The Beatles' middle name is Winston. Ringo Starr becomes the third Beatles to be given a knighthood

Drummer British group Beatles ( The Beatles), disbanded in 1970, was awarded a knighthood. Ringo Starr became the third member of the famous quartet to receive the title "Sir". the reason for awarding the musician is “for his contribution to music and charity”.

Ringo Starr was born in the port city of Liverpool on July 7, 1940 in the family of a dock worker and confectioner and was given the name Richard Starkey at birth. The same name as his father. Ringo, like the other members of the group, did not receive music education, but his arrival in the band in 1962 completed the formation of the Beatles and paved the way for their recognition "at the top of pop culture." During the years 1962-1970, Ringo played on percussion instruments, sang (most famous song in his performance is “Yellow Submarine”), starred in films and even composed music (author of the songs “Octopus Garden” and “Don't Pass By”).

“I never really taught anything. I didn't learn to play drums. I became a member of the groups and made all the mistakes on stage, ”said Ringo (Eng. I never studied anything really. I didn’t study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes on stage.)

After the collapse of the team in 1970, Ringo began solo career(not the most successful, in comparison with other participants), and also collaborated with former Beatles and other musicians as part of their projects. Has its own charitable foundation - the Lotus Foundation (The Lotus Foundation).

Unlike John Lennon (knighted in 1969) and Paul McCartney (“sir” since 1997), Ringo Starr was not known for being an active public position, nor a great fortune. It would never have occurred to the great drummer to return his knighthood as a sign of disagreement with the Vietnam War, as John did. Ringo's net worth is estimated at just over £300 million. However, in 2016 he supported the idea of ​​the UK leaving the European Union: “At first I thought the European Union was a great idea, but then I didn’t see it lead to anything.”

Ringo Starr is married to actress Barbara Bach for the second time, and has three children from his first marriage to Maureen Cox: sons Zack and Jason and daughter Lee. By the way, although Ringo received the knighthood the third, he became the grandfather of the first of the Beatles.

Post navigation

Barry Miles: "John Winston Lennon was born on this day in Oxford Street Maternity Hospital."

Hunter Davies: "John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool at 6:30 a.m. October 9, 1940."

John: "Ninety percent of the inhabitants of our planet, especially in the West, were born thanks to a bottle of whiskey drunk Saturday night; no one was going to have such children. Ninety percent of us humans were born by accident - I don't know a single person who planned to have a child. We are all creatures of Saturday night."

Hunter Davies: “When it was time for Julia to give birth, the “strange war” turned into a “battle for England”. The Germans occupied France, throwing the British into the sea, and night after night the Luftwaffe planes bombed Liverpool. Julia was placed in a maternity hospital in Oxford Street. The birth was difficult and after thirty hours of torment, the doctors decided to perform a caesarean section.

Mimi: “When I found out that a boy was born, I immediately went there, despite the air raid alert. She ran all the way. No one could stop me, not even Hitler! Boy! Just imagine, the first boy in the family! The one we've all been waiting for. When I got to the hospital, I couldn't take my eyes off him. How beautiful this blond-haired baby was! The nurses noticed. Three and a half kilograms is just what you need, not small and not fat. As soon as I first saw John, I immediately knew that something extraordinary would come out of him. I was suffocating with happiness, spinning around him endlessly and almost forgot about Julia. Julia was offended: “I gave birth to him after all!”

Jackie Spencer (historian): “He and his mother [John and Julia] were still in the hospital when the air raid began. And all the cribs were hidden under metal beds to save the children in case a bomb hit the hospital.”

Mimi: “Immediately, a bomb exploded right in front of the hospital. But my sister stayed in bed, and the baby was put under the bed. They wanted to send me to the basement, but there it was. I ran back to Newcastle Road to break the news to our father. “Go down to the shelter,” the patrolmen shouted to me. “Oh, don’t worry,” I answered them.

John (from the book): "I was born on October 9, 1940, when, I believe, Aduf Hitzler's national myths knew only it to bomb us. At least they didn't get me."

Barry Miles: Contrary to some reports, there were no Luftwaffe raids that night. The previous raid was on the night of September 21-22, and the next one will be only on October 16.”

Hunter Davis: “All the biographers (including me) tirelessly repeated that the boy was born during the bombing, according to family legend, at least that's what John's aunt Mimi told me personally. However, as a result of a recent thorough study of the Liverpool newspaper archives, no evidence of the facts regarding the bombing on the evening of October 9, 1940 was found. Of course, there were raids immediately before and after his birth, so it can be more accurately formulated as follows: "John Lennon was born during constant air raids."

Robert Rodriguez: “The statement wanders from book to book that Lennon was born when Liverpool was bombed by German aircraft, but this is not so. There were no heavy bombings then, and this is just a myth.”

Philip Norman: “It was Mimi who named the baby John. Mother gave John a middle name - Winston.

Hunter Davis: "The second name was given to him in honor of the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill."

