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John Lennon - Rock And Roll Sessions (1974)

Track listing:
CD1
  1. Rock N Roll Radio Spot 1:03
  2. Be My Baby 6:20
  3. Just Because 6:00
  4. Ain't That A Shame 1:42
  5. Warmup 0:35
  6. Be Bop A Lula 2:34
  7. Ya Ya 2:23
  8. Do You Want To Dance 3:46
  9. John Lennon-09-Stand By Me-Rock And Roll Sessions Cd 1
  10. Slippin' And Slidin' 2:19
  11. Rip It Up Ready Teddy 1:33
  12. Bring It On Home To Me Send Me Some Loving 2:01
  13. Bring It On Home To Me Send Me Some Loving 3:32
  14. Peggy Sue 2:03
  15. Ain't That A Shame 2:43
  16. Stand By Me 0:46
  17. Bring It On Home To Me Send Me Some Loving 3:42
  18. Ya Ya 2:40
  19. John Lennon-19-That'll Be The Day-Rock And Roll Sessions Cd 1
  20. Do You Want To Dance 3:24
  21. Stand By Me 3:37
  22. John Lennon-22-Peggy Sue-Rock And Roll Sessions Cd 1
  23. Be Bop A Lula 1:52
  24. Slippin' And Slidin 1:54
  25. Guitar Jam Rumble 1:47
  26. Whole Lotta Love 0:11
  27. Thirty Days 1:28
  28. John Lennon-28-C'mon Everybody-Rock And Roll Sessions Cd 1
  29. Ain't That A Shame 1:42
  30. Ain't That A Shame 0:54
CD2
  1. You Can't Catch Me 3:37
  2. Bony Maronie 4:01
  3. Angel Baby 3:09
  4. Be My Baby 4:34
  5. Here We Go Again 3:00
  6. Here We Go Again 2 4:54
  7. My Baby Left Me 3:50
  8. To Know Her Is To Love Her 4:39
  9. Angel Baby 2 3:44
  10. Be My Baby 2 5:54
  11. Sweet Little Sixteen 4:23
  12. Peggy Sue 2:10
  13. Stand By Me 4:12
  14. Stand By Me 2 3:48
  15. Slippin And Slidin 2:23
  16. Slippin And Slidin 2 2:38
  17. Stand By Me 3 3:39
  18. Imagine 3:20
CD3
  1. Introductions Lp Concept Intro To 2:44
  2. Be-Bop-A-Lula 2:35
  3. Meeting Paul Meeting The Classic Rock Stars Intro To 4:03
  4. Stand By Me 3:24
  5. Rip It Up Ready Teddy 1:34
  6. Commerical Lp Plug Intro To 1:51
  7. You Can't Catch Me 4:04
  8. On Chuck Berry Fat Domino Mother Intro To 3:34
  9. Aint' That A Shame 2:33
  10. Lp Cover Story Only Song Messed With Intro To 1:31
  11. Do You Want To Dance 2:55
  12. Sweet Little Sixteen 2:58
  13. On Chuck Berry More Songs For Your Money Intro To 2:05
  14. Slippin' And Slidin' 2:21
  15. Lp Out Next Week Paul Owning Buddy Holly Songs Intro 1:15
  16. Peggy Sue 2:04
  17. Tradgedy Of Sam Cooke John's Fav Song Intro To 4:40
  18. Bring It On Home To Me Send Me Some Lovin 3:41
  19. On Rock And Roll Inspirations Song Writting Larry 5:57
  20. Bony Maronie 3:46
  21. Rock N Roll 2 About Lee Dorsey And Intro To 2:44
  22. Ya Ya 2:13
  23. About Roots Lp Back With Yoko Intro To 2:19
  24. Just Because 4:18
  25. Thank You Goodbyes I'll Be Back! 1:27

