Por: Carlos E. Larriega
Introduction
In 2021, thanks to Robert Rosen's recommendation, I was able to contact Michael Barbosa Medeiros. He worked as a houseplant doctor for John and Yoko in their apartment in the Dakota building. Then later he was asked to become John's personal assistant. He was in charge of archiving all studio recordings of the Double Fantasy sessions and the songs recorded in Bermuda. John Lennon called him 'Mike Tree' . Some of Michael experiences with John and Yoko can be read in his website 'In John Lennon's Garden. A Portrait of His Last Years' . He wanted to publish a book so people can know about the real John Lennon but Yoko Ono's lawyers managed to prevent the book from being released by putting pressure on the publisher.
The period from 1975 to 1980 in John Lennon's life has always been presented as a dark chapter. We only have the official version, which contradicts what John published in his diaries and what some of his assistants or researchers point out. I had the opportunity to interview Michael in December 2021. He only had to record a greeting message for a virtual Beatle festival organized by todobeatles.com. But he was so kind to talk with me more than two hours about very interesting topics. A little part of this interview was broadcast on the radio edition of Mundo Beatle. And now we decide to publish the rest of the material.
Not long ago a note where Michael clarified inaccuracies in what was published in Elliot Mintz's biography was vetoed by the administrator of a Facebook group specialized in John Lennon. That material is now available on the blog. He has also been involved in some way by David Whelan (author of the book 'Mind Games') in the debate about what happened on December 8, 1980. So it is interesting to know what he wants to tell us about John. So enjoy the chat as I did.
The Interview
CL: It's very good to know that you believe in Astrology. I do. Did you believe in Astrology before you met John and Yoko?
Mike Tree: Yes and no. When I was maybe 20 years old, I met this man who wanted to see my astrological chart, he wanted to show me my horoscope. I had great respect for this man. So I let him ask me the questions and make the horoscope sign.
CL: And you believe in numerology?
MT: Yes, I do. Carlos
CL: I am talking about numerology and astrology, Mike, because you know and you can tell us what John Lennon and Yoko Ono believe. And because almost all their life and their actions depended on what the stars or numbers said.
MT: Yes, numerology and astrology was very important to them. I don't think John Lennon knew anything about astrology before he met Yoko Ono. But he could see that the number nine or the number 18, which is one plus eight equals nine, kept coming up in his life. And then, as I said, I think it was a very important to him. For example, Paul McCartney's birthday was in June 18, number 18. And he met Yoko Ono, I think on February. The Cavern Club as the Beatles appeared as that name - they had been there before, but it was when they called themselves The Quarrymen - it was in a number 18. So John certainly had many intuitions or incidents like these. This number nine or number 18 kept appearing in his life. So he certainly had to be interested. And then Yoko showed him this book by a british astrologer named Cheiro. And then he became even more interested. I think at that point he was hooked.
CL: You got the job with John and Yoko because a person who is an astrologer told you to go to Dakota and talk with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Is that right?
MT: Yes, it is almost right. I met this man at a party in my building at my neighbor's apartment. He said his name was Charlie Swan. He didn't ask for my date of birth, but he said, 'Oh, I think I have a friend who will be interested in your business as a plant doctor, as a plant decorator. And he asked for my phone number. And, and a few weeks later, I got a phone call from him and he said. 'My friend is very interested in meeting you', but he wouldn't tell me the name of his friend. He just said, 'here's the date'. It was, I think , March 13th. And I go to the Dakota and I ask for the apartment number, which was seven two. And I repeated my question, 'who am I going to meet?' . He wouldn't tell me. And I went there and I was very surprised. What's that?
CL: Yeah, you got a surprise when you go to see the person.
MT:
A very, very big surprise. At first, quite honestly, Carlos, I didn't
know who this person was. Because on the front door of the apartment
there is a little brass plaque, which said 'Nutopia' . I was thinking,
'what is this country? Nutopia'. I had never heard of it. And then
finally, this man opened the door. He was holding a baby in his arms.
