In May 1969, John & Yoko bought Tittenhurst Park, an eighteenth-century Georgian mansion on a seventy-acre estate in Ascot, England. It was there that John recorded most of his demo's for the album John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band, as well as the final version of Imagine in 1971. In the fall of 1971, the Lennon's relocated to New York City, first. Lennon. / Ono. With The The Plastic Ono Band – Instant Karma! Label: Parlophone – SPD 528 Format: Vinyl, 7', 45 RPM.
'The Alternate Imagine' 1971 Studio Outtakes, Rehearsals, Demos Tracklist: 01 I´M The Greatest (1:53) Take 2 Early version, incomplete lyrics - At end, 'Well, it wasn't good enough' 02 San Francisco Bay Blues (1:14) Outtake, acoustic version 03 How?/Child Of Nature/Oh Yoko! (4:26) Piano Demo Medley, late 1970 - early 1971 04 Oh My Love (1:21) Acoustic home demo with preliminary lyrics referring to Yoko's miscarriage, late 1968 05 Oh Yoko! (4:37) Acoustic guitar demo, mid 1969 Choosing to collaborate more fully with Phil Spector than he had on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon began recording the Imagine album during the Power To The People sessions at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, London, between 11 and 16 February 1971. Lennon retained Klaus Voormann from the Plastic Ono Band sessions, but Ringo Starr was unavailable. In his place Lennon recruited Jim Gordon, formerly of Derek And The Dominos, and also added saxophonist Bobby Keyes to play on Power To The People. The group recorded six other songs: It's So Hard, I Don't Want To Be A Soldier, a cover of The Olympics' Well (Baby Please Don't Go, an early version of I'm The Greatest, and two by Yoko Ono - Open Your Box and O Wind (Body Is The Scar Of Your Mind). Of the six songs, It's So Hard and I Don't Want To Be A Soldier appeared on Imagine, although the latter was later re-recorded. Their lyrics matched the emotional intensity that ran through John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, suggesting Lennon was considering repeating the formula for its follow-up. However, work stalled on the project, and Lennon committed himself to other projects for three months. Work on Imagine began in earnest between 24 and 28 May 1971, at Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon's recording facility at the Tittenhurst Park mansion he shared with Yoko Ono. In those five days a total of eight songs for Imagine were recorded: the title track, Crippled Inside, Jealous Guy, Gimme Some Truth, Oh My Love, How Do You Sleep?, How?, and Oh Yoko!. The sessions normally began around 11am and finished in the early evening. Lennon typically assembled the musicians around him, taught them the chords and explained the arrangement he had in mind, and recording ended when Lennon, Ono or Phil Spector pronounced themselves to be happy with the results. Lennon always sang guide vocals with each take, which he later replaced by overdubbing a final version. The cast list for Imagine was more extensive than for John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. George Harrison appeared on several tracks, as did pianist Nicky Hopkins, Badfinger guitarists Joey Molland and Tom Evans, and respected session drummer Jim Keltner. During the May sessions the musicians also recorded an unreleased cover version of San Francisco Bay Blues, plus four songs by Yoko Ono: Mind Holes, Mind Train, Midsummer New York, and Mrs Lennon. The songs were included on her 1971 album Fly, released as a counterpart to Imagine but, unlike her Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band release before it, with a quite separate identity to Lennon's album. Lennon and Ono had been documenting their private and public appearances as audio or filmic records since 1968. The Imagine sessions at Ascot were no different. The sessions were filmed by a camera crew which captured around 60 hours of footage. A full-length documentary film was planned, to be called Your Show then Working Class Hero, but the project was shelved as Lennon and Ono worked on the Imagine promotional film in July and September 1971. The footage was, however, used as the basis for the 1998 biopic Imagine: John Lennon, and a documentary released in 2000, Gimme Some Truth: The Making Of John Lennon's Imagine Album. Recording for Imagine was completed in early July 1971, with the addition of saxophone and string overdubs in New York City's Record Plant East studio. The saxophonist was King Curtis, who recorded his contributions for It's So Hard and I Don't Want To Be A Soldier in less than an hour. Sadly, King Curtis was murdered on 13 August 1971, shortly before