Elliot Mintz, then a West Coast radio presenter, met the Lennons in 1971, the start of a close, unique and extraordinary friendship and hours of late-night phone calls. And he’s finally written a book about it, We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me, which records the isolated, complicated life they led imprisoned by their celebrity, at times joyous and outlandish, at others bleak and uncomfortably revealing. All bases covered here, among them …

 

… “his view of Paul changed with days and temperature – brotherly love, jealousy, discomfort …”

 

… how they dealt with the FBI bugging their apartment.

 

… being present at John and Paul’s eventual reunion and what might have happened if they’d picked up guitars.

 

 … how he heard the news of Lennon’s death.

 

… booking hotels as ‘Fred and Ada Gherkin’.

 

... the Lost Weekend and Lennon reverting to his Hamburg days.

 

… how it felt to sort and catalogue John’s possessions.

 

… abandoned by his father, abandoning his son: Lennon going on holiday with Brian Epstein two weeks after the birth of Julian.

  

 … ordering in pizzas from across the road in New York’s most exclusive restaurants.

 

… “all he could see onstage was McCartney’s face when they shared a microphone”.

 

… John’s thoughts about the competition – Dylan, the Stones, McCartney.

 

… “a friendship to the exclusion of all else”.

 

Order Elliot’s book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-All-Shine-extraordinary-friendship/dp/0857506072

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