Respect to Lennon Bermuda singer Moniz

Energy and fun: Dennis Moniz at the 2012 recording and filming
of The Love Singers' version of All You Need Is Love.

Dennis Moniz, a featured singer on the Lennon Bermuda CD version of All You Need Is Love, has died at 66. He was one of the 11 named singers who shared lead vocal duties on the track; the ensemble was known as The Love Singers.

Mr Moniz was a well-known singer across Bermuda and performed with a number of groups, and at many venues during his long career. Tony Brannon, the organiser of the Lennon Bermuda project, referred to him as the Sammy Davis Jr of Bermuda.

Although I only had the briefest of encounters with Mr Moniz, I would say the 'Sammy Davis Jr' description was very apt. I met him when we were both doing chorus backing on The Love Singers' version of All You Need is Love, which was recorded in May 2012 ahead of the release of the Lennon Bermuda CD and the subsequent concert in September that year. The recording was done in a gallery room at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, in the Botanical Gardens.

Infectious fun: Will Black, myself, Ronnie Lopes and Dennis Moniz
 during the filming of the All You Need is Love video

A video of the recording session was made under the supervision of director Lucinda Spurling, and it captures the effervescent energy and spirit of Mr Moniz. His smiling, jovial nature shone as brightly as his silky blue shirt. His presence, energy, and unusual headwear are my most abiding memory from that day. In the video, he is captured later singing a lead line as one of three singers sitting back to back - although he had switched to a white shirt that featured his name embroidered on the front. He had an infectious attitude of fun that lit up the room, and once experienced was hard to forget.

This year has seen the loss of two other Lennon Bermuda performers; Steve Easton, who sang Bless You, and international recording artist Roy Young, who appeared on stage with The Beatles during their Hamburg days, and sang Nowhere Man on Lennon Bermuda.

The joy all three gave to others through music lives on.

Here is The Love Singers video of All You Need is Love:

Book signing event this month

For those who live in Bermuda and are interested in picking up a copy of Dolphin Girl or Lennon Bermuda (or both). I'll be signing copies outside the Bermuda National Library on Saturday June 27, from 11am until 3pm.

There will be a number of other Bermuda resident authors there also signing copies of their work. The event is being staged by the National Library as it launches its summer reading programme.

The book signing will be on the lower verandah, facing onto Queen Elizabeth Park (formerly Par-la-Ville Park).

Sailing on the boat Lennon sailed

One of my most treasured memories of 2014 was a sailing trip in late September, aboard the Jubilee. This 43ft sloop was once known as the Megan Jaye - the sailing boat on which John Lennon voyaged to Bermuda in 1980.

The boat is still in immaculate condition 34 years later, and it is regularly sailed off the East Coast of the United States by its owners Stephen Fuller, a university professor, and his wife Susan.

The story of Lennon’s sailing adventure is told in the Lennon Bermuda book, which includes a chapter on what became of the boat. The Fullers subsequently invited Heather and I to come and see the Jubilee and take a short trip. That kind invite was fulfilled in the last few days of September when we joined the couple for a short excursion along the coast of Maine.

Given the time of year, we had been warned to expect possibly chilly weather. Instead we were greeted by horizon-to-horizon blue skies and the calmest ocean imaginable. The benign conditions meant there would be no unfurling of the sails, because there wasn’t a breath of wind to be caught. The Jubilee’s small engine was put into action and we motored at a steady six knots, initially weaving through tranquil waterways, where a seal would occasionally raise its head out of curiosity. Forests fringed the craggy coastline, and before long we were heading out into the ocean, charting a course southwards, staying about a mile or two from shore.

Out on the ocean all we had to do was steer a course to avoid the lobster pot buoys, feel a rush of excitement at spotting a passing dolphin or two, enjoy the perfect late summer weather, and reflect on what it must have been like for Lennon when he helped sail the boat 700 miles across the ocean to Bermuda.

Steve and Susan spoke about the pleasure they get from sailing the Jubilee and knowing that the famed musician also enjoyed an open-ocean experience on the boat. Every summer the couple sail between the Washington, DC area and Maine, and in the winter the boat is hauled out of the water and stored in a heated shed for protection.

A plaque on board commemorates the journey Lennon took in June 1980 when he, together with a crew of four, sailed from Newport, Rhode Island to St George, Bermuda. The boat encountered a fierce storm and the former Beatle steered alone for a number of hours as the captain, Hank Halsted, rested and the other crew members recovered from sea sickness. One of the songs Lennon later completed in Bermuda was the lullaby Beautiful Boy, which features the line “out on the ocean, sailing away”. The plaque inside the Jubilee mentions that of all the songs that were influenced by the voyage, Beautiful Boy perhaps best reflects Lennon’s “blue water sailing experience”.

Steve bought the Jubilee in 1997 and estimates he has sailed her 20,000 miles, going as far north as Cape Breton and also enjoying trips to the Caribbean. The boat was built by the Hinckley company in 1977 and was originally named Megan Jaye.

