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John Lennon: Rock 'n' Roll

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Apple Records
Released: 1975.02.17
Time:
 40:03
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): John Lennon, Phil Spector
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.johnlennon.com
Appears with: The Beatles
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Be-Bop-A-Lula (Tex Davis, Gene Vincent) – 2:39
[2] Stand by Me (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Ben E. King) – 3:26
[3] Medley: Rip It Up/Ready Teddy (Robert 'Bumps' Blackwell, John Marascalco) – 1:33
[4] You Can't Catch Me (Chuck Berry) – 4:51
[5] Ain't That a Shame (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew) – 2:38
[6] Do You Wanna Dance? (Bobby Freeman) – 3:15
[7] Sweet Little Sixteen (Chuck Berry) – 3:01
[8] Slippin' and Slidin' (Eddie Bocage, Albert Collins, Richard Wayne Penniman, James H. Smith) – 2:16
[9] Peggy Sue (Jerry Allison, Norman Petty, Buddy Holly) – 2:06
[10] Medley: Bring It On Home to Me/Send Me Some Lovin' (Sam Cooke, John Marascalco, Leo Price) – 3:41
[11] Bony Moronie (Larry Williams) – 3:47
[12] Ya Ya (Lee Dorsey, Clarence Lewis, Morgan Robinson, Morris Levy) – 2:17
[13] Just Because (Lloyd Price) – 4:25

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


John Lennon - Guitars, Vocals, Arrangements, Producer
Jesse Ed Davis - Guitar
Jim Calvert - Guitar
Eddie Mottau - Acoustic Guitar
José Feliciano - Acoustic Guitar
Michael Hazelwood - Acoustic Guitar
Steve Cropper - Guitar
Klaus Voormann - Bass Guitar, Answer Vocal on [10]
Leon Russell - Keyboards
Ken Ascher - Keyboards
Jim Keltner - Drums
Hal Blaine - Drums
Gary Mallaber - Drums
Arthur Jenkins - Percussion
Nino Tempo - Saxophone
Jeff Barry - Horn
Barry Mann - Horn
Bobby Keys - Horn
Peter Jameson - Horn
Joseph Temperley - Horn
Dennis Morouse - Horn
Frank Vicari - Horn

Phil Spector - Producer on [4,7,11,13]
Roy Cicala - Engineer, Remix Engineer
Lee Keifer - Engineer
Shelly Yakus - Engineer
Jim Iovine - Assistant Engineer, Remix Engineer
Gregg Calbi - Mastering
Roy Kohara - Art Direction, Design
Jurgen Vollmer - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded at the A&M Studios in October 1973 and Record Plant Studios (East) in 21-25 October 1974.



Quite simply, John Lennon recorded Rock‘N’Roll in order not to be sued.

Morris Levy, owner of the publishing on You Can't Catch Me, agreed not to call in m’learned friends over the resemblance of parts of The Beatles’ song Come Together to that Chuck Berry composition if Lennon acquiesced to recording some of his copyrights – a lucrative scenario for Levy. However, once this deal was struck, inveterate old-school rocker Lennon found himself enthused by the idea of a retro album. He even dug up a picture of himself for the cover in his full pre-moptop bequiffed glory.

On paper, the concept was a killer. Anyone who remembered Lennon tearing through the likes of Chuck Berry’s Rock and Roll Music on Beatles albums knew he had the capacity for an almost berserk commitment to songs he loved. But the origins of this record in grubby coercion seemed to curse the sessions, which were marked by the mental deterioration of original producer Phil Spector. Levy himself, thinking Lennon was welching on their deal, put out a mail order version using rough mixes, the confusion engendered by which may have been responsible for the pitiful initial sales of Rock‘N’Roll, although lukewarm reviews didn't help.

Part of the critical disdain was down to the fact that Lennon seemed uninterested in playing the songs of Chuck Berry, Larry Williams, Little Richard et al the way he had at a thousand gigs and BBC sessions, and opted instead for re-tooling. Tracks like a snail’s-pace Do You Wanna Dance?, a bizarrely ornate Sweet Little Sixteen and a heavy metal Bony Moronie are perplexingly lacking in the swing and pace that was the point of rock‘n’roll in the first place.  However, once the shock of this has dissipated, the tracks can be heard to possess a steamhammer power and – courtesy of Spector’s kitchen-sink-and-all modus operandi – an exquisite richness.

