A Prologue:
Remember the old cliché “read it and weep”? Well, I am old enough to remember it and to realize there was much wisdom in that saying. I heard an interview with the author of the following manuscript several years ago on YouTube and I could not turn away from the content that he was discussing as I had heard several of the revelations before but brushed them aside thinking they might simply be rumors. However, I had also heard many press reports that had substantiated what I was listening to. I was able to track the author down eventually by email and he told me a fascinating story about the event discussed in an excerpt from his story that is presented below. Before we begin, I concur with the author’s assessment that John Lennon was never given the proper tribute concert that he deserved after he passed away. Did you notice that none of the former Beatles ever attended the concerts that were put together specifically to honor John’s memory. They sent videos but never personally appeared. Many of John’s contemporaries were also missing from these tributes. I have asked myself the question of why for all of these years and Perry Muckerheide has finally provided some of the answers. Some of them make me smile and many make me want to cry. This is a great “WHAT IF” story of a road that might have led in a better direction if different decisions had been made. This is an excerpt of that story that Perry has allowed me to post for your reading enjoyment.
Enjoy!
Buzz
MY BEATLES STORY: TRIBUTE TO JOHN
The Brass Ring
Perry Muckerheide’s story begins with a simple wound: John Lennon was murdered in December 1980,
and in Perry’s view the world never truly gathered to honor John’s life, spirit, and music with the scale it
deserved. Nearly a decade later, in the Christmas season of 1988, Perry is not sitting in a record
company office or a Hollywood boardroom. He is serving lunch in a tuxedo at Grenadier’s, a Milwaukee
dining room where civic power, money, and culture still pass through the ritual of the two-martini lunch.
He overhears two men discussing the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s summer pops programming
options. A waiter in that room is supposed to be invisible, but Perry steps through the invisible wall.
Asked what he thinks of the music of Mantovani, Perry answers with the sentence that changes
everything: “What do you think of John Lennon?”
The man at the table asking the question is Gary Good, executive director of the Milwaukee Symphony
Orchestra. Within days, Perry is in the MSO offices discussing his ideas for a pop-symphonic ‘Tribute
to John’ Lennon timed for the fall of 1990: between what would have been John Lennon’s 50th
birthday and the tenth anniversary of his death. Perry explains that the idea is far beyond a concert.
It is to be a global broadcast, a filmed and recorded event, a multi-venue production anchored by a major
orchestra, a ballet company, and stars and superstars from rock, pop, dance, and the Beatles universe
of family, friends, and admirers. The concept is impossible on its face, which is exactly what gives it
force. Perry is reaching for the brass ring.
The first dream image is pop-superstar Michael Jackson dancing with ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev.
Perry’s pitch is not to ask Michael to sing, but to ask the greatest pop dancer of the era to dance with
the greatest classical dancer of the age in a John Lennon music dance duet. MSO executive Gary Good
knows Michel Sasson, Musical Director of La Scala in Milan and an associate and friend of Nureyev.
Soon Perry is flying to Toronto and then New York with Good, moving from Milwaukee waiter to
international impresario almost overnight. At a New York lunch, Perry brings in Sid Bernstein, a friend
and the legendary promoter who presented the Beatles at Carnegie Hall and then created the stadium
rock concert format with the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Sasson sees the real key immediately: Sid
Bernstein can open doors for their ‘Tribute to John’ that no ordinary promoter can
Sid Bernstein and the First Launch
Sid’s method is direct: “Let’s ask everyone who knew John what they want to do”. That requires
going where the global music business gathers. With financial help from Perry’s friend Rob Messinger,
Perry and Sid fly to MIDEM in Cannes where the elite of the music industry meet annually. The trip has
the logic of a comic adventure and a military operation. Sid arrives late at the airport carrying a box of
blue leaflets announcing a ‘Tribute to John’ Lennon and inviting the music world to ‘Come Together’
to remember and honor John. Perry worries that spending thousands of dollars to hand out leaflets at
the elite music industry’s Riviera gathering is madness. Sid reminds him that Thomas Paine was a
leafleteer. The leaflets become their weapon.
Cannes turns into Perry’s proof that the impossible sometimes moves if pushed from the right angle.
Sid’s old relationships resurface instantly. One of Sid’s friends spots him in their cab and reunites with
Sid. The friend is staying with famed chef Roger Verge at his world renown restaurant in Cannes, which
gets Perry and Sid into the kind of restaurant Perry had only dreamed of visiting. Sid arranged for Perry
to pitch the ‘Tribute to John’ to the London editor of Billboard Magazine in a taxi ride to the Palais des
Festivals where the elite of music are gathering. Following his pitch to the Billboard editor, Perry hires a
young French boy from the beaches of Cannes to hand out Sid’s leaflets, fears the flyers will become
litter, then watches industry attendees rush to get copies. That night, in a bar, an A&R record company
man tells Perry that “The ‘Tribute to John’ is all anyone is talking about”.
The Billboard story is published with explosive effect. Billboard reports the Milwaukee Symphony’s
involvement in the proposed ‘Tribute to John’ and the hoped-for Michael Jackson-Rudolf Nureyev
dance element. To Perry, this should be the project’s ultimate launch. Instead, it becomes the first major
betrayal. MSO executive Gary Good, facing a Board of Directors he had not fully prepared, denies that
the Milwaukee Symphony is committed to the project. The Milwaukee press reports the denial; Perry’s
local credibility suffers a severe hit. Later, the Milwaukee Sentinel reports on Gary Good’s formal ‘Letters
of Understanding’ with the ‘Tribute to John’, including detailed proposed compensation for Good and
the MSO for services already rendered and services yet to be rendered as the Musical Director for the
event. For Perry, those documents matter because they show that the project was far more than casual
talk. But Sid Bernstein counsels for restraint: gentlemen do not play the game by dumping private letters
into the press; however, Perry eventually surrenders the letters to the press. The ‘Tribute to John’
survives, but it loses Milwaukee as its safe home. Now anywhere in the world is the potential stage for
the event and many possibilities will present themselves in the upcoming year.
