My Amazon Reviews: John Lennon "Rock'n'Roll"

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4 Out of 5 Stars

John Lennon put a quarter into the wayback jukebox in 1975, and emerged with "Rock'n'Roll." Born of a lawsuit with the eternally slimy Morris Levy, Lennon turned the situation around to create something beautiful. It seems Mr Levy decided that "Come Together" was too similar to Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" (the rights to which Levy owned by attaching his name to songs he never wrote - a whole other story in scamming) and sued Lennon for copyright infringement. But instead of a settlement, Levy insisted Lennon record three more songs that Levy controlled copyrights for. Basically, Levy decided an ongoing revenue stream attached to a Lennon catalog would enrich his coffers substantially.

Almost as a rebuke, Lennon covers "You Can't Catch Me" with greasy gusto. And yes, the similarities to "Come Together" are obvious. But it hardly matters, as Lennon takes full ownership of this performance. Most of "Rock'n'Roll" follows suit, with a swinging version of Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya" and the beautifully rendered "Stand By Me." (Lennon's last top 40 hit of the decade.)

What Lennon attempted to do was to reach back to the songs of his youth; down to the 1961 photo of leather-jacketed Lennon in the door-arch of a Hamburg club, hair greased in a pre-Beatles-cut pompadour. The Beatles started life as a hot covers band, and Lennon's Buddy Holly/Chuck Berry/Fats Domino covers on this CD all tap into that lodestone. It was also an unpredicted wave goodbye, as Lennon dropped out of public life for another five years after this. Thirty-five years on, "Rock'n'Roll" holds up as a portrait of an artist in a relaxed mode, enjoying himself before taking a much needed break.