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October 8, 2010

Long After Death, Lennon Remains An

Inspiration
By ALLAN KOZINN
John Lennon would have turned 70 on Saturday, and the anniversary has occasioned a flood
of events and releases to commemorate the songwriter and his work. In a way, Lennon’s
stature — the reason for the celebrations — makes some of them seem beside the point.
Since he was murdered outside the Dakota, 30 years ago in December, Lennon has
remained a powerful presence in the culture, both for his songwriting and performances as a
Beatle and for his post-Beatles life as a peace crusader, born-again feminist and alternately
strident and affecting solo artist. Do we really need to be reminded about John Lennon?

Perhaps not, but Lennon himself would have been the first to recognize, and run with, the
commercial potential of a big, even-numbered anniversary. He built his 1969 peace
campaign, after all, on the notion that since the press was following his every move anyway,
he might as well use the attention to put across his message. He described his Bed-In for
Peace as “an advertisement.”

Among the many projects competing for Lennon fans’ attention is Sam Taylor-Wood’s
feature film, “Nowhere Boy,” which looks at Lennon’s adolescence and his complicated,
often conflicted relationship with his Aunt Mimi, who raised him, and with his more
footloose mother, Julia.

The Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio), meanwhile,
offers an ambitious schedule of Lennon and Beatles films, as well as a photo exhibition,
through Dec. 31. Numerous concert tributes will celebrate Lennon too, including a concert
by the surviving members of his first band, the Quarry Men, at the Society for Ethical
Culture on Saturday night.

But the two most compelling offerings are “LENNONYC,” a comprehensive documentary
about Lennon’s New York years — his final decade, or virtually his entire post-Beatles career
— by Michael Epstein, and an expansive CD reissue series that was overseen by Yoko Ono,
Lennon’s widow, that includes the eight studio albums he made between “Plastic Ono

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Band,” in 1970, and “Double Fantasy” and the unfinished “Milk and Honey,” in 1980.

The albums are available separately and in a lavish “Signature Box,” which also includes a
book, an art print and an otherwise unavailable disc of previously unissued works, among
them an incendiary outtake from “God,” Lennon’s declaration of independence from the
Beatles and everything else his fans considered sacred.

Ms. Ono has also released “Double Fantasy/Stripped Down,” a radical remix of the 1980
album in which her elimination of overdubs and effects yields a tight, punchy version of the
set, in which the vocals are clear and crisp. (The two-CD set includes the original mix as
well)

“LENNONYC,” which will be shown at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park on Saturday night
at 7, and on PBS as part of the “American Masters” series, on Nov. 22, is in some ways a
perfect companion to the remastered CDs. Though its purview is not only musical — it also
touches on Lennon’s political involvements, his four-year deportation battle and the ups
and downs of his marriage with Ms. Ono — Lennon’s post-Beatles musical development is
the glue that holds the story together.

Mostly, the music is presented in a way that will be new to all but veteran bootleg collectors:
nearly every song in the show is heard in an intimate acoustic demo or a studio outtake.
Musicians who collaborated with Lennon — members of his early 1970s backing band,
Elephant’s Memory, as well as studio pros like the guitarists Earl Slick and Hugh
McCracken, and the drummer Andy Newmark, who worked with him later — offer insights
into Lennon’s composing and recording process, in which he often rewrote lyrics and
changed arrangements as he went along.

Lennon’s own between-takes comments, provided to the production by Ms. Ono, also tell us
plenty about his keen sensitivity to the relationship between words and music.

“Just lay back,” he tells the band during the sessions for “Stepping Out,” admonishing them
not to speed up after the bridge. “He’s just stepping out, he’s not rushing.” During the
recording of “Watching the Wheels” he says he wants the music to feel “a little laid-back
because he’s watching the wheels, he’s not driving the damn truck,” but warns his players
against making it as laconic as “I Am the Walrus.”

Lennon’s music, for the most part, was an autobiography in progress: except for “Some
Time in New York City,” his album of mostly ephemeral, quickly dashed-off political
broadsides — it was no coincidence that he packaged it to look like a newspaper — his
subject was usually himself. And that may be why, when you watch “LENNONYC,” you
almost wish it had been included as a bonus DVD in the “Signature Box.”

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Not surprisingly, the reissues are already the subject of intense debate among Beatles
obsessives. At issue, mainly, is whether Ms. Ono made the right decision this time — she
returned to the original mixes, prepared by Lennon himself — or the last time she undertook
a catalog overhaul, between 2000 and 2005, when she produced entirely new mixes from
the multitrack session tapes.

It’s a tough question. Lennon’s own mixes have a clear historic value, and they sound better
here than in their previous (late 1980s) CD incarnations. But Ms. Ono’s remixes offered
considerable sonic improvements. Lennon’s voice comes through with greater clarity and
presence, and instrumental textures are more transparent too. But Ms. Ono also made
editorial decisions — some as innocuous as leaving in a count-in; others more drastic, like
focusing on previously buried instruments or severely editing the live tracks on “Some Time
in New York City” — that have outraged purists.

Perhaps she should have done what she did with “Double Fantasy/Stripped Down”: offer
each album as a twofer, with both the original mix and her own reconsideration, based,
presumably, on how she thought Lennon might revisit the material using today’s
technology.

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