Note: The photos appearing in the post were provided by the author of the piece!
The Stars Align
After the Milwaukee Symphony connection collapses, Perry and Sid move the project outward. In
London they meet Sander Gorlinsky, Rudolf Nureyev’s agent, in an office Perry remembers as a room
out of a Charles Dickens novel: dark wood, cigar smoke, morning liquor, and a theatrical sense that
history is writing itself in real time. Gorlinsky reports that Rudolf Nureyev is willing to dance with Michael
Jackson, but only to John Lennon’s music. Nureyev wants to speak with Michael directly. Perry now
must solve the next impossible problem: reaching Michael Jackson.
The front door to Michael and anyone associated with John Lennon is useless. Perry realizes that the
modern music business has grown into a castle of handlers and gatekeepers, many of them paid to say
no. Through a John Lennon sculpture event at the St. James Club on Sunset Boulevard in West
Hollywood, Perry meets artist Brett Livingston-Strong, who has a working relationship with Michael.
Brett says he has a working understanding with Michael that prohibits him from taking a project like the
‘Tribute to John’ directly to Michael, but he points Perry toward Jim Rissmiller, a major Southern
California concert and event promoter with the right kind of hidden access to the powerful that can make
things happen. Rissmiller is expensive, but he knows Bob Jones, an influential figure inside Michael
Jackson’s world. Jones asks Michael directly about dancing with Nureyev. The answer, as reported back
to Perry, is not indifference from Michael but excitement.
Michael asks to speak with Nureyev. Perry tries to arrange a controlled conference call, but Michael’s
camp wants Nureyev’s number and intends to let Michael call directly. It is a gamble. The next morning,
Nureyev’s agent Gorlinsky reports that the call went very well. Michael and Rudolf will meet when
Nureyev comes to Southern California with ‘The King and I’ a touring musical which Nureyev was
headlining. The logistical absurdity that follows is pure Perry: Nureyev’s valet calls from the road and
says Rudolf wants a massage before meeting Michael. Perry scrambles through old California contacts,
finds a Chua Ka massage practitioner, routes Nureyev through a friend’s Coldwater Canyon home in LA
to be given the massage, and then delivers the refreshed ballet legend to Studio One, Michael’s
recording studio in Sherman Oaks where Michael was recording his album ‘Dangerous’ at the time.
At the studio, the meeting becomes real. Michael Jackson appears quietly from the shadows, dressed
simply but unmistakably Michael. He, Nureyev, Perry, and Perry’s associate pose for photographs. Perry
leaves Michael and Rudolf alone to talk. When Nureyev comes out, he reports the essential exchange:
Michael says he can do it if Nureyev teaches him, and Nureyev says he can do it if Michael
teaches him. The dream is no longer theoretical. A press conference follows, with Nureyev publicly
saying he is interested in dancing with Michael, but Michael had better ask soon because Nureyev is 50.
Perry later sees more meaning in the remark after an associate suggests Nureyev may be seriously
ill, which he is. Soon after, Hollywood trade magazine Variety carries a front page story that Paula
Abdul is set to choreograph the Michael Jackson-Rudolf Nureyev dance duet. Perry sees the stars
beginning to align.
George Martin and the Shape of the Show
Another giant door to open is Beatles Producer George Martin. Perry and Sid are in London when In
April of 1989, Perry sees a news report that Paul McCartney will be presented the Ivor Novello Lifetime
Achievement Award by Sting at Grosvenor Hotel in London. Perry decides he and Sid must gain
access to the event. Entering the hotel lobby, Perry watches the British music aristocracy gather. The
goal is Paul, but the real prize becomes George Martin who Perry notices lingering after the event. Perry
introduces Sid Bernstein to George Martin, creating a meeting between two men who each shaped the
Beatles legacy from different sides of the Atlantic. George Martin invites Sid and Perry to a meeting at
his office at Chrysalis Records the next day.
In Martin’s office, Perry finally gets to describe the show as he sees it. The ‘Tribute to John’ is not just
to be a memorial concert. It is to become a pop-symphonic narrative, a ‘Popera,’ built in acts. He
envisions The Moody Blues serving as performing hosts, taking the audience ‘On the Threshold of
the Dream’ with orchestra and theatrical visuals. English folk minstrel Donovan, who traveled to India
with the Beatles, would bring color and psychedelic light into the world of the broadcast. Then would
come the dream itself: Michael Jackson and Rudolf Nureyev dancing to John Lennon’s music with a
ballet company and choreography by Paula Abdul. After that, the stage would open to a kaleidoscope
of artists who knew, loved, or were shaped by John and the Beatles, performing Lennon solo music
and Lennon-McCartney songs in combinations of their own choosing. The Moody Blues would return
for a closing reprise.
George Martin listens. When Perry finishes, Martin makes the stunning announcement that he will score
and conduct the orchestra, create a special orchestral composition for the event, and serve as musical
director for the ‘Tribute to John’. He says he will handle artist invitations except for, without explanation,
Paul McCartney, whom Perry and Sid will have to approach another way. Martrin also says that
George, Paul, and Ringo owe John a farewell performance. For Perry, this is one of the highest points
of the journey. The waiter from Grenadier’s has now sat across from the producer of the Beatles and
described a memorial event for John Lennon that George Martin agrees to help shape.
