Beatles ’75 pt3

February of 1975 saw the official release of John Lennon's most laborious, expensive album project in the entirety of his solo career: Rock & Roll. This collection of oldies may have seemed like an effortless cash-grab from the recesses of John's nostalgia, but the truth, drama and love behind the project ran far deeper than any listener at the time could have expected. The concept of an oldies album dates back to 1973 and the beginning of John's initial separation from estranged wife Yoko Ono (the time period now known as his so-called "Lost Weekend"). Self-appointed "Godfather of the music business" Morris Levy was in hot pursuit of legal action against Lennon for cribbing lyrics from Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me (a song which Levy owned the publishing) for John's Abbey Road classic Come Together. The solution? A new album of cover songs by Lennon featuring some Levy-owned tunes and a host of other rock classics that would serve as an outlet for the pained and out-of-control former Beatle. Two years, stacks of missing tapes, gunshots in the studio and a completely separate other solo studio album later... and John's love-letter to the sound of his past was at last out in the world. Of course, this flurry of activity also coincided with John & Yoko's rekindled romantic relationship - the couple was seen together again in public for the first time that same week at the 17th annual Grammy Awards (where John and Paul Simon delivered an award). Down in New Orleans, Paul McCartney finally got the call from John cancelling plans to join the Venus & Mars sessions - and with that call, the last true possibility of a Lennon & McCartney studio reunion was dashed. But was the reunion hope truly dead? Believe it or not, Art Garfunkel may hold the answer...

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