And he looks like he didn't shave in days. His hair was very long and
crazy. So I didn't know who was, but I kept listening to the british
accent. I thought 'I know this accent'. And then suddenly I wake up and I
think, 'Oh, it's John Lennon'. And I went very crazy after that.
CL: Besides your job taking care of the garden at the Dakota, you were asked by John Lennon and Yoko Ono to be their personal assistant?
MT: Yes. I always thought that my job decorating the plants in the apartment was a test to see if I can be a good personal assistant. And because I was just doing a job, I would meet John Lennon in the morning and I would say, 'hello' and nothing more. Just hello. And I would go and do my plants. And John became very curious. 'Who is this man?' 'He just says hello'. 'He doesn't ask about the Beatles: Who are you in the Beatles?' , 'Why are the Beatles?' . I didn't say anything. And I think he became very curious. And slowly over several months, he began talking to me about everything. But again, I was very polite. I don't suggest any friendship. I was just there doing a job. I was just a contractor doing a job. And finally one day I came into the apartment an then Yoko said, 'John likes you very much. I would like you to become his assistant'
CL: Very good news for you. I'd like to be at the Dakota telling 'Good Morning' to John every day. And the next question could be 'How did you feel when you began to become a friend of John Lennon?
MT: Okay. When Yoko asked me to be John's personal assistant, this might have been in the spring of 1977, I did not give her a direct answer. I didn't say yes. I didn't say no. They had an assistant, a Japanese man who was a photographer for them in Japan named Nishi Saimaru. And I asked Nishi, 'how was this lady Yoko Ono?' I heard many, many things about her that are not very good. And Nishi said he did not like her. And he thought she was a devil. And so this really made me afraid. And so I eventually said to Yoko, 'I am sorry, but I have too much work. I cannot be your assistant'. I didn't tell her what Nishi said because I didn't want to insult her or I didn't want to disclose Nishi's private conversation with me. So also my intuition - and in japanese they call this 'dairokkan', meaning intuition - , my intuition said that if I work for John and Yoko, I'd lose myself. Because their orbit, their personalities are so powerful and so strong that I wouldn't know who I would become. So I eventually said no, which I'm sure was the first time someone said no to Yoko, which didn't make me a friend of hers to start with.
CL: John and Yoko didn't trust the people who worked for them. Then you were so confident that they asked you to be a personal assistant. Do you believe that is the reason?
MT: Yes, I believe that is the reason. But also I don't know this for a fact, but the man that sent me to the Dakota, was Charlie Swan, his real name was John Green. And I found out afterward that John Green was Yoko Ono's tarot card reader. So my understanding was that John Green and Yoko Ono looked at the tarot cards with their questions about me. And they decided that the tarot card said that I would be a good person to work for them. So Yoko must have been very surprised that I said no to her. Probably the first person who ever said no to her.
CL: Astrology and cards told Yoko that you were the right person for being a personal assistant.
MT:
Yes, that is correct. At that time, I didn't have any faith in tarot
cards, or I didn't have any faith in Astrology. Although my past
experience with astrology seemed to be a very accurate description of
me, I still was very mistrusting because all of the things people said
about Yoko. When John Lennon first met Yoko Ono, everybody in England
was not saying very good things about her. The Beatles - George, Paul
and Ringo - were not saying very good things about her. And I believed
this because I believed in their music. So I didn't trust her.
CL: When you were invited to work with them you got a contract that said you must not talk about things that happened at The Dakota?
MT: No, I never had a contract. I never signed a contract. Yoko told me directly in a meeting that I must not talk about them, but I was never asked to sign anything as a part of that agreement.
CL: Do you have an idea if Fred Seaman had an agreement, a contract?
