John Lennon
"Rock'n'Roll"
Released: 1975
John Lennon loved his rock'n'roll roots and had a plan to record an album's worth of his own
versions of 50s and early 60s classics. This was a project which took a long time, partly
because Phil Spector was approached to produce the whole thing. And Spector was pretty well-
known for his rather erratic behaviour. Still, he had been involved in the production of
several Lennon-albums already, so why shouldn't it work this time? Well, it didn't. Anyway,
the end result was nevertheless great. And, funnily enough, it's probably in part because
of Spector's involvement. He was one of Lennon's idols and the fact that Spector produced
almost certainly brought out the best of Lennon. On the other hand it turned out that a lot
of what was recorded under the supervision of old Phil couldn't be used. Lennon had to re-
record some songs under his own supervision. Anyhow, John Lennon was an incredible singer
and his love for the material can clearly be heard on these recordings. It's only a pity
that two songs didn't make it onto the album: "Angel Baby" and "Be My Baby". Spector and
Lennon had this knack for slowing down fairly fast songs and these are two good examples.
Especially "Be My Baby" is incredible in Lennon's unbelievably sexy rendition.
Still, "Rock'n'Roll" is enough in itself. Particularly great performances: "Stand By Me"
(a great deal better than Ben E. King's original!), "You Can't Catch Me", "Sweet Little
Sixteen"...
If you like this one, check out the posthumous Lennon-album "Menlove Avenue". It contains
a bunch of songs recorded at the same time as "Rock'n'Roll", some of which were meant to
be on that album.
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