[N.B. Ninety-five percent of this review is sourced directly from the book. The other 5% is sourced from two or three other authoritative books about the Beatles, which were necessary for one or two explications in the review.]
I cannot think of any woman in any profession -- from the arts to sciences, from politics to religion, and beyond -- more vilified, dismissed, denigrated, demeaned, and even outright hated than Yoko Ono. Sadly, all of this is the result of a toxic brew of ignorance (general, musical, historical, artistic) and racism. It is also borne of myths (and sometimes outright lies) that still remain remarkably broad-based despite an overwhelming body of facts and evidence to the contrary -- even when that evidence is provided by those to whom the myths and/or lies are ascribed. I have heard everything from "she broke up the Beatles" (a tick-like persistent myth) to "she can't sing worth a damn," to "she had no influence or particular fame in the art world" to "she was only ever famous because she married John." All of this, coming mostly from people who have no particularly deep knowledge of either music (beyond pop/rock) or art (at all), particularly vis-à-vis history, and even less knowledge of Yoko and her own life story.
Certainly, people have a right to like and listen to what they want, and to most Western (read American) ears, dissonance of any sort can be difficult, if not off-putting. So what has often been called Yoko's "caterwauling" vocals can be jarring to the Western ear, particularly when you are not a musician trained in theory and history and/or have little or no background in either -- particularly the various avant-garde music movements, primarily of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. For example, pick 50 random people on the street and I would bet a dollar to a dime that 49 of them have never heard of either 12-tone music or Arnold Schoenberg. Or John Cage. Or Edgar Varese. And names like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and Arvo Part would simply make them laugh.
That said, some of the modern composers who were aware of Yoko's vocalizations (even prior to her meeting John), recognized them as more than just "caterwauling" or "screaming," and understood them in the context of modern and avant-garde music include John Cage (with whom she worked several times), Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Arvo Part, and Brian Eno. Even Igor Stravinsky and Krzysztof Penderecki were aware of and appreciated the chance she was taking in bringing aleatoric (chance) elements to her vocalizing. And John came to understand this fairly early on as well (though it took the other Beatles much longer).
By the time she was recording albums with John (and then solo) some of the popular music artists who saw her as an inspiration, influence and/or a pioneer -- many of whom collaborated with her and/or covered songs from her albums -- include Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (both of whom recognized the importance of what she was doing long before any other "pop/rock" music artists), Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, Lady Gaga, RZA and Wu-Tang Clan, Kate Pierson and the B-52s (the background vocals in "Rock Lobster" are essentially what Yoko had been doing for years), David Byrne and Talking Heads, Lene Lovich, Ringo Starr, David Bowie, Elton John, Madonna, Roberta Flack, Harry Nilsson, Elvis Costello, Rosanna Cash, Cyndi Lauper, Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, The Melvins, Mike D and the Beastie Boys, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Courtney Love, Redd Kross, Eric Clapton, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman, Paul Simon, Peaches, Michael Stipe, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Savages, Boy George, Pussy Riot, Siouxsie Sioux, Marianne Faithful, Questlove, Death Cab for Cutie, Flaming Lips, US Girls, Sudan Archives, Japanese Breakfast, and Yo La Tengo. And that is not even an exhaustive list.
Even Paul McCartney -- after "getting over himself" (post-Beatles) and his concerns about having Yoko in the studio, and actually listening to and learning about what Yoko had been doing, by that time for decades -- came around. In a 2013 interview in Rolling Stone -- when asked about Yoko vis-à-vis both her music and her art -- his simple two-word answer was "She's badass!" McCartney, who had been a fan of modern composers (particularly John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen) since 1967, finally realized that what Yoko had been doing vocally was beyond even the Beatles' knowledge and understanding of music theory, music history, and the avant-garde movements she was either contributing to or helping to pioneer.
The average person has even less knowledge or understanding of the many avant-garde art movements, primarily of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, ranging from non-art to interactive art, from Dada to Primitivism, and from Imagism and Minimal Art to Fluxus and beyond.
Some of the artists who recognized the importance of Yoko's work -- and, again, some of whom considered her a pioneer in some of those avant-garde art movements, and many of whom either collaborated with her or participated in shared exhibitions -- include Victor Vaserely, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Louise Nevelson, Keith Haring, Frank Stella, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, Kenny Scharf, Ai Weiwei, Guerilla Girls, and Laura Bates. This, too, is far from an exhaustive list. It should also be noted that Yoko is listed among the 100 most important modern artists by Contemporary Art Magazine, in a grouping that includes Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, Marcel Duchamp, David Hockney, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, Cy Twombly, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Bourgeois, and Cindy Sherman.
The biography is written by friend and "insider" David Sheff, who was literally "in the room" beginning in September 1980 (just prior to John's assassination), and in, out, and/or around for almost the entirety of Yoko's life after John was killed. So he is perfectly positioned to write this book: he has no interest in the salaciousness, sensationalism, myth-making, or gossip of other books about John and/or The Beatles, particularly vis-à-vis Yoko. Rather, this is a beautiful, well-written, fair-minded, yet not fawning* portrait of a woman who has seen her share of heartache, accomplished extraordinary things in both music and art, adding to the lexicons of both, and yet has been vilified continuously for over 60 years. *(E.g., he takes her greatly to task for her reliance on divination, astrology, numerology, tarot, and other "occult" obsessions).
