Roots: John Lennon Sings the Great Rock & Roll Hits
| Roots: John Lennon Sings the Great Rock & Roll Hits | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Studio album by John Lennon | |
| Released | January 1975 |
| Recorded | A&M Studios, October 1973; Record Plant Studios (East), 21–25 October 1974 |
| Genre | Rock, pop rock |
| Length | 45:05 |
| Label | Adam VIII |
| Producer | John Lennon, Phil Spector |
Roots: John Lennon Sings the Great Rock & Roll Hits is a rare mail-order album issued by Adam VIII consisting of rough mixes of John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album. It was available through television sale for three days in January 1975 before Lennon and Apple/EMI pulled it off the market. Lennon then rush-released his "official" version in February 1975.
In 1969, Lennon composed the song "Come Together" for the Beatles' album Abbey Road. Inspired by the Chuck Berry tune "You Can't Catch Me", it bore too much of a melodic resemblance to the original—and Lennon took the third line of the second verse ("Here come old flat-top") for the new lyric. Publisher Morris Levy brought a lawsuit for infringement, and the case was due to be heard in a New York court in December 1973.
In the meanwhile, Lennon had split with Yoko Ono and was living in Los Angeles with his personal assistant, May Pang. To avoid returning to New York for the court case, Lennon agreed to record at least three songs that Levy published on his next album (after Mind Games) and Levy dropped the suit. Browsing Levy's music publishing catalogue, Lennon found so many of his old favourites that he decided to do a full album of cover songs, by Levy's artists and others.
Lennon initially teamed up with producer Phil Spector to record the album, but the sessions quickly fell into disarray with alcohol. Spector then disappeared with the session tapes and would not be heard from for several months. Spector made one cryptic call to Lennon, claiming to have the "John Dean tapes" from the recent Watergate scandal; Lennon deduced that Spector meant he had the album's master tapes. When an auto accident on 31 March 1974 allegedly left Spector in a coma, the project was put on indefinite hold.
...
Wikipedia