Imagine was released. The strings were performed by members of the New York Philharmonic orchestra, whom Lennon dubbed The Flux Fiddlers. Arrangements for Imagine, Jealous Guy, It's So Hard, How Do You Sleep? and How? were scored by Torrie Zito. With recording complete, the album was mixed quickly and prepared for release. The release Imagine was issued on 9 September 1971 in the United States, and on 7 October in the United Kingdom. It topped the charts in both countries. It was also the first Apple album release in quadrophonic, a four-channel system which was an early form of surround sound. The format was issued on LP and eight-track cartridge. John Lennon's second solo album was his greatest commercial success. On it he tempered some of the more abrasive and confrontational elements of its predecessor, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, offering instead a more conventional pop collection that contains some of his best-loved songs. Imagine begins with the title track, John Lennon's most famous song. One of his most idealistic moments, Imagine suggested a world without religion, nation or possessions, asking instead that people see themselves as agents for change without traditional dogma or ideology. If Imagine was an attempt to reach beyond the political norms, Crippled Inside, Jealous Guy, It's So Hard and How? returned to the personal introspection of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Lennon's demons clearly hadn't been vanquished, but he had learnt to temper them and couch them in more palatable form. Gimme Some Truth saw a return for Citizen Lennon, marking the next step in a transition towards political polemics that would reach a peak on 1972's Some Time In New York City. It was a journey he had begun with 1968's Revolution, but began to focus on properly from Power To The People, released six months prior to Imagine. Gimme Some Truth remains one of Lennon's most powerful musical statements, launching a full-blooded attach on the hypocrisy of authority figures, and still able to pack a considerable punch decades after its release. Oh My Love and Oh Yoko! were love songs for Lennon's wife, the first of which was written at the beginning of their relationship in 1968 and was co-credited to Ono. And then there was How Do You Sleep?, the most notorious of Imagine's songs. An undisguised attack on Paul McCartney, it was as far from living life in peace that it was possible to Imagine Lennon. The song was written in response to various coded messages Lennon claimed were on Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 album Ram, particularly in the songs Too Many People, Dear Boy, Three Legs and The Back Seat Of My Car. Although McCartney later claimed the messages had been confined to Too Many People, the damage had been done. Lennon launched a full-scale broadside at his former songwriting partner, accusing him of being surrounded by sycophantic 'straights', having achieved nothing more than writing Yesterday, and trashing his recent works as 'muzak to my ears'. As a final blow, he suggested those believers of the 'Paul is dead' myth were actually right. Early pressings of Imagine included a postcard showing Lennon holding the ears of a pig, a clear parody of McCartney's pose on the cover of Ram. The pair eventually settled their differences, although their friendship never recovered the closeness it once had. Download this bootleg here
John Lennon [extended]
Live Peace in Toronto 1969 [Apple, 1969] C
Plastic Ono Band [Apple, 1970] A
Imagine [Apple, 1971] A
Some Time in New York City [Apple, 1972] C
Mind Games [Apple, 1973] C+
Walls and Bridges [Apple, 1974] B-
Rock 'n Roll [Apple, 1975] B-
Shaved Fish [Apple, 1975] B+
Double Fantasy [Capitol, 1980] A
The John Lennon Collection [Geffen, 1982] A-
Milk and Honey [Polydor, 1984] A
Live in New York City [Capitol, 1986] B
Menlove Ave. [Capitol, 1986] B+
Imagine: John Lennon: Music from the Original Motion Picture [Capitol, 1988] C+
Wonsaponatime [Capitol, 1998] A-
Acoustic [Capitol, 2004] *
Rock 'n' Roll [Capitol, 2004]
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
The Plastic Ono Band:Live Peace in Toronto 1969 [Apple, 1969]
This is the famous Lennon/Clapton/Ono/Voorman/White (Voorman?/White?) concert. I happened to be there and it wasn't so hot live. It is worse recorded. The anti-Yoko reaction has long since passed beyond boorishness, but that doesn't mean I want to hear her keen for 20 minutes, and the rock side is raw and badly recorded, with Clapton's masterful lead obscured by Lennon's rhythm. Of value primarily as a document. C