This is the point where the project feels almost too large to fail. Sid Bernstein gives the event Beatles
historic legitimacy. George Martin gives it musical authority. Nureyev and Michael Jackson give it
mythic spectacle. Paula Abdul gives it contemporary pop relevance. The Moody Blues, Donovan, and
the broader cast of artists would place John inside the musical and spiritual landscape of the 1960s and
its aftermath. In Perry’s telling, the ‘Tribute to John’ is becoming not merely a show but a ceremony:
the goodbye that John never received.
The Three Magicians
The manuscript then widens into a meditation on the three men Perry calls ‘The Three Magicians’ of
the Beatles story: Brian Epstein, George Martin, and Sid Bernstein. Epstein discovered, managed,
disciplined, and believed in the Beatles when they were still raw Liverpool rockers. Martin became the
studio alchemist, turning the Beatles’ ideas into records that changed what recorded music could be.
Sid Bernstein foresaw their American potential before America knew what was coming, booked them
into Carnegie Hall and later created the template for stadium rock with the Beatles at Shea Stadium.
This history is not a detour. It explains why Perry trusts Sid Bernstein and why Sid’s presence matters
to the ‘Tribute to John’. Sid is not just a legendary promoter. He is one of the living links to the memories
of moment when the Beatles crossed from Liverpool into world history. In this chapter of his story, Perry
travels with Sid to Liverpool, where they visit Brian Epstein’s family. The trip becomes a pilgrimage.
Perry meets Barbara Epstein, Brian’s nephew Henry Brian Epstein, and Brian’s mother Queenie. In
his room, Henry shows Perry Beatles memorabilia that once belonged to Brian, including acetate
recording masters and a copy of Brian’s autobiography ‘A Cellar Full of Noise’. Brian Epstein’s nephew
offers Perry his choice of these priceless Beatles treasures. Perry chooses modest souvenirs and feels
the weight of standing near the private remains of public myth.
Perry listens to Sid tell his largely unknown Beatles origin story on the train to Liverpool from London
and back again. Sid details his largely unknown first-person narrative of the sequence of events that
secured his verbal contract with Brian Epstein to present the Beatles at the famed Carnegie Hall in
New York City. This happens a full year before Ed Sullivan famously books the Beatles for his television
show. In 1963. Sid is working as a booking agent in New York and reading London’s major daily
newspaper The Times for an English history night course he is taking. Sid notices an unknown British
rock group called the Beatles beginning to cause a stir. The booking agency Sid works at dismiss the
Beatles as a flash in the pan. Sid does not.
Sid succeeds in getting Brian Epstein on the phone after speaking first with Brian’s mother Queenie.
Thinking on his feet, Sid proposes to Brian two New York shows in a day for the Beatles. Since this is
early 1963, Brian says it would be professional suicide for him to accept Sid’s offer because there is no
American Beatles radio airplay at the time. No one in America has ever heard of the Beatles at the
time. Sid answers by booking them a year out, at Carnegie Hall, on Lincoln’s Birthday, a school holiday,
February 12th in 1964. When Sid successfully finishes the call with Brian who agrees to Sid Bernstein’s
presentation of the Beatles at Carnegie Hall, Sid does not have the money he agreed to pay nor has
he contacted much less contracted Carnegie Hall. Sid does not yet have proof America will care about
the Beatles a year in the future. Sid Bernstein has only his instinct.
For a long time, the tickets for Sid’s Carnegie Hall Beatles concerts do not move. Then, with just weeks
left before Sid’s concerts, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ explodes in America. Sid’s tickets are gone
overnight. Ed Sullivan’s television appearances come first in public memory, but Perry emphasizes that
Sid’s Carnegie Hall booking was already in place and helped create the American landing zone that Ed
Sullivan exploited scheduling the Beatles performances on the Sundays before and after Sid’s Carnegie
Hall concerts. The Carnegie Hall shows sell out. Sid later persuades Brian Epstein to let him present
the Beatles at Shea Stadium, so certain of success that he promises to pay Brian Epstein for any
unsold seats. Although Sid successfully presents the American premier concerts by the entire British
Invasion in the year following the Beatles at Carnegie Hall, Sid suffers from a series of poor investment
choices and is broke when the deadline approaches to deliver significant financial deposits to Brian
Epstein for Sid’s upcoming presentation of the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Desperate, yet hopeful, Sid
gathers ticket requests for his Shea Stadium Beatles concert through slips of paper he hands out in New York’s Washington Square that listed simply a post office box number; bags of mail arrive, and the
show sells out without a single ticket being put on public sale. To Perry, this is the deeper mirror of his
own story: Sid also reached for impossible brass rings before he had the money, the proof, or permission
Cynthia Lennon Enters the Story
The ‘Tribute to John’ project is suddenly enlarged by the successful meeting with Beatles producer
George Martin. On the eve of their return to New York, Sid remembers one more person they cannot
leave London without seeing: Cynthia Lennon. She is not a formal gatekeeper. She is not the widow
who controls the Lennon estate. She is the woman who met John Lennon at art school in Liverpool as
teenagers, married him before the world knew his name, gave birth to his first son Julian, and lived
beside him through the essential Beatles years. If the ‘Tribute to John’ is meant to be more than show
business, Cynthia Lennon matters.
