Julian Lennon

Julian Lennon was twenty-one years old when we first met and talked in 1984. He had just burst onto the music charts with the hit single and album Valotte. But his presence in the music world had been established years before for supplying his father John Lennon with the inspiration for the song “Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds” as well as being the subject of Paul McCartney’s Beatles’ classic “Hey Jude.”

With the platinum success of Valotte and a 1985 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, it seemed that Julian was destined to continue in his father’s footsteps as a long-term recording and touring musician. Four more albums followed over the next thirteen years, but a growing sense of frustration and disappointment with the music business led Julian to pursue other artistic endeavors. He emerged as a talented photographer with well received and critically acclaimed exhibitions.

In 2011 he decided to return to making music and began work on a new album. Officially released worldwide in 2013, Everything Changes is his first album in fifteen years and the title seems to be the perfect description for Julian’s approach to his life and career.

Talking with him at WFUV in November 2013, he performed songs from his new album as we discussed a variety of subjects – including why he chose to reference a well known Beatles’ lyric in his own music, reclaim his family legacy, recording with Steven Tyler, and how a comment John once made inspired Julian to create the charitable White Feather Foundation.