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Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono

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John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band (Apple)/ Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band (Apple)

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971

BOTH OF THESE records are remarkable in some aspect, a sort of East-West five years after Butterfield and Allan Watts. Certainly, until this point, John ...

Yoko Ono: Scream And Scream Again

Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Creem, September 1986

Yoko Ono: Beacon Theater, New York, May 22, 1986 ...

Audio interviews

Yoko Ono (1988)

Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, 1988

Yoko on her musical upbringing, life during wartime, the avant garde and her involvment with John and the English music scene

File format: mp3 File size: 26.6mb Interview length: 38 minutes 44 seconds Sound quality: *

Yoko Ono (1992)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages audio, 30 March 1992

Ms. Ono looks back at her youth, training as a musician; her involvement in art music, jazz and meeting Ornette Coleman; her transition, with Lennon, into pop, and – at length – about her songwriting, and particular songs.

File format: mp3; file size: 65.2mb, interview length: 1h 11' 12" sound quality: ***

List of articles in the library

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Ono-Woman Show

Report by uncredited writer, International Times, 14 September 1966

AT INDICA Gallery from November 9 to 22, there will be a one-man show of Instruction Paintings by Yoko Ono, photographed above performing her Cut ...

John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Two Virgins (Track)

Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 21 December 1968

MOST AMUSING part of this entertaining family album is the line on the label which states all the "compositions" are published by Northern Songs Ltd. ...

The Beatles and John Lennon

Essay by John Sinclair, Ann Arbor Argus, 24 January 1969

I KNOW YOU'RE tired of hearing all the bullshit about the Beatles and all, but there are things going on that nobody seems to be ...

John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Life With The Lions (Apple)

Review by uncredited writer, Record Mirror, 17 May 1969

JOHN AND YOKO DO THEIR OWN THING (Part 2) ...

Bedding In For Peace: John and Yoko in Canada

Report and Interview by Ritchie Yorke, Rolling Stone, 28 June 1969

TORONTO – It started like a pretty normal Sunday. The churches were filled, the radio news bulletins beamed out the latest on wars and starving ...

The Rolling Stones, Plastic Ono Band et al: New Singles

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 5 July 1969

ROLLING STONES: 'Honky Tonk Women'/'You Can't Always Get What You Want' (Decca). An important single for the Stones, but a disappointment for us . ...

John and Yoko: Can YOU Afford To Laugh At Them?

Interview by Tony Norman, Top Pops, 9 August 1969

In Vietnam, young men are killing each other every day. In Biafra, young children are dying of starvation. Across the Continents of the world there ...

John Lennon/Yoko Ono Interview

Interview by Miles, unpublished, September 1969

These tapes were made on September 23rd and 24th, 1969, at Apple. When Allen Klein fired Ron Kass, the head of Apple Records, John and ...

An Evening with John and Yoko: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Film/DVD/TV Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 20 September 1969

John Lennon — Genius or Just a Bore ...

John Lennon: "The Beatles' Wealth is a Myth"

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 20 September 1969

JOHN LENNON hasn't had a royalty cheque for two years. And, believe it or not, he's feeling the pinch. ...

John & Yoko (part 1)

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 6 December 1969

"We had to do a lot of selling out. Taking the MBE was a sell-out for me". Part 1 of a new series by RICHARD ...

John & Yoko (part 2)

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 December 1969

"People prefer a dead saint to a living annoyance like John and Yoko. But we don't intend to be dead Saints for people's convenience". Part ...

John & Yoko (part 3)

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 20 December 1969

"We're always together, like 24 hours a day. We're never apart by more than a 100 yards". RICHARD WILLIAMS concludes his exclusive series ...

John Lennon: Bore, Fool or Saint?

Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 20 December 1969

THEY SAY John Lennon is insane, a fool, and a bore. They call him an embarrassment, a joke, and a man too interested in his ...

John and Yoko Envisage Super Jam

Report by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 2 January 1970

IT'S A WELL known fact that John and Yoko Lennon were in Toronto and Ottawa recently to talk about their Peace Festival to be held ...

John Lennon: A Private Talk With John

Interview by Ritchie Yorke, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1970

YOU'VE BEEN talking lately about the fact that the Beatles aren't the musical group they were two or three years ago — that you are ...

John, Yoko & Year One

Report by Ritchie Yorke, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1970

TORONTO — The scene couldn't have been more appropriately peaceful if it had been staged by a film director. A color TV set flickered soundlessly ...

