Jude Kessler, a John Lennon biographer, has written her way into The Beatles’ history with her nine book John Lennon Series. And she’s taken Enoch Jeter, an art professor, with her as he recently completed 14 illustrations for her third book in the series “She Loves You.”
“Hey Jude”
Kessler began working on her series in 1986. She put 20 years of research into the first book, titled “Shoulda Been There,” which tells the story of John Lennon’s life from his birth up until the day The Beatles got their first professional manager.
“They were getting ready to leave Liverpool behind them and really step onto the world stage,” Kessler said.
She spent those 20 years accumulated hundreds of Beatles books, periodicals and material. Kessler traveled to Liverpool seven times to interview Lennon’s friends, family, early band members, their first manager, people he went to college and high school with and the DJ at The Cavern Club where The Beatles played over 300 times.
“It’s been so much fun, I got to meet so many people that I never in my life dreamed I’d get to talk to,” said Kessler. “You have to be so calm and act as if, you know, you’re just taking it all in stride when you really just want to scream because you can’t believe you’re talking to that person.”
She developed a relationship with the city and said that she had to “learn their language to be able to write it exactly like they would talk.”
The second book told Lennon’s story during the rise to British fame as The Beatles became popular in Scotland, England, Ireland and Hamburg, Germany. It came out three years ago and was titled “Shivering Inside.”
“Got To Get You into My Life”
The year was 1963 and an elementary school friend named Pattie Singer approached then nine-year-old Kessler with a record in her hand. It was The Beatles’ first album “Please Please Me.”
“These are The Beatles and you have to fall in love with one of them. Everybody is in love with The Beatles and you’ve got until recess to fall in love with one of them,” Singer told her.
Kessler was perplexed. Recess was in two hours. How was she supposed to fall in love in two hours? Just by looking at the cover, she went with George Harrison. But Kessler took the record home and listened to the record.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said the next day. “I want this guy right here.”
“Yeah that figures, that’s John Lennon. He’s the smart Beatle. That’s who we thought you’d pick,” Singer said.
And it’s been John Lennon ever since. The more Kessler found out about his story and the struggles he went through, the more she fell in love.
“His life was hard, but he never gave up,” said Kessler. “And that’s for all of us to know. No matter what happens be like John and don’t give up.”
“Here Comes The Sun”
The Penn State Altoona Beatles Conference invited experts from every field, such as Mark Lewisohn who is the number one Beatles expert in the world.
The conference, being held Feb. 6-9, takes place during the 50th anniversary of The Beatles coming to America also referred to as the British Invasion. Jeter will show his complete artwork to the public for the first time at the conference.
“Well it’s been a real project. It’s been a year long project working on these so it’s almost like letting a baby go, you know, in a way?” Jeter said.
A couple of the images have been available for viewing online and Jeter said there has been a lot of positive feedback.
“They love ‘em. People generally like what I’ve done. And the opportunity to show it at Penn State is pretty nice, and showing New York City too,” said Jeter. “I look forward to the feedback. It’s not my first rodeo, as they say. I’ve shown for many years. But it’s going to be kind of nice to see what the public thinks about these in general.”
Kessler was also invited to the conference as the foremost Lennon expert in the world. On Thursday night, she will give a speech at the conference called “Lennon’s Liverpool.” The speech will tell the story of John’s younger years and what inspired him to become bigger than Elvis.
“And why it was so important for him to become as he called it ‘the toppermost of the toppermost,’” Kessler said.
Kessler is having a book signing for her newly released “She Loves You.” This volume covers 1963 and 1964 when Beatlemania hit and the boys came to America for the first time. Feb. 7 celebrates the 50th anniversary of their arrival in the states.
Kessler will also talk about some of the biggest myths about The Beatles. As a historian, her focus is to keep the real story about the boys in the light.
“I Got To Find My Baby”
It was a dark night on Oct. 9, 1940. Lennon’s aunt Mimi, who would later raise him, received the news of his birth and went running through a dangerous part of Liverpool to the hospital so she could hold him for the first time.
Her feet ached from her high heels, as it was a 3.2-mile run. Bombs were being dropped all around her. But nothing could stop her from holding that newborn baby. Except for the fact that this isn’t a true story.