Though there is very little subtlety, there is evident affection throughout, excellent musicianship and some fun post-modern nods to the audience, including what seems a deliberate attempt to make You Can't Catch Me resemble the swamp-rock of Come Together as much as possible. On all tracks, Lennon’s singing is superb, especially a passionate and epic Stand by Me. Meanwhile, a slinky Slippin' and Slidin' and a breakneck Peggy Sue demonstrate that nobody can teach this man anything about generating primal rock excitement.

Sean Egan, 2010 - BBC Review



Although the chaotic sessions that spawned this album have passed into rock & roll legend and the recording's very genesis (as an out-of-court settlement between John Lennon and an aggrieved publisher) has often caused it to be slighted by many of the singer's biographers, Rock 'n' Roll, in fact, stands as a peak in his post-Imagine catalog: an album that catches him with nothing to prove and no need to try. Lennon could, after all, sing old rock & roll numbers with his mouth closed; he spent his entire career relaxing with off-the-cuff blasts through the music with which he grew up, and Rock 'n' Roll emerges the sound of him doing precisely that. Four songs survive from the fractious sessions with producer Phil Spector in late 1973 that ignited the album, and listeners to any of the posthumous compilations that also draw from those archives will know that the best tracks were left on the shelf - "Be My Baby" and "Angel Baby" among them. But a gorgeous run through Lloyd Price's "Just Because" wraps up the album in fine style, while a trip through "You Can't Catch Me" contrarily captures a playful side that Lennon rarely revealed on vinyl. The remainder of the album was cut a year later with Lennon alone at the helm, and the mood remains buoyant. It might not, on first glance, seem essential to hear him running through nuggets like "Be Bop A Lula," "Peggy Sue," and "Bring It on Home to Me," but, again, Lennon has seldom sounded so gleeful as he does on these numbers, while the absence of the Spector trademark Wall-of-Sound production is scarcely noticeable - as the object of one of Lennon's own productions, David Peel once pointed out, "John had the Wall of Sound down perfectly himself." Released in an age when both David Bowie and Bryan Ferry had already tracked back to musical times-gone-by (Pin-Ups and These Foolish Things, respectively), Rock 'n' Roll received short shrift from contemporary critics. As time passed, however, it has grown in stature, whereas those other albums have merely held their own. Today, Rock 'n' Roll sounds fresher than the rock & roll that inspired it in the first place. Imagine that.

Dave Thompson - All Muisci Guide



Conceived at a time when John Lennon was struggling to regain his footing as a solo artist, Rock ‘n’ Roll afforded the hardly ancient ex-Beatles (he was only 33 when work began on the LP) a chance to revisit his Liverpool roots. Feeling nostalgic, Lennon enlisted Phil Spector to guide him through rewordings of tunes from early heroes Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard. Sounds easy enough. Something about the ‘70s made thirtysomething musicians long for the ‘50s (around the time Lennon began work on this project, the Band released the all-oldies collection Moondog Matinee) and Lennon certainly had the vocal chops to take on any rocker. The Spector sessions, however, fell apart, producing only four songs that made it to vinyl. Lennon took over production and completed the album the following year, actually helming most of the album’s highlights. "Stand by Me" proved to be a perfect dramatic vehicle for Lennon and scored as a single. The likes of "Be-Bop-A-Lula," "Slippin’ and Slidin’," and "Just Because" were comfortable fits for "Dr. Winston O’Boogie." And though "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Sweet Little Sixteen" are misbegotten attempts to slow down and reimagine the originals, by any fair gauge, there’re are three winners here for every misstep. The remixed and remastered reissue comes with four bonus tracks that rank with the final cuts. Conceived perhaps as something of a stopgap title, Rock ‘n’ Roll has aged well and serves as a tribute not only to the fathers of rock & roll, but to Lennon the vocalist and producer.

