: "Ono mines Lennon
library for acoustic disc
?Acoustics? features live, home
recordings of ex-Beatle's classic songs
John Lennon did many recordings that simply feature the ex-Beatle and his guitar on live renditions of classics such as 'Imagine' and 'Watching the Wheels,' as well as versions of songs that he had recorded in his home.
NEW YORK - Yoko Ono knows she could probably release old recordings of John Lennon yodeling and there would be market for it.
Outtakes, musical flubs or subpar recordings may generate sales, but Lennon’s widow says would never release such material. She’s always been choosy about what the public hears from her late husband’s musical archives.
“People have tried to make me do that — like people will love it anyway, and I’m not doing it,” Ono told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. “I know how astute John was and John would have hated to have been seen in that light. He wanted to just bring out things that he felt was good enough.
”
Ono feels the previously unreleased material on the new album “Acoustic” lives up to the Beatle’s high standards. The disc, released this week, simply features Lennon and his guitar on live renditions of classics such as “Imagine” and “Watching the Wheels,” as well as versions of songs that he recorded in his home.
“He was just such an incredible guitarist and most people don’t know that,” Ono said.
“Just the way he picks the guitar is so beautiful, you would think that he had training in Spanish classical guitar or something.”
The album came about after organizers of a Lennon event in Japan approached Ono about putting out some of his acoustic work on CD. Ono selected live tracks from other Lennon albums, but also listened to some of his home recordings — mostly done in his bedroom, with few people around — and thought “maybe I could do something about this.
”
Although Lennon recorded some songs on piano, Ono found those unusable.
“The balance between the piano and the sound was totally off,” she said, blaming the placement of the microphone atop the piano. “The sound was drowning his voice, and there was nothing I could do about it.
”
The guitar tracks were more pleasing to the ear, and engineers worked to make them CD worthy.
The “Acoustic” CD is being released here on Capitol Records, along with the re-release of another John Lennon album, 1975’s “Rock ’n’ Roll.”
Lennon was shot to death in 1980 at age 40.
Ono knows there is an insatiable market for his music, but she’ll continue to be careful about what she releases from his creative vaults.
“I do know that there are more songs that I have, but they’re all very important songs,” she said, “and they have to be put out in a way where it’s not just scratching the bottom of the barrel.”
Whenever John, Paul or George went on a trip, they'd send Ringo a postcard. A new book details these notes, doodles and jokes from the drummer's private archive"
Ever since the Beatles began making young girls scream in the early Sixties, there's been a cottage industry in biographies and biopics detailing the minutiae of their humble beginnings in Liverpool, their dalliances with the Maharishi and their acrimonious breakup. Considering they disbanded 34 years ago, there is little we don't know about the Beatles.
In fact, as Ringo Starr notes, "A lot of people know more about my life than I do."
But few know about Starr's love of postcards. Whenever one of his jet-setting friends set off on a trip, Starr requested they drop him a postcard.
Thankfully, they obliged and over the years he amassed an amusing collection, many of which were posted by his former band mates.
The drummer approached Genesis Publications in London with his holdings and proposed a book. Postcards From the Boys was published shortly thereafter, with all royalties going to The Lotus Foundation charity.
(In Canada, it's published by Chronicle Books and costs $39.95.)
While postcards by nature show little regard for privacy and demand brevity, Ringo's collection paints a surprisingly intimate portrait of the relationship between the Fab Four.
In addition to tracing "the boys" history through their frequent travels, changing spouses, birth of children, recording of albums and Starr's frequent moving of house, the cards illuminate that particular Beatle wit as well as the friends' enduring affection for one another.
"It's a slightly different way of looking at the Beatles," says Robby Elson, the editor at Genesis who wrote the book's introduction. "Lots of Beatles' biographies spend a lot of time documenting their every move minute to minute, but that's a very dry way of looking at the Beatles.
I think Ringo opening up his treasure chest of postcards is a slightly more human way of looking at their lives."
Accompanying each postcard are Starr's ruminations on their often cryptic meanings and his memories of what was happening in his life at the time.
A postcard from Paul and Jane (Asher) from the Maharishi's compound in Rishikesh, India, informs Ringo and his wife, Maureen, that John and George managed to meditate for seven hours and Paul for two and a half.
The Starkeys only stayed in Rishikesh for a couple of weeks because they had children and Maureen's fly/moth phobia was aggravated by the Indian jungle. This postcard also reminds Starr of the death of Brian Epstein, the band's manager.
A 1970 postcard from Denmark, with love from John and Yoko, launches Starr into a story about how he and Harry Nilsson ended up in Austria looking for Johann Strauss but instead found Robert Altman, with whom they dined in Denmark.
Starr then moved on to Greece.
In 1979, Lennon scrawled a note to Starr, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, that read: "Blondie's Heart of Glass is the type of stuff y'all should do. Great and simple.
" This was in reference to Starr's stalling solo career.
"Several of them are apologies, like the one from Paul calling himself Mr. B.
Lumpy. I think that's a very nice insight," says Elson. "It's obviously an apology but it's done in a very Beatlesque manner.
Very weird. And there are some lovely postcards such as the one made by George and Olivia Harrison. I think it's wonderful that they made a postcard to send him and it's a beautiful photograph.
These are just lovely insights into their individual character like the haiku written by John Lennon. Priceless stuff, really."
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