John Lennon & Yoko Ono interviewd by Howard Smith
Location: 105 Bank St. NY
John Lennon - The Smith Collection: John & Yoko: January 1972 (CD 1) Black Cat BC 095

Lineage: CDR trade - tlh - Dime



When we last left the Lennons they had sax on their mind; sax overdub sessions by King Curtis on two of the tracks for John's new album. This happened on July 4th at Record Plant East and ende up being Curtis' last ever recorded work as he was murdered at the end of August of 1971.
The month of July did bring a cloud of discontentment, George's invitation to join him for the Concert for Bangladesh. Well we all know how that ended in terms of any Lennon involvement. The Lennons left New York, only to return to New York for good on September 3rd. First they took up residence in the St. Regis hotel, then On the 16th of October 1971, John and Yoko moved to the Village, renting an apartment from Jerry Butler of the Lovin’ Spoonful. It had two large rooms and a wrought-iron staircase which led up to a small roof garden. Their neighbours at the time included John Cage, Bob Dylan and Jerry Rubin.

Howard Smith was a regular interviewer of the Lennons in the early years. In the 1960s and 1970s, Howard had a weekend overnight show on WPLJ, also syndicated nationally, conducting extensive in-depth interviews with well-known musicians and notable figures, as well as playing an interesting mix of albums and songs in the "progressive" freeform rock music and Album-oriented rock formats.
Smith is also a director, actor and screenwriter. His 1972 documentary "Marjoe" won an Oscar.

This is my favourite interview out of all three Smith interviews I have with the Lennons, no doubt aided by that fact that they are all sitting on the Lennon's bed and Smith was an interviewer they obviously felt quite comfortable with. It was broadcast on WPLJ-FM on January 23rd, 1972.


Information about this release can be found here:

http://bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=BC095


There are 28 tracks on this first CD and they do not quite match but rest assured nothing's missing. Forgive me for pointing to the Bootlegzone listing instead of typing them all out this time. The quality is very good to excellent.



Enjoy!