Rock'n'Roll

John Lennon: Rock'n' Roll

The story goes like this:

Leaving Yoko in mid-1973 (or being kicked out) and with Mind Games already recorded, Lennon left New York and headed to L.A. for some fun.

With new stars Bryan Ferry (These Foolish Things) and David Bowie (Pin Ups) in the U.K. releasing albums of cover versions to considerable and immediate success, Lennon decided to jump on the bandwagon and quickly set about recording an album of Rock'n'Roll standards.

This wasn't just for retro-artistic reasons. With The Beatles' money frozen and Yoko's extravagant spending using up the royalties from his low-selling solo albums, Lennon figured that he could make some quick cash by quickly recording some old standards with old friend, Phil Spector as producer and release the results early in 1974.

Wrong!

What should have been a breeze turned into a nightmare, with far too many top(and expensive) session players involved, a lot of drink & drugs...and worst of all, Spector eventually stealing the tapes, refusing to let Lennon have them for well over a year.

At the end of the year, with the original tapes back in his hands, Lennon started recording some more tracks and the final result is that Rock'n'Roll sounds like there's a great party going on and which Lennon was lucky enough to catch on tape. The band is so big that the sound is frequently muddy but Lennon's in good voice, having fun on the songs that he grew up with.

Like McCartney's Roots albums Rock'n'Roll may well be of interest to anybody who's interested in the source of the early Beatles music and the Amazon snippets give a pretty good idea of what you can expect.

John Lennon: Stand By Me 

Rock'n'Roll was eventually released in mid-1975 but should be considered pre-Walls & Bridges. Enjoy it, I sometimes do.

John Lennon: Rock'n' Roll

 "...Awesome album. He brings out the essence of each song and then maximizes on top of that bringing it to a whole new level..." Amazon reviewer ridemaster-v

"...John took Ben E. King's excellent song Stand By Me and turned it into something magical..." Amazon reviewer Kelvin Peaking "Lennonologist"

"...I've never heard any album on which John sounds as happy as on this one. He not only sings, but screams these songs with all his guts. You can understand how much these songs meant to the man by listening to this tribute album of the golden age of Rock n Roll. The remixing/remastering job is excellent, I own an old 80's LP and the sound difference compared to this CD is like night and day..." Amazon reviewer Blues Bro