Sid learns that Cynthia owns a restaurant in London. Perry imagines meeting her in a hushed candlelit
white linen cloth dining room. Instead, he and Sid arrive at ‘Lennon’s Rock & Roll Bar’ in Covent
Garden and find a narrow, sadder, fluorescent place: a sandwich-shop version of Beatles memories,
with fading neon, and a commercialized wall menu board trading heavily on Beatles lyrics. Cynthia is
visible through the front plate of glass. She is seated at a small table with a gentleman companion. That
visual shock is important because it turns Cynthia from a Beatles footnote into a living wound. Sid
reconnects with Cynthia at her table. The two have been friends since they first met when Cynthia
traveled with the Beatles to New York for Sid’s Carnegie Hall concerts in 1964. Cynthia’s companion is
Jim Christie, her partner, who supplies warmth and wit to the evening. Cynthia supplies dignity. The
conversation between Cynthia and Sid reveals the economic and emotional cost of being John Lennon’s
first wife: the divorce settlement, the public mythology, the need to keep finding income, and the strange
fact that the woman who kept John’s home and raised their son Julian was treated by history as
secondary property.
Perry and Sid do not ask her to join the ‘Tribute to John’ that night. They assume the divorce left too
much bitterness. That assumption will ultimately prove to be false. Cynthia does not allow the events of
her life to lessen her lasting love for John. This section also supplies one of the manuscript’s most useful
editorial contrasts: Cynthia is famous enough to open doors at elite clubs and concerts but she is not
protected enough to escape slander by the estate of her former husband. Perry keeps seeing her in
double exposure – the young woman beside John during Beatlemania and the mature woman trying to
survive the afterlife of Beatle mythology. That doubleness provides the ‘Tribute to John’ its emotional
center. The project is no longer only John’s public farewell. It becomes Cynthia’s attempt to recover her
own place in the story and to create a cleaner future for John’s sons and brothers Julian and Sean
Lennon.
Yoko Only and the New Opening
The plot hardens in early summer of 1989 when Yoko Ono’s attorney sends a cease-and-desist letter
ordering Perry and Sid to stop pursuing the ‘Tribute to John’. According to Perry, the letter asserts
Yoko’s control over ‘John Lennon’s image and over all music written or co-written by John’. The
dream that had been expanding through the support of George Martin, suddenly takes on water. This is
no longer only a question of booking stars. It is a question of who has the moral, legal, and emotional
authority to honor John in public.
The pressure of the letter from Yoko shows immediately. In Los Angeles, Perry meets Tom Hulett, The
Moody Blues American representative and one of the most powerful figures in the concert and artist
management industry. Hulett likes the ‘Tribute to John’ concept, but asks the fatal question: “Do you
have support from the Lennon Estate?” Perry answers from instinct, not strategy. “It is a blended
family,” he says. “There is Cynthia and Julian Lennon also”. Hulett responds, “Yes, either Yoko or
Julian can authorize a tribute; ex-wives do not count”. That sentence sends Perry toward the Isle
of Man where Cynthia makes her home. He is in pursuit of his only hope, the support of Julian Lennon.
When Perry calls Cynthia’s home, Jim Christie answers the phone and asks why Perry is trying to go
through Cynthia to reach Julian instead of working with Cynthia directly. Perry admits he did not think
she would be interested. Jim’s answer changes everything: “She is”.
Perry’s flight to the Isle of Man becomes one of the comic obstacle courses that give the memoir its
shape: sushi and sake in Hermosa Beach, a missed 747 at the LA airport, rain-soaked clothes, JFK
delays, unplanned plane changes in London and Manchester, then finally landing on the island. Cynthia
receives Perry at her cottage, feeds him breakfast, and lets him sleep in Julian’s bedroom beneath a
gold record of Julian’s debut album ‘Valotte’. That night over dinner in an old stone inn, Cyntha tells
Perry she feels obligated to do something for John because she never had the chance to say goodbye.
In her words, John is in a state of spiritual limbo waiting for release by the world that clings to his legacy.
Then Cynthia says the sentence that links her to George Martin’s earlier statement: George, Ringo,
and Paul owe John a final performance.
The waiter serving Cynthia, Jim and Perry their dinner continually places a mysterious fourth wine glass
at the empty seat at the table each time they order. The three at the table instinctively understand the
image without needing to explain it. John is dining with them. Cynthia joins the ‘Tribute to John’. She
agrees to begin her support of the project my flying to New York to approach her son Julian to perform.
The trip coincides with Julian’s August 1989 performance at New York City’s Beacon Theater during
his tour supporting his ‘Mr. Jordan’ album. On the flight to New York, Cynthia proposes using her open
invitation to appear on NBC’s ‘Today Show’ while in New York to announce her support of the ‘Tribute
to John’ before Yoko can define the story. Sid Bernstein blocks the powerful plan, saying gentlemen do
not play the game that way. Perry senses immediately and later judges this as a major tactical error.
The memoir’s moral argument keeps colliding with show-business reality: courtesy, secrecy, and old
world manners may be honorable, but they are weak weapons against a legal estate, publicists, and
television timing.
The Lennon Family Reunion
The next brass ring is Julian Lennon. In New York, Cynthia chooses to stay at the Plaza Hotel, the
same hotel where the Beatles hid out during their first American explosion in 1964. Ringo is staying at
the nearby Pierre Hotel. Elton John is playing concerts at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. George
Martin is also in orbit. The city feels briefly like a Beatles afterworld with all the old planets drifting back
into alignment.
