Julian Lennon

by Steve Huey
The son of John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia, Julian Lennon parlayed a remarkable vocal similarity to his father into a moderately successful singing career during the 1980s. John Charles Julian Lennon was born on April 8, 1963 in Liverpool, and as a child inspired several Beatles compositions: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" reportedly arose out of a drawing Julian made of a classmate, and following his parents' divorce, he became the subject of Paul McCartney's sympathetic "Hey Jude." Julian began playing guitar and drums at age ten, adding piano as a teenager; he appeared as a drummer on the track "Ya Ya" on the John Lennon album Walls and Bridges. Following his father's assassination, Lennon decided to pursue a singing career, although he worried that his vocal and stylistic similarity to his father would prove detrimental. He initially signed a contract to record an unreleased song stolen from John Lennon's vaults, but after thinking better of it, he enlisted Yoko Ono's help in buying out the contract.
Lennon signed with Atlantic and recorded his debut album, Valotte, at a French chateau of the same name. The album produced four chart singles, including the Top Tens "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes"; Lennon was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. Success was accompanied by hedonistic indulgence, and the follow-up, 1986's underwritten The Secret Value of Daydreaming, perhaps suffered because of it. Lennon returned in 1989 with Mr. Jordan, an album that found him trying to break away from his John Lennon influences with a darker style reminiscent of David Bowie. However, the single "Now You're in Heaven" proved only a minor hit. Following 1991's Help Yourself, Lennon temporarily retired from the music industry and spent nearly seven years in seclusion. In the spring of 1998, he returned with Photograph Smile, an indie album initially issued only in Europe and Japan but given American release the following year.