Section:GDN 12 PaGe:11 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 17:07 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
The Guardian
Thursday 8 August 2019 11
I took this shot of Yoko Ono 14 years ago, in
2005 at Patti Smith’s Meltdown , the London
festival curated by a diff erent musical icon
each year. I’ve always been fascinated
by Yoko Ono because of the mythos that
surrounds her. She’s often referred to as the
woman who split up the Beatles, but there’s
so much more to her than that.
When I saw her on the lineup I was
surprised – she seemed an odd choice. But she
is indisputably one of the strongest women
in the music industry , she has such a unique
sound. When I saw her name, I had to go.
That festival was one of the best Meltdowns
there has ever been, and Ono’s performance
was electrifying. I was perched right in front of
centre stage and the anticipation was palpable.
The audience was full of diff erent people:
lifelong fans, Beatles obsessives, a newer avant
garde crowd and a load of celebrities too. As we
waited I felt like I was in church – the reverence
the crowd had for her was overwhelming.
The lights went down and a short fi lm was
projected on to a silk screen hanging across the
stage. It was transfi xing. In one scene, a person
walks towards the camera, getting closer and
closer, and then at a certain point, the fi gure
in the fi lm became real, on stage, in front of
us. Yoko had a slit made in the screen which
she came through at the very moment that
the fi gure in the projection was the right size,
so it looked like art made life. Everyone was
completely taken aback.
At the time, she was still interested in
bagism – a practice she and Lennon engaged
in as a way to de individualise speakers
and emphasise their message by wearing a
nondescript bag over their heads. So she came
out with this black silk bag obscuring her
vision, and walked straight into the mic
stand. It didn’t ruin anything though. The
crowd were in raptures.
In a split second when I managed to take
my eyes off her, I realised that Sean Lennon,her and John’s son, was standing in the
background bathed in red light. It was utterly
spooky. He was the absolute spit of his father,
wearing the same glasses with long hair – it
was like a vision on stage.
I was so transfi xed that I almost missed this
shot. Only when I took my eyes off Sean did
I see Yoko directly above me, leaning over the
stage with the power
and energy you can see
in the photo. I had one
chance, and I managed
to get the shot.
The photo made
an impact: it was the
photograph that got
me working with
the Rock Archives ,
countless people have
messaged me about
it, and I believe Yoko
herself bought a copy.
But it’s funny, because
I don’t necessarily rate
it as one of my best. I
think that’s a quirk of
photographers: the
work they really rate
isn’t often the one that
resonates with people
the most.
But I think the
image speaks to her
power. At the time ,
she was around 71,
and she’s small. But
she should never be
underestimated: when
she speaks, people listen. When she performs,
people watch. You can feel her presence.
I think it’s what makes her such an icon.
Interview by Edward Siddons. Nile Rodgers’
Meltdow n fest ival i s at the Southbank Ce nt re,
London, until Sunday.Yoko Ono by Mark Mawston
My best shot
‘She came on stage with a black silk bag over her
head and walked straight into the mic stand. But it
didn’t ruin anything – the crowd were in raptures’
is a common reaction. She is not
angry: to allow herself that emotion
would be an acknowledgement
of weakness. All Kay’s birth
father ever gave her, beyond the
moment of conception, was that
one unsatisfactory encounter in
Nigeria. But through storytelling,
that moment of pain has become a
crucial and brilliant scene. It feels
like a rebalancing of power.
“I think that’s right,” she says.
“I didn’t think of it as revenge. In a
deeper way I am taking something
from him. To write about somebody
without their complete permission
is perhaps like some people believe
of photographs: taking a little bit
of their soul. I agonised about the
ethical challenges. But I think I have
a right to tell my own story.”
S ince 2016, Kay has
been Scotland’s makar , a position
akin to poet laureate. “It’s a fantastic
gift ,” she says. “It gives me a
chance to record our history at this
hugely important time politically.”