Jim Chrisite calls Perry with the news following Cynthia’s meeting with her son: Julian will support his
mother, sanction the ‘Tribute to John’, and perform. Then the night becomes bigger. Jim reports
that Yoko and her teenage son Sean Lennon will attend Julian’s concert, and Sean will join Julian on
stage. Perry alerts the Associated Press, misses their initial deadline, then uses news of a Hard Rock
Cafe concert after-party to pull the press back in. Before the show, Cynthia accepts Yoko’s unexpected
invitation for pre-concert cocktails with Yoko and Sean at their home in the Dakota apartments, knowing
she must cross the physical and emotional threshold where John was murdered and enter the home
where John’s second family carried on their lives. Cynthia decides to confront this highly emotional
barrier to make a ‘mother to mother’ appeal that she and Yoko collaborate on the ‘Tribute to John’
as The Lennon Family on behalf of their sons, the brothers Julian and Sean Lennon. At the Beacon
Theater, Cynthia sits near the front near the stage while Yoko and Sean sit farther back. Julian brings
Sean to the stage, and the brothers sing ‘Stand By Me’. The moment is not only a concert cameo. It is
the visual answer to the whole problem: John’s two sons can stand together.
The concert after-party makes the image permanent. At the Hard Rock Cafe, photographers alerted by
the Associated Press gather in the dark. Julian sits with Cynthia. Sean joins them. Then Yoko
approaches dressed in all black. Camera flashes cut the room like artillery. The photograph of Yoko,
Julian, Sean, and Cynthia together as The Lennon Family for the first time appears in newspapers
and magazines worldwide including ‘Rolling Stone’. Perry sees this meeting as a successful piece of
history he arranged: The Lennon Family assembled in public for the first time. But the triumph does not
hold. Cynthia tells Perry that when she asked Yoko to put their differences aside and host the ‘Tribute
to John’ together for their sons, Yoko invited Cynthia to lunch the next day at the Russian Tea Room
to plan their collaboration. Cynthia tells Perry that at the table at the Hard Rock, Yoko leaned over and
canceled their luncheon without explanation. The brass ring appears, then slips away again.
In the limo ride back to the Plaza Hotel, Cynthia tells Perry that when she and Jim arrived at Yoko’s
apartment door at the Dakota, a member of Yoko’s staff asked Cynthia and Jim to remove their shoes
out of respect for the oriental traditions of the home. Jim explained to the staff member that the two
would not comply and kept their shoes on. Cynthia explained that when she came home early from a
1968 holiday in Greece, she found two pairs of shoes outside her bedroom door and John inside her
bedroom with Yoko wearing Cynthia’s robe. This detail of refusing to remove her shoes in Yoko’s home
may seem small, theatrical, and devastating. It is exactly the kind of scene Perry’s editor should preserve
because it compresses an entire marriage’s collapse into one visual image.
Another ‘Tribute to John’ episode, this one with Elton John, repeats the ‘almost heaven’ pattern
that follows Perry in the project. Cynthia, Jim, Perry, and Sid are invited by Elton to attend his
Meadowlands concert in New Jersey and discuss Elton’s participation in the ‘Tribute to John’ following
the show. Cynthia’s party was placed in extraordinary seats that Perry reads as evidence of Elton’s
respect for her. Elton is central to John’s final live performance at Madison Square Garden in 1974. Elton
is Sean Lennon’s godfather. He should be an anchor of the event. Elton’s duet with John on ‘Whatever
Gets You Through the Night’ and Elton’s postmortem lament to John ‘Empty Garden (Hey, Hey
Johnny)’ are songs that must be performed in the ‘Tribute to John’. But Cynthia, always the
considerate lady, hesitates to rush Elton backstage after the performance, wanting to be polite. By the
time Cynthia and her guests arrive backstage they are informed that Elton was looking for Cynthia, but
he had to leave for his plane before the Meadowland crowds trapped his limo in the parking lot. Another
door opens and closes before Perry can get through it.
Rooms of Power: Paul, VIP Worlds, and the White House
Perry then moves through the social machinery surrounding Cynthia. English rock and roll empresario
Peter Stringfellow is Cynthia’s landlord, investor, and partner in ‘Lennon’s Rock & Roll Bar’ in
London. In fact, Cynthia’s restaurant and the famed Stringfellows nightclub are neighbors. Stringfellows
in London is the flagship to a chain of elite clubs that pepper the capitals of the world. When Jim Christie
arranges for he, Cynthia and Perry to party at Stringfellows in Manhattan, Perry sees what true VIP
recognition looks like for Cynthia Lennon: the ropes at the exclusive nightclub doors open, staff mobilize,
champagne appears, the bottle never empties, and a complimentary night for Cynthia and her guest
still costs Perry hundreds of dollars in highly anticipated tips. Later in our story, outside Stringfellows in
London, Cynthia looks up at the failing ‘Lennon’s Rock & Roll Bar’ sign next door to Stringfellows after
her relationship with the restaurant has ended. Perry reacts to Cynthia’s sorrow and throws a
construction cone at the sign shattering the neon into a waterfall of sparks. The scene is reckless, comic,
and symbolic. If Cynthia’s name is being used without her involvement, then the name comes down in
sparks. It is the kind of detail that should stay in the book because it reveals Perry’s impulsive loyalty as
much as it reveals Cynthia’s bruised dignity.
The most impregnable Beatles door in this section of the story belongs to Paul McCartney. Cynthia,
Jim, and Perry attend Paul’s Wembley Arena 1989 – 1990 World Tour concert after a near-impossible
ticket scramble to gain admission to the show involving Sid Bernstein and former Beatles publicist Tony
Barrow. Paul’s aide finds Cynthia in the VIP will-call line and removes the need for tickets altogether:
Paul has sent for her. Inside, Cynthia is given perfect seats, brought backstage before the show, and
receives after-show passes. Paul performs Beatles songs in large numbers, and Perry hears them as
the already rehearsed core of the ‘Tribute to John’.
At the concert after-party, held in a spectacular circus tent filled with sand outside Wembley, Cynthia
speaks with Paul and Linda McCartney. When Perry asks what Paul said about the ‘Tribute to John’,
Cynthia reports that he will think about it. It is not a yes. It is not a no. It is another suspended almost.
