Classic Albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Classic Albums

DVD
Eagle Rock Entertainment

By Jeff Slate

John Lennon may have been at his emotional and personal bottom when he set about to record “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band”, but he was certainly at one of the most creative points in his career. So, like many fans of The Beatles, and particularly John Lennon, the announcement in March that the long-running Classic Albums series was going to tackle “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” was a welcome one. This DVD does an excellent job of taking us back to those sessions with a “fly on the wall” approach and is a welcome edition to the scant list of official John Lennon DVDs available.

The Classic Albums series has been around for about 10 years. (You may recall that when it was first imported from the UK by VH-1 that Ringo was the host of the series.) The shows are now most readily available on DVD and have covered some of the seminal albums of the past 50 years, including Elvis Presley’s debut, Bob Marley's “Catch a Fire”, Fleetwood Mac's “Rumours”, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Cream’s “Disraeli Gears” and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”

The first DVDs in the new series just announced include The Doors’ debut album and “Plastic Ono Band”.

Recorded in the fall of 1970 and released in December of that year, “Plastic Ono Band” was a stark and often bleak picture of where John Lennon was at the time. Lennon and Yoko Ono were fresh out of “primal scream” therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, and his recollections of Lennon in his interview segments are illuminating.

But what this series does best is to put you “in the studio” via interviews with the participants in the making of the album. This DVD is no exception.

There are fresh and candid interviews with Yoko, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voorman and the technical team from Abbey Road who assisted in the making of the album. Not surprisingly Phil Specter is not interviewed, but what is very interesting is how little is made of his role in the production of the album even though he is credited as such along with John and Yoko. Much is made, however, of the simple and understated accompaniment supplied by Ringo and Klaus Voorman, and though we don’t get any isolations of Ringo’s drumming he does go into great detail about how he “supports” the songwriter and the song and his style generally. Seeing Ringo talk about his musicianship was a welcome change from the autopilot demeanor he has adopted in his recent promotional juggernauts.

Klaus Voorman does play along with some of the tracks on bass (and even piano, to illustrate Lennon’s simple but effective style) and it will make both players and fans appreciate his role in this album and the other solo Beatles records he played on all the more.

As there doesn’t seem to be any video footage of the sessions the producers have used
little-seen (but previously circulating) clips of Lennon attending the Alexandra Palace psychedelic event in London in 1967 and sequences from 1969’s BBC “24 Hour” documentary. There are also clips of John and Yoko’s appearance on “Parkinson” from 1971 (which I don’t believe is circulating even among collectors). There is also some footage that appears to be from the same batch as the “Imagine” films (from 1972 and 1988) as well as the “Gimme Some Truth” DVD but includes alternate footage.

Jann Wenner, who conducted the infamous December 1970 interviews with Lennon for “Rolling Stone”, and rock critic Richard Williams are interviewed, and Beatle historian Mark Lewisohn adds his knowledge and insight in a forthright and concise manner.

Elliot Mintz, who was not involved with the album at all, is also interviewed and his segments seem out of place.

Yoko comes across very well. She is candid and focuses on the musical content being discussed and her role in that. She seems less guarded or as though she is protecting Lennon’s legacy than she usually does and her recollections are charming and key to placing the viewer as much in the mind of John Lennon during the making of the album as possible.

Like other shows in this series the multitrack tapes are played back and portions are isolated to better show the viewer what the creative team was able to accomplish. This is as fascinating as ever, and it’s stunning how much sound was packed in to 8 tracks by a three-piece band. Even the engineers Phil McDonald and John Leckie seem to marvel at this and these segments are what make this an essential DVD for any Lennon fan.

For collectors it’s worth noting that the DVD includes shots of various EMI Tape boxes, indicating the recording dates of the songs on the album. We now know not only that “Remember” was recorded on John’s 30th birthday (October 9, 1970), but that “Working Class Hero” was recorded on September 26th, “God” and “Well Well Well” on September 27th, “Hold On” on the 30th, and that takes of “Mother” were recorded on September 26th, October 17th and 24th.

In addition to the hour-long documentary, there is just over 30 minutes bonus footage, including some more fascinating isolations and great additional footage regarding “Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band”. There are also clips from Lennon's 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden (“Well Well Well” and “Mother”) as well as the “signs” version of “Instant Karma!” from “Top of the Pops”.

In all, this is a great DVD and it makes you hope that Classic Albums will tackle some of the other Beatles solo albums in this same thoughtful manner. While I’m sure we all would have differing wish lists in that regard I think one thing most Lennon fans could agree on is that a DVD with a reassessment of “Double Fantasy” (and “Milk and Honey”), including footage from the sessions, would be a welcome addition indeed.

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