The session took place in a bright, sunny room overlooking the park," says Yoko Ono of her and John Lennon's photo shoot at the Dakota, their New York apartment building, on December 8th, 1980. "We were feeling comfortable because it was Annie [Leibovitz], whom we respected and trusted, so John seemed not to have any problem taking off his clothes. John and I were hugging each other, feeling a bit giggly and up." "I was thinking that they had never been embarrassed to take their clothes off, that they could do a nude embrace," says Leibovitz, who was photographing them for a Rolling Stone cover to mark the release of Double Fantasy, their first album in five years. "John took his clothes off in a few seconds, but Yoko was very reluctant. She said, 'I'll take my shirt off but not my pants.' I was kinda disappointed, and I said, 'Just leave everything on.' We took one Polaroid, and the three of us knew it was profound right away."
That evening, returning to the Dakota on his way home from the recording studio, Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged fan. The photo would become the cover of Rolling Stone's commemorative issue, which also included one of the last interviews with Lennon, conducted on December 5th with writer Jonathan Cott.
"When I was with John and Yoko, they seemed like gods to me," says Leibovitz, even though she was living upstairs from them at the time in a small Dakota apartment. "It's hard to think about that time, but I remember being impressed with the simple kiss they did on the cover of Double Fantasy. The Eighties were not a romantic era, and the kiss was just so beautiful."
"The first time John and I worked with Annie was in 1970," says Ono. "That was a long, long time ago, and Annie seemed like a shy teenager. In 1980, Annie came back to us as a very accomplished photographer. She made us move around quietly and casually, but with inspired thoughts behind it."
Leibovitz had started the shoot with Ono and Lennon on December 3rd; when she returned on the 8th, she discovered that Lennon had gone to the barbershop that morning and had his long shag chopped off. "This is the way we used to wear our hair," he told Leibovitz, referring to the early days of the Beatles, "but it takes a lot of keeping up."
"Afterward, I didn't want to sell the picture to anyone else," says Leibovitz. "And Yoko said, 'Sell it! Sell it! Go buy yourself a photography studio!' She was very sweet."
The Who's drummer Zak Starkey hadn't even picked up a drumstick when the legendary rock band last toured here.
"I was three," the musician said abruptly after arriving in Sydney yesterday for the band's first concerts in Australia since 1968.
The son of the Beatles' drummer, Ringo Starr, has been realizing a childhood dream since he joined the Who in the mid-1990s.
Rock 'n' roll myth has it that Who drummer Keith Moon gave Starkey one of his first professional kits.
Keith used to be a kind of musical godfather to him, Pete Townshend has said.
Starkey would sit at the kit wearing headphones, drumming along to his favorite albums, including those by the Who.
"Playing with the Who is the biggest rush there is. At 11 years old, I used to go to bed dreaming about what I'm doing now. I don't know how many people can say that," Starkey said in 1997.
Starkey more than paid his dues before being invited to join rock royalty.
Performing in pubs by the age of 12, he formed his first band, garage rockers the Next, in his teens and recorded his first studio session with the Spencer Davis Group at 17.
Re: Дети битлов Автор:Primal ScreamДата: 11.05.04 11:49:30
Ringo Starr's son Zak will play drums with Oasis when they headline Glastonbury Festival.
Noel Gallagher told BBC's 6 Music that Zak Starkey would replace Alan White for the gig.
He thinks the gig will be better than Oasis's last perfomance at Glastonbury.
"It's a pity that we haven't actually got any new stuff to play but I think we kind of George Best'ed it the last time we headlined it," said Noel.
"So this time will be great I think. Then again we're not doing ourselves any favours because Zak's first gig will be to 150,000 people. But y'know, he's rehearsing all the Oasis songs now.
"We've known Zak for a while and we asked him if he'd play on a few songs and he said yeah, and he has done and it's been absolutely fantastic."
Noel also revealed that the new Oasis album might not be ready for release this year and gave the real reasons for the departure of producers Death In Vegas.
He said: "We're in the studio at the moment, it's going all right - one step forward two steps back, but it's going all right. I dunno whether it'll be out by the end of the year.
"We didn't sack our producers. We just ran out of time. They had to go off and do their Death in Vegas thing and we sort of gave ourselves about three or four weeks with them, and we just ran out of time but there wasn't a sacking."