The Jubilee has had only a handful of owners, with the Fullers owning the sloop the longest. It was a year after he had purchased the boat that Steve discovered Lennon had once chartered her.
He feels a connection with the late musician through the shared sailing experience. Coincidently, he was born in 1940, the same year as Lennon, and sailed to St George in June 1980, on a different boat, arriving one week after the former Beatle. Like most people at the time, he had no idea the singer was on the island.

Lennon stayed in Bermuda until the end of July that year, working on songs that appeared on his final album Double Fantasy and the posthumous Milk and Honey. His sailing experience is credited, in part, with reawakening his creativity after a five-year period when he did not release any music.

“It gives me some psychic release and pleasure to know that he enjoyed and met some of his musical ambitions through his sailing journey,” said Steve.

“When I am sailing I experience the pleasure that he got. It gives me a better sense of who he was than if you only knew him through reading about his music or his causes. It shows me that those guys [The Beatles] wanted to enjoy a regular life. He got lucky to be away and to test himself. He grew. It was a reaffirmation of sailing and connectedness with the sea.

“I think about the pictures I've seen of him sitting on the boat. I've sailed with people who are famous, but they are not famous when they are sailing. We are all the same people out here.”

This summer, the boat's former captain, Hank Halsted, returned to Bermuda and visited the John Lennon sculpture in the Botanical Gardens, which commemorates his stay in Bermuda. Hank has been back on board the Jubilee in recent years and gave the Fullers an insight into what it was like during the trip to Bermuda with Lennon.

During our journey I wandered below deck, into the galley and the bed spaces beyond. I rested on the bed which has been identified as the berth Lennon took during his journey. I wanted to get a sense of what it would have been like on that 1980 voyage. On the wood panelling beside the berth is the plaque commemorating that trip. The only sound I was aware of was the quiet whisper of the boat gliding through the ocean. Turning, I looked around at the semi-darkness of the interior, the polished wood panels and a storm lantern gently rocking in a cradle on the opposite side of the cabin. It was hard to imagine a more peaceful spot to be.

The Fullers take great care of the sloop, and say they enjoy their own magical moments when sailing.

Susan said: “I miss it when we are not out on it. I feel 'transported' when we sail. I do not think about work or about family. I feel the wind, the waves and the night.

“It's sleek and beautiful. It embraces the water, especially when you have the sails up and the wind.

“The conversations you have on the boat are not day-to-day conversations. We have conversations that we never have any other time. I sleep better on the Jubilee than when I'm on land. There is a rhythm, you slow down, you don't rush around and every move is measured. You pay attention to more of the things around you. It becomes your world.”

Steve said: “It's about the journey. Getting from A to B is half the pleasure. You don't complain about things when you are out here.”

It felt as though the journey was over all too soon, yet we had been sailing for many hours, and had enjoyed an alfresco lunch on deck. Now we had reached our destination. The Jubilee would shortly be hauled from the water and stored safely indoors for the winter. It had been a magical experience, and we thanked the Fullers as we said our goodbyes.

There was an unexpected coda to our day a few hours later. Heather and I caught a bus service to Boston’s Logan International Airport from where we would connect with a hotel shuttle. We arrived and entered the terminal building to hear music playing on the public address system. The song being played was Lennon’s Beautiful Boy, and the line being sung … out on the ocean, sailing away.

Our day was complete.


Photos from the trip (a few of Lennon in 1980). Music: An instrumental version of Beautiful Boy

Another UK newspaper review of book

Another positive review for Lennon Bermuda, taken from the UK newspaper 'The Sport'. Pleasingly, the reviewer has given the book and CD four stars and indicates they enjoyed the box set.

UK newspaper mentions 'Lennon Bermuda'

Review: mentioned in The Mail on Sunday (UK)

This is an image from the April 28 edition of the 'Mail on Sunday' newspaper in the UK, giving a promotional mention of the Lennon Bermuda box set. Tomorrow was due to be the UK launch, however this has been pushed back a little to May 20.

However, there has been a bit of coverage of the box set and CD on two UK radio stations (Express FM in Portsmouth, courtesy of the Geoff and Andy Show, and also a track played on Bob Harris' BBC Radio Two show), and there was a passing mention of the book in the United Arab Emirates-based English newspaper 'The National', which all helps to spread the word. Tony Brannon has been doing a sterling job working to promote the book, CD and the next Peace Day Concert in Bermuda - which as last year is on September 21.

In the meantime, I have embarked upon a new writing project, which is still being formulated with the help of a piece of electronic software which I have been intrigued by. Whether it helps or not remains to be seen. But I shall write more on this new project in the coming months. It is my intention to make this a much speedier writing endeavour once all the groundwork is laid. Having said that, I got a taste of speedy writing doing Lennon Bermuda book in around three weeks. Which is proof, if ever I needed it, that a task with a pointblank deadline focuses the writer's mind like nothing else.

