A letter, penned by former-Beatle John Lennon to radio and television host Joe Franklin and praising the music of Yoko Ono, has sold for $28,171. The two-page handwritten letter was dated December 13, 1971, and was written in an attempt to get Ono onto Franklin’s New York TV show.
“I know you’re a musician at heart!” Lennon writes in the letter. “And especially I know you dig jazz. Well, Yoko’s music ain’t quite jazz but to help you get off on it, or understand it, please listen to a track on the Yoko/Ono/Plastic Ono Band, called ‘AOS,’ which was recorded in 1968 (pre Lennon/Beatles!) with Ornette Coleman at Albert Hall London, you could call it free form, anyway Yoko sits in the middle of avant-garde, classic, jazz—and now through me and my music—rock ‘n’ roll!”
The songs referred to by Lennon were on Ono’s solo album, “Fly.”
The letter also included a thumbnail sketch Lennon drew of himself and Ono, and was written on official Apple Records letterhead–the label started by the Beatles in 1968.
The letter was successful, reportedly.
“Yoko was on my show nine times,” Franklin commented recently on the events of 1971. “John Lennon was on three times. Yoko was only with him one of those times. Part of his whole thing was to convince her to be confident enough to do it on her own.”
The letter sold for $28,171–far above its presale estimate of $15,000-20,000–at the RR Auction in Massachusetts.
By Joseph Reight
