in May 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono
took to a bed in a Montreal hotel to
promote the message of peace
Jerry dieter was the only
photojournalist to document the entire
event hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re finally
getting a look at the photos from this
iconic moment in rock history rooms at
the time we were laughed at and put down
in a major way by the whole world now
all of us are standing at the threshold
in a great new era it’s not in our hands
yet but we know we will make it happen
let’s make the best of it and have fun I
think John would have been very pleased
too so first can you tell us about the
book give peace a chance
the book was aiming to do two things and
one is to establish Jerry dieter as one
of the great sixties photographers which
he was and the second is to support
Yoko’s work and to rekindle a concept of
give peace a chance would you be able to
paint us a picture of what the beddin
was like the bad end was an inspiration
that John and Yoko had they did a dry
run of it in Amsterdam following their
marriage and if you look at the pictures
from Amsterdam they look kind of stiff
and they’re sort of you know sitting
around like that but by the time the
next couple of months had passed they
wanted to do it in the United States but
weren’t allowed to because Lenin had a
marijuana possession charge against him
and the government at the time made sure
that it was very very difficult for them
to get anywhere near the states so they
went to the Bahamas for one night and it
was so hot they said forget it they then
went from the Bahamas to Toronto stayed
overnight there and then came to
Montreal checked in very late on the
evening of May the 26th and went into
room 17 42 and who attended the beddin
well people like you you know if you
were back there you know 40 years ago
you’d have been saying my god I’ve got
to be there you know so there were young
people older people people who snuck in
people who tried to use the occasion to
sell their own ideas to John and he
would stop them right away
now these photos were taken of obviously
an iconic event in history why is it
just now that we’re seeing them they
never ran in Life magazine Jerry was
assigned by life he was only supposed to
go there for a couple of hours but once
he got there he realized this was an
astonishing experience when he sent the
negatives and slides to Life magazine
they were returned immediately sorry
you’re not going to use them there’s
more important things to talk about and
he had had this big transformation from
being essentially a high-flying fashion
photographer you know dating the
supermodels his life was forever changed
and he hid the photographs away in his
boat for 35 years he did a small
exhibition in 2004 and in 2005 he died
but the amazing thing about these
photographs is that if they had run back
in 1969 those negatives would now be
buried in a basement somewhere purchased
by some corporate entity and some huge
amalgamation and you know they would be
lost what is the significance and what
is different about theatres photos than
other photos we may have seen of the
event first of all he was there the
entire time
it’s a photo journalistic document
secondly he said about to show the love
between them and I was very fortunate
that Yoko
saw the basic collection but people who
took it down to her from the Montreal
Museum of Fine Art I have to thank
Natalie bond deal for doing that she
reported back to me that Yoko became
very misty eyed and said oh you can see
the love in the pictures John and Yoko
say you know we were two artists with
two big egos but we were able to put
that aside and we were able to use our
love to do something big something
greater than the sum of our parts
took to a bed in a Montreal hotel to
promote the message of peace
Jerry dieter was the only
photojournalist to document the entire
event hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re finally
getting a look at the photos from this
iconic moment in rock history rooms at
the time we were laughed at and put down
in a major way by the whole world now
all of us are standing at the threshold
in a great new era it’s not in our hands
yet but we know we will make it happen
let’s make the best of it and have fun I
think John would have been very pleased
too so first can you tell us about the
book give peace a chance
the book was aiming to do two things and
one is to establish Jerry dieter as one
of the great sixties photographers which
he was and the second is to support
Yoko’s work and to rekindle a concept of
give peace a chance would you be able to
paint us a picture of what the beddin
was like the bad end was an inspiration
that John and Yoko had they did a dry
run of it in Amsterdam following their
marriage and if you look at the pictures
from Amsterdam they look kind of stiff
and they’re sort of you know sitting
around like that but by the time the
next couple of months had passed they
wanted to do it in the United States but
weren’t allowed to because Lenin had a
marijuana possession charge against him
and the government at the time made sure
that it was very very difficult for them
to get anywhere near the states so they
went to the Bahamas for one night and it
was so hot they said forget it they then
went from the Bahamas to Toronto stayed
overnight there and then came to
Montreal checked in very late on the
evening of May the 26th and went into
room 17 42 and who attended the beddin
well people like you you know if you
were back there you know 40 years ago
you’d have been saying my god I’ve got
to be there you know so there were young
people older people people who snuck in
people who tried to use the occasion to
sell their own ideas to John and he
would stop them right away
now these photos were taken of obviously
an iconic event in history why is it
just now that we’re seeing them they
never ran in Life magazine Jerry was
assigned by life he was only supposed to
go there for a couple of hours but once
he got there he realized this was an
astonishing experience when he sent the
negatives and slides to Life magazine
they were returned immediately sorry
you’re not going to use them there’s
more important things to talk about and
he had had this big transformation from
being essentially a high-flying fashion
photographer you know dating the
supermodels his life was forever changed
and he hid the photographs away in his
boat for 35 years he did a small
exhibition in 2004 and in 2005 he died
but the amazing thing about these
photographs is that if they had run back
in 1969 those negatives would now be
buried in a basement somewhere purchased
by some corporate entity and some huge
amalgamation and you know they would be
lost what is the significance and what
is different about theatres photos than
other photos we may have seen of the
event first of all he was there the
entire time
it’s a photo journalistic document
secondly he said about to show the love
between them and I was very fortunate
that Yoko
saw the basic collection but people who
took it down to her from the Montreal
Museum of Fine Art I have to thank
Natalie bond deal for doing that she
reported back to me that Yoko became
very misty eyed and said oh you can see
the love in the pictures John and Yoko
say you know we were two artists with
two big egos but we were able to put
that aside and we were able to use our
love to do something big something
greater than the sum of our parts
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