May Pang displays a different side of John Lennon in traveling photo show
Get ready to have the myths of the alleged booze-soaked, wild, infamous Lost Weekend of John Lennon turned on its head when May Pang’s photos of life with Lennon in the mid-1970s hit town.
“These are home photos, they were originally not meant for the exhibition I’m doing right now,” Pang, 73, said on the phone from her home in New York City. “It really was our home life. … People have never seen a lot of these photos. … Everybody thought he was down and out, thought he was drunk, The Lost Weekend, everything. But you are really seeing him in a different light. You think he was drunk and out of control all the time, then you’re mistaken.”
The traveling photograph exhibit of more than 30 pictures is on display Jan. 23 and 24 at 621 Gallery in Railroad Square Art Park. Pang will be on hand to answer questions and sign sold photographs, which go for around $950. Prints are being sold for $50. Hours are 3 to 8 p.m. each day and admission is free. No memorabilia or Lennon albums will be autographed by Pang.
In her early 20s, Pang, then working as a hired assistant, became Lennon’s live-in girlfriend when the singer moved to Los Angeles and later returned to Manhattan. At first, the extra-marital relationship was endorsed by wife Yoko Ono, who said she wanted a break from her famous husband. The pairing soon became a serious love affair when Lennon began to pursue Pang.
“I was 23 and my first boyfriend was John Lennon,” Pang explains in the recent documentary “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story” (2023), now streaming for rent on Prime and YouTube. “John Lennon charmed the pants off me.”
Pang and Lennon were lovers from 1973 to 1975.
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So many solo songs
“People forget this was the most active period of his solo career,” Pang said.
Lennon released the albums “Mind Games” (1973), “Walls and Bridges” (1974) and “Rock ‘n’ Roll” (1975). The former member of The Beatles scored a No. 1 hit with “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” from “Walls and Bridges.” Pang provided the breathy spoken word parts to the Top 10 hit “#9 Dream,” also from “Walls and Bridges.” Though the songs were somewhat ragged, Lennon also produced the album “Pussy Cats” (1974) by his pal Harry Nilsson.
Thanks to Nilsson, and that singer’s love for pounding Brandy Alexanders, the period in Lennon’s life has been dubbed The Lost Weekend. In March 1974, the two got kicked out of the Troubadour club when Brandy Alexander-first-timer Lennon began heckling The Smothers Brothers. Photos of Lennon being booted were splattered far and wide by the media.
“Even though he wasn’t the ringleader, it was his picture that got shown,” Pang said. “John always thought of himself as John when he went out. … He (Nilsson) loved to party. … But every time he came around to get the guys, every wife and every girlfriend would go, ‘Oh, God.’”
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Reunion with Julian
On a less rowdy note, Pang oversaw Lennon’s reconnection with his son Julian, born during his first marriage to Cynthia Lennon. Father and son visited Disney World with Pang in 1974. They also dropped by the set of “Happy Days,” then the hottest sitcom on TV, for a photo op. The younger Lennon, now 60, used Pang’s photograph of him as a boy on the cover of the album “Jude” (2022), named for the Beatles song “Hey Jude” written to him.
“Julian fell in love with that photo,” Pang said, and it’s included in the current show. “I let him use it for free.”
Pang also quietly mended relations between Lennon and former songwriting partner Paul McCartney, who had taken jabs at each other through solo songs in the early ‘70s. She was there the night McCartney and wife Linda McCartney dropped by the recording studio during the “Pussy Cats” sessions.
Lennon and McCartney jammed together for the first time since The Beatles with Linda on keyboard, guest Steve Wonder on electric piano, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr on skins, Bobby Keys on saxophone and Pang on tambourine. It’s the final time McCartney and Lennon played together in a studio.
“You don’t think about it as a historic moment, I was just living my life,” Pang said of the jam session. “It was really just to have fun. It was a form of relaxation, not a recording session. … (Looking back) it was quite surreal.”
The McCartneys were the first visitors to Lennon and Pang’s apartment when they moved back to Manhattan in 1975.
“In my household with John, I had an open-door policy,” Pang said. “Your friends come to the door, you let them in. … We had just moved in; we were doing things and the doorbell rings in the night. We were going, ‘Whose ringing our doorbell?’ So, John said, ‘Let me answer it.’ He called down to the doorman and said, ‘Who is it?’ The doorman said, ‘Paul and Linda?’ John looked at me and said, ‘What should we do?’ I said, ‘What do you mean what should we do. They are your friends. Let them in.’”
The two Liverpool pals picked up as if nothing had happened.
“Every time they were in town, they made an effort to come see us,” Pang said. “They refrained from talking business and left that to the reps. They would talk about everything else.”
Answer the question
One day, Lennon asked Pang, “So, who’s your favorite Beatle?”
Pang may be the only person on Earth who has been asked to name her favorite Beatle by a Beatle. Of course, she blurted out Ringo.
She recovered by adding, “You are talking about when I was 13, right?”
Later that night, the two ran into Richard Starkey, aka Ringo.
Lennon said sarcastically to Ringo, “You were May’s favorite.”
“If there were a hole, I would have jumped in it,” Pang said and laughed.
For the record, Pang’s favorite album by a Beatle remains George Harrison’s three-LP epic “All Things Must Pass” (1970). She helped clear American copyrights when she worked at a New York City record company before she became a full-time assistant for Lennon and Ono. She described Harrison as “gracious,” “wonderful” and “one of the nicest people.”
The relationship between Pang and Lennon ended abruptly the night before the two were going to fly to New Orleans to meet up with the McCartneys. According to Pang, Lennon was about to go “full circle” by considering writing music with McCartney again. Then Ono stepped back into the picture. Pang and the New Orleans trip were both canceled. The dream was over.
“I have my memories and these photographs,” Pang said.
If you go
What: A photographic exhibition and sale titled “The Lost Weekend – A Showcase of May Pang’s Candid Photos of John Lennon” coinciding with the digital & Blu-Ray release of the feature film documentary on May Pang and John Lennon’s relationship “The Lost Weekend – A Love Story”
When: 3-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23, and Wednesday, Jan. 24
Where: 621 Gallery, 650-3 Railroad Square, Tallahassee; 850-222-6210; 621galleryinc.org
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Mark Hinson is a former senior writer for The Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: May Pang displays a different side of John Lennon in Tallahassee show
