Critics and theatergoers thought little of "Lennon," the
short-lived Broadway musical based on the life and times of
the ex-Beatle. Perhaps the paucity of actual Beatles music
was one problem. But there is still intense interest in
Lennon's work. Beatles albums sell briskly, and music
publishing income generates millions per year for Lennon's
estate, controlled by Widow Yoko Ono. Meanwhile, Lennon's
first wife, Cynthia, released her own biography this year.
Another good indicator of the public appetite for all things
Lennon--the envelope on which he penned the lyrics to "Give
Peace a Chance" in 1969 is expected to fetch at least
$250,000 in a November auction. --
Peter Kafka
The biography of Give Peace A Chance from May 1969
By Roy Kerwood
WHY JOHN PICKED MONTRÉAL QUÈ.
John and Yoko were in the Bahamas after spending a week in
bed in the Hilton Amsterdam in what had become known as the
A bed In For Peace.
Although there was a fair bit of press John knew that he
could get a world wide audience only if he went to New York,
he called his old pal and US impresario Murray The K and
Murray got busy setting up the media to get publicity
But when Derek Taylor told John that he couldn’t go to New
York because John had been busted for pot possession and
was excludable because of his arrest, John was furious “Fuck
the US Derek get me set up in Toronto” so Derek had to
cancel all the arrangements in New York and get John into
Canada. Finally on Sunday May 25th John arrived at Toronto
Intentional Airport (Now Pearson International). Checked
into the Royal York Hotel and prepared to be swamped but due
to lack of lead time no one knew john was there. Murray The
K told john to get to Montréal so Derek called the hotels
and ONLY the Queen Elizabeth Hotel would give John a Room
them Derek got a list of radio stations and picked as the
host for a LIVE REMOTE broadcast the picked the top AM Rock
Station in the Montréal area CFOX Radio 1140 in Pointe
Claire Què. And ROGER SCOTT (deceased) would host the show.
With a live remote to air broadcast scheduled John and Yoko
chilled in TO (Toronto) for a couple of days she shopped
with Kyoko in the best stores they reconnected and recharged
for the week ahead.
John wanted to see Niagara Falls so he could say that they
went to Niagara Falls in their honeymoon, but as much he
wanted his honeymoon with Yoko be eternal he had no way of
knowing the cruel truth that that request would yield
because you see on Dec 8, 1980 John was gunned down , he was
in love again with Yoko like he had been before, but that’s
another story this is the story of the creation of the most
widely sung anti-war suing ever written “Give Peace A
Chance” with the only photos of the actual recording session
and other unpublished works from the Bed in.
How
I got in to the room
At
the age of 18 I was very fortunate to have the chance to be one
of the photographers at the "Bed In For Peace" in Montreal.
Below is the story of how I got into the "Bed In".
I
knew the radio announcer who would host the live broadcast from
the Queen Elizabeth Hotel on the first night of John Lennon's
stay in Montreal. He had agreed that I could take photos for the
station all I had to do was get in. Richard Glanville-Brown of
Capital Records agreed to give me 15 minutes with John and Yoko
during the live broadcast.
I Was
Absolutely Ecstatic! I was going to meet John Lennon and Yoko
Ono and I was going to be part of the live radio broadcast
event.
I
arrived at John Lennon's suite at 5:45 pm having pushed my way
through throngs of adoring fans who filled the corridors of the
Queen Elizabeth Hotel. There was a security man seated on a
chair in front of the door to the suite, I announced that I was
the photographer for CFOX Radio. I was ushered into a room
adjoining 'The Bed in Room' and was told that the Montreal press
would be finishing up with John in a few minutes then Roger
Scott, Charles P. Rodney Chandler and I would be introduced to
John Lennon and Yoko Ono before 6 p.m. I would be given 15
minutes to take my photographs then I would have to leave.
So
there I was, sitting in the room with John Lennon, Roger Scott,
Charles P. Rodney Chandler and Yoko Ono. Roger was on the air
interviewing John and I was seated in a corner of the room not
more than 10 feet away shooting images. After about 10 minutes
of interviewing John, Roger had Charles P. Rodney Chandler play
one of John songs. During the break I couldn't resist the
temptation to go over and sit next to John and ask him a
question. "John tells me what the meaning was behind Strawberry
Fields Forever." "Well Roy, I will tell you. It was like this.
We had 11 songs for the album and we needed one more song, so we
wrote Strawberry Fields." "You mean there wasn't any deep
psychedelic message about love, peace, eternity and all that" I
asked. "No nothing like that, it was just a song Roy, just one
of many songs. Other people gave them special meaning, depth and
intent, we just wrote songs. The record company just kept
telling us to put out more records and write more songs. We were
just a bloody machine."
There
was one illusion completely destroyed! I believed every single
word of every song that was on every album, came from Valhalla
directly to the Beatles, with no intermediary steps. Boy was I
wrong.