MT: Yes, Fred Seaman started working in the Dakota in april 1980. And yes, he did sign an agreement. I had seen this agreement. It's called a non-disclosure agreement. I did see it. I had seen the printed copy of it from his court records. But when I put up a John Lennon website called Barefoot In Nutopia in 2011, the year 2011, Yoko Ono's lawyers told me that I had signed this agreement. And this was a big surprise to me. It was the first time I heard that I signed an agreement. When I asked the lawyers to send me a copy of this non-disclosure agreement , also called NDA, I looked at it and it looked like my signature, but it was dated November 1, 1979. And I began working for them in february or march of 1977. Also, when I sent them my bills for my work to Yoko's accountant, Milton Strongin , I would always sign them. So she had many, many copies of my signature, which could be forged.
CL: Michael, Why do you think that The Lennon Estate thinks there must not be more books about John and Yoko's life at the Dakota?
MT: I'm really not sure. Certainly, Yoko has a lot of money and very powerful lawyers who specialize in music law. I know that Fred Seaman did publish a book. I think the book was published in 1991. At the time he told me that his signature on a non-disclosure agreement was forged. I didn't see the signature on the agreement until 2001, when he went to court with Yoko. I think another reason that there are no books or many books about them, is because when Yoko challenges or threatens a publisher, they are afraid that she will sue them. However, if you look at the record of books published about John Lennon, all of them have never been challenged, because if she challenges the book, this is good publicity for them, and so she doesn't want to give publicity to these books. I think another reason Yoko does not want these books published or she will try to stop them is because 'John and Yoko in love', 'the two creative geniuses', is really a fake, a fairy tale, a myth, and she doesn't want to change the narrative of her story. She doesn't want to tell the truth story. She only want to tell the fake story of her fairy tale relationship with John. In fact, John was almost a prisoner of love in the Dakota. He was a prisoner to Yoko. He was very lonely, so she doesn't want to tell that story, and I have first-hand information, which she doesn't want to tell.
CL: You had read Fred Seaman´s book ?
MT: Yes, I had read Fred Seaman's book. I think 90% of it is very true. Unfortunately, Fred Seaman, in the months after John Lennon's murder, would have dinner with me, and Fred Seaman would be asking me all these questions about my experiences. Then when I read his book, all my experiences that I told him were his experiences in the book, but they were mine. They were lies. For example, Fred Seaman said that he met the killer, who I will not name. I know this is not true because Fred Seaman did not like any of the fans. He thought they were stupid people, and he didn't want to have anything to do with them. He wouldn't talk to the killer, whereas I did because I met two other fans who I will not name, and I started talking with them. Then the killer came over and started talking to them, and they introduced me to the killer. Another story that Fred said in his book is that he took this call from the security man, Doug McDougal, but that's not true. Fred totally freaked out, lost his heart and was not in the office when many of these calls came in. But I was, and he is saying that these things that I told him happened to him, but they happened to me and not Fred.
Carlos, I want to say something about myself. I understood many years after John was killed that Fred was in competition with me because he was like 20 years old, and I was one year and a half older than John. And because I am a person who likes to be part of the team, I let him have whatever he wanted because he was telling me, 'John wants this or Yoko wants this'. But years after I understood that it was Fred's lie. I never thought I was in competition with Fred. When John was alive, I thought I was a team member, pulling together for John and Yoko. And then when I started writing about my experiences, I realized that everyone was competing for John. But in the end, you know, John liked me because I didn't want to know about the Beatles. And he once told me, 'Fred knows more about the Beatles than I do'. And this really bothered him. And I asked John, 'so why don't you fire him?' . And he said, 'this is my problem that anybody who comes to work for me. I don't know how much they are Beatles fan or they just want a job'. So he kept the same person. But I think there's also another story. And that was that that Fred was really working for Yoko. And that he would report to Yoko whatever John was doing that John didn't want Yoko to know about.
CL: So, Fred Seaman could be a spy for Yoko?
