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The Icons section of the 'The Art of Female Domination' Web site will provide information about those individuals, who I believe have impacted Femdom or have positively contributed to Female Led relationships during the last 100 years of the 20th Century. We will not rank anyone but will select both men and women who have made a difference to the advancement of Women. The categories we will look for profiles from will be Leaders & Revolutionaries, Artists & Entertainers, Thinkers, Builders, and Heroes. The first Icon to be profiled will be John Lennon. My upcoming book, THE 'submissive' Beatle,' will tell the whole story. The Beatles were irrepressible and irresistible; they were then and remain the most astonishing rock n' roll band of the century. In the winter of 1964, when "Beatlemania," hit America, it was an obscure hysteria that had erupted in Britain the year before. Jumping the Atlantic, the Beatles took instant root here. First, in January, 1964 came the spine-tingling arrival of I Want to Hold Your Hand — a great, convulsive rock-'n'-roll record that, to the bafflement of many a teen garage band across the land, actually had more than three chords (five more, to be exact — incredible). Then one week later, She Loves You careened onto the charts. The week after that came the headlong rush of Please Please Me, and by April, the top five singles in the country were all Beatles records. By year's-end they had logged a head-spinning 29 hits on the U.S. charts. It is hard — no, it is impossible — to imagine any of the gazillion or so carefully marketed little bands of today replicating a quarter of that feat.
Ed Sullivan, TV variety-show host, having spotted the moptops in mid-mob scene at London's Heathrow Airport the previous October ("Who the hell are the Beatles?" he'd asked excitedly), brought them over to play his show, in February 1964, and 70 million people tuned in. A congratulatory telegram from Elvis Presley, the great, lost god of rockabilly, was read at the beginning of the show, in what might have been seen as torch-passing fashion, and Americans — or American youth, at any rate — promptly fell in love. ("I give them a year," said Sullivan's musical director.) Well it has been more than 40 years ago and the Beatles popularity rages on. All four of the band members hailed from Liverpool, a semi-grim seaport on the northwestern coast of England. John Lennon, born there in 1940, never knew the seagoing father who had deserted his mother; and mainly a doting aunt raised the boy. He grew up arty and angry — and musical, it turned out, after his mother bought him the traditional cheap kid guitar (the label inside said guaranteed not to split), and he quickly worked out the chords to the Buddy Holly hit That'll Be the Day. Paul McCartney, born in 1942 and destined to become Lennon's songwriting soul mate, seemed a sunnier type: well mannered, level-headed, all that. But he had weathered trauma of his own, losing his mother to breast cancer in his early teens. McCartney encountered Lennon in the logical way, given the times and the two boys' musical interests: on the skiffle scene. The group was formed by John and was joined by McCartney and his school friend George Harrison, then just 14. In 1960, calling themselves the Silver Beatles, and with drummer Pete Best in tow, they sailed to Germany to play the riotous red-light-district bars of Hamburg, drink Herculean quantities of beer and gulp down handfuls of illicitly energizing pills to keep them stage ready seven nights a week. In 1962 Best was replaced by another Liverpool drummer, basset-eyed Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey in 1940). After passing an audition that their manager, Brian Epstein, had arranged with EMI's Parlophone label, the group cut its first single, Love Me Do, a moderate hit. In January 1963 a second single, Please Please Me, went to No. 1, and Beatlemania was born. What set the Beatles apart, amid all the other acts of their day, was their dazzling interpersonal chemistry (showcased to irresistible effect in the 1964 feature film A Hard Day's Night, which critic Andrew Sarris called "the Citizen Kane of jukebox movies"), their novel sound (produced on offbeat — to most Americans — Gretsch, Rickenbacker and Hofner guitars and cranked out through snarly little Vox amplifiers brought over from England) and of course their awesome facility for making ravishing hit records. By 1965 even the non-fab world had been forced to take notice of this all-conquering cultural force. The Beatles had become such a huge British export that they were given a royal award: the Member of the Order of the British Empire, or M.B.E. (They took this about as seriously as anyone might have expected, all four of them firing up a joint in a Buckingham