Plastic Ono Band [Apple, 1970] Of course the lyrics are often crude psychotherapeutic cliches. That's just the point, because they're also true, and John wants to make clear that right now truth is far more important than subtlety, taste, art, or anything else. At first the music sounds crude, too, stark and even perfunctory after the Beatles' free harmonies and double guitars. But the real music of the album inheres in the way John's greatest vocal performance, a complete tour of rock timbre from scream to whine, is modulated electronically--echoed, filtered, double-tracked, with two vocals sometimes emanating in a synthesis from between the speakers and sometimes dialectically separated. Which means that John is such a media artist that even when he's fervently shedding personas and eschewing metaphor he knows, perhaps instinctively, that he communicates most effectively through technological masks and prisms. A
Imagine [Apple, 1971] Primal goes pop--personal and useful. The title cut is both a hymn for the Movement and a love song for his wife, celebrating a Yokoism and a Marcusianism simultaneously, and 'Gimme Some Truth' unites Lennon unmasked with the Lennon of Blunderland wordplay as it provides a rationale for 'Jealous Guy,' which doesn't need one, and 'How Do You Sleep?,' which may. 'Oh Yoko!' is an instant folk song worthy of Rosie & the Originals and 'I Don't Want to Be a Soldier' an instant folk extravaganza worthy of Phil Spector. 'It's So Hard' is a blues. 'Crippled Inside,' with its 'ironic' good-time ricky-tick, is folk-rock in disguise. And the psychotherapeutically lugubrious 'How?' is a question mark. A
Animated halloween screensavers. John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band:Some Time in New York City [Apple, 1972] Half caterwauling live weirdness with the Mothers of Invention, half tuneless topical rock songs with Elephant's Memory, this is where Lennon risks his charisma instead of investing it. I like its rawness and its basic good-heartedness, though J&Y's politics are frequently condescending. But if agitprop is one thing and wrong-headed agitprop another, agitprop that doesn't reach its intended audience is hardly a thing at all. C
Mind Games [Apple, 1973] A step in the right direction, but only a step. It sounds like outtakes from Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, which may not seem so bad but means that Lennon is falling back on ideas that have lost their freshness for him. Still, the single works and I hope he keeps on stepping. Canon mf toolbox 4.9 drivers for mac. Favorite Plastic Ono Band outtake: 'One Day (at a Time).' Favorite Imagine outtake: 'You Are Here.' C+
Walls and Bridges [Apple, 1974] These songs seem more felt than those on Mind Games, probably because they express personal pain rather than generalized optimism--'Bless You,' to Yoko in someone else's arms, is a real leap. But the melodies are received, the accompaniment ordinary, and the singing disoriented. What can it be like for this ex-Beatle to trade harmonies with Elton John (who sings backup on 'Surprise, Surprise,' just as Lennon does on Elton's new single) in the inescapable knowledge that it's Elton who's doing him the favor? B-
Rock 'n Roll [Apple, 1975] Angry samoans unboxed set zip. No doubt mysteries of emotional and rhythmic commitment (soul and groove) determine why this runs out of gas after 'Be-Bop-a-Lula' and 'Stand by Me.' But it's also true that covering Gene Vincent and Ben E. King is considerably less perilous than covering Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino, whose songs follow. Which may be why 'Ya Ya' (Lee Dorsey) and 'Just Because' (Lloyd Price) work. Too bad he didn't go for more esoterica--this could have been another Moondog Matinee. B-
Shaved Fish [Apple, 1975] Eleven shots in the dark from the weirdest major rock and roller of the early '70s. All the hits are here, many of them misses, with the number-one single as out of place as 'Happy Xmas' and 'Woman Is the Nigger of the World.' Not just because it's bad, either--in retrospect, 'Whatever Gets You Through the Night' and 'Power to the People' sound equally bald, equally stupid. Not counting the two available on must-own albums, the only great cuts are 'Instant Karma' (Lennon's best political song) and '#9 Dream' (catchier nonsense pop than McCartney's ever managed). So I don't play it much. But I'm sure glad it's on the shelf. B+