John, Yoko, Kyoko Get Trimmed

Report by Ritchie Yorke, Rolling Stone, 21 February 1970

AARLBORG, DENMARK — Tuesday, January 13th, had been a normal winter's day in this small city in the northern Jutland province of Denmark. It had ...

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

Report by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1970

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was an entertainment extravaganza planned and put on by the Rolling Stones in December 1968. Originally done as ...

The Top of Pop: John & Yoko

Report by Lillian Roxon, New York Sunday News, 20 June 1971

JOHN AND Yoko Lennon have come to town. ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Doing The Rounds For Publicity

Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 31 July 1971

He knows it, I know it – the next Lennon album is the greatest says Alan Smith ...

At Home With The Lennons, Part 2

Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 7 August 1971

In which
 John burns down the Beatles 'cause he loves 'em ...

John and Yoko: The Apple and the Grapefruit

Report and Interview by Val Mabbs, Record Mirror, 7 August 1971

A VISIT TO THE LENNONS WITH VAL MABBS ...

At home with the Lennons, Part 2: "Ringo's Sellers is my Paul"

Interview by Val Mabbs, Record Mirror, 14 August 1971

"THESE PAST two years have been very heavy," Yoko told me earnestly. "We've been having the Paul thing and the Kyoko thing going on for ...

John and Yoko: A Press Conference at Apple

Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 2 October 1971

THERE'S A GLINT of spectacles. Gathering recognition as the sandy hair, short and unfamiliar registers. Take in the smart grey trousers and the conventional shirt. ...

Yoko Ono: Fly (Apple SAPTU 101/102 £4.30)

Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 18 December 1971

ELECTRIC YOKO MISSES OUT ON MUSIC ...

John and Yoko "go protest"

Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 19 December 1971

NO SOONER did Bob Dylan astonish everyone by going back to "protest" and coming out with a song protesting the death of convict George Jackson ...

John Sinclair: Free John & Yoko

Report by uncredited writer, Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1972

The new Plastic Ono Band comes to Ann Arbor to Free John Sinclair – Starring David Peel, Archie Shepp, Ed Sanders, Stevie Wonder, Commander Cody, ...

Rocking Chair: Oh! Yoko

Column by Michael Lydon, Fusion, April 1972

YOKO ONO smiles from her recent album cover (fly) with great compassion. Her face is heavy, peasant-like. She is looking out through a sheet of ...

John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band: Some Time In New York City/Live Jam (Apple)

Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 7 October 1972

INEVITABLY, SOME Time is another giant step in the rapid polarisation of opinions concerning the moral and musical stance of John Lennon. ...

Lennon-Ono: Deporting The Great Swan

Report by Jonathon Green, International Times, 2 November 1972

NEW YORK: 'It is with great pleasure that we wish to add PEN American Center's great Roc's voice to the vast chorus of poetic larks and ...

Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe (Apple)

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 20 January 1973

IN AS MUCH AS the Lennons have spent four years trying to turn self-dramatisation into an art-form, the criticism of indulgence so often aimed at ...

Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe (Apple SVBB-3399)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 15 March 1973

Then suddenly we realized that this time we were both drifting out in a cosmos somewhere together, like God's two little dandruffs floating in the ...

Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, April 1973

YEAH, WELL, believe it or not: this is a totally rock 'n' roll album. It's also so far and away the best Beatles-related effort to ...

Yoko Ono

Interview by Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 22 September 1973

IF ALL THE world were a movie set, the Japanese artist could have married her rock star and lived happily ever after in the East ...

Yoko: How I Rescued John from Chauvinism

Interview by Loraine Alterman, Melody Maker, 22 September 1973

DATELINE NEW YORK: A rare interview with a much maligned singer with a fine new album... ...

Yoko Ono: Going it alone

Interview by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 28 October 1973

SHE IS — the late Bruce Lee aside — the most famous Oriental entertainer in the western hemisphere, half of the most notorious show-biz couple ...

Yoko's A No-No: Yoko Ono: Kenny's Castaways, New York

Live Review by Vicki Wickham, Melody Maker, 3 November 1973

NEW YORK: I still haven't figured out what is "inside" everyone that makes them not only want to sing, but to so firmly believe they ...

