Fans still imagine a world with John Lennon
Singer's death recalled 25 years later
by John Soeder
Cleveland Plain Dealer

The night after John Lennon died, Leonard Jufko and some 400 other fans of the ex-Beatle came together for a candlelight vigil at Cleveland's Chester Commons.

Through tears, they sang "Give Peace a Chance," again and again. The scene was repeated around the world.

"Everybody was choked up," Jufko, 51, recalled this week.

"My sister brought home Meet the Beatles' when I was 10 and I played it till I warped it. John Lennon was my favorite Beatle by far. He marched to the beat of a different drummer."

"The dream is over," Lennon sang on his stark 1970 album "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," his first post-Fab Four release.

For many Beatlemaniacs, however, the dream lived on, at least until Dec. 8, 1980, when Lennon was gunned down shortly before 11 p.m. outside the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He lived there with his wife, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean.

Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. He was 40. Sportscaster Howard Cosell broke the news to millions during a "Monday Night Football" broadcast.

It was the end of any hope for a Beatles reunion.

The end of a twilight era of peace and love, ushering in a decade whose mantra would be "Greed is good."

A quarter-century later, the loss still lingers, reverberating like that apocalyptic piano chord at the end of the classic Lennon-McCartney tune "A Day in the Life."

"There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think of John," Ono said recently in a statement. "We all miss him. . . . John made some great songs with beautiful music and daring words."

Ono edited "Memories of John Lennon," a new book of remembrances by Chuck Berry, Dennis Hopper, Norman Mailer and other high-profile admirers.

The raft of recent Lennon tie-ins also includes "John," a memoir by his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. "I really hope he's at rest, finally at peace," she said by phone in October from a book tour stop in New York City.

Their six-year marriage ended in divorce in 1968. Her tell-all doesn't shy away from Lennon's violent temper or his failings as a father to their son, Julian.

Lennon "was a unique human being," Cynthia said. "I hope he'll be remembered as a human being, not as a god."

"Lennon," a Broadway musical based on his music, closed shortly after it opened this year. Critics panned it.

As a solo act, Lennon has sold 13.5 million albums, enough to put him on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of all-time best-selling artists, although nowhere near the top spot claimed by the Beatles as a group, with 168.5 million albums sold.

Despite a string of enduring solo hits -- including the anthems "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" -- Lennon has been outsold by dozens of other superstars, ranging from Tupac Shakur to Barry Manilow to Paul McCartney.

Lennon's impact goes deeper than sales figures, said Jim Henke, chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (which mounted a major Lennon exhibit in 2000) and author of the biography "Lennon Legend."

"He took his fame and used it to try to make the world a better place," Henke said.

Lennon is a two-time Rock Hall inductee, enshrined with the Beatles and as a solo artist.

"His work with the Beatles alone makes him one of the all-time greats," Henke said.

Make no mistake about it: The Beatles were Lennon's band, said Bob Spitz, author of "The Beatles," a heftily authoritative new biography of the group.

Lennon "was the edgy one," Spitz said. "He could say or do as he pleased without even thinking about the repercussions, which is incredibly foolish and incredibly courageous.

"He lived by the seat of his pants."

Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, is serving a life sentence at Attica prison in upstate New York.

"John Lennon was the voice of a generation," said Gary Jacob, the Shaker Heights promoter behind a Lennon tribute concert Saturday at Cleveland's Agora Theatre. It will feature nine hours of music by Beatles tribute bands and Lennon impersonators.

Local fan Jufko already has his ticket for the show. First, however, he plans to quietly mark the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death in his own way.

Jufko still has his candle from the Lennon vigil in 1980. It sits on the mantel in his Brunswick home. He'll light the candle today and let it flicker briefly, as he does every year on Dec. 8.

And like Lennon fans everywhere, he'll try to imagine.

"Just think how nice it would be to hear new John Lennon music," Jufko said.

"We lost so much."

"The Concert for John" tribute show begins at noon Saturday at the Agora Theatre, 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Tickets, $12-$45, are available at the box office and Ticketmaster outlets, or charge by phone, 216-241-5555 (Cleveland) or 330-945-9400 (Akron). A portion of the proceeds benefit Plain Dealer Charities and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

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