Steven Stolder - Amazon.com



As a performing group, the Beatles began by playing old rock favorites, for dancing, to tough audiences in Liverpool and Hamburg. When they began writing seriously, they discovered that they couldn't compose in the early American rock tradition. So when they needed something crude, harsh and joyfully loud to round out an album, they borrowed songs originally done by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Larry Williams or someone from Motown. (Paul McCartney finally ended the custom by writing a perfect Little Richard song himself, one that not only worked in its own right, but poked a little fun at the style and at the Beatles as well — the marvelous "I'm Down.")

When the Beatles cut old rock 'n' roll, they were recording music still in their performing repertoire, and besides, they never thought of the music as old. That makes it all the more bizarre that Rock 'n' Roll, John Lennon's celebration of early American rock, comes out sounding like nothing but oldies — self-conscious musical attitudinizing about rock roots, and poorly done at that.

In paying tribute to his musical-childhood background, Lennon sounds like he's forgotten he used to perform material like this seven nights a week and that he used to record it several times a year. He's forgotten that most of today's rock audience came to Little Richard and Chuck Berry through the Beatles versions of the music. His "Money" wasn't just more popular than Barrett Strong's original — it was also better.

The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On Rock 'n' Roll, John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock. The Beatles didn't care whether they got the music right so long as they got the feeling. Lennon can recreate the music correctly ("Be-Bop-A-Lula"), but never catches the feeling. The Beatles version of this music used to be filled with exhilarating moments; Lennon sounds like he'd be satisfied if he could capture only one. Underneath the pushing, shoving and straining, his album sounds like music in search of a climax that never comes.

The Beatles did their best cover work on Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" and music influenced by Richard, such as Larry Williams's "Dizzy Miss Lizzie." But now, almost 20 years since Richard and his imitators made their best music and more than ten since the Beatles started recording theirs, Lennon offers hollow visions of "Ready Teddy," "Rip It Up" and "Slippin' and Slidin'."

"You Can't Catch Me" is given the kind of over-elaborate, heavy-handed reading that must make Keith Richard and Mick Jagger smile with pride — they caught the mood of that Chuck Berry song so much better over ten years ago, on a great little Rolling Stones album, Now!

The most revealing failure comes on Bobby Freeman's "Do You Want to Dance." The song stands for all the gems left behind by rock's minor heros — there's no logic to anyone as limited as Bobby Freeman writing anything so great. But more than he misses the point of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lennon misses the point of this kind of rock — the stuff that sounds almost anonymous, like anyone could sing it, music whose simplicity is its greatest strength. You don't do anything with a song like this except perform it — it speaks for itself. But here comes John, with a reggae twist and a new melody line, and the magic of a tune called "Do You Want to Dance" is gone.

On the back cover of the beautiful package, Lennon's name appears in lights — just like Chuck Berry promised they would in the last verse of "Johnny B. Goode." At the bottom, there's the now famous quote (the best thing about the album, really) from Dr. Winston O'Boogie: "You Should Have Been There." John Lennon was, but sounds like he's forgotten what it was like. In making an album about his past, he has wound up sounding like a man without a past. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that this was the work of just another talented rocker who's stumbled onto a mysterious body of great American music that he truly loves but doesn't really understand. There was a time when he did.

JON LANDAU - May 22, 1975
RollingStone.com



Rock 'n' Roll is the sixth studio album by John Lennon. Released in 1975, it is an album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs as covered by Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned an entire year: Phil Spector produced sessions in October 1973 at A&M Studios, and Lennon produced sessions in October 1974 at Record Plant Studios (East). Lennon was being sued by Morris Levy over copyright infringement of one line in his song "Come Together". As part of an agreement, Lennon had to include three Levy-owned songs on Rock 'n' Roll. Spector ran away with the session recordings, later being involved in a motor accident, which left the album's tracks unrecoverable until the beginning of the Walls and Bridges sessions. With Walls and Bridges coming out first, featuring one Levy-owned song, Levy sued Lennon expecting to see Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album.

The album was released in February 1975, reaching number 6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States, later being certified gold in both countries. It was supported by the single "Stand by Me", which peaked at number 20 in the US, and 30 in the UK. The cover was taken by Jürgen Vollmer during the Beatles' stay in Hamburg. It was Lennon's last album until 1980: he took a hiatus from recording to raise his son Sean.

Wikipedia.org
 

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