S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon
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''S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon'' is a bootleg album of rehearsals before a concert of British musician John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, recorded in studio in late August 1972. The show would be carried out later in
Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...
with the rock band
Elephant's Memory Elephant's Memory (also billed as Elephants Memory, without the apostrophe) was an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in the late 1960s, known primarily for backing John Lennon and Yoko Ono from late 1971 to 1973. For live p ...
, as part of his two charities concerts "''One to One''," made just over a week after these recordings.


Recordings

The sessions were with record producer Phil Spector, mostly between 21 and 22 August 1972 at Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR Studios), a room in Manhattan, New York, which began operations late this year. The album title is an obvious pun between this name studio and the British honorary title of "Sir," although Lennon himself was never entitled to use it. The only exceptions were " Honey Hush" and the "
jam session A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without exte ...
" by Yoko Ono, recorded on 18 August at the Butterfly Studio and 20 and 22 August at the Fillmore East theatre, both venues in the same city. These last sessions have a sound quality significantly of lower quality. As usual in this type of unofficial recordings, the audio is not optimal from the original tape and was one of the main reasons why it never was released at the time. The rehearsals were published in 1995 on CD by the Italian label Moonlight Records, that acquired the rights to use this recordings. Along with ''
A Toot and a Snore in '74 ''A Toot and a Snore in '74'' is a bootleg album consisting of the only known recording session in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney played together after the break-up of the Beatles in 1970. First mentioned by Lennon in a 1975 interview, mo ...
'', this is one of the bootlegs of rehearsals by John Lennon lesser known, and never included in compilations.


Context

Rehearsals were recorded in a time when John Lennon's career began to take radically a different turn after his peak period as a political activist (see '' Bed-In'' and '' Bagism''). The change in musical direction came amid several problems: the commercial failure of his controversial album '' Some Time in New York City'' (released just two months ago), including the various geo-political events that shook the world in 1972 and finally, there was an artist's stated desire to return to his usual rock and roll music. After nearly two years of trying to shape the project, Lennon would make it culminated in 1975 with the release of his album '' Rock 'n' Roll'', but only included his version of "" Ain't That a Shame," from the tested songs in 1972. In an interview in 1975, Lennon said this about ''Rock 'n' Roll'': "It started in '73 with Phil," but never said nothing about his rehearsals in SIR Studios, one year before. It's not very clear that these recordings were originated directly for the concert on 30 August 1972 at Madison Square Garden (which was filmed and released under the name '' Live in New York City'' until 1986), because it has very few the songs performed on the show: only was performed " Come Together" and " Hound Dog." Lennon probably only would consider possible songs for future recordings in the studio, without being certain of what is going to play in the upcoming concert. This CD consists primarily of classic songs from rock and roll and the only one Lennon song "Come Together." The songs credited to Yoko Ono is some
blues rock Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...
improvisations with spontaneous screaming from her. "We're All Water" is an Ono song included in ''Some Time in New York City''. The editing eliminated much of the dialogue between John and the band, focusing on the interpretation of the songs.


Historical significance

Despite the poor quality sound of this tapes, it is one of the rare occasions of recording John Lennon from his position "live in the studio" in his solo career. Additional importance is that almost all these songs were never played live, thus being the only known recording of these songs from him. Lennon never staged a concert tour during his post
Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...
career.


Track listing

#" Roll Over Beethoven" ( Chuck Berry) – 2:30 # "
Honey Don't "Honey Don't" is a song written by Carl Perkins, originally released on January 1, 1956 as the B-side of the "Blue Suede Shoes" single, Sun 234. Both songs became rockabilly classics. Bill Dahl of Allmusic praised the song saying, "'Honey Don't' a ...
" (
Carl Perkins Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998)#nytimesobit, Pareles. was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, Tennes ...
) – 3:05 # " Ain't That a Shame" ( Fats Domino/ Dave Bartholomew) – 2:34 # Medley: " My Babe" ( Little Walter) and " Not Fade Away" ( Charles Hardin/ Norman Petty) – 2:30 # "
Send Me Some Lovin' "Send Me Some Lovin'" is a 1957 rock and roll standard recorded by Little Richard. John S. Marascalso co-wrote "Send Me Some Lovin'" with Leo Price. Background Little Richard recorded the song October 16, 1956, at J&M Music Shop in New Orlean ...
" ( Richard Penniman) – 2:49 #"Yoko Jam" ( Yoko Ono) – 2:21 #Medley: " Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" (Dave "Curlee" Williams/James Faye "Roy" Hall) and " It'll Be Me" ( Jack Clement) – 5:29 #" Honey Hush" (
Big Joe Turner Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." His greatest fame was due to ...
) – 2:13 #Medley: " Don't Be Cruel" ( Otis Blackwell) and " Hound Dog" (
Jerry Leiber Lyricist Jerome Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011) and composer Michael Stoller (born March 13, 1933) were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found success as the writers of such Crossover music, crossover hit songs ...
/Mike Stoller) – 4:27 #"Caribbean" ( Mitchell Torok) – 3:09 #" Honky Tonk" ( Bill Doggett) – 3:11 #"Mind Train" (Ono) – 8:07 #" Come Together" ( Lennon–McCartney) – 7:00 #"We're All Water" (Ono) – 11:04


Personnel

* John Lennon – vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards * Yoko Ono – keyboards * Jim Keltner – drums
Elephant's Memory Elephant's Memory (also billed as Elephants Memory, without the apostrophe) was an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in the late 1960s, known primarily for backing John Lennon and Yoko Ono from late 1971 to 1973. For live p ...
: *Wayne 'Tex' Gabriel – lead guitar *Gary Van Scyoc – bass guitar *John Ward – bass guitar *Stan Bronstein – saxophone *Adam Ippolito – keyboards *Richard Frank Jr. – drums


Notes


External links


Bootleg ZoneDiscogs page
{{Authority control 1995 albums John Lennon albums Bootleg recordings Yoko Ono albums