Keep in mind this meeting occurs after Yoko Ono has issued her order for the ‘Tribute to John’ to
cease-and- desist. The social scenes around Cynthia are not side trips. They show why Perry believes
she can carry the ‘Tribute to John’ even when lawyers say she does not have the legal rights. Fans
joyously shout Cynthia’s name outside the Beacon Theater in New York following Julian’s concert there
and again, outside Wembley Arena after Paul McCartney’s show. Staff at private clubs know her instantly.
Paul sends an aide to find her. Elton’s people make room for her. She may not control the Lennon estate,
but she controls a different kind of authority: recognition, memory, and affection.
After the Milwaukee Symphony collapses as the original anchor of the ‘Tribute to John’, Perry thinks
larger still. The White House becomes a possible stage. Cynthia and her team receive a White House
invitation to discuss President George H. W. Bush hosting the ‘Tribute to John’ with Cynthia. The
concept is a South Lawn performance with the White House as backdrop, the Rose Garden as VIP
backstage, and the National Mall as the audience field, carried by screens and sound toward the
monuments. This event staging concept is commonplace today; however, it was a novel idea in 1990.
Perry pitches his staging idea inside the West Wing as both a cultural event and presidential invitation:
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Rudolf Nureyev, George Martin,
and the elite of the music world entering the grounds like heads of state to honor John Lennon. The
point is not practically outrageous. Perry is trying to match John’s symbolic scale with a stage large
enough to present it. This is also where Perry’s imagination is clearest. He does not think in rooms. He
thinks in maps. Central Park looks toward John’s last home at the Dakota apartments. The White
House looks toward America’s National Mall. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin looks toward the Berlin
Wall. The Paris Opera House is Nureyev’s professional home. Each location is not merely a venue but
an argument about what John Lennon meant: New York home, American power, European liberation,
artistic defection, and global peace. That geographic thinking is one of the manuscript’s strongest
cinematic assets.
Berlin, Egypt, Hamburg, and the World Stage
By spring of 1990 the calendar is tightening. Cynthia is invited to ring the United Nations Peace Bell to
honor John’s advocacy to ‘Give Peace a Chance’. During the ceremony, Cynthia is invited to stage the
‘Tribute to John’ in New York’s Central Park by the city’s mayor who agrees to host the event with
Cynthia. The newly reunited German press publication of Cynthia’s Peace Bell ceremony produces an
unanticipated call: the Children of Berlin, newly emerging from behind the Berlin Wall, ask Cynthia to
stage the ‘Tribute to John’ in Berlin to bring John Lennon and Beatles music to the population who
have never experienced it since it was suppressed by Soviet occupying forces until just recently.
Suddenly the ‘Tribute to John’ is offered the world’s greatest and most prestigious settings. Not only is
Cynthia offered Central Park in the shadow of John’s beloved home and the White House in the capitol
of his adopted country, but Cynthia is also invited to stage the ‘Tribute to John’ at Berlin’s newly opened
Brandenburg Gate, the Cold War symbol of the repression of hope.
In order to secure the use of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to stage the ‘Tribute to John’ Sid
Bernstein’s United Nations contact Hans Janecek points Cynthia’s team toward Willy Brandt, the former
mayor of West Berlin and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The route to Brandt runs through Cairo, where
he is chairing an international political conference. The resulting Egyptian trip is pure Perry: expensive,
chaotic, cinematic, and absurdly alive. Michael Jackson’s publicist Lee Solters, whom is now
representing the ‘Tribute to John’ sees the headline instantly – Cynthia Lennon and Willy Brandt, in
Cairo, link John Lennon to celebrate peace at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In Cairo, the
Cynthia’s group waits for Brandt, gets lost in Arabian nightlife, is treated to a Persian band command
performance because Jim Christie tells the band leader that Cynthia is John Lennon’s wife and Perry is
a CIA operative. All of this transpires in a room filled with international arms dealers before Beatles
history returns to the schedule.
Brandt finally meets Cynthia and agrees to join her in hosting the ‘Tribute to John’ at the Brandenburg
Gate. The two are photographed together. Before leaving Egypt, Perry, Cynthia, and the others race to
Giza, ride camels and horses near the Pyramids, and then escape Cairo as political unrest threatens
the airport. Cynthia and her team fly to Berlin, Perry and event promoter Jim Rissmiller meet with Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra Musical Director Claudio Abbado who responds to the idea of the ‘Tribute
to John’ with elegance. Abbado gushes about the idea of hearing George Martin’s original orchestral
composition and symphonic collaborations of superstar renditions of ‘All You Need Is Love’, ‘I Am the
Walrus’, and ‘Strawberry Fields’ as music fit for performance by the Berlin Philharmonic at the
Brandenburg Gate. His phrase – “Creativity versus Captivity” – gives Perry the intellectual frame for
the event being staged in Berlin. John Lennon’s music becomes much more than nostalgia. It is an
answer to the Berlin Wall.
The journey then folds backward in time into the Beatles origin history in Hamburg, Germany. Cynthia,
Jim, and Perry drive through the recently liberated East Berlin to Kiel north of Hamburg, for a meeting
with Cynthia’s long term friends Klaus Voormann, Astrid Kirchherr, and others tied to the Beatles’
early pre-Beatlemania years. These scenes matter because they prove Cynthia is not an accessory to
Beatles memory. She is a witness. Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, the fifth Beatle Stu Sutcliffe, Astrid’s
moody black and white photographic eye, Klaus’s ‘Revolver’ album art, and the young Beatles all return
through people who were there with Cynthia when she accompanied her husband John Lennon and
the Beatles during their early 1960s Hamburg residencies. Perry’s project is no longer only a concert. It
has become a living map of John Lennon’s past.