So
between songs, Roger would interview John, during songs I would
pepper John with questions. All the time snapping pictures with
my beautiful Licaflex 35mm camera. At one point, very on into
evening I ran out of film. I went over to 'Chuckie' Chandler, as
he was affectionately known in the radio world and borrowed a
few dollars to buy some film. I dashed down to the lobby and
picked up a role of film, then rushed back to the room. I stayed
until the
As I
was leaving, Derek Taylor approached me and said that John was
interested in looking at the pictures I had taken and could I
possibly come over with some black and white proofs
Room
and enlarger, for a rental fee. I rushed out and bought some
photographic paper went to the darkroom and printed two 8 x 10
contact sheets.
The
next day I went back to the QE Hotel and Derek brought me back
into the room, John looked at photos and he told me that he
wanted one 8 x 10 print of each of the pictures I had taken. As
I was leaving Richard Glenville Brown took me aside and asked me
if I would do a set of prints for Capital Records. No problem, I
replied, so now I had orders for 76 pictures at $10 each. That
is $760 in one day, in one sitting, on the first professional
job of my life in photography.
Thus
began an eight day adventure with John, Yoko and friends, which
included the writing and recording session of the song "Give
Peace A Chance".
Chapter 1-The people
Roger
Scott was my 1st contact and the gateway to my extraordinary
adventure. Rodger was a car buff and a Brit., I was in my mind a
transplanted Brit having been born in Golly Ole England, and I
was a car buff. He liked the same music I liked. I had met him
at the local hot rod hang out a Shell station on the 2-20 hwy in
Pointe Claire one morning at 3 am as my brother and I modified
my dad’s Austin Copper S.
We
got on like old chums and so when I was assigned to take photos
of a person at work I asked Rodger if I could shoot photos of
him while he worked. I went over to CFOX radio at 6 pm when he
started his shift and I stayed and shot photos till he signed
off at 11:00.
With
this tight bond established when Rodger announced on CFOX that
he was going to do a live remote broadcast from the bedside of
John Lennon Wednesday night may 21st, I knew that I would meet
John Lennon, I had the deepest knowledge of that fact, a true
moment of absolute clarity.
I
called Rodger as soon as he spun the first record a Beatles
song. I asked if the station had arranged to have a photographer
at the broadcast, when he said that they didn’t I asked if I
could get in with him and shoot the event. He said that he
couldn’t get me in but that they would love to have photos of
the event. He said if I could get in he was sure that I could
sell my pictures.
Born
in the UK in 1943, former Merchant Seaman Roger's first radio
job was at WPTR, Albany, NY, USA, in April 1966. After a year he
headed north, to work at CFOX, Montreal in Canada. One of the
highlights of his career there was presenting his daily show
from the room in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where John Lennon and
Yoko Ono were staging their "bed-in" in 1969. Give Peace A
Chance was recorded in that hotel room, and Roger's chorus
chanting, not to mention his coffee-table tapping, are somewhere
in the mix!
He
returned to the UK in 1971 after hearing of plans for the
introduction of commercial radio here. Roger took a job at UBN,
the in-house radio service run by United Biscuits for its
factory workforce.
A
little-known fact is that Roger appeared on Radio One during the
early part of 1973. He was given two separate four-week stints
on the Saturday afternoon show. To preserve his true identity
for his start at Capital, Roger decided not to use his real name
for his temporary work on Radio One, and adopted instead the
name of his former CFOX colleague, Bob Baker.
He
joined Capital Radio at it's London launch in October 1973,
where he stayed for 15 years. It was here he presented his
highly popular Friday evening Rock and Roll show Cruisin'. The
show included interviews with many of the top artistes of the
genre.
Roger
moved to Radio One in mid-1988 to present the popular Saturday
Afternoon 'Stereo Sequence' show, later moving to a Sunday night
10pm - 2 am slot 'Scott on Sunday'.
Roger
Scott's last show was on Sunday 8th October 1989 and he sadly
passed away on 31st of that month aged only 46, having suffered
from cancer.
A
tribute programme about Roger's life on the air was broadcast by
Radio 1 on 4th November 1989 at 4pm, entitled 'Radio, Radio',
recorded just a few weeks before his death.
When
we showed up that first night Rodger was just as nervous as I
was we arrived quite early and we were ushered into an adjoining
room where there was the most bizarre assortment of people I had
ever seen, I remember one guy wearing and iridescent green cape
bright red shoulder length hair a gorgeous tall blond Ellen Ray,
Tommy Schnurmacher and others. Rodger and his producer Chucky
Chandler and I chatted nervously while Kyoko darted in and out
of the people I don’t know why but I took several pictures of
Kyoko while I waited to be ushered into John’s room.
Richard
Glanville Brown an upper crust stiff upper lip classy lad was
the contact for Capital Records at the bed in Montreal.
Thus began an eight day adventure with John, Yoko and friends, which included the writing and recording session of the song "Give Peace A Chance".
Roy Kerwood
