On John Lennon, Paul McCartney, & Research Rigor
- Solo Beatles Studios
- Apr 7
- 4 min read
Yesterday I posted a photo on social media of John Lennon in his home demo studio as part of my new Kenwood page. The photo set off a lively debate about a curious detail: a photo of John & Paul taken by photographer David Bailey in 1965 affixed to the side of a speaker. There are those that are convinced that the 1967 imagine is doctored and the photo of John and Paul was never in John's studio. As I had (and have) no evidence to suggest that this photo was doctored I posted it as-is with no caveat.
I want to be clear, I'm not saying I'm 100% sure that this image has not been doctored. To me, the photo of John and Paul within the photo looks downright strange. It doesn't seem to have the same saturation, contrast, grain, etc... as the rest of the image. In short, it kind of looks edited in. What I am saying is that so far I can find no evidence to suggest that the photo of John & Paul has been edited in. In fact, I have found plenty of evidence to suggest that it is not, which is why at this point I would have no reason to declare it fake.
And I think that that is THE important point to make. When researching history, personal feelings and guesses are not a sufficient reason to declare something definitively true or false. It is imperative that even I, a lowly internet researcher/amateur historian, apply that kind of minimum standard of rigor to the work that I do.
And that is not to say that there is no room for some speculation/analysis where history is concerned. As an amateur historian on my own website I give myself that privilege. But it always comes with two very important conditions; one is that it is based on a thoughtful and diligent investigation of every possible pieces of evidence that I can find, and the second is that it is explicitly indicated as that, speculation.
I will now dismount my soapbox and we can delve into some actual analysis of the photo in question! Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
For reference, these are the photos I posted:
And here are the full images which I had to crop to fit Instagram's size requirements):
Here is the 1965 David Bailey photo:
Here is what we know for sure.
-The photo of John was taken on 29 June 1967 by photographer Leslie Bryce. Bryce was at Kenwood with Beatles Monthly/Beat Instrumental editor Sean O’Mahony (alias Johnny Dean). They were at Kenwood to gather content for a series of stories that appeared throughout the rest of the summer of 1967 in Beatles Monthly about John's home life, and a story called "John's Music Room" that appeared in the October 1967 issue of Beat Instrumental.
-As far as I can find, the 1967 photo in question was not published in the '60s. The earliest publication I can find is when it finally appeared in the August 1988 edition (No. 148) of Beatles Monthly with the caption "A more serious shot of John at work in his home recording studio. Note the only photograph on the wall - which shows John & Paul!" (emphasis mine).
-In 1988 Beatles Monthly was still being published by Sean O’Mahony, the man that was there at Kenwood with Leslie Bryce on 29 June 1967 when the photo was taken.
-One contention I've heard from people is that one of the reasons they believe the 1967 photo to be doctored is that in other photos of the room the speaker is oriented differently, which is indeed true:
So, what does all this mean? I'll break it down.
If the photo was doctored, the following would have to be true:
In or prior to 1988 the photo was doctored with the turned speaker and the John & Paul photo and a contact sheet print made (see the larger uncropped version with Beatles Book Photo Library watermark).
They would have needed to have an image of the speaker from a completely different angle to make the edit.
Sean O’Mahony would have either have had to have been the one that had the doctoring done, or at least been aware of it, and then made up the caption about the 1965 photo being there.
That doctored image was then cropped for Beatles Monthly, the made-up caption was overlaid on top, and the image published.
Another reason that people suggest the photo was doctored is that they think it would have been out of character for the unsentimental John to have a photo of Paul on his wall.
But there are many examples of John's sentimentality towards his bandmates, like this November 1968 photo of Yoko and John at Queen Charlotte's hospital in which John had adorned the wall with portraits of Ringo, George, and Paul.
The much simpler explanation to the whole situation is that John really did have the David Bailey photo on the side of the speaker and that the speaker was able to rotate on its mount.
Does any of this prove that the photo was not doctored? Absolutely not. But so far the only evidence I can find to suggest it was doctored was that it "looks weird", which is to say no real evidence at all.
I have no dog in the fight as to whether or not the photo was edited or not. Its just that as of right now I see no reason to think that it's not real. Ultimately, the only thing that matters, the only thing I'm pursuing with this whole website, is what is actually true. So, if there is real evidence that the 1967 photo was doctored I would be excited to see it. Feel free to send it to me at solobeatlesstudios@gmail.com.
What do you think? Drop a comment below or on social media.
-Alex