John Lennon : Watching The Wheels
On August 8, 1980, after five years of mostly silence, John Lennon walked into the Hit Factory in midtown Manhattan to record Double Fantasy with Yoko Ono and producer Jack Douglas. Douglas was a second engineer on Imagine before making a name for himself by producing Aerosmith. He rehearsed musicians without ever letting them know who was recording the album. Then Douglas played the tapes for Lennon. John didn't want to make a comeback album until he knew it was going to be good. When Lennon finally liked what he heard he turned to Yoko and said:
‘Mother, tell the world we’re making a record.’
In nine days, shrouded in secrecy, they recorded twenty-two songs, with fourteen chosen for the album. Seven sung by John and seven by Yoko. Yes, Yoko had convinced John she should also have songs on the album so that Double Fantasy came across as a conversation.
John has been recording cassette demos at the Dakota. One, originally called "Tennessee", addressed everyone who thought he was crazy to be spending so much time at home with Sean when he could be out "riding on the merry-go-round" of fame.
Lennon had paid all the costs of production so he would have total control. It would be up to Yoko to find a record company to release the album. We will revisit a session next week when Cheap Trick enter the studio to record two tracks .
A bit of the recording:
No comments:
Post a Comment