MT: Yes, that's fine. Exactly... Somewhere in the early ... I don't remember the date, maybe late 1979, I got a phone call from John Lennon. And he says, 'where are you? I want to come and see you'. For years before that I used to tell John that I was interested in the banjo. And I was in playing the banjo, but I was also interested in abstract art, abstract painting, which I had a studio with my wife. And so one day when he called, he said, 'where are you?' . He wanted to come over to my studio. And this was a very special moment in my life. To have this great man who I admired from years before. And he came to my studio. Unfortunately, at that time I was no longer married because it would have been a very special moment to have my wife and this man in my studio. He came by, we talked for maybe an hour, a little less than an hour. And he didn't like my paintings, but he honored me and that was very special. Years later, perhaps 20 years later, 2010, I am writing a book about my experiences with John Lennon. And I realized that I may have been the Stuart Sutcliffe that he knew in earlier years. Stuart played an instrument. But Stuart was also a painter. I didn't know anything about this until I read about the John's history. Many years, 20 years after he was killed that I started reading this history. I didn't know anything about it. It didn't mean much to me at the time I worked for him.
CL: A beautiful experience. Stuart Sutcliffe was John Lennon's best friend, John appreciated him very much. So it's good to think that you could be a Stuart Sutcliffe in John Lennon's life.
MT: Yes, this is true, but in my case, I didn't learn about it until 30 years after John was killed. It was then that I started reading about the history of John Lennon. I think the thing that made me wake up was when John said to me, and this is when he was still alive, he asked me, 'Did You ever want to play a musical instrument?' And I said,'yes', I used to play the banjo, the five-string banjo. And he started pushing me, 'oh, you have to do this again. Why don't you, why aren't you doing this now?' . And I said, 'well, it's passed'. And that answer was not good enough for him. He got very angry at me. 'What do you mean it's passed?. I thought you wanted to play it' . And then he said something which I still don't understand. He said, 'Your horoscope says you are supposed to be some kind of musical genius' . It took me almost 40 years before I began to understand what John meant by my very limited understanding of astrology. And that is that apparently I've gotten from other astrologers that I've seen that they say this horoscope, my horoscope, was indicating a person with musical talents. I mean, I could say more, but I'd rather not go into the details of what they said.
We were talking with Mike Tree 'off the record' about our Beatles Online Festival. I told him it would last at least 5 hours. He said it was very long and that we are strong fans. I told him a group of fans saw together online 'The Beatles Get Back' at 3 am. Then he told me some stories about his experiences with The Beatles.
MT: I've been watching The Peter Jackson Get Back on Disney channel. And they are two hours long. Three, two hour long videos. And I love the Beatles but I can't watch for two hours. But I'm going to tell you a little bit about my history. I was in college when The Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan show. And I did not live at home at the time. I was in college. I did not have a television. So I asked my parents, 'Can I come and watch this Ed Sullivan with the Beatles'. I knew my father liked. So he said, 'yes, come'. And my parents were sitting down in the soft chairs watching the television. And I was standing behind them standing up. Watching this. It was very special. They will be the most famous music in the world. And my father said, 'yeah, this just comes and goes'. And I was right. He was wrong... I'm 83 years old now. Then I was very interested in popular music. Elvis Presley came along and everyone in my age were all very excited. And Elvis Presley was once on Ed Sullivan. It didn't interest me. But I liked the music that I heard by the Everly Brothers and by Bill Haley and His Comets. It was american early, very early late 50s, 1950s rock and roll. And these two groups I liked very much. And when I heard the Beatles to my ear they sounded like Bill Haley and His Comets. And especially The Everly Brothers. I was never very interested in words. You know, the poems that are sang with the music. But it was the music that caught my ear very much. I was always a lover of Jazz. And I was only like 15, 16 years old. And when one of the Everly brothers died, I think it was Don Everly, Paul McCartney posted on his Facebook That he and John Lennon were trying to reproduce the harmonies of the Everly brothers. And this was many years after John was killed. So it confirmed what I heard in my ears and what I heard in my heart.
CL: You like Everly Brothers. I like very much Buddy Holly.
