April 1965: John's Records

     Today's post is slightly different than previous ones because the records discussed do not come from a photograph. Instead, these are records mentioned in an article from the 10 April 1965 issue of Melody Maker. After spending an evening and night out with John and Cynthia Lennon, journalist Ray Coleman wrote an exclusive article titled 'Life With The Lennons'. The article begins with John and Coleman leaving the set of Help! at Twickenham Film Studios and driving back to Kenwood. 'Let's go and play some records,' John said upon arrival. John 'carted huge box full after huge box full of LPs into the lounge' to showcase his collection for Coleman. A couple of these are the records identified below.

    The first was a favourite of John's at the time: Bob Dylan's single 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' taken from his album Bringing It All Back Home, released in the United States on 8 March 1965 and as yet unreleased in the UK. Lennon 'pronounced it "great, very Chuck Berry-ish"...John and Cynthia spent about a quarter of an hour trying unsuccessfully to work out the words Dylan sings.' John later produced the song on 28 March 1974 for Harry Nilsson's Pussycats LP. (Coincidentally, this was the same evening that Paul, Linda McCartney and Stevie Wonder dropped by to jam - the first time John and Paul had played music together in a recording studio since 1969.)

    In an interview with Ray Coleman for Melody Maker in January 1965, George mentioned he owned all Dylan's records and had just bought the latest LP. At that time, Dylan's latest album, released 8 August 1964, was Another Side Of Bob Dylan (Bringing It All Back Home was not released until April). Coincidentally, by nearly three years this Dylan LP disproves the myth that Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first album to print the song lyrics on the record sleeve.

 

    The second record John 'finally settled for...which he loves' was the 1963 debut LP, titled Blues, Rags and Hollers, by American country blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover. John was clearly in a Folk-influenced phase at the time, which undoubtedly influenced his contributions to the Help! LP, most notably 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away'.

    In the Melody Maker article, John commented that the music 'scene's in a funny position at the moment. It goes up and down a lot. It came up with Proby, then went down, and up again with Tom Jones. It's gone a bit thin at the moment, with corny songs in the chart and so on. There are some good things around, like the Yardbirds and the Who, but I keep thinking how much better made their records could have been. Then there's this folk thing. I mean, if Donovan thinks he's a folk singer, what about Count Basie? LP WINNER!'