Beatle’s last piano played for first time in decades

The last piano ever used by John Lennon before he died is set to be played for the first time in 30 years.

The New England Piano Company upright has been at the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool since 2015.

The former Beatle used it at the Record Plant studios in New York for his last album, Double Fantasy, released shortly before his death in 1980.

Brad Kella, winner of Channel 4’s The Piano, will be at the museum to play his own arrangement of the famous Lennon hit Imagine later.

Kella, 24, told the BBC he had been a Beatles fan since childhood, growing up in the Merseyside town of Bootle and later Fazakerley in north Liverpool.

He said: “It’s just something that’s embedded into anyone that’s in the city. It’s just an honour to be able to say I’ve touched the same instrument.

“I think it’s the last instrument he touched before he died, as well, so it’s just an honour to be able to follow in those footsteps.”

The piano was given a distinctive ‘honky-tonk’ sound by the attachment of tacks to its hammers.

It was used by artists including Bob Dylan, Pete Townsend, and Don McLean for his American Pie sessions.

Lennon used it on several songs on his album Walls and Bridges, including his duet with Elton John, Whatever Gets You Thru The Night.

He also played the piano on a session on 8 December, 1980, while working on Yoko Ono’s song Walking On Thin Ice.

Hours later he was shot dead by Mark Chapman as he and Ono returned to their Dakota Building home in New York.

The piano has been on display at The Beatles Story, in the city’s Albert Dock, since 2015, where it was installed to mark what would have been Lennon’s 75th birthday.

It has been reported that the instrument has not been used for any performance or recording since the mid-1990s.

Kella had been a scholarship student at Paul McCartney’s performing arts school LIPA, and was spotted playing piano in the Liverpool One shopping centre by producers for The Piano, hosted by Claudia Winkleman.

He was invited to audition for the show and went on to win it, dedicating his first single, Eve and Frank, to his foster parents.

Kella said the changes of the last couple of years had been remarkable.

He added: “I was saying to my girlfriend’s uncle, I was working on the roofs with him two years ago on my birthday, and so two years later – also on my birthday – to be playing John Lennon’s piano… it’s all changed very quickly.”