It Was 38 Years Ago Today

Thus far, John Lennon's promotional radio tour for Walls And Bridges had taken him to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Rather than continue to drag himself across North America, he consolidated his efforts by doing phoned-in interview appearances with FM stations from his base in New York, taking 10 or 20 minutes to talk with disc jockeys in major markets.

On September 26th, 1974, John's busy day began at Capitol Records' offices, where he spoke with EMI's British managing director, Bob Mercer. The recording was meant for the ears of EMI's sales staff, to inspire the troops in promoting the new single and album; it was pressed as a white-label promo single (with "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" on the flip) and included on the remastered Walls And Bridges CD.

John then sat down at the telephone and began doing the radio phone-ins. First up was WMMS-FM in Cleveland, whose Denny Sanders asked John about the latest trends in lavish rock stage and studio productions, his duet with Julian on "Ya Ya", the chances of doing benefit shows, and the recent Beatles fan conventions held in Boston and New York.

For Toronto's CHUM-FM, John talked about paying taxes, choosing musicians for his projects, his trip to Colorado to record with Elton John, his UFO sighting, and most interestingly, the status of his relationship with Yoko, which he sums up as "we're just good friends".

Alan Stone from WQRS in Minneapolis also spoke with John; their conversation touches on Little Richard, driving across the USA, immigration, Elephant's Memory, Badfinger's new album, and John's imminent 34th birthday.

PS: I've realized that the mysterious "1975 RKO interview" I posted yesterday actually consists of excerpts from the 1977 RKO radio documentary series From Liverpool To Legend. I do have this in better quality, so I may post John's interview pieces again when I get to 1975 (or 1977).