“That’s a great story, but here’s the deal, Mimi was 36 years and it was 1940. In the ‘40s, 36-year-old women were considered very middle-aged if not verging on elderly,” Kessler said.
Women just didn’t go running through the streets back in that day. Kessler researched the story and found that there were no bombs dropped on Liverpool that day.
During World War II it was a law that after sundown people had to retreat inside their homes and were arrested if they were caught on the streets. According to Kessler, aunt Mimi herself even laughed about the story.
“It’s a good enough story that she loved John enough to adopt him as her own son and to be his mom. That’s a good enough story you don’t have to add all this other bull to it,” Kessler said.
“Baby It’s You”
Then, 15 years later, his mother came back into his life. The mother who couldn’t keep him had come back to him.
“John, I’m going to be there for you from now on. Not as your mother, you already have a mother, Mimi, but I’m going to be your best friend,” his mother told him.
“And they started hanging around together, she urged him to cut school and hang out with her, they played Rock n’ Roll records,” Kessler said.
Kessler said it was his mother that convinced him to join a band and taught him how to play the guitar. But a year and a half later John’s mother was killed by a drunk driver.
Lennon lost his mother for the second time and this time it was for good. His mother watched him form his band and listened to them practice in her home, but she never got to know how big The Beatles were going to become.
Kessler said her favorite Beatles song is actually a cover song called “Baby It’s You” originally by The Shirelles.
“If you listen to the words of it and listen to John singing it, it will break your heart because John never stopped loving his mom and even though she couldn’t have him he wanted her,” Kessler said.
According to Kessler, John never stopped loving his mother. The relationship John wanted with his mother and the small relationship he did have with her had a big impact on his music. Everything he did and every song he wrote was for her.
And for Kessler, knowing the story of his life and his deep love for his mother, that makes “Baby It’s You” the perfect Beatles song.
“Come Together”
Kessler speaks to many organizations across the U.S. and was invited to talk to the Monroe Rotary Club at the Convention Center. As she arrived, a man named Richard Harrison went up to her and handed her a note from Jeter.
“Hi, I run a John Lennon birthday party at Enoch’s Irish Pub each year and it’s the longest running John Lennon birthday party in America and I’d love to talk to you,” read the note.
After her speech that night Kessler called Jeter; he invited her to the birthday party and the two bonded over cake that Kessler brought.
Jeter describes their meeting as something of chance. Kessler gave him a couple of her books.
“Strangely enough it was as I was leaving for Ireland a year-and-a-half ago and I read them while I was over there and thought they were fantastic,” Jeter said.
Kessler called him while he was still in Ireland.
“You didn’t tell me you were an artist,” she had said.
“Well I try to keep that quiet,” Jeter said. Then she proposed the idea of having him illustrate a chapter in her third book.
Kessler had always dreamed of having a chapter in one of her books written without words, just pictures.
“Because John was an artist and he went to Liverpool College of Art and that was his thing. If he hadn’t become a famous Beatle he would have been an artist,” said Kessler. “And so to have a chapter written without words, just pictures, was just something that I always wanted to do.”
The idea was for Jeter to create a picture to go with each song on The Beatles second album “With The Beatles” that would tell a story of what the songs were about. And Jeter agreed.
“So we started a yearlong journey together where he worked every day on that part of the book while I was finishing the writing of the book,” said Kessler. “We came down to the first of November, the book had to be finished and we were both burning the midnight oil to get it done.”
Kessler believes that the work Jeter produced would have been exactly what The Beatles would have liked. And she has loved working with Jeter.
“What a wonderful person. What an unbelievable person. He’s done so much work and put in a year of his life into this for nothing,” said Kessler. “He didn’t ask for any pay. He did it because he just loves The Beatles and he is just a wonderful guy.”
“From Us To You”
Both have said it was almost as if “it was meant to be.”
Jeter said they have not discussed any further collaboration on her future Lennon books.
“This was her, she’ll tell you it was kind of her dream to do this in a book, not necessarily with me, but to have a chapter, a whole chapter in one of her books that was illustrated with art,” Jeter said.
Jeter doesn’t know what the future may hold, but at the moment he is getting a lot of offers for other projects and shows. He also believes he got lucky to have his Beatles collection ready for the public at this time because of the 50th anniversary.
“So I kind of lucked out in some ways. Providence, if you will,” Jeter said.
