Wednesday, September 26, 2012

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).

17 comments:

  1. Sadly the first link comes up with this message:

    "Permission Denied.

    This file has been identified as a copyright protected work and cannot be distributed using MediaFire."

    The others currently work. (Thanks for these, I've been dying to hear them my whole life!!!)

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  2. I keep getting this message -
    This file has been identified as a copyright protected work and cannot be distributed using MediaFire.

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  3. Hmm... Well, as I said, the interview was released on the Walls and Bridges remaster, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

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  4. Interesting about the mystery RKO interview. I'd assume it wasn't actually conducted in 1977 since John wasn't doing interviews at that time. Do you suppose he gave two RKO interviews, one in fall 1974 to promote "Walls & Bridges" and one sometime in 1975 to promote "Rock & Roll"?

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    1. Yes, that seems more likely, although there's no mention of that album in the bits I've heard.

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  5. For all of those who wan't to keep up to date....here 'tis.

    https://rapidshare.com/files/1689122007/JL 1974.rar

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    1. Thank you, Anonymous, and thank you John Winn! (And thank you John Lennon for that matter, especially John Lennon!!) I still can't get over being able to hear all this stuff, talk about filling in pieces of the jigsaw puzzle!

      A few weeks ago, I woke up and realized I'd been actually DREAMING in LIVERPUDLIAN!!! What the....?!!!

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  6. Just happened upon this, completely out of coincidence! Looks like there's another interview that you have to be a member of this blog/site to access, September 26, 1974, radio station KZEW

    http://98kzew.com/zoospecial/kzew-mike-taylor-john-lennon-interview-92674

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  7. Is there actually audio of the KZEW interview?

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    1. Good question - I don't see it on the site, and when I tried to sign up as a member, they never got back to me. Presumably someone has the auctioned tape, though.

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  8. I received the following:

    "Thank you for registering at 98kzew.com. Your application for an account is
    currently pending approval. Once it has been approved, you will receive
    another e-mail containing information about how to log in, set your password,
    and other details.


    -- 98kzew.com team"

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  9. That's what I got, too, but no follow-up mail.

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    1. Yeah, I've been unable to get anything on that site also (I'm the one who first posted about it.).

      Well....at least we know it's out there! And if anyone in the world will be able to procure that interview....it's Mr. Healthy-Again, John Winn!

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