John Lennon/Yoko Ono:Double Fantasy [Capitol, 1980] In a special message for all the ignorami who think he never should have married the pretentious bitch, John turns the professional rock he hacked his way through when they were separated to the specifics of his life (and genius) as it's now constituted. Ultimate traffic 2 2013 edition fsx torrent. In a special message for all the ignorami who think pretentious bipeds should stay out of recording studios, Yoko keeps up with him. This is an unfashionable piece of music--only Poly Styrene, of all people, has gotten away with anything remotely similar all year. But you don't have to be married to hear its commitment and command. I hope. A
The John Lennon Collection [Geffen, 1982] I grant that it's superfluous--basically an Apple best-of plus John's songs from Double Fantasy. It goes on my A shelf because John was John, not just half of John & Yoko. Also because it omits the half-cocked 'Cold Turkey' and ragtag 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)' from the official Apple best-of and doesn't medley 'Give Peace a Chance.' A-
John Lennon/Yoko Ono:Milk and Honey [Polydor, 1984] Those too numbed by tragedy or hope to connect with Double Fantasy aren't likely to hear this one either--it's definitely more of the same, in John's case outtakes. But these were clearly rejected on conceptual rather than musical grounds, as just too quirky to suit the careful househusband image John wanted for his return to the arena. Which is why I like them better, especially spiced with asides he would have erased before final release. Yoko's songs are more recent and that's another plus, because her pop only began to jell with Double Fantasy; the horny querulousness of 'Sleepless Night' and the cricket synthesizers on 'You're the One' are confident personal elaborations of a tradition she comes to secondhand. Only the two middle cuts on the B get soupy. Depeche mode discography torrent kickass download. What a farewell. A
Plastic Ono Band Outtakes Photos
Live in New York City [Capitol, 1986] Just by putting his all into such unsung great songs as 'Well, Well, Well' and 'It's So Hard,' the great singer comes a lot closer to justifying this ad hoc document than Jagger did with Ya-Ya's or Daltrey did with Leeds. The alternate 'Instant Karma' and 'Cold Turkey' and 'Mother' are also welcome. But his accidental romance with Elephant's Memory never did him any good musically. And for all his encouragement Yoko wasn't yet a rock-and-roller, so 'Hound Dog' remains a concept. B Kelvin hughes radar mantadigital technical manual.
Menlove Ave. [Capitol, 1986] The late-night session-band workups of songs later embalmed on Walls and Bridges are startlingly stark and clear, making side two the finest music of the hiatus between Imagine and Double Fantasy, whose precisely felt studio-rock they prefigure. Phil Spector produced the commercial versions. He also produced Rock 'n' Roll, source of the outtakes on side one, which were rejected because they're even stiffer than the intakes. John never could figure out what to do about loving Rosie & the Originals. And Phil wasn't the guy to tell him. B+
Imagine: John Lennon: Music from the Original Motion Picture [Capitol, 1988] Nothing wrong with the music, though you can do without the bait--'Imagine' work tape, carefully hoarded new song work tape. But the useless configuration, foreshortening the Yokoless first half of his career and romanticizing the de-Beatled second, wouldn't exist without the tireless promotional efforts of Albert Goldman. C+
Wonsaponatime [Capitol, 1998] As someone who scoffs at the outtake collections of known improvisers, I doubt I'll be delving into the box too often, although the live stuff is worth hearing. But not only does this one-disc distillation spare borderline obsessives financial anxiety, it proves Lennon the great singer he's rarely remembered as. Whether the alternate rearrangements are drastic (Cheap Trick on 'I'm Losing You,' strings on 'Grow Old With Me') or subtle (pianoless 'God,' single-tracked 'Oh My Love'), every song is renewed by a vocal commitment that shades the canonical take, usually toward sweetness or rage. There's new material, too: blues cover, Platters cover, pledge of love, and the priceless Dylan answer song 'Serve Yourself.' Lennon wasn't above dabbling in religion. But he never got so down he mistook God for more than a concept by which he measured his pain. A-
Acoustic [Capitol, 2004] Nirvana unplugged it ain't, and a precious resource he remains ('God,' 'What You Got'). *
Plastic Ono Band Members
Rock 'n' Roll [Capitol, 2004] 'My Baby Left Me,' 'Angel Baby'
See Also
Plastic Ono Band Outtakes List
John Lennon's Realpolitik [0000]
Double Fantasy: The Ballad of John and Yoko [0000]
Toronto Rock & Roll Revival 1969 [0000]
The John Lennon Letters [0000]
John Lennon, 1940-1980 [1980-12-22]
Symbolic Comrades: John Lennon/Yoko Ono [1981-01-20]