MT: As well, yes, as well Carlos. Buddy Holly, yes, I should have said that. Buddy Holly was the first that I heard that I absolutely love. I loved it because of the tonalities of the recording and the fact that there were only three musicians making this sound. And that also attracted me to the Beatles. There were only four people making this sound. The Everly brothers, they had, I think, four people. The brothers, a drum and a bass. But when you can make this kind of sound with only a few instruments, this to my ears was very special.
CL: So, besides rock and roll you could hear another music like Jazz?
MT: Yes, I grew up in a neighborhood in Manhattan, which had many, many black people, African Americans. And I was invited to their parties. And in their parties they were not playing popular music. They were playing Jazz. And this went very deep into my heart. I loved this music. I still do.
CL: When you were with John Lennon y Yoko Ono in 1980, they were working in Double Fantasy. And you could hear the music, the record. And as a personal assistant, you were asking to work with the recordings.
MT: Yes. When I was in Bermuda, it was the first time I learned that John was going to go into the studio. He played me some demos that he had recorded in Bermuda. And I think I remember hearing Starting Over. I don't remember what else. But he played these recordings. And I was very excited. And I asked John if I could be an assistant in the recording studio. And he said, 'I will ask mother', which was his name for Yoko. My father used to say the same thing. When he referred to his wife, my mother, he said mother. So it was not uncommon when John said the same. And John said, 'I will ask mother'. When he came back to New York in the early August 1980 I found out that I was not going to be given a job in the recording studio. But I would be the person to keep track of all the recordings. I was going to be the archivist. And I went to the studio on two occasions. And John was very welcoming to me. But I could see that Yoko wasn't very happy about that. Maybe she knew something I didn't about his affections for Stuart. And after those two occasions I was never invited back to the studio. But as a reward I would hear all the material. In the evening's work I would go to the studio after they were done. I would collect all of the tapes, the mix tapes. What they call two tracks. And I would file this in the archive in my special office at the Dakota... When the record finally came out. I looked at the record credits on the album and my name was not mentioned as a production assistant. And this really broke my heart. Because I wanted to be on the record attached. Historically attached to the work of John and Yoko on Double Fantasy. But I wasn't there. And when I asked Yoko why I wasn't there, it was probably the first time I was like confrontational with her. She said. 'Well, you were paid to do. To be the archivist'. And I said, 'But Fred was paid and he got his name there'
CL: George Harrison liked very much gardening. So I think you'd like to work with him too.
MT: Yes. I didn't know about this until many years after John was was killed.
Next topics again 'off the record' were Earthquakes, Mexico, Beatles Festivals, Donald Trump, John Lennon talking about Vietnam, Richard Nixon, Elliot Mintz. Now we continue with more interesting questions:
CL: Producer Jack Douglas told he believed Fred Seaman when he said John Lennon gave him some things as gifts. But he said Seaman's mistake was he didn't have a document with Lennon's sign that proved that. Do you believe that?
MT: I don't believe that, I don't believe that John told Fred Seaman to give his diaries to Julian after he was dead. Fred Seaman also gave Julian John's acoustic guitar, the one with the dragon on the top. Uh, it was made by Yamaha. I think Fred Seaman has proved himself to be a liar. Which is why he got into many legal difficulties with Yoko. But of course, then the other side is, when John gave me his banjo, he didn't say, you you must sign this paper. And so Yoko accused me of stealing it, because when someone gives you a gift, whether it be John Lennon or your best friend, you don't say, you don't insult them by saying, you must sign here that this is mine.
CL: That is because nobody knows who or how is Yoko
MT: OK. I agree Carlos. But I, I think that Fred hated Yoko because he saw what she was doing to John and Fred loves John like I love John. But yes, I think Fred lied about many of these things. And I can only say that because when he tells in his book about different things that happened to him, they were really my stories and he says now they are his... He stole your stories. So, when he tells the story about John saying, 'give the diaries to Julian' blah, blah, blah, I can no longer believe him.
CL: In Mundo Beatle we are grateful to hear information about the John Lennon privacy. You had shared very important and interesting information in this interview. I am grateful for that.
