Menlove Ave.

Performer: John Lennon
Producer: John Lennon; Phil Spector
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Personnel includes: John Lennon (guitar, vocals); Jesse Ed Davis (guitar); Klaus Voorman (bass); Jim Keltner (drums). Recorded at Record Plant, New York City; A&M Studios, Los Angeles, California. Engineers: Roy Cicala, Lee Keifer, Shelly Yakus, Ed Sprigg, Dave Thoener. This contains outtakes from the Phil Spector produced version of WALLS AND BRIDGES. Named for the Liverpool street where John Lennon grew up with his Aunt Mimi, this posthumously released collection features songs originally recorded for WALLS AND BRIDGES minus the horns and string arrangements added later. Most of these songs were either produced by Phil Spector or Lennon himself, and the differences are readily apparent. Spector co-wrote "Here We Go Again" and oversaw Lennon's covers of "Angel Baby" and "Since My Baby Left Me," a song that sounds as if a party was going on during its recording. All three were doused in the uber-producer's trademark "Wall of Sound" style of production. An obvious nod to his producer's past was Lennon's decision to cover and slightly rework the Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is to Love Him." The '50s-flavored "Rock and Roll People" is a Lennon production that shows an obvious debt to Little Richard's keyboard skill and proves the ex-Beatle to be no slouch on the piano himself. Other Lennon-produced tracks--including "Steel and Glass," "Scared," and the Harry Nilsson co-written "Old Dirt Road"--all have sparse instrumentation and ache with Lennon's emotive vocal and instrumental nuances.

After exiting the Beatles, John Lennon cast off all artistic shackles and explored his muse fervently. Employing everything from primal screams to hard-rock minimalism, 1950s rock & roll, and plaintive balladry, Lennon simultaneously exorcised his personal demons and promoted a vision of utopian possibilities for the world's future. After a five-year retreat from the spotlight, during which he concentrated on raising his son Sean, John re-emerged with the striking comeback album DOUBLE FANTASY, on which he was aided, as ever, by his constant life/art companion Yoko Ono. Lennon's newly re-energized progress was tragically halted shortly after the album's release by the bullets of a crazed assassin's gun.

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