Palace washroom before the ceremony, and Ringo commenting on his M.B.E., "I'll keep it to dust when I'm old.") Having scored a breakthrough with their chart-topping 1965 album Rubber Soul — the record whose elegant lyrics and luminous melodies lifted them forever out of the world of simple teen idols and into the realm of art — the Beatles, exhausted, decided to stop touring. After a final concert in San Francisco in 1966, they would come together again as a group only in recording studios. But there they spun out ever more elaborate masterpieces: the tripped-out psychedelic special Revolver in 1966; the breathtaking (at the time) concept epic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967; the strangely alienated, every-man-for-himself White Album (officially called The Beatles) in 1968; and the gorgeous Abbey Road in '69. For millions of fans worldwide, these albums mapped a path through the puzzling and sometimes scary '60s. The paths of Lennon and McCartney, however, were diverging drastically. Each took a wife (John married Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, and Paul wed American rock photographer Linda Eastman) and drifted even farther apart, Lennon growing bitter, McCartney adopting the air of the contented family man. By 1969 Lennon was ready to quit the group. McCartney is said to have talked him out of going public with this desire; but then in April 1970 McCartney himself announced that the group was disbanding. In December he filed suit to have the partnership dissolved and a receiver appointed to handle its affairs. When the other three Beatles dropped their appeal of this action in 1971, the most fabulously successful band of all time (with more than 100 million records sold to date) came to an end. And so it was over. McCartney began making records with his wife in a new band. Harrison followed his Indo-mystical inclinations as far as he could until fans lost interest. Ringo made occasional records, movies and television commercials. And Lennon moved to New York City, where he had always wanted to be, and ironically became that most English of figures, the reclusive eccentric. He was shot down in 1980, and the Beatles were nevermore. Except for their music, which is eternal. John Lennon today is the ultimate rock'n'roll Icon. During the month of February we will feature each of the Beatles in the Blake Spectator magazine, but we will begin with an in depth look at 'the submissive Beatle,' John Lennon had a life defining bond with Wife Yoko Ono. It is for this reason that John Lennon will be my featured Beatle in the opening issue of the Blake Spectator magazine. John Lennon was an Icon, an artist, and husband who changed the world and continues to have an influence today. It was 24 years ago on January 16, that he wrote his tribute song, Woman, to Yoko Ono. Woman - John Lennon
Blake Spectator ~ Coming February 10, 2005 Coming Soon! Blake Specator will be online at Paige-Harrison.com, but will only be available to Members of 'The Art of Female Domination.' In the February issue of the Blake Spectator magazine, we will take a hard look inside the life of John Lennon, THE 'submissive' Beatle. The first chapter of my new book, THE 'submissive' Beatle will be featured in the February issue of Blake Spectator magazine. It was John who started the Beatles, a genius by his own reckoning, and he was infinitely creative. But John was plagued by demons, he had lost his Mother at the age of 16 and was largely raised by an Aunt. As John revealed in an interview, he lost his Mother twice, first at the age of 5 when he moved in with his auntie and again at age 16 when she actually physcically died, this can be heard in the songs 'Julia' and 'Mother.' John used his music to excorcise his demons, but It took a strong Woman, Yoko Ono who was his soul mate, to give him the strength he needed to carry on. His lyrics in 'I'm a Loser,' 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away,' and 'Help' were just the beginnings of what would eventually become known as angst-rock. John Lennon lives on in the hearts of many. So in our February issue, we will pay tribute to the man, who as an Icon, artist and husband, changed the world and continues to have an enormous influence today. The Blake Spectator is a monthly magazine available to 'Members Only.' Also featured in the February issue of the Blake Spectator will be an inside look at the 'Spiritual Beatle,' George Harrison; Britain's coolest knight, Sir Paul McCartney, who is my 'Beatle Knight,' and the 'Natural Beatle,' Ringo Starr. Each of them are Icons in their own right and will be profiled in the February issue of Blake Spectator. Don't delay, Membership Options coming soon!!
Featured above is Yoko Ono, dressed in Her own avant garde definition of Her own style with John and Paul, George and Ringo. |
