Happy 80th birthday to Yoko Ono! Here is an encore presentation of my 2008 interview with her

Yoko Ono is marking her 80th birthday today by performing in Berlin.

Nice to see that she is still going strong.

I got the chance to interview Yoko back in 2008 when I was a columnist for the LA Daily News.

Here is that interview in its entirety:

I admit it, the prospect of calling up Yoko Ono at her home at the famed Dakota apartment building in New York City made me a little nervous. She’s such an iconic figure and her marriage to the late John Lennon is one of the great love stories of all time. But once we began to chat, I was surprised at how friendly and candid she was.

“Every day, I’m thankful that I’m still alive,” Yoko said. “Every morning, I wake up and I see that I have about 20 different things you have to do and I keep doing it. One is artwork and music as well, and the business, and John’s work. it’s totally packed.”

It’s John’s artwork that Yoko wanted to talk about most since more than 100 pieces of it will be on display on Friday and Saturday at the new Neiman Marcus store inside the Westfield Topanga Mall in Canoga Park.

“I’m proud of every work that’s there,” she said. “I hand-picked them for good reason. They had to be artistically good and reflect his spirit. All I was thinking was, ‘OK, I want to do John’s art, I better do it because it’s there and John would have wanted me to do
it.”

“The Art of John Lennon” has been touring for about 15 years now and Yoko thinks she knows why it has had such staying power: “He was just being himself and himself was a guy who had an incredible sense of humor. It wasn’t about trying not trying to impress critics, he was just having fun doing it and it shows. People who see his work, the first thing they do is smile or laugh. There’s a warmth to his work. At a gallery, usually you see work that is very serious, there’s a lack of a sense of humor in art world.”

It’s pretty amazing to think that a few decades ago, the exhibit of John’s art was a bit of a tough sell.

“In the beginning it was a hard job to try and put it in different shows,” Yoko said. “People thought, ‘He’s so famous, it’s a musician dabbling.’ In the beginning it was sporadic. Now it’s a very popular program. The people started to notice it’s a good show and he’s a good artist and it took off very well. I’m so glad.”

Ironically, it was at an art gallery where the couple first met. “At the time I thought I’m an artist and he’s a musician. I didn’t know that he was an art student first. Meeting me in that environment, I think that kind of stimulated him, awakened that side of him. It was pretty interesting to watch. He was so good. I said, ‘You are too good to not be doing it.”

Her husband has been gone for nearly 28 years now and at 75 years old, Yoko is amazingly youthful. I wondered what the secret was.

“I have no idea, I’m just very lucky,” she said. “I think it has a lot to do with the way I think about things. There was a time when I was really feeling bad, the fact that John passed away. But I thought, ‘I have to not drown in this. I’m a mother. I think I have
to stay alive for Sean.”

And how is her and John’s son, musician Sean Lennon, doing these days?

“Sean is very well,” she said. “At one time he wasn’t, he was feeling so bad about the fact that his father is so big and it was difficult for him. But now he’s got his own gig and he’s happy about it.”