After Cynthia’s team travels to America after Egypt and Germany, the extensive ‘My Beatles Story’
manuscript details Perry’s one more layer of symbolism. Cynthia meets and invites the participation in
the ‘Tribute to John’ from public figures including heavy weight champion of the world Muhammad Ali
and final Soviet Union Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The Berlin episode of the ‘Tribute to John’ needs
to be seen not merely as entertainment but as a global peace event. Perry wants the world to connect
John Lennon with the men and places that defined the twentieth century’s moral theater: President
Kennedy’s historic speech at the Berlin Wall, Reagan’s challenge to Gorbachev to ‘Tear Down this Wall’,
Willy Brandt’s Cold War authority, Ali’s global fame, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is grandiose, but it
is not random. It is Perry trying to build a public mythology around the ‘Tribute to John’ imbuing the
event with the spirit it needs to exist.
The Double Agent, the Collapse, and the Afterlife
Then the machinery shuts down. Perry and event promoter Jim Rissmiller arrange for an meeting with
senior executives at ABC Network Headquarters in Los Angeles seeking broadcast support for the
‘Tribute to John’. The ABC executive tells Jim and Perry they are the second team pitching a John
Lennon tribute to the network. The other team, he says, represents a tribute event that Yoko Ono is
planning at the Liverpool Pier Head on the Mersey River in May. Worse, the person carrying Yoko’s
proposal to ABC is, according to Perry, their own Milwaukee based highly paid marketing consultant – a
man Perry had briefed on the details of the ‘Tribute to John’ at every step, therefore unknowingly
feeding all of Cynthia’s movements directly to Yoko Ono. Perry now sees the pattern of betrayal that has
plagued the ‘Tribute to John’: Orchestra executive Gary Good denied the Milwaukee Symphony
involvement, Yoko’s legal team orders them to cease and desist, and their own consultant appears to
be an opportunistic double agent fueling the demise of Cynthia’s ‘Tribute to John’. The brass ring is
not only out of reach. Someone moved the carousel.
Yoko announces her Liverpool tribute event to be held in May of 1990, six months ahead of Cynthia’s
announced ‘Tribute to John’ which is to be staged in the autumn between two historic anniversary
dates in John Lennon life: October 9th John’s 50th birthday and December 9th the 10th anniversary
of John’s tragic death by the hands of an assassin. Yoko claims a superstar lineup for her event that
includes the three remaining Beatles.
The international press frames the dueling tribute events as the War of the Widows: artists must choose
between Yoko, who controls the estate, and Cynthia, whose project many have been discussing for
more than a year. Many will not cross Yoko to perform for Cynthia, but many also do not appear for
Yoko. Perry notes that, in the end, Yoko and Sean Lennon’s family friend Michael Jackson, Sean
Lennon’s godfather Elton John, ‘Fame’ co-writer David Bowie, and the surviving Beatles do not come
to Liverpool to perform live at Yoko’s event. London’s premier newspaper The Times prints a review of
Yoko’s Pier Head event that can only be called savage. The headline read: “Instant Bad Karma by the
Meesey”. Yoko’s promised global high visibility afterlife broadcast of recordings of her event that don’t
materialize. Where is ABC network television? Yoko’s event fails to become John’s long awaited great
public farewell. It succeeds in killing the momentum of Cynthia’s ‘Tribute to John’. The industry cannot
support two John Lennon tributes, and Cynthia’s with Yoko’s legal cloud hanging over it cannot survive.
The Dream is (not necessarily) Over
The last movement of Perry’s ‘My Beatles Story – Tribute to John’ elegy and blueprint is a summary
of all those we have lost since 1990 coupled with the possibilities of what could still occur, perhaps in
2030 when we will celebrate John’s 90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of John’s passing.
Cynthia Lennon died in Mallorca, Spain in 2015, having kept Julian, her memories, and her connection
to John’s music even when the public story gave her little else. Legendary Beatles Promoter Sid
Bernstein, Beatles Producer George Martin, International Ballet Superstar Rudolf Nureyev, the King
of Pop Michael Jackson, Sitar Master Ravi Shankar and so many others are now gone. Perry refuses
to treat that fact as the end. He turns the unfulfilled 1990 dream into a possible modern structure: Julian
and Sean Lennon as anchors to a 2030 ‘Tribute to John’ in honor of their mothers and their fatherJohn, Beatles ‘Love’ arranger and album remastering producer Giles Martin carrying on his father
George Martin’s musical inheritance, Klaus Voormann as a living Beatles bridge to the renewed
‘Tribute to John’, Michael Jackson’s superstar sister Janet Jackson dancing to honor her brother,
with Rudolf Nureyev’s friend and protégé Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing with Janet echoing the
Michael Jackson – Rudolf Nureyev dance dream, Paula Abdul returning to choreograph, The Moody
Blues lead singer and sole living member Justin Hayward opening the ‘Tribute to John’ and Donovan
who traveled to Rishikesh with the Beatles leading us into the White Album celebration of songs, styles
and artistry. The venues that were offered to Cynthia from New York’s Central Park to Berlin’s
Brandenburg Gate, America’s White House, Nureyev’s Paris Opera House, coupled with Yoko’s
tribute event site at Liverpool’s Pier Head, historic Beatles sites in London, India, and even new
performing iconic spaces such as the twenty-first-century digital Las Vegas Sphere can be reimagined
for the 2030 ‘Tribute to John’.
And in the End . . .