Philip Norman: “Thus, two names were recorded on the birth certificate: John - the name from Aunt Mary, and Winston - the middle name from the mother. No one knew where the father of the child, Fred Lennon, was at that time. At that time he was somewhere in the sea.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 to Alfred Lennon and Julia Stanley. Immediately after this, Fred disappeared from sight, leaving his family, and John Julia remarried and gave her son to be raised by her sister. John's father did not remind himself of himself for many years, but decided to meet him only at the height of Beatlemania and even released his own single with the song "Here is My Life". Along with humor and artistry, John inherited from his parents a strong character, which all his life allowed him to be only a leader.

He felt the first taste of popularity thanks to his school drawings, but he decided to devote his life to poetry and music. John's friends, Ivan Vaughan and Pete Shotton, supported his musical passions and even fostered new friendships. They brought Paul McCartney into their ensemble, and Lennon's place in music was determined for life, the wheels of the success machine turned. And the mother's life was cut short under the wheels of a car. At 18, John suffered a devastating loss.

He entered the Liverpool College of Art, and there he acquired his closest friends of those years, Stu and Cynthia. Stuart Sutcliffe (1940-1962) matched his tastes in art and outlook on life like no other. He became a bass player and an ensemble member, but had no interest in concerts and did not rely on rock and roll. He goes back to painting, stays in Hamburg to live with Astrid Kirchner, and soon dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. Barely survived the loss of Jonet, John married Cynthia Powell (b.1939) and received from her a son, Julian (b.1963). But his father left the family.

to London for a symposium on contemporary arts Yoko Ono has arrived. John visited her exhibition in London, met with her, helped her as a sponsor with the next exhibition, and finally felt such love for her that could distract him from Cynthia and her son, and even from the BEATLES, but give meaning and content to his new creativity. Lennon was involved in all of Yoko's projects from that time on, and she also began to participate in the recordings of the BEATLES. Even before the collapse, John created new group, and the name of Ono, and he himself officially became Ono Lennon. After the death of Brian Epstein, which was a big loss, after a divorce from Cynthia, after breakup of the BEATLES The Ono Lennons settled in a Georgian mansion, and from the beginning of the 70s they moved to New York. Lennon returns his MBE to the Queen and cuts all ties with his homeland. After going through a crisis and an almost two-year gap with Yoko, he breaks off relations with outside world and, when his son Sean is born, she becomes only a housewife and educator of the child. As if starting again, in 1980, John and Yoko released the Double Fantasy record and embarked on another, expressing the hope that "there is another forty years ahead life and work...
At the BEATLES, rhythm guitarist John Lenonn embodied intelligence and rebelliousness while being authentic driving force quartet. "When you stand on the edge of the abyss and hesitate to jump or retreat, jump!" . I often heard this idea from John McCartney, only person, which could keep him in line with reality until it changed in the 70s.

The Beatles - Forever! Bagir-zade Alexey Nuraddinovich

John Winston Lennon (1970 to 1980)

John Winston Lennon

(from 1970 to 1980)

After the Beatles died, John did not leave the musical field. On the contrary, he immediately rushed to the offensive and immediately won. His first record of that time - "Plastic It Band" with the song "Give Peace A Chance" ("Give Peace a Chance") was recognized as the best in 1970.

The song “God” speaks about Lennon’s moods of that time, in which he declares that he does not believe in God, or in the Bible, or in Kennedy, or in Elvis, or in the Beatles ... but believes only in himself.

John was full of creativity then. He was on the rise. The old and faithful friends- Klaus Voorman on bass and Ringo Starr on drums. Lennon himself played the guitar. Phil Spector was the producer. This record, like Paul McCartney's "Band On The Run", was the highest achievement in all the ex-Beatles' solo careers.

John continues to delight his fans and on next year when the album "Imagine" ("Imagine") appears. Here John appears to us even more optimistic than we knew him. True, in the song "How Do You Sleep?" (“How do you sleep?”) he makes a completely undisguised blunt attack on Paul McCartney. It can be seen that mutual insults have not passed, and John still cannot forget these ordeals in the courts regarding the division of the Beatles' property. George Harrison also sings this song. He plays the guitar. It is interesting to note that the song was recognized as one of the best in the album. I would like to pay attention to the songs "Jealous Guy" ("Jealous Guy") and "Oh, My Love" ("Oh, my love"). The album itself ended its journey at the top of the charts absolutely everywhere it was released. This record was also released here in the USSR, and, despite the eight-year delay, "Imagine" was a great success among Soviet music lovers.

Judging by the first albums after the breakup of the group, Lennon took a leading place among the ex-Beatles. However, the next double album "Sometime in New York City" ("Sometimes in New York") led many critics to doubt the above. As for the records, one was studio recordings, and the other was recordings made during two jam sessions. (Jamsession is a time when different musicians get together to play music for a certain, all famous topic. Here everyone has the opportunity to show themselves and their art of possession musical instruments). All this was packed in an envelope that looked like newspaper clippings. All in all, as Rolling Stone put it, it was "artistic suicide." How true this is is hard to say. In any case, John proved himself to be a real people's tribune, who is concerned about all the acute problems of our time. Например, «Woman Is The Nigger Of The World» («Женщина – рабыня в этом мире»), «Sisters, Ih, Sisters» («Сёстры, о сёстры»), «Attika State» («Тюрьма „Аттика“), "Angela" ("Angela"), "Cold Turkey" (Cold Turkey") - these are songs of protest against racism, the occupation of Northern Ireland, arbitrariness in prisons, in defense of Angela Davis ...

