Rock 'N' Roll
John Lennon
Rock 'N' Roll is John Lennon's sixth solo studio album, released on February 17, 1975 in the US and February 21 in the UK via Apple Records. The album consists entirely of cover versions of rock and roll songs from the late 1950s and early 1960s — music Lennon had loved as a teenager and that the early Beatles had frequently performed. Its origins were partly legal: Lennon had been sued by Morris Levy, who owned the publishing rights to Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me," over the similarity of the Beatles' "Come Together." As part of the out-of-court settlement, Lennon agreed to record three of Levy's songs on his next album — and that obligation grew into a full-fledged covers project. The recording sessions were notoriously troubled: the initial sessions in October–December 1973 at A&M Studios in Los Angeles were co-produced by Phil Spector, who famously absconded with the master tapes, and Capitol Records eventually had to pay $90,000 to retrieve them. Lennon then completed the album at the Record Plant in New York in October 1974, producing the remaining tracks himself.
The finished album features thirteen tracks paying homage to artists like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Sam Cooke, with highlights including "Stand By Me," "Be-Bop-A-Lula," "Peggy Sue," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." The iconic cover photograph — Lennon leaning against a grimy Hamburg doorway — was taken by friend Jürgen Vollmer around 1960, and is widely considered one of the most striking images in his solo discography. The album reached number six on both the US and UK charts and was eventually certified gold, though its commercial performance was dampened by Levy's release of an unauthorized mail-order bootleg called Roots using rough session mixes just before the official album appeared. As uDiscoverMusic notes, the project marked a genuine homecoming for Lennon, who at the time of its release had just reconciled with Yoko Ono and was entering a quieter chapter of his life — making Rock 'N' Roll the last studio album he would release before his five-year retirement from recording.
Rock 'N' Roll
John Lennon
Rock 'N' Roll is John Lennon's sixth solo studio album, released on February 17, 1975 in the US and February 21 in the UK via Apple Records. The album consists entirely of cover versions of rock and roll songs from the late 1950s and early 1960s — music Lennon had loved as a teenager and that the early Beatles had frequently performed. Its origins were partly legal: Lennon had been sued by Morris Levy, who owned the publishing rights to Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me," over the similarity of the Beatles' "Come Together." As part of the out-of-court settlement, Lennon agreed to record three of Levy's songs on his next album — and that obligation grew into a full-fledged covers project. The recording sessions were notoriously troubled: the initial sessions in October–December 1973 at A&M Studios in Los Angeles were co-produced by Phil Spector, who famously absconded with the master tapes, and Capitol Records eventually had to pay $90,000 to retrieve them. Lennon then completed the album at the Record Plant in New York in October 1974, producing the remaining tracks himself.
The finished album features thirteen tracks paying homage to artists like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Sam Cooke, with highlights including "Stand By Me," "Be-Bop-A-Lula," "Peggy Sue," and "Sweet Little Sixteen." The iconic cover photograph — Lennon leaning against a grimy Hamburg doorway — was taken by friend Jürgen Vollmer around 1960, and is widely considered one of the most striking images in his solo discography. The album reached number six on both the US and UK charts and was eventually certified gold, though its commercial performance was dampened by Levy's release of an unauthorized mail-order bootleg called Roots using rough session mixes just before the official album appeared. As uDiscoverMusic notes, the project marked a genuine homecoming for Lennon, who at the time of its release had just reconciled with Yoko Ono and was entering a quieter chapter of his life — making Rock 'N' Roll the last studio album he would release before his five-year retirement from recording.