Once they settled into their suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, John and Yoko wasted no time hitting the promotional circuit. The Imagine LP was released in the US on September 7th, 1971, with Yoko's companion album, Fly, coming out later that month.
On September 2nd, John and Yoko were interviewed by a Japanese journalist about their new releases. With Yoko translating the queries and responses, the 20-minute recording has a minimum of Lennon content, but listen out for his Kabuki impression at the very end!
September 6th found visitors to the St. Regis suite, including George Harrison and Dick Cavett, stepping in front of the camera for the Imagine companion film. Cavett was there to meet the couple prior to interviewing them on his ABC talk show.
The conversation, videotaped September 8th, turned out to be one of John's most entertaining television appearances, and as such over-ran the 90-minute time slot. John and Yoko took up the whole show on September 21st, and a further 25 minutes of leftover material was slotted in on the 24th:
Another early September guest at the St. Regis was writer Peter McCabe, who was working (with Robert Schonfeld) on a book about the dismantling of The Beatles' financial empire, Apple To The Core. Highlights of McCabe's four-hour conversation with John were aired in a 1984 radio special which coincided with the publication of a book containing the full interview, John Lennon: For The Record.
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ReplyDeleteWhoah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Downloading at once!!!
ReplyDeleteListening to the Japanese interview....my favorite part (so far...!) is "George and I both think How Do You Sleep is the best solo he's ever done.....and also George said he thinks "How" is the best song he's ever heard in his life! It's very kind of him."
ReplyDeleteLove seeing our Beatles get along.....can our political leaders be far behind?
Holy smokes, this Peter McAbe interview....it's the definitive Lennon interview for at least the Hamburg days! Sounds like they used this entire interview in the Beatles Anthology book! Great to hear how he actually said it! Fantastic interview! One more time, thank you masked man! (a little Lenny Bruce reference in there for yer!)
ReplyDeleteAaah, I missed it... Files have been deleted. Is there any way someone could upload the interview somewhere? I'd greatly appreciate it...
ReplyDelete