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The tinted, round glasses that John Lennon wore during his notorious “Lost Weekends” in Los Angeles, lAndes again at an auction.
A turbulent evening in troubadour
As part of Propstores “Music Memorabilia Live Auction”, the glasses – with an estimated value of $ 400,000 – are offered in addition to numerous other rarities. These include Jimi Hendrix ‘handwritten text sketches for “Straight Ahead” and the white Fedora hat, which Michael Jackson wore in the music video for “Smooth Criminal” (1988).
According to the auction side, Lennon had the glasses on March 12, 1974 when he “heavily drunk” the Smother’s Brothers in the Troubadour Club together with Nilsson. The evening escalated in a fight, Lennon and Nilsson were thrown out, and according to Sotheby’s catalog, the glasses came into the possession of the wife of Tommy Smothers.
“The boo was so bad that our show went down the stream. Nobody took care of it, it just happened. Then there was a fight and we stopped the show,” recalled Smothers in the book “Ticket to Ride” by Denny Somach. “In the end, my wife had Lennon’s glasses in her hand because blows had fallen.”
Separation from Yoko Ono and reunification
Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” fell into the time of his separation from Yoko Ono between 1973 and 1975. In this phase, he began a relationship with May Pang, assistant to the couple – expressly recommendation on ONOS.
“I really needed distance because I was used to working freely as an artist,” said Ono in an interview with David Sheff in October 1980. “With John I was constantly in the public visibility, always together, 24 hours a day. The pressure was enormous, also on my art. I just wanted to think freedom to think.”
In a Rolling-Stone interview in 1975, Lennon explained to the author Pete Hamill why he and Ono found each other again: “It is not about who it ended. It was just over. And why are we back together? Because it was diplomatic sensible … and because we love each other.”
Lennon and Ono remained married on December 8, 1980 until his murder before the Dakota Building in New York.
The “Music Memorabilia Auction” opens on October 23 at 7 a.m. PT for the public.