Notes

Madinger/Easter:
A sixty minute cassette, reportedly from the collection of guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, consists of one side of "Sunnyview Rehearsals", the other side of Record Plant monitor mixes for the Rock 'N' Roll LP. Highlights of this material was first bootlegged in 1986 as The May Pang Tapes (Beetle Records LEN4080) A subsequent release, You Should A Been There (which superseded the Beetle LP), appeared later in the year and included material from the 1973 Spector sessions as well. Highlights of the rehearsals and monitor mixes were released on CD by Orange Records in 1994 as The May Pang Tapes, which simply lifted excerpts from a worn copy of the You Should A Been There LP - at the wrong speed to boot. Six years later, Voxx released the material for the first time on CD from a tape source, but still sounding inferior to the You Should A Been There 2LP set. This CD issue includes all of the available material, but running too fast, while You Should A Been There, runs considerably slow. As the Voxx set appears to have been treated with excessive noise reduction, the LP version is still preferable. Unfortunately, all of these releases presented the material in an incorrect running order, placing the monitor mixes in between the rehearsal takes.

This is a great 3 Cd anthology of John's "Rock & roll sessions".Lets review the highlights of each disc.First on disc #1.Track #3 "Just Because".This is the full blown drunken version,and it is great.It just shows what a state John was in during his "Lost weekend" away from Yoko.This version would never be released by Capital or apple on a commercial release,so it is wonderful to have it here.Also on disc one,is what we have refered to in the past as, "The May Pang tapes".The sound on that CD was terrible,but at that time it was the only available source for some of those songs.Now on "rock & Roll Sessions" we have Jesse Ed Davis' tape as the source tape and the quality is much better as well as more complete.These were the rehearsal sessions and I understand they took place in Morris levy's barn in Upstate N.Y.,not far from my home,which makes this a cool CD for me to have.Disc #2 has a number of alternate versions and rough mixes.Some very nice versions are on this disc.A couple of my favorites are track #11 "Be My Baby" and #12 "Peggy Sue".Also,this disc has the performance from the "old grey whistle test" broadcast.The sound is excellent on these songs also and I particularly like the rough stereo take of "Stand by Me" (track #13).The final 3 tracks are from Johns last public appearance,which was "Salute to Sir lew Grade".He performed "Imagine" this evening,and he dedicated the song to "Sir Lew and my good friend Yoko".In this version of "Imagine" he changed the words slightly to "... no immigration too".So at this point he was still being dogged by Nixon and the Immigration department who was trying to railroad him out of the country.The Sir Lew performances are from an audience tape I believe as you can hear some background noise,but these songs are still much clearer than they appear on "Miscellaneous Tracks".On to Disc #3.This is a radio appearance John made on WNEW radio here in New York with Scott Muni in 1975,to promote the release of the Rock n' Roll album.The disc features John talking about each track,which is followed by the "ROOTS" version of the song.A couple ROOTS versions also appear on disc #2,giving us the complete ROOTS album in excellent sound.Back to disc #3 however,I have a warm spot in my heart for this radio program,because I actually remember hearing this on the radio back in '75 when John appeared.The entire program was about 3 hours long,and it was great.I would be interested in knowing if there is a bootleg around of the complete WNEW appearance.That is my only complaint with this set.Although it is great to have this edited radio appearance,I'd love to have the complete radio appearance unedited,because this third disc in "R & R seesions" brings back a lot of found memories for me.Towards the end of the disc,John announces to the world for the first time,that he and Yoko have gotten back together.This is just a wonderful set.By the way,my set is on the FIRE POWER label,which I guess is the first knock-off of the VOXX set already.I have one other FIRE POWER release of John's called "John Lennon Anthology: Weybridge" and the sound quality on that too is excellent.Back to Rock & roll however,I give this fantastic 3 CD set a 10 rating because I think it is that good.There is enough stuff here to please any Lennon fan,and as I stated at the beginning of this review,just having the drunken version of "Just Because" is worth the cost of the set.It is a great anthology of the Rock n' Roll sessions,get it if you can!!!