True, from a musical point of view, all this was not presented as interesting as, say, the song “Give Peace a Chance” (“Give Peace a Chance”), “Imagine” (“Imagine”). And although the group "Elephant Memory", who acted as an accompanist, was praised, as she coped with her role perfectly, the album was a critical failure.

The following albums "Mind Games" (" Mind games”) (1973) and, especially, “Walls And Bridges” (“Walls and Bridges”) (1974) again forced critics to change their minds about John the artist in better side. Lennon was again at the top of the charts.

With the recordings on the singles of the songs "Whatever Get You Through The Night" ("If only to survive the night") and "No. 9 Dream" ("Dream No. 9"), according to some researchers, for example, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler, a transitional period in John's work. Released before a five-year lull, Rock-n-Roll (1975) appears to be the answer to the question of what Lennon's transition led to. Here we meet with rock and roll, performed at the dawn of the youth of the Beatles quartet. John, as it were, shows his return to that beautiful era, his loyalty to it.

This album has been around for a long time. Most of the songs featured on it were recorded by John several years before this CD was released. However, due to a number of circumstances (including the car accident of Phil Spector, under whose leadership all this was being prepared), it was not possible to release the album on time. But then Lennon took the release of the record into his own hands, recorded the missing songs, and in 1975 "Rock and Roll" went on sale.

Of the songs, the most likable are "Stand By Me" ("Do not interfere in my affairs"), "Sweet Little Sixteen" ("Sweet sixteen") (remember the times of Hamburg?) and "Sleeping And Sliding" ("Sleeping and fickle"). There was a lot of praise. After that, the album "Shaved Fish" ("Cleaned fish") was released, and suddenly John disappeared, only to reappear ... five years later.

What did he do these years outside of music? And in general, why was John not heard and seen? Maybe it was hard for him from the burden of his incredible fame and he disappeared from the annoying attention of the crowd? Or, tired of fighting against the cruel reality that surrounded him in America and experiencing an acute creative crisis, John decided to move away from the role of a leader of youth and a fighter for peace? It is difficult to talk about this, since Lennon himself kept silent on this matter. In any case, he managed to find peace and comfort in the family, where he and Yoko had just had a long-awaited child - a son named Sean. It happened on October 9, 1975. Then John and Yoko switched places. That is, John turned into a "mother", leaving his wife to handle all matters not related to the house. And all these years, until 1980, John personally looked after his son, washed and ironed, and even baked homebaked bread. And, apparently, he did it all with great pleasure.

In October 1980, when asked by American journalist Barbara Grostark why he had not been heard for five whole years, John replied: “Because I will be forty, and Sean will be five, and I wanted to give him five full years, be with him all the time. I didn't see my first son Julian grow up, and now he's a seventeen year old man, he calls me on the phone and talks about motorcycles. I didn't exist at all when I was a kid. I was on tour. But my childhood was different… I don’t know what price to pay, I don’t know how this mechanism works, but I know for sure that you have to pay for inattention to children. And if I hadn't paid Sean attention from zero to five years, I'm not sure that it would have been possible to recoup from sixteen to twenty. It is my duty, it is the law of life, to dedicate myself in one way or another to a child.”

And more: “In the beginning it was very difficult to do nothing in music, because I felt that I could write a lot. But I did not want to record music precisely because everyone thought that I should do it. And I had to go through a long and hard period of cooling down, usually people experience this when they retire, at the age of sixty. And then I got used to it and became a normal householder, turning all my attention to Sean."

In addition to raising his son, John became interested in animal husbandry for one period, buying a farm in New Jersey and raising cows of the famous Holstein breed.

But in 1980, after a voluntary five-year silence and on the eve of his fortieth birthday, John Lennon returned to music, recording the wonderful album Double Fantasy. He, as stated in his new, immediately popular song "Starting Over" ("Starting over"), started over. “After all, I am only forty, and if the Almighty wishes, there are still forty years of life and work ahead.”

The new album showed that a mature musician returned to the public, having found spiritual harmony and reconciled with himself, a man whose newly awakened powers promised many achievements ahead.

John himself commented on his record as follows: “I finally found myself. I discovered that I was John Lennon before the Beatles and will be John Lennon after them. So be it. The air has cleared. I have also cleansed myself."

Optimism really stuck out of John: “... I'm not going to die at forty. Life is just beginning. I believe in it and it gives me strength."

But... on December 8, 1980, just a few days after the release of "Double Fantasy", something happened that simply does not turn the tongue...