May Pang was a music-biz executive, photographer and jewelry designer with one boldface entry on her résumé: John Lennon's girlfriend for a year and a half while he was separated from Yoko Ono in the mid-1970s. It's a period referred to as Lennon's "Lost Weekend."
Pang also was Lennon's personal assistant at the time. She did everything from booking his recording sessions to encouraging him to reconnect with his estranged mates Paul McCartney and George Harrison as well as his young son Julian Lennon.
The most famous sessions were for "Rock 'N' Roll," a collection of covers of rock classics, with eccentric producer Phil Spector. In October 1973, a gun-toting Spector showed up two hours late to the L.A. recording studio, leaving Lennon and such big-name, Spector-hired musicians as Leon Russell, Hal Blaine and Steve Cropper waiting.
"I used to freak out 'cause Phil was carrying his guns. John and I thought they were blanks," said Pang, who will be in Minneapolis this weekend for an exhibit of 30 of her photos of Lennon and friends — including the last known photo of Lennon and Paul McCartney together — at Gallery13 at the Aloft Minneapolis downtown.
One night, Spector got into a tiff with Mal Evans, longtime Beatles road manager, at Record Plant West Studios and the producer's gun fired accidentally.
"John has a finger in his ear, going 'Phil, if you're going to shoot me, shoot; but I need my ears," Pang remembered. "Mal Evans took the gun from him. We continued working because none of us thought they were real bullets. [They were.] That whole session was just insane."
(Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009 for the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson at his Pasadena home.)
It was chaos most every day for different reasons, like 27 musicians showing up when the studio was set up for seven or eight. Or random celebrity guests stopping by.
"Joni Mitchell was across the hall [in another studio] and she kept coming into our session," Pang recalled. "Joni was bringing in different people. Warren Beatty was in one day. Then there was David Geffen and then Cher and Harry Nilsson. One point Phil was screaming, 'Lock the door. I'm going to swallow the key. Nobody's allowed to leave.'"
Eventually, Pang and Lennon retreated to New York, where he finished producing the album, which was finally released in 1975.
In a phone call from her native New York City, Pang, 72, talked about Lennon, Ono, photography, her soon-to-stream documentary and her first trip to the Twin Cities, where her son moved two years ago.
On working for Lennon and Ono
"I was more his personal assistant. I organized everything. Interviews. Or [if] they were going somewhere. Or he said he saw an ad for a new keyboard, I'd order it. I booked the studio, the musicians, I made sure everybody got there."
On what's misunderstood about Pang
It wasn't as simple as Ono encouraging a romantic relationship between Pang and Lennon, as legend has it.
"It's much more complicated. The documentary might explain it better," she said of "The Lost Weekend: A Love Story," which was in theaters for one weekend in April and will be streaming soon. "John and I were really a couple. We lived together for over a year and a half. My relationship with John wasn't only a weekend."
On what's misunderstood about Lennon
" 'Lost Weekend' was an easy title. It's the same incident [at the Troubadour nightclub in Hollywood] over and over again. It made it sound like he was constantly drunk. If he was that drunk, he wouldn't have been able to do all the work he did in that time period." Specifically, he worked with Keith Moon, Johnny Winter, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr and McCartney. "And he was reunited with Julian. We had a great time."
On Julian
Lennon hadn't seen his son in three years. "A boy at 10 or 11 needs his father. He was calling and at the time I was working at the house, I couldn't put the call through. He couldn't reach his father. It's sad when you're that age. There's no excuse for that and I told John."
Pang also urged Lennon to mend fences with McCartney and Harrison.
"I encouraged John to see them when they came calling. He'd always shy away. These are people he'd known for most of his musical life. They were his brothers and I'd say that. 'You need to see them.'"
On recording '#9 Dream'
When Lennon was working on the last song, "#9 Dream," for his 1974 album, "Walls and Bridges," he summoned Pang into the darkened recording studio. There was a microphone with a spotlight for her.
"He said, 'You gotta whisper [real] sexy, my name.' I'm looking at him like 'You gotta be kidding me.' The engineer was smiling and laughing. Believe me, it was not so easy. John insisted.
"Later he asked me to sing on the chorus. 'Ah! Bowakawa, pousse pousse.' He doesn't know what the words mean. They came to him in a dream."
On the biggest 'Lost Weekend' partier
It's one of those notorious rock 'n' roll tales: Lennon, Keith Moon, Bernie Taupin, Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson and others getting drunk at the Troubadour nightclub in Hollywood. At one point, Lennon was seen with a feminine hygiene product affixed to his forehead.
Lennon was on a bender that night but the biggest partier in his scene, according to Pang, was Nilsson, whose LP the ex-Beatle was going to produce.
"John had suggested to Harry, 'Get yourself together. Get your voice together. I want you to go to acupuncture to get spruced up.' By nighttime, Harry was out partying. I was surprised he made it to the acupuncture sessions. How did he get there? He was out all night."
On the last time she saw Ono
"We haven't had a relationship for years," she said. But they accidentally encountered each other in 2006 in Iceland when staying at the same hotel.
"I said 'Hello.' It was quite funny at the restaurant. You could hear a pin drop. That was the first time I'd seen her in 20 years."
On the last time she saw Lennon
Lennon visited Pang's New York City apartment about a year and a half before he died in 1980.
"He just wanted to come over and see me. I called in sick that day to see him," said Pang, who was then the assistant to the president of Island Records. "The last time I spoke to him was in 1980. He called me from Cape Town. That was Memorial [Day] weekend. We were talking and figuring out when we could catch up with one another. He said 'It's not easy. When I get back, let's just figure it out."
On the photo exhibit
All the photos are for sale and Pang will autograph them on the spot. Because it's a gallery show, she will not sign books, records or other materials. She will be there for the entirety of the exhibit to answer questions. The only photo equipment with her is a cellphone.
Included in the exhibit are a shot of Lennon and Julian as well as a photo of Lennon signing Beatles' dissolution papers in 1974.
"I'd say there was at least 4 to 6 inches deep of contracts he had to sign," Pang recalled. "I counted out 35 to 40 people at the meetings. This went on for two or three years."
On the Twin Cities
After living in Texas, her son Sebastian Visconti (his father is producer Tony Visconti, Pang's ex-husband) moved to St. Paul a couple of years ago.
"Minnesota is a better state that's welcoming him. He said: 'I can deal with the cold better than I can deal with the heat in Texas.' "
Calling herself "a big shopper," Pang is planning to visit the Mall of America.
The photo tour is taking her to places she's never been before.
"Toledo, Akron, Three Oaks [Michigan]. The people have been welcoming. I want to see Middle America."
The Photography of May Pang
When: 4-8 p.m. Fri., noon-7 p.m. Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun.
Where: Gallery13, Aloft Minneapolis, 900 Washington Av. S., Mpls.
Admission: Free, all photos are for sale, gallery13.com
