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Yoko Ono
Experimental / Undefined
Yoko Ono Lennon (?? ?? Ono Yoko, born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese-American musician and artist. She is an American citizen currently living in New York City.
Despite having a kanji reading, Ono's name appears in katakana (???·??) in the Japanese press and on album credits. Katakana is primarily used to write foreign words and it is typical for non-Japanese citizens' names to be written in katakana even if the names are of Japanese origin.
Ono collaborated with experimental luminaries such as John Cage and jazz legend Ornette Coleman. In 1961, years before meeting Lennon, she had her first major public performance in a concert at the 258-seat Carnegie Recital Hall (not the larger "Main Hall"). This concert featured radical experimental music and performances. She had a second engagement at the Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965, in which she debuted her now legendary and influential[citation needed] "Cut Piece."
Ono's music changed after her marriage; while many of her early songs retain the surreal quality of her art and films, her later songs are usually more conventional — for example, the seven pop songs that she contributed to the album, Double Fantasy (which were considered, by some critics, to be better than Lennon's offerings on the album).[citation needed]
In early 1980, Lennon heard Lene Lovich and The B-52's' "Rock Lobster" in a nightclub, and it reminded him of Ono's musical sound. He took this as an indication that her sound had reached the mainstream.[2] Indeed, many musicians, particularly those of the new wave movement, have paid tribute to Ono (both as an artist in her own right, and as a muse and iconic figure). For example, Elvis Costello recorded a version of Ono's song "Walking on Thin Ice", the B-52's covered "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" (shortening the title to "Don't Worry"), and Sonic Youth included a performance of Ono's early conceptual "Voice Piece for Soprano" in their fin de siecle album SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century. One of Barenaked Ladies's best-known songs is "Be My Yoko Ono", and Dar Williams recorded a song called "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono." The punk rock singer Patti Smith invited Ono to participate in "Meltdown", a two-week music festival that Smith organized in London during June 2005; Ono performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall.
On the night of December 8, 1980, Lennon and Ono were in the studio working on Ono's song "Walking on Thin Ice." When they returned to The Dakota, their home in New York City, Lennon was shot dead by a deranged fan, Mark David Chapman. "Walking on Thin Ice (For John)" was released as a single less than a month later, and became Ono's first chart success, peaking at No. 58 and gaining major underground airplay. In 1981, she released the album Season of Glass with the striking cover photo of Lennon's shattered, bloody spectacles next to a half-filled glass of water, with a window overlooking Central Park in the background. This led some critics to accuse her of being tasteless and exploitative.[citation needed] However, Ono said that she chose such a provocative image because she wanted to remind people that Lennon hadn't just died or committed suicide, but had been murdered.[citation needed] She stated that those who thought the picture of bloody spectacles were offensive because of the blood stains should remember that there was more to John's murder than just a stained pair of glasses, and the picture was only a small part of what she, and other members of John's family, had to face when he died. (This photograph sold at an auction in London in April 2002 for about $13,000.) In the liner notes to Season of Glass, Ono explained that the album is not dedicated to Lennon because "he would have been offended - he was one of us."
Some time after her husband's murder, Ono began a relationship with antiques dealer Sam Havadtoy, which lasted until 2001. [4] She had also been linked to art dealer and Greta Garbo confidante Sam Green, who is mentioned in John Lennon's Will. [5] 1982 saw the release of It's Alright (I See Rainbows). The cover featured Ono in her famous wrap-around sunglasses, looking towards the sun, while on the back the ghost of Lennon looks over Ono and Sean. The album scored minor chart success and airplay with the singles "My Man" and "Never Say Goodbye."
In 1984, a tribute album entitled Every Man Has a Woman was released, featuring a selection of Ono songs performed by artists such as Elvis Costello, Roberta Flack, Eddie Money, Rosanne Cash and Harry Nilsson. It was one of Lennon's projects that he never got to finish. Later that year, Ono and Lennon's final album Milk And Honey was released in unfinished demo state.
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