Her tenure will end in 2021. The
appointment is made by the Scottish
government and Kay intends to
argue that her successor should be
paid £30,000 annually, in line with
that of Ireland’s professor of poetry.
“I think it’s really scandalous to pay
your national poet fi ve grand.” This
isn’t a personal complaint about
what she earns, she wants to make
clear. She feels honoured to have
the role. But it can be demanding
and ought, she feels, to be properly
remunerated.
In a recent poem to mark the
20th anniversary of the Scottish
parliament, Kay wrote, “I used to
feel a foreigner in my own land / I
used to not feel at home.” Growing
up in Bishopbriggs, on the edge of
Glasgow, she experienced racist
abuse, verbal and physical, and felt
she had to leave Scotland for London
and then Manchester (where she
and long-term partner Denise both
have their homes) in order to gain
confi dence and opportunities.
She feels the country still has
a long way to go. “Even though
there’s a massive amount of people
of colour now living in Scotland,”
she says, “this country is 30 or 40
years behind any other English
city in terms of racial attitudes
and integration. There’s no proper
acknowledgement of the slave trade
and how many Scottish cities were
founded on money from that. Our
children are just not taught that
history.”
For the last four years or so she
has spent most of her time back in
Bishopbriggs – in the same house she
was brought to as a fi ve-month-old,
looking after her parents during the
day and writing deep into the night.
Red Dust Road is a love letter to John
and Helen Kay: communist activists,
world travellers, jokers, free spirits,
singers of jazz and protest songs.
In their daughter’s work, they are
heroic, almost mythic fi gures (“I’m
in awe of them still”) and she feels a
duty to record their lives.
Helen is 88. She has been in
hospital for the last few weeks. John
is too frail to visit, so Jackie conveys
videos and love letters back and
forth. She shows me, on her phone,
the act or Elaine C Smith, who plays
Helen in Red Dust Road, visiting her
in hospital, the pair of them singing
Pete Seeger’s If I Had a Hammer
and Cole Porter’s Brush Up Your
Shakespeare, two classics from the
Kay family repertoire. Smith has
known the Kays for years; John used
to be on the board of Wildcat, the
popular political theatre company of
which she was a part.
Was writing Red Dust Road, in
part, a way of making her parents
immortal? “Yes, it’s a way of not
letting go. That’s probably why I’m
fi nding the rehearsals so diffi cult.”
On the page, her mother and father
are fi xed and vivid in their vitality; in
real life, that can never be so. She has
become the parent. Her dad, tucking
her in at night, would say, “Courie
in, courie in” – courie being a Scots
word for snuggle. Now she says the
same “and I kiss his wee papery
forehead”. They all adore each other.
“I owe them my life.” They chose her
and now she chooses to care for them.
Recently, visiting the home where
John and Helen might both live,
Jackie had a conversation with a
nurse. She had not yet met the
Kays but, seeing their daughter,
assumed that they were a black
man and white woman. “Aw,” the
nurse said, “I thought I was going
to get my fi rst mixed-race couple.”
Well used to people making
assumptions about her background,
Jackie explained that, no, her
mum and dad are white and she
was adopted. Then she went back
and told her parents. They, in their
generous way, saw the humour in it.
“You should have told her we
are a mixed-race couple,” John
laughed. “I’m from Glasgow and
she’s from Fife!”
Red Dust Road is at the Royal Lyceum,
Edinburgh, 14-18 August then on tour,
concluding at H ome, Manchester,
September 11-21.‘Did you ever
think of me in all
those years?’ she
asked her birth
father in Nigeria.
‘No, of course
not,’ he replied
The CV
Born: Newcastle
upon Tyne, 1966.
Training: None.
Infl uences: ‘ Annie
Leibovitz, William
Claxton , Mick Rock,
Linda McCartney .’
High point: ‘Giving
a talk at the British
Music Experience.’
Low point: ‘Meeting
an out-of-sorts
Sean Connery.’
Top tip: ‘Do what
you’re not supposed
to and enjoy every
moment.’РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS