John Lennon - Angel Baby

John's tenth solo album release, and first with no songs written by himself.
Credited to John Lennon.
Personnel :
1973 Sessions.
John - Vocals and guitar
Jesse Ed Davis - Guitar
Jim Keltner - Drums
Leon Russell - Keyboards
Jose Feliciano - Acoustic guitar
Nino Tempo - Saxophone
Steve Cropper - Guitar
Hal Blaine - Drums
and Jeff Barry and Barry Mann.
1974 Sessions :

John - Vocals and guitar
Jesse Ed Davis - Guitar
Eddie Mottau - Acoustic guitar
Jim Keltner - Drums
Klaus Voorman - Bass
Arthur Jenkins - Percussion
Ken Ascher - Keyboards
Bobby Keyes - Brass
and Peter Jameson, Joseph Temperley, Dennis Morouse and Frank Vicari.
Originally to be called "Oldies But Mouldies", recording started last quarter 1973 with Phil Spector in the producing chair. But, John and Phil constantly "disagreed" over the product, and the sessions fell apart. At this time Phil had the tapes, was then involved in a car accident and John was unable to get the tapes back from Phil. When eventually he did get them back, he decided that only four of the takes were acceptable, and decided to re-record the others. This was done just after the release of "Walls And Bridges" from 21st-25th October 1974, and so it was decided to hold back the release of the oldies album until April 1975.

The next part of the interesting history of the release of this L.P. concerns "Come Together" ... Maurice Levy was the publisher of Chuck Berry's song catalogue and sued John for copyright infringement, claiming that "Come Together" was a plagiarised version of Chuck's "You Can't Catch Me". John agreed, out of court, to recompense by including some Chuck Berry songs for his next album, including the aforementioned problem tune. John gave Levy tapes from those first Spector sessions of the Chuck Berry songs, and Levy created an album which he advertised on U.S. T.V. and released 8th February 1975. This album was called "John Lennon Sings The Great Rock & Roll Hits", and was sub-titled "Roots" (it's more familiar name). It even added two tracks omitted from the official version, "Angel Baby" and "Be My Baby" (see The Bootleg Single)
The release stated that it was authorised by John Lennon and Apple Records, which was hotly denied by both, who then counter sued ! ... the "Roots" album was withdrawn and John was awarded $145,000 on 20th February 1976. But, it was the "Roots" release that caused Apple to bring forward the "Rock 'n' Roll" issue date.

"Angel Baby" eventually surfaced legitamately on "Menlove Avenue".
Three other tracks from the original sessions also appeared on "Menlove Avenue", these were "My Baby Left Me", "To Know Her Is To Love Her" and "Here We Go Again".
Also recorded but remaining unreleased were, "That'll Be The Day", "Thirty Days" and C'mon Everybody"

The album is single sleeved, with no added gimmicks like in more recent releases.
The cover photograph of John was taken by Jurgen Vollmer in 1961 in Hamburg. The blurred figures are George and Paul, plus EITHER Pete Best OR Stuart Sutcliffe. The format of this cover was designed by Ray Kohara.
The record label is the standard green Apple.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• John
• Lennon
• Rock
• And
• Roll

[raleighgranprix]

this is great but listening to some other songs on R n R, I'm not so sure but this would be worth getting the cd for.

[KurtRileyOfficial]

So gorgeous. This is what being in love sounds like. Just listening to it makes me feel that way. Thank you for sharing.

[mrbenod1]

1973 "Come Together" was the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Big 7 Music Corp. (owned by Morris Levy) publisher of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". Before recording, added a heavy bass riff in order to make the song more original. After settling out of court, Lennon promised to record three other songs owned by Levy. "You Can't Catch Me" and "Ya Ya" were released on Lennon's 75 album Rock 'n' Roll, but the third, "Angel Baby", remained unreleased until after Lennon's death.

[4fulsealteam]

Loved it..from: Rockin Robin Rox.