John Lennon walked up to me in Washington Square Park in 1971. I did not know it was John Lennon. I was playing guitar on the fountain and a crowd was forming and a man in round glasses and a green army jacket pushed through the crowd and stood in front of me and said I want to make an album with you.

I said who are you. He said I am John Lennon. I said sure you are. He said no really. And Yoko was standing right behind him and she smiled and that is when I believed it. Because you could fake being John Lennon but you could not fake Yoko's smile.

We went back to the Bank Street apartment that night. Lennon and Ono and me and a couple of guys from the band. John had a tape recorder and he said play me everything. So I played him everything. Every song I had. The marijuana songs. The protest songs. The street songs. The songs that got me arrested. He recorded all of it.

Three weeks later we were in the Record Plant and John Lennon was producing my album. John Lennon. The Beatle. Sitting behind the mixing board telling me to do another take. He said I like what you do because you do not care if it is good. You only care if it is real.

That was the beginning. Lennon and Peel. The most famous musician in the world and the most famous street musician in the world. We were friends until the day he died. And when he died I went back to Washington Square Park and I played his songs on the fountain where he first heard me and the crowd sang along and I thought this is how you mourn a Beatle. You play his music on the street where he found you.

See also: The Pope Smokes Dope — the album Lennon produced. Lennon Never Left New York — the city that kept him. Lennon Had a File Too — the FBI followed both of us. The Handshake — the contract that started with that handshake next to the fountain.