Listening to Lennon: Rock 'n' Roll (along with McCartney's CHOBA B CCCP and Run Devil Run)

It would be nice to believe that Lennon wanted, in early 1975, with his immigration woes and his conflicts with the U.S. government apparently finally coming to an end, and with his decision to return to New York City, the American city he loved best, to turn back to his earliest musical loves for inspiration, and that he would decide to record a bunch of rock and roll tunes from the 1950s as an affirmation of such. Unfortunately, no. Not that Lennon still didn't love this music; he absolutely did, and the care he showed in the eventual production of the tunes on this record, as well as the passion and joy that comes out through them, makes that clear. But as anyone with access to Wikipedia can tell you, Rock 'n' Roll doesn't actually have anything to do with all of those 1975 moments or decisions or transitions. Instead, we have this album--which, at this point in my listening to Lennon's solo oeuvre, I kind of think is his very best work--solely due to a money-grubbing lawsuit.

So, very reductively: Lennon wrote "Come Together" for the Beatles in 1969, and while doing so he made use of some chords and part of one verse from the Chuck Berry tune, "You Can't Catch Me." Morris Levy, one of those promoters/entrepreneurs/crooks that were so common in the early days of rock and roll, had ended up with the copyright to the song, and he insisted on being paid royalties. In an out-of-court settlement, Lennon (or, rather, his lawyers, thought obviously Lennon signed off on the plan) agreed to record multiple tunes that Levy owned the copyright of, thus guaranteeing continuing royalties as "his" songs get released with the imprimatur of a Beatle. Originally Lennon was going to get these recordings done in Los Angeles in the winter of 1973-1974, but the recording sessions were chaotic, and Phil Spector, the producer, whom Lennon had worked very productively with on both Imagine and (perhaps somewhat less productively) Some Time in New York City, was descending into madness. In December 1973, Lennon terminated his working relationship with Spector, but Spector took and refused to turn over the recordings. Then in March 1974, Spector was in a near-fatal car crash, and the whole project was abandoned. Lennon went ahead and released the excellent Walls and Bridges, which Levy considered a violation of the settlement, and Levy threatened to refile his lawsuit. So finally, in October 1974, Lennon recorded, in just a few days, new versions of these songs he knew so well. Levy then insisted Lennon was dragging his feat, and when Lennon gave him copies of the unpolished studio demos to prove the album was moving forward, Levy quickly released them as a junk album on his own label, which led to additional suits and counter-suits between him, Lennon, and Capitol Records. The dude was a piece of work, that's for certain. 

But that piece of work got Lennon to do something that, if you listen to these songs, you know he always should have been doing: blasting out classic rock and roll with heart, wit, soul, and style. Very simply, Rock 'n' Roll is a pretty much a perfect blast of great, groovy, head-bopping tunes. There isn't a single track on the album that is less than first-rate. "Be-Bop-a-Lula" is a rockabilly classic that the Beatles had regularly played all the way back in the Hamburg and Cavern Club days; Lennon sings it brilliantly. "Stand By Me" is obviously a proto-soul masterpiece, but it's hard to deny that Lennon's driving, bluesy cover of it just might be superior to the original. While you can't help but hear echoes of "Come Together" in his cover of "You Can't Catch Me," that actually just makes the song even better. Lennon makes Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame" feel even a little more dirty and therefore and more delightful, gives Bobby Freeman's "Do You Want to Dance?" a cool calypso swing, keeps Spector's "wall of sound" treatment and makes Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen"--another favorite of the Beatles--into a legitimate rave-up, and on it goes. "Peggy Sue," "Send Me Some Lovin', "Bony Moronie," "Bring It On Home to Me"--Lennon is simply on, all the way through this record. No notes, an A album, unquestionably.

Except, in giving it that grade, I kind of feel bad. For one thing, this isn't a measure of Lennon as a full musician; it shows us Lennon as a vocalist, arranger, band leader, guitarist, studio operator, and most of all as a nostalgic and delighted fan, but not as the songwriter who, in the Beatles and (sometimes) on his own, created his own set of standards which other vocalists, guitarists, band leaders, etc., have been listening to, loving, and striving to emulate for decades now, and no doubt will continue to for decades to come. Should I really count Rock 'n' Roll, a collection of covers, as a full part of Lennon's discography? I mean, I didn't include such cover albums with McCartney did the same.

But that made me think--maybe there's a reason for that? So I went back to what I wrote about Paul McCartney's incredible (and continuing!) artistic output back in 2019, when got around, to listening to and writing about his two complete albums of rock and roll covers--1988's CHOBA B CCCP (or just The Russian Album), and 1999's Run Devil Run. In both cases I was brief, not considering these albums, much as I like them--called The Russian Album's "quite wonderful!" and Run Devil Run "pretty brilliant!"--as proper comparisons to Macca's many albums of original work. But Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll makes me want to give them a deeper consideration, to see if I can at least makes some comparisons between the rock and roll passion that McCartney demonstrated, and the terrific performance Lennon turned in on this album.

My conclusion? Well, I have to say--I think the historical consensus is right. McCartney is absolutely the better, broader musician of the two, stretching himself and doing things with his voice and his instruments (multiple ones!) that Lennon never could, or didn't live long enough to ever seriously try. And that breadth makes it impossible for him to treat classic rock and roll as a canon that can't be supplemented; he needs to bring pop, blues, jazz, and folk into the mix as well. All of which suggests that...yeah, maybe Lennon really was the one with the deeper, truer, rock and roll soul. That 's perhaps a limitation, but in some contexts--like when one wants to make a rock and roll album--it's a plus. 

Off The Russian Album, McCartney's cover of the R&B classic "Kansas City" can't be touched--which is perhaps predictable; it's one of his favorite songs, having made it a regular feature of early Beatles set-lists, and a song he'll sing in concert to this day. And his covers of "Lucille"--with McCartney doing is trademark Little Richards shout--and "That's All Right"--with him once again delivering an Elvis Presley-style drawl; he does the same on "Just Because"--are fabulous. But I just don't think Macca captured Sam Cooke's soul in "Bring It On Home to Me" the way his old best friend did, and his version of "Ain't That Shame" is more fun than feisty, missing what Lennon brought to the tune. On the other hand, when he provides rock and roll re-arrangements of the jazz standard "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" or the folk classic "Midnight Special," Macca hits gold. Similarly, on Run Devil Run, McCartney has great rock and roll chops. He checks off more rockabilly with "Blue Jean Bop," "Lonesome Town," and "Movie Magg," and he morphs into a juiced-up Elvis (though perhaps not quite as convincingly) once again for "All Shook Up," "I Got Stung," and "Party." All of it is solid. And, in contrast to his previous effort, I really love his take on Fats Domino on this album, with him injecting some doe-eyed sexuality into "Coquette." Again, though, I think the very best cover on the album was when Macca's muse leads him away from rock and roll, adding an accordion to Check Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," and turning it into a masterful bit of zydeco pop.

If I could go back to 2019, I'd give The Russian Album a solid B, maybe a B+; I'd give Run Devil Run the same, or maybe even all the way up to an A-; it really is that good. Both are fine collections of rock and roll standards. But are they as good as Lennon's? I just don't think so. If, at the end of this trip through Lennon's solo work, I have to conclude the very best collection of songs he ever put out were covers of a bunch of tunes that he'd learned by heart decades before, and could sing in his sleep--would that made him upset? Something tells me--especially when expressed in terms of him claiming some kind of rock and roll purist crown over his greatest friend and rival--he'd be just fine with it, in the end.