'Inspired' the book - 26 years on

Back in 1987, as a 21-year-old, I made my first foray into the world of book writing with Inspired. It was a paperback collection of short stories and poems by five young writers. I initiated the independent venture and brought together the writers, who submitted their work. My brother Gordon illustrated the front cover, and 100 copies of the book were printed and distributed (a few made it into the local public library).

More than a quarter of a century later it was but a distant memory and then I caught sight of a photograph of the front and back cover, reproduced here, and it reminded me of life's journey from way back then to where I am today.

Inspired was an outlet for my creative writing, as it was for the other contributers. Within its pages I was able to pour out a lot of the ideas and imagination that filled my late teenage years. Included in the collection was the short poem 'Faeries of Green Lochan', which went on to become firstly a song that I played regularly at open mic nights, and then a stage play performed by myself and a fellow drama student, Yvonne, at the Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts, in England, in 2003. That stage play, together with the song (the poem, put to guitar music and sung) evolved into the short live-action/animation film 'Faeries of Green Lochan', featuring myself and Heather, that was created between 2010 and 2011 and premiered at the First Bermuda Bakatown Film Festival in January 2012 - some 25 years after the original poem had first appeared within the pages of Inspired. The film can be viewed on YouTube.

Inspired was never likely to make money, but it did provide a creative outlet for a group of young writers. For me it is now also a historical record of where I was as a young writer and something I can compare to my later collection Eating Clouds (2008).

One message that early book represents is that, no matter if no one else is going to give you a break in the world of literature, you can always find a way to share your work with others - even if only to 100 potential book buyers. It also acts as a measure of your belief in yourself as a writer and your desire to work towards your writing dreams.

I'm particularly pleased that I was able to take one of my early works, 'Faeries of Green Lochan', which was actually written in early 1985, and develop it in a number of artistic forms. And there is another strange coincidence. As my most recent work Lennon Bermuda prepares to be given a worldwide launch in the UK later this month, I note that Inspired opened with a quotation from John Lennon's Aunt Mimi, her words to a 17-year-old Lennon that "Playing the guitar is all right as a hobby John, but you'll never make a living at it". I wrote to Mimi Smith for permission to use her quote, which she granted in her letter of reply. A loop that stretches 26 years can therefore be traced between Inspired and Lennon Bermuda.

Positive comments to book

A month has almost passed since the Lennon Bermuda book was launched and the reaction has been very encouraging. In the first few days I received positive comments in person and through phone calls and e-mails from people telling me how they had enjoyed reading the 120-page story.

The gentle manner in which it was written, and the descriptive Bermuda passages all helped. One of the island commentators said she was struck particularly by the many references to people and places on the island - a rarity for Bermuda to have a book so deeply focused on itself.

Now the work begins to spread the book far and wide. It is already available online, but the prohibitive shipping costs for anyone outside the USA is a stumbling block (at least one potential reader in Japan is waiting instead for it to be more readily available with lower postage attached).

Preparations are underway for a UK launch in early 2013, while I am doing my bit to seek out a publishing/marketing outlet with a greater global reach. I've no doubt that the potential interest in the book - and the CD box set version - could add up to many tens of thousands of people if we can get the word out through the right channels.

At the same time as all this I am focusing on my own future writing projects, which immediately involve wrapping up Dolphin Girl and then doing an outline treatment for a new novel.

New Lennon book

The 'Lennon Bermuda' book I wrote earlier this year went on sale this week.

It was a labour of love to write about John Lennon and his two-month stay in Bermuda during the summer of 1980.

Although, as the author, it probably isn't my place to say so, I do feel the 120-page book is the definitive account of Lennon's sailing trip to the island and his subsequent encounters with people in Bermuda where he enjoyed relative anonymity during his stay.

Writing the book was an experience too, as I was brought into the project at a late stage, which meant speed interviewing and writing everything in a 20-day window. That was a formidable challenge because I was also doing my regular full-time job (there was no time to schedule any vacation days).

However, I didn't mind the pressure. Writing about one of my musical favourites, and getting to speak to so many of the cast of characters that encountered the singer-songwriter during those sunny months of 1980, was quite uplifting. By the time I'd finished I had spoken with twelve people who had direct contact with Lennon during his Bermuda sojourn. It felt as though I'd lived through the whole event, albeit concertinaed into such a tight time-frame.

The proofs of the book I've seen, but not yet the finished product. That I look forward to next Friday at the John Lennon tribute concert in the Botanical Gardens when it is officially launched.

Readers can purchase it online, where postage for US customers is only $5. That's reasonable, unlike the rest of the world postage which weighs in at $45 (more than the book itself). Hopefully that changes when the book is made available through more mainstream channels. For now, if you're in the US and you're interested in John Lennon - or my writing - I'd recommend checking it out. It contains stories and pictures that have not been heard or seen before.

Buy the book online HERE