MT: Thank you, Carlos. I'm grateful for the interview. I am very shy man. And I think John was as well. So I don't like doing interviews. But I want to tell the real story about John Lennon. He was the most unusual person because he was very rich. He was very famous, but he never treated bad anybody. Everyone was the same as him. I saw this many times when we were walking around in the neighborhood of the Dakota. He just treated everybody like they are the same as he is, just talking. And when they asked him for an autograph, he always said yes. When they did not ask him for autograph he would just say 'Hello. How are you?. It's so nice to see you. Thank you for your greetings', but never in a voice that looks like, 'I am special. I am John Lennon' . But just, 'we are just talking here, just two people talking'. And to my heart, that's what made him very special. One time we were walking down 72nd Street, going to his favorite restaurant, La Fortuna, which was about two blocks away. We were walking towards the avenue and this man walking towards us. He recognized it was John Lennon. And you could see by this man's face that he was very excited. And, as we were seeing this man's face, John starts pointing at me and he starts saying, 'Oh, it's John Lennon. It's John Lennon'. And I think that capsulates the man. He (John) was saying this because when I started working for him, I was wearing metal frame glasses. Not very much like his famous metal frame glasses. And then when I knew I had the job, I immediately changed to plastic frames. So I wouldn't look like him. I didn't want it. Maybe a year later, he changed to plastic frame glasses. And so I changed to metal frame glasses. And this provoked this comment about, 'Oh, it's John Lennon. It's John Lennon'. And he was pointing at me. And this man wasn't befuddled. He knew who was the real John Lennon. And he just walked by and he said, 'Love your music'. He didn't ask an autograph, didn't ask to shake his hand. Just kept walking. And that was the loving, that was the John Lennon that I loved that. He had his attitude of, 'I'm not special. I'm just one of you'. And he did the same when I heard the recordings from the studio, he did the same thing. He was listening to musicians playing studio musicians , who knew how to read music, who knew all the chords on their instruments. And John was like so impressed by their efforts. He couldn't do this. He was very impressed by what they can do. But he was the famous musician. And then, during the piano parts of Double Fantasy, he would stand around the piano. The player was George Small. And he was so impressed by what George Small could do on the piano that he couldn't do, but he was John Lennon. He was more famous than any of these. But in his mind, he was less than they were. And that moved me very deeply. In one of the studio sessions I attended, they did something, and John came out and it was supposed to be a something like, 'Bill Monroe, if you know his music, he was a bluegrass mandolin player'. And when John came out in the recording room, I said, 'John, that's not Bill Monroe? . He did it this way. And, and John in his usual self said, well, 'why didn't you tell me?' . How do you tell the great John Lennon? . And then another time when I was listening to the tracks that I had in the archive, it was a "Starting Over". And he said, 'well, what do you think of it?' . And I said, 'John, I think it's overproduced'. And he said, 'well, why didn't you tell me?' . I mean, he was humble enough to ask somebody else's opinion. And again, that only made be me more in love with John Lennon. After his death, Yoko started working Milk and Honey. And offered my opinion, unasked for opinion. And, Yoko got very angry. But I mistakenly thought it would be as with John Lennon.
CL: Michael, you told John Lennon that commentary because John didn't like how his voice sounded and he then used double tracking.
MT: Yes, Milk and Honey were tracks left over from Double Fantasy, which were recorded by Jack Douglas and the engineer Lee DeCarlo. Yoko and Jack Douglass were having a great deal of dispute, legal disputes about money and the bad contracts. And Yoko was trying to change all of Jack Douglas's mixes that he worked on with John. And when I heard them, I volunteered to Yoko that this is not very good. I didn't mention Jack Douglas. I didn't mention John. I just said, Yoko, this doesn't sound very good. And she was very angry and insulted me. And I made that assumption because John had asked me about his work. And I thought naively that I could say the same to Yoko, but I couldn't.
CL: Mike, what is your opinion about Double Fantasy Stripped Down? . You hear that album?