Perry Muckerheide’s ‘My Beatles Story – Tribute to John’ ends where Perry always ends, not with
proof that he won, but with proof that he kept seeing the brass ring. The 1990 ‘Tribute to John’
empowered by Cynthia Lennon never made it to the stage but it did not fail. The dream was shared by
many who knew John Lennon, loved him, his life, and respected his creative spirit. There is no deadline
on the dream of creating a triumphant ‘Tribute to John’. The final pages of Perry’s detailed manuscript
are therefore best treated as an appendix of future possibilities and opportunities of reimagination rather
than a continuation of the 1990 plans. Perry lays out possible performing acts, songs, and venues that
could combine live performance, archival material, streaming, and immersive technology. This material
does not crowd the condensed memoir, but it gives the project a practical afterlife. The manuscript for a
possible book, episodic podcast, printed, internet or streaming serialization that finishes with
suggestions for the future.
The encouraged timeline for the reimagined ‘Tribute to John’ is focused on 2030 to celebrate John’s
90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of John’s passing. This will allow the creative talents of the
modern media to get their act together appropriately. There could be a rising series of commemorative
events between now and 2030. The 2030 event may morph into a grand celebration of the Beatles
timed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John’s tragic death as way to honor John’s role as
the originator of the band that began as the Quarrymen and became the magical and mysterious
Beatles as Paul McCartney joined John, George Harrison merged with the two of them, and Ringo
Starr completed the chemistry.
The controlling idea of ‘My Beatles Story – Tribute to John’ is still the brass ring. Perry keeps reaching
through one more door: Cynthia’s restaurant, Yoko’s attorney, Tom Hulett’s office, the Isle of Man
cottage, the Beacon Theater, the Dakota apartments, the Hard Rock Cafe, Elton’s backstage, Paul’s
Wembley tent, the West Wing, Cairo, Berlin, Hamburg, ABC, and finally the unrealized dream of Yoko’s
Liverpool event. Each room gives him a new glimpse of the elusive ‘Tribute to John’, and each room
also shows the limits of nerve without institutional power. That is what keeps the story from being only
complaint. It is a tour through the machinery that decides which memories become public ceremonies
and which almost-happened histories are left to be carried on by one stubborn witness.
The truth of God’s creation is that dreams may not occur on the schedule that is first conceived by the
dreamer. In truth, the time for the ‘Tribute to John’ may yet to arrive. There is no deadline for the
dream. Perry’s proposed 2030 version is not a vague reunion fantasy. It offers a roster and structure.
Julian and Sean Lennon anchoring the event as sons, brothers and executive stewards. Giles Martin delivering George Martin’s promised musical role. Klaus Voormann connecting the modern production
from Hamburg history to ‘Revolver’, and the Beatles solo years. Janet Jackson and Mikhail
Baryshnikov echoing the Michael Jackson-Rudolf Nureyev dance duet that was once possible, with
Paula Abdul still serving as choreographic bridge. Donovan takes us back to Rishikesh and ‘White
Album’ songs, while Ravi Shankar’s legacy is honored through the Indian thread that offered
enlightenment to George Harrison and, through George, to the Beatles themselves. The show Perry
imagines is not a single concert with random covers. It is a staged argument that John’s life and music
moved through Liverpool, Hamburg, London, India, New York, Berlin, and the world.
The manuscript ends by holding two truths at once. First, the 1990 ‘Tribute to John’ was beaten by
timing, legal rights, betrayal, competing claims, and the fear most artists and networks had of choosing
sides inside The Lennon Family conflict. Second, the attempted ‘Tribute to John’ created real
historical moments anyway: Cynthia standing forward, Julian and Sean performing together, The Lennon
Family photographed together for the first time in one frame, Paul receiving Cynthia at Wembley, Willy
Brandt inviting Cynthia to bring the ‘Tribute to John’ to Berlin, and the Berlin Philharmonic opening
itself to performing a Lennon score. That is the cleanest way to preserve Perry’s genius-level detail
without letting it dissolve into sprawl. Even though the event did not reach the stage in 1990, the evidence
of how close it came is the story.
That is the emotional engine of Perry’s memoir. The ‘Tribute to John’ is an unfulfilled story only if
success means the event never reached its stage. Read another way, it is a magical mysterious brass
ring story about proximity to history: a Milwaukee waiter steps into a conversation and, through nerve,
imagination, and unlikely alliances, reaches Sid Bernstein, the Milwaukee Symphony, Billboard
Magazine, Rudolf Nureyev, Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, George Martin, and the Epstein family.
Repeatedly, the brass ring appears: a ‘Tribute to John’ that institutional fear and legal pressure
threaten, a global ceremony that comes close enough to be real and still slips away. The point is not
that Perry wins or loses. The point is that he keeps reaching – and, for a moment and makes the
impossible visible.
The full unpublished document is available below in a link provided by the author of the piece:
To acquire a copy of the full unpublished ‘Tribute to John’ manuscript from Perry Muckerheide, please click here, ‘Tribute to John’ full unpublished manuscript @ DBA BEATLES MANUSCRIPT
or scan the
QR code:
For further information or questions this is the contact email provided by the author and his rep:
My sincere hope is that some enterprising publisher will realize that this unpublished manuscript would and could earmark the publication of an excellent book. I would love to be able to add a print version of this tales in our to my Beatles book library!
If you would like to watch the full YouTube video of Perry that I originally viewed, here is the link:
Tribute to John Lennon: A Quest For The Concert That Never Was with Perry Muckerheide (Part 3)
I acquired Perry’s full document and was truly amazed and astonished at the details provided.
Be healthy and be happy all of you! A bit of closing armchair philosophy: Never be afraid of the truth, the difficult thing is to be able to properly identify and recognize truth from deception and attempts to manipulate and control!
