cynthia and Julian were living pretty much a middle class lifestyle. Cynthia had made the mistake of just asking for a small settlement plus a trust fund for Julian that in the end didn’t reach the potential it should’ve because John didn’t pay the proper attention to it. 

Plus the fact that once Sean was born the trust money balance was broken in half for both sons.  Cynthia had trusted John to do right by Julian, and had he lived he most likely would’ve. That being said it was still irresponsible of John not to set something up for both Julian and much of his family in Liverpool including his Aunt Mimi who learned after John’s death that the house he bought her was now owned by Yoko. 

Unfortunately while Yoko was out preaching about “peace and love” she was doing nothing for Julian. Not even entertaining the idea of giving him a part of his father’s legacy, estate, or any type of inheritance settlement. Julian was basically living off the money he made off his solo career, but it was nowhere near the money Yoko now had with John’s net worth then estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. Yoko would basically have to be shamed into doing the right thing. 

Listed below in the comments section is a 1993 interview Julian Lennon gave to Howard Stern. It’s a “must listen” as Howard goes nuclear on Yoko and calls out her hypocrisy, asking over and over why Julian hasn’t received his rightful inheritance as John’s son. 

It shouldn’t be surprising that soon after this interview which was heard by millions of people and the beating Yoko took in the press that she finally (almost 15 years after John’s death) gave Julian some money. Julian was vocal at the time that the amount wasn’t anything fair to what John’s net worth was, but it was at least a start. Even to this day Julian has absolutely no say in his father’s estate . 

The fact of the matter is that it should’ve never come to this. Howard Stern should not have had to shame Yoko into giving Julian his “rightful” inheritance, but instead for reasons only known to her she selfishly handled the matter. 

Take a listen to the interview in the comments section below. No matter what you think of Howard Stern he’s a hero when it comes to how he stood up for Julian here. Giving him the biggest platform possible to tell millions of people the truth about how Yoko had shunned him from his rightful birthright inheritance . 

***One more thing. Writing about “proven facts” that show Yoko Ono in a negative light is not Yoko bashing. Had she done right by Julian this story never would exist. She has no one to blame but herself. ***"

Sean, Yoko, Cyn and Julian

 

The Beach Boys And Beatles 101 : The Bands The Music The History

GUITARS TUNINGS, STRING GUAGES, PLECTRUMS and Keef's 5 String reveal!

 

my beloved American Harmony H162 1957

I have been talking guitars a lot lately and a couple of things occurred to me after the extraordinary story about Rory Gallagher's beloved Strat and its loss and rediscovery! One is my friend and guitarist mentioned that Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top used '7's strings on his electric guitar and to anyone not in the know, guitar strings come in widths and gauges that inevitably some develop a preference for. I always use 10s on my acoustic guitars and similar on my electrics but 7s are LIGHT! Then I discovered he uses a dime for a plectrum!

My Harmony H162 (1957) 

That's a metal coin! On REAL thin strings! Plectrums are usually made of general plastic and earlier ones may have been made of tortoise shell and even compressed felt for something like an Autoharp! I heard in response to this from my daughter's most excellent singer songwriting other half that Brian May ( apart from making and designing his own guitar from the earliest moments on) uses a threepenny bit! This again to those not in the know is an extraordinary little coin with its usual portcullis design has an edge that might best be described as CHUNKY!

If you listen to ZZ Top play live I believe you can tell that Billy uses a coin as they are easier or prone to raise harmonics on hitting the guitar string just so! 

My Gibson 'Kalamazoo' 1936 KG11(headstock)

The other day however I found this wonderful clip of Keith Richards expounding his unique (sic?) approach to playing in open G. You simply take the top string off and play with five! Watch out for this on film and video. Now I used to play a lot in open tunings and used an open E for the longest time even on my first guitar a 12 sting but enjoyed drop D the next step and DADGAD or open G is common too. I have also been fascinated but those of us using open tunings and to masters like Martin Carthy who I have heard uses HIS OWN tuning! Now you have to really know your chops and how it fits with other players  to come up with your own tuning so this is as yet a step too far! 

My Gibson 'Kalamazoo' 1936 KG11

Here's Keith in LIFE magazine:

Keith Richards: The beauty, the majesty of the five-string open G tuning for an electric guitar is that you've only got three notes--the other two are repetitions of each other an octave apart. It's tuned GDGBD. Certain strings run through the whole song, so you get a drone going all the time, and because it's electric they reverberate. Only three notes, but because of these different octaves, it fills the whole gap between bass and top notes with sound. It gives you this beautiful resonance and ring. I found working with open tunings that there's a million places you don't need to put your fingers. The notes are there already. You can leave certain strings wide open. It's finding the spaces in between that makes open tuning work. And if you're working the right chord, you can hear this other chord going on behind it, which actually you're not playing. It's there. It defies logic. And it's just lying there saying, "F*ck me." And it's a matter of the same old cliche in that respect. It's what you leave out that counts. Let it go so that one note harmonizes off the other. And so even though you've now changed your fingers to another position, that note is still ringing. And you can even let it hang there. It's called the drone note. Or at least that's what I call it. The sitar works on similar lines--sympathetic ringing, or what they call the sympathetic strings. Logically it shouldn't work, but when you play it, and that note keeps ringing even though you've now changed to another chord, you realize that that is the root note of the whole thing you're trying to do. It's the drone.

I just got fascinated by relearning the guitar. It really invigorated me. It was like a different instrument in a way, and literally too. I had to have the five-string guitars made for me. I've never wanted to play like anybody else, except when I was first starting, when I wanted to be Scotty Moore or Chuck Berry. After that, I wanted to find out what the guitar or the piano could teach me.

The five-string took me back to the tribesmen of West Africa. They had a very similar instrument, sort of a five-string, kind of like a banjo, but they would use the same drone, a thing to set up other voices and drums over the top. Always underneath it was this underlying one note that went through it. And you listen to some of that meticulous Mozart stuff and Vivaldi and you realise that they knew that too. They knew when to leave one note just hanging up there where it illegally belongs and let it dangle in the wind and turn a dead body into a living beauty - Life

ZZ Top live on Howard Stern playing La Grange (see if you can hear whether you think Billy is using a metal coin here as he makes the notes hit that harmonic ring from a kind of pinch stroke with the plectrum hand