Everything Fab Four: The Last Days Of Lennon And McCartney
One of the saddest facts of John Lennon’s senseless murder in December 1980—and there are many, to be sure—is that his killer robbed him of the opportunity to grow old, to rethink his relationships and perspectives as we all inevitably do with the passage of time.
Yesterday marks the 41st anniversary of John and Paul’s last day together—the last day, at least, for which we have convincing historical evidence in the post-Beatles biographical record.
It was Saturday, April 24, 1976, when Paul and Linda McCartney were visiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Dakota apartment building in New York City. It was a far cry from July 7, 1957—just shy of 19 years earlier—when John and Paul first met in a Liverpool churchyard.
As it turned out, that fateful evening in April 1976 was not the first time that Lennon and McCartney had crossed paths since the Beatles’ disbandment. The songwriting duo had previously reunited on March 29, 1974, during Lennon’s infamous Lost Weekend in Los Angeles. The last known photo of John and Paul was taken that day by May Pang at Lennon’s rented house in Santa Monica.
During the previous evening, the former bandmates had participated in an impromptu jam session with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis, and Bobby Keys in tow. Even Mal Evans, the Beatles’ longtime roadie, was there for the occasion. While the session made for a generally lackluster performance—rendered even worse, no doubt, by a range of licit and illicit substances—the surviving recording was later memorialized on the bootleg LP A Toot and a Snore in ’74.
By: Ken Womack
Source: The Huffington Post
