In 1982, Lennon won the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. Double Fantasy, his best-selling album, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. He was shot and killed by a Beatles fan, Mark David Chapman, three weeks after the album's release.Īs a performer, writer or co-writer, Lennon had 25 number-one singles in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following a five-year hiatus, Lennon returned to music in 1980 with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. Lennon and Ono separated from 1973 to 1975, a period that included chart-topping collaborations with Elton John (' Whatever Gets You thru the Night') and David Bowie (' Fame'). Moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year attempt by the Richard Nixon administration to deport him. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, the multimedia artist Yoko Ono, held the two-week-long anti-war demonstration Bed-Ins for Peace, and quit the Beatles to embark on a solo career.īetween 19, Lennon and Ono collaborated on many records, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums, his solo debut John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and the international top 10 singles ' Give Peace a Chance', ' Instant Karma!', ' Imagine' and ' Happy Xmas (War Is Over)'. Starting with ' All You Need Is Love', his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture. In the mid-1960s, Lennon authored In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, two collections of nonsense writings and line drawings. Sometimes called 'the smart Beatle', he was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually ceded to McCartney.

In 1956, he formed the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960.

īorn in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager.

His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. Lennon was characterised for the rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles.

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