The book is separated into three parts. The first tells of Yoko's childhood and early life, up to the time she met John. It relates how she survived the bombing of Tokyo as a very young child; of having emotionally (and sometimes physically) distant parents; of having to not only engage in primary and continual self-care (as opposed to parental care), but also care of her younger brother, and many other (often depressing) aspects that made Yoko the quiet, mostly introverted, and seemingly inscrutable person she became. It was in her late single and early double digits that she first started (unwittingly) forming the philosophy that would guide her for the rest of her life: "imagine" -- a word and concept she used continuously throughout her life and art, long before she met John and he co-opted the word for the song. [N.B. John finally admitted that the song was not simply co-written by Yoko, but was inspired by her ideas, and for which Yoko was finally given official co-writing credit.] The explanation of her use of "imagine" as a broad-based life-long philosophy is not just a high point of the book, but arguably the single most important thing we learn about her art, music, and approach to life.
The second part takes us from her first meeting John in 1966 to his assassination in 1980. Not only does Sheff finally and absolutely debunk the myth of her "breaking up The Beatles," placing the blame for that primarily on John (for good and proven reasons), but also on the "bigger picture" of what was happening at the time among the Beatles -- musically, legally and otherwise.
As an aside, regarding the break-up of the band, Sheff "ups the ante" and makes a remarkably cogent case for Yoko having saved the Beatles -- and that, without her, we might not have had the White Album, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, or Abbey Road. This is because John first began seriously considering quitting the group after the release of Magical Mystery Tour. This was when tensions in the band began to grow exponentially, and John was becoming increasingly morose in the studio during the writing and recording of the White Album (a fact confirmed by George Martin) -- an album that was less a collaboration of four musicians (though some songs were) than the Beatles serving as studio musicians for each others' songs. We learn that the only reason John was willing to remain in the band was that he had Yoko with him at all times, and that her love and calming presence (for him) overrode his greatly increasing unhappiness, dissatisfaction and frustration with the band and the growing tensions among them (those not related to Yoko's presence). In this regard, Sheff suggests, had she not been there (and rarely mentioned is that the first time she was present in the studio was not for the Let It Be sessions, but the "Fool on the Hill" session, almost two years before), it is entirely possible that John would have quit the Beatles in early 1968 -- leaving us without the group's last four albums.
So, Yoko not only did not cause the break-up of the band (and again, the facts show that the primary cause was John, even if Yoko was a quasi-catalyst), but may well have prevented it from breaking up for an additional two years by "preventing" John from leaving earlier.
Importantly, perhaps even critically, Sheff also provides an in-depth context of the growing relationship between John and Yoko that has been sorely missing from any published work about John. It is contradictorily simple and complex, with both enormous love and serious tensions, but with both of them always "erring" on the side of love, acceptance, and progression.
The third part is Yoko's life after John's death -- and is so much more interesting, informative, and eye-opening than I am guessing anyone could possibly…imagine. While focusing primarily on her art and music -- as well as her relationship with Sean, and her understandable ongoing heartbreak over John's death -- it also tells of death threats, thefts, betrayals by people close to her, and the hiring of bodyguards, among many other (sadly) necessary aspects of her post-John life.
But it is her growing contributions to music and art during this period -- and the growing realization by a much greater number of people (particularly those in the arts, but also the public at large) -- that continues to be the main point: she never stopped creating, never stopped experimenting, never stopped adding to the lexicons of both music and art. She was relentless in the face of sexism, racism, and any other "isms" that attempted to get in her way. In this regard, Paul McCartney was more correct than even he knows when he said: "She's badass!"
It's a damn shame that the people who really should read this book -- the Yoko-haters, those who still believe she "broke up the Beatles" (a myth that has been debunked countless times by everyone including the Beatles themselves, but simply refuses to die), those who believe that her vocals were nothing more than dissonant caterwauling, those who claim she made no contributions to the art world and only became famous because she was married to a Beatle, etc. -- are the very people who are not going to read it. And even if they did, it probably would not change very many minds -- so ingrained is their hatred, ignorance and/or racism -- nor would many (most?) understand the significant degree to which she contributed to both the art and music worlds -- in the latter case, both rock/pop and avant-garde -- and that she had been doing so for more than a decade before she met John Lennon.
David Sheff has written an informative, substantive, readable, and important biography of one of the 20th century's most wrongly maligned but most important and talented women -- a woman who never stopped creating and pushing artistic boundaries, and expressing love, peace, and acceptance even in the face of nearly continuous vilification and vitriol. A woman who combined art and activism, and in doing so progressed both into new and important places, and who refused to give in to the negativity that often surrounded her. Sheff has given us the Yoko we never knew -- the true, real, "exposed" woman of love, peace, and art -- but the Yoko we needed to know. And in doing so, he has done an enormous service; one that goes well beyond the printed words on the pages, sometimes even getting right to the soul of this sad but magnificent woman.