"Lennon Revealed" by Larry Kane

John Lennon would have turned 65 in 2005, had he not been murdered 25 years ago. One can hardly be surprised, then, that nearly a dozen books about various aspects of Lennon's life are being published this year. His wives (Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono), his personal photographer (Bob Gruen), and even "the media" (Life magazine and Associated Press) are among those contributing to an already large body of published Lennonabilia.

With all that has been written about John Lennon over the past quarter century, how could there possibly be any new ground to explore? Larry Kane's book, Lennon Revealed shows that there are, indeed, aspects of Lennon's life that have not previously been dealt with in print.

Kane was the 21-year-old news director at a Miami radio station when, almost by accident and somewhat reluctantly, he became the only American journalist to accompany The Beatles on their fabled 1964 and 1965 U.S. tours. That experience is chronicled in a previous Kane book, Ticket To Ride.

Kane's perspective is unique. In the style of the day, he approached the Beatles' tours as "hard news" in an era when journalists willingly kept the salacious secrets of celebrities, and paparazzi weren't running them off the road to get candid pictures. But Kane and Lennon developed a degree of mutual respect and admiration that gives the author unique insight, and opens doors that are closed to most of the rest of us.

Yoko Ono doesn't grant a lot of interviews, and usually they are only about her, so most previous books about Lennon deal primarily with her perceived responsibility for the breakup of the Beatles. For this book, Kane was able to get a rare interview with her about Lennon and their unconventional personal relationship.

There hasn't been much depth to what has been written previously about Lennon's relationship with personal assistant, May Pang, or his first wife, Cynthia. Kane changes that with a detailed examination of those relationships, and how they impacted Lennon's life, personally and professionally.

There is also a revealing look at Lennon's relationship with close friend Stu Sutcliffe, one of the original Beatles, and the lasting effect on Lennon of Sutcliffe's sudden death at the age of 22.

In spite of Kane's unique qualifications to write this book, it didn't come easily. "I was frightened of doing this," he confides in a recorded interview that accompanies the book. "I felt, 'How could I possibly put together a book?' and then I realized ... that the story of John Lennon could be told in the various facets of his life." Thus it is that Lennon Revealed is less a biography than it is a study of the key people and events in Lennon's life, and how they influenced him.

In addition to an interview with the author, the "bonus" DVD that accompanies the book contains film footage of Kane's interview -- seen for the first time in its entirety -- with Lennon and Paul McCartney about the Beatles' launch of their Apple record label, and Lennon's appearance on a telethon at the Philadelphia TV station at which Kane was then a news anchor.

If your budget forces you to be selective about which of the many new Lennon books to buy, I recommend that this one be one of them. As Mark Hudson (of The Hudson Brothers and later Ringo Starr's producer) writes in the book's Foreword, "I only know one thing for sure: I loved John Lennon, and this book makes me love him more."