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Home , Plastic Ono Band, Sean Lennon, Wouldnit (I'm a Star)

DECEMBER 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM SPOTLIGHT & Sean Charlotte Kemp After a lifetime of artistic adventures, a restless innovator fi nds a new home on the dance fl oor

“NEVER!” REPLIES YOKO ONO WHEN be that creative artistically, but it’s really the moniker for the backing bands she shared asked if she ever imagined she might someday amazing. It’s fantastic. I really respect all with Lennon. The current lineup includes the become the toast of the dance fl oor—but the remixers.” Her dance hits mark only the couple’s son, , who served as that’s precisely what she has become. To a latest unexpected twist in a musical career producer and played a variety of instruments. new generation of club kids who know little that actually predates her relationship with Ono is perfectly pleased with the younger of her many decades of creating visual art, Lennon—reaching back to her early 1960s Lennon’s choice to follow in his parents’ poetry, performance art and music—or of her work with innovative composers like musical footsteps. “I wouldn’t have minded marriage and collaborations with late Beatle Cage and Ornette Coleman. During the late if he became an archeologist or something,” —the 77-year-old is a nightclub 1960s and 1970s, often in collaboration with says Ono, “but it’s in his blood.” favorite who has enjoyed nine Top 10 hits Lennon, she recorded a series of albums that Ono also remains busy celebrating on Billboard magazine’s Hot Dance Club were often dismissed in their day but later the life of her late partner. Lennon would chart over the last seven years. “It’s like a proved to be infl uential for many younger have turned 70 in 2010, and the landmark new type of clothes,” she says. “It was given acts—including the many remixers eager to was recognized with new Ono-approved to me and now I’m wearing it.” reshape her sound for a new generation. remasters of his solo album catalog. As Like most of her dance hits, her Ono also continues to make albums in to what’s next for Ono herself, she looks latest chart-topper, “ (I’m a Star)” her more typical context, forward to continuing to be productive. “I is a new remix of a vintage Ono track. “I including 2009’s Between My Head and the have no idea what’s next, but it will come to think it’s beautiful,” says the Tokyo native. Sky. That album found her reconstituting the me,” she says. “You’ll see.” “I never thought the dance fi eld would label once employed as –Jeff Tamarkin RHONDA VINCENT One of bluegrass’ leading ladies takes care of business

RHONDA VINCENT GREW UP IN THE FAMILY BUSINESS. The Missouri native fi rst began singing at age 5 as a member of her parents’ bluegrass group, the Sally Mountain Show. Three years later she took up the mandolin, and it’s been her instrument of choice ever since. “One of the great things about growing up DECEMBERin a bluegrass 2010 family M isMUSIC that it allows & youMUSICIANS to experience so MAGAZINE many different things on a much smaller scale,” says Vincent. “You become really entrenched in the lessons of how to make a career and how to make a living. So I’m very grateful to my parents, because I got on-the-job training.”

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