Bette Midler: Bette Midler (Atlantic); Yoko Ono: Feeling The Space (Apple)

Review by Loraine Alterman, The New York Times, 4 November 1973

No Torches for Bette and Yoko ...

John Lennon: The Beatle in exile

Interview by Ivor Davis, Daily Express, 17 November 1973

PHOTONEWS with the full version of John Lennon's blues... and his song of love ...

Yoko Ono: The Whole World Is My Mother-In-Law

Profile and Interview by Caroline Coon, unpublished, 1974

2012 NOTE: Tidying through my papers some days ago I found, at last, an interview I did with Yoko Ono at home in New York ...

Plastic Ono Band: The End Of Another Dream

Essay by Idris Walters, Let It Rock, February 1975

Idris Walters describes the strange marriage of rock'n'roll and conceptual art which produced some of the most arresting sounds of the last few years and ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen)

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 November 1980

IN THE cocoon, something stirs. John Lennon – one of the people who used to be in The Beatles, a group reckoned to be hot ...

Rolling Stone Gathers A Little Moss

Report by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 9 January 1981

SIX LOS Angeles area supermarket chains, including Ralphs, Safeway and Alpha Bela, have refused to carry the Jan. 22 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. The ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen GHS 2001)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1981

John Lennon's Last ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen GHS2001)

Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, February 1981

John and Yoko: A Fond Farewell ...

John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen)

Review by Gene Sculatti, Ampersand, February 1981

I'M ONE of those people who gave John Lennon a lot of credit for his self-imposed 5-year exile from recording. After all, why make music ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen Records)

Review by John Swenson, Creem, March 1981

CRY FOR A SHADOW ...

Yoko Ono: Life Without John

Report and Interview by Philip Norman, The Sunday Times, June 1981

IT IS FIVE months since the shots were fired. The Dakota Building shares in that relief which Spring fleetingly gives to New York. Beside the ...

Yoko Ono: Season Of Glass (Geffen K99164)

Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 13 June 1981

SINGLE FANTASY ...

Yoko Ono: Season Of Glass (Geffen)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, October 1981

YOKO ONO'S first post-John album has been out a month or so as I write this, but you'd never know that from tuning into your ...

Yoko Ono: It's Alright (Polydor/PolyGram)

Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1983

THERE ARE still many Beatles fans who accuse Yoko Ono of cannibalizing John Lennon's soul. Undoubtedly, Yoko's new solo effort will add fuel to their ...

Yoko Ono: We Are Only One

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984

How does the widow of John Lennon face up to a world that won't leave her husband's memory alone, three years after his death? In ...

Julian Lennon: The Lennon Legacy

Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 13 October 1984

Four years after a madman took out his father, JULIAN LENNON launches his own career in music. In his first major interview he tells Colin ...

Yoko Ono's Sweet Vindication

Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1984

ONCE YOKO Ono was the most unjustly maligned figure in I popular music; now that some measure of public sympathy has swung to her side, ...

Yoko Ono: Beacon Theatre, New York NY

Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 14 June 1986

AFTER AN earlier Radio City Music Hall date was canceled because of poor ticket sales, Yoko One finally played her first concert in New York ...

Yoko Ono: Then and Now

Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, 18 September 1987

YOKO ONO looks impenetrable behind her trademark wraparound sunglasses, a sober demeanor and a never-ending haze of cigarette smoke. ...

Yoko Ono Reconsidered

Profile and Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1992

LIVING WELL may be the best revenge, but vindication is just as sweet. In Yoko Ono's case, the payback is that while many of her ...

Eyewitness: The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, April 29, 1967, Alexandra Palace, North London

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, June 1995

Pink Floyd, The Soft Machine, The Move... Some of Swinging London's swingiest played at the legendary International Times benefit at Alexandra Palace. Johnny Black rounds up a ...

Eyewitness: John & Yoko record 'Give Peace A Chance'

Retrospective by Paul Williams, Q, November 1995

Give Peace A Chance may not be the last word in protest performances, but it can lay claim to one of the weirdest musical births ...

Invisible Jukebox: Diamanda Galás

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 1996

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Yoko Ono: Starting Over

Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 24 June 1997

YOKO ONO was a lightning rod for the Sixties' most vicious currents. John Lennon was a man she'd barely heard of, a man she fell ...

John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Various Reissues

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1997

A LOT of claims are being made for Yoko Ono. That those first albums she made with Lennon in the late Sixties weren't the random ...