MT: Oh yes, I had heard some of it, not very much. I have mixed feelings. I think Yoko played around with it too much which destroyed the original sound. That's my opinion. Again, because she was having these contract disputes with Jack Douglas, if she'd use the original sound then she had to pay Jack Douglas and Yoko didn't want to lose a penny. So, she had to play with them and the material was not as good as the originals. You've heard some of the original sound. I sent you this wonderful stuff. It's not Yoko Ono.
CL: Yes, it´s a wonderful material. When we heard John Lennon albums before 1975, Yoko only appeared as a singer in Some Time In New York City. And then she came back to sing in the same record with John in Double Fantasy. Do you think it was better for John Lennon to record an album alone, without Yoko's presence?
MT: Yes, I do. In Sometime In New York City, John was trying to be very supportive of Yoko and I like some of that stuff very much, but Yoko couldn't sing. Yoko could not keep the pitch, the tune. And, when it came to Double Fantasy, Jack Douglas worked overtime to make her sound very good. And, and her payback was to refuse to pay him, which I just think is nasty, very hateful business. Jack would use recording equipment that would slow down or speed up her voice so that it was on pitch. But if you left Yoko to herself, she could not sing on pitch. And, in my personal opinion I think that's why she resorted to her screeching, which initially I embraced, I thought was magnificent. It was very original. But as I began to understand its origins I didn't like it.
CL: You heard the version of I'm Losing You that John Lennon recorded with Cheap Trick? What is your opinion about this version. You prefer this version or the version without Cheap Trick?
MT: Actually, I like both versions, but Yoko would not allow the Cheap Trick version. I thought it was very creative. Jack Douglas wanted it, but Yoko said no. So it was no. It didn't come out as a commercial release. It's only on Bootlegs. I think Yoko felt that Jack Douglas was favoring John's recordings over her own. So she had to attack. And so she canceled the Cheap Trick version. That Cheap Trick version was very special. John liked it. And that was enough for Yoko to say no. In fact, Jack Douglas told me that when Yoko gave him John's Bermuda recordings, she also gave Jack her own recordings, which I recorded in the Dakota. And she told Jack, 'This is a secret. Don´t tell John. And when John finally found out, he was very upset. He wanted to make a record just by himself.
CL: Michael, it was great to be here talking with you. There are so many topics and I hope we can have another interview soon.
MT: Carlos, It's a pleasure to be here to talk with you. I had listened your radio station and I like its music very much especially because you don't play the most common tracks and you share the little stories of the recordings which I really like.
CL: You have many interesting things to talk about John Lennon. I hope someday you can publish your book. It is necessary for us to have your vision of John Lennon. I hope you can do it and I'm happy that you could interviewed soon for a Lennon TV Series ['John Lennon Murder Without A Trial']
MT: Carlos, I've said many times thank you so much for your translation of the website and now it can be viewed on the smarthone and the tablet, so everyone can read it in english and spanish on whatever device they want.
CL: I hope you can publish more stories. As always they would be available in spanish so people can have the information about John Lennon.
MT: Yes, I hope so too. I think the next time is going to be a book and the publisher will make sure the translation is available in many languages. Some friends had said, 'Oh you want to be famous' . No, I don't want to be famous but i want the world to know about this special person who was John Lennon.
CL: OK Mike, a big hug for you from your friends in Lima, Perú. I'm going to send you the link so you can see our event on friday. Thank you very much for being here sharing your stories with Mundo Beatle listeners.
MT: Thank you so much. I enjoyed this chat. Good Bye.
Michael shared with the fans who were in our online event called 'Get Back: Trues and Myths' an audio that we edited with videos from the special Lennon 80. Here it is:
Mike Tree Webpage: https://www.imaginejohnlennon.net
In the interview Michael Tree talked about Elliot Mintz. All he said about him was published in our blog and you can read it in the following link:
https://mundobeatle2019.blogspot.com/2024/12/elliot-mintz-and-his-book-we-all-shine.html
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