You say it's your birthday

Album releases, museum opening marks Lennon's 60th birthday

Two solo albums by John Lennon were re-released on Monday to mark what would have been the late Beatle's 60th birthday

LONDON (Reuters) -- Two solo albums by John Lennon were released on Monday to mark what would have been the late Beatle's 60th birthday.

One of the re-issued albums, "Double Fantasy," has three extra songs including "Walking on Ice," a track Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were working on hours before he was gunned down outside his New York apartment 20 years ago.

The album will also feature the previously unreleased song "Help me to Help myself."

The second album to be released was Lennon's first post-Beatle work, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono band."

Ono supervised the remixing and remastering of the 1970 album which includes the extra tracks "Power to the People" and "Do the Oz."

The first museum dedicated to the murdered music star also opened to the public in Japan on Monday.

On display will be 130 items that belonged to Lennon, including family photos, handwritten lyrics for songs and his trademark wire-rimmed spectacles.

At the official opening last Thursday, Ono said the museum's presence in Japan would have been important to Lennon.

"John had so much love for this country," Ono said. "His son Sean is half-Japanese and we somehow felt we were bridging the gap between east and west."

Last Tuesday Mark Chapman, Lennon's killer, was denied parole by the New York State Board of Parole. It said his release would "deprecate the seriousness of the crime and serve to undermine respect for the law."

On Thursday last week, Chronicle Books released "The Beatles Anthology," an "official" telling of the Fab Four's rise to fame and dominance of 1960s popular music. It features excerpts from numerous interviews with Lennon, as well as the other members of the Beatles -- Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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