John Lennon: So This Is Christmas…

Retrospective by Richard Williams, Uncut, January 1998

UP ON THE 17TH FLOOR OF THE St Regis Hotel in New York City, John Lennon is learning to type. P...I...M...P, he types. I AM ...

Yoko Ono on John Lennon

Interview by Carol Clerk, Uncut, January 1998

AND SO THIS is Christmas. Well, nearly. The stores in Manhattan are already sparkling with trees and tinsel, and here in Central Park, the traditionally ...

Undercurrents #7: Fables of the Deconstruction

Retrospective by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, July 1999

In the latest in our series uncovering the hidden wiring of 20th century music, Edwin Pouncey shows how rock 'n' roll's face was changed forever ...

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band/Double Fantasy

Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, February 2001

The dream is over… ...

Just imagine: Yoko Ono

Interview by Andrew Smith, Observer Music Monthly, 4 November 2001

In the '60s, Yoko Ono married John Lennon and campaigned for peace in Vietnam. More than 30 years on, she's still irrevocably linked to her ...

Yoko Ono: A 1992 Interview

Book Excerpt by Paul Zollo, 'Songwriters on Songwriting' (rev. edn, Da Capo), 2003

IT WAS A SAD and a little spooky to walk into the Dakota on this dark and rainy winter night, an evening not unlike the ...

The Ballad of John & Yoko

Retrospective and Interview by Carol Clerk, Uncut, September 2003

IT'S THE summer of 1969, and John and Yoko are in bed in room 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal. They are in their ...

Yoko Ono: The Outsider Peeks Inside

Profile and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Global Rhythm, January 2004

THE WOMAN'S clothing is being snipped from her body. Systematically, one by one, 200 scissors-wielding strangers – and the woman's son – silently have a ...

Profile: Yoko Ono, 70, New York City, N.Y.

Profile and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, July 2005

YOKO ONO is diminutive in size, but huge in spirit. A fearless avatar, she will attempt anything whether it’s topping the Billboard charts as a ...

Yoko Ono: Yes, I'm A Witch (Parlophone)

Review by Simon Price, The Independent, 18 February 2007

THERE ARE THOSE — and, if you've seen her shrieking performance in The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, you couldn't blame them — who ...

Yoko Ono: Special Occasions

Interview by Carol Clerk, Uncut, January 2008

THOUGHTS FROM YOKO ONO ON THE EVE OF JOHN LENNON'S BIRTHDAY (OCTOBER 9, 2007) IN ICELAND, WHERE SHE INAUGURATED THE IMAGINE PEACE TOWER IN HIS ...

John Lennon: Give New York A Chance

Guide by Philip Norman, Daily Mail, 3 December 2008

FEW EXILES have been so cherished by a city as John Lennon was by New York. Certainly, none has ever left such a legacy of ...

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band: Between My Head And The Sky Chimera

Review by David Stubbs, The Wire, September 2009

YOKO ONO has long been a pariah figure for many, in both the rock and art worlds. She's been perceived as a baleful influence who ...

Yoko Ono: Still Walking On Thin Ice

Retrospective and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2009

After 40 years of being unfairly accused of breaking up the Beatles and harshly mocked for her avant garde art and pop music, Yoko Ono ...

Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band: Between My Head And The Sky

Review by David Quantick, Uncut, October 2009

Violent, but tender, Sean Lennon's mum is back! ...

Yoko Ono: Naked Ambition

Interview by John Doran, The Stool Pigeon, October 2009

THERE'S SOMETHING to be said for delayed gratification. There's no small amount of tortoise versus hare enjoyment to listening to Yoko Ono's new album. ...

The Domino Effect: How One of Toronto's Most Iconic Rock Concerts Almost Never Happened

Retrospective by Juliette Jagger, Noisey, 13 April 2015

FOR MANY, the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival of 1969 is the stuff of legends. For some, like famed rock promoter and pop culture icon ...

Not the only one: how Yoko Ono helped create John Lennon's Imagine

Retrospective and Interview by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 6 October 2018

A new book about the making of his 1971 solo album restores his artist wife to her crucial role in his musical life. She looks ...

"People will find out": May Pang on her time with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Interview by Jim Farber, The Guardian, 5 April 2023

In a new documentary, the woman who went from assistant to lover of the ex-Beatle talks about her side of a misunderstood story ...

see also John Lennon

see also Sean Lennon

see also Plastic Ono Band

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