“I canceled. That wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time”: Guitar legend Larry Carlton reveals how he quit working with John Lennon after one drunken session
Session ace Larry Carlton has opened up about a chaotic, late-night studio date with John Lennon that turned out to be such a “drag” he ended up quitting after just one night
The session in question was for Rock ’n’ Roll, Lennon’s fifth and final solo album, released in February 1975. A covers record paying tribute to the rock and roll songs of Lennon’s youth, the album’s creation was famously turbulent, unfolding amid Lennon’s legal battle with Morris Levy over The Beatles track Come Together and his separation from Yoko Ono.
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Speaking to Jonathan Graham on the Thinking About Guitar YouTube channel, Carlton explains that he was booked for what was meant to be a full week of sessions at A&M Studios.
“I didn’t end up on the album,” he says [via Ultimate Guitar]. “Phil Spector, the producer, had booked a lot of us musicians for seven o’clock every night that week, five nights. And so, I went to the session for John on time, and Leon Russell [keyboards], I forget who else was there that night…”
“But anyway, what I’m getting at, is the seven o’clock session. [It’s] nine-thirty, still no John Lennon and Phil Spector. We’re just sitting around A&M Studios, Leon Russel and I went to another studio, he sat at the piano, and we just kind of jammed a little bit.”
When Lennon and Spector finally arrived, Carlton says the atmosphere only deteriorated further.
“So, John and Phil finally got there at ten o’clock or something. I didn’t tell the story for a lot of years, but it was a bad time for John,” Carlton recalls. “He was drinking. And so, we were gonna do a song, Bony Moronie [cover of the 1957 Larry Williams single]. I played Bony Moronie when I was 12 years old. So, I was in my cubby here, and John’s right there, and he had been drinking. He’s calling the chord changes; it’s only three. He’s going, ‘A!’ ‘Oh, I got it!’ ‘D!’ I said, ‘I got it!’…. It was a drag.”
By the end of the night, Carlton had made up his mind.
“It was not professional,” says the guitarist. “So, we finished that night’s session, I drove Leon Russel back to his hotel, and I said, ‘Man, that was a drag, darn it!’ And with his Oklahoma accent, Leon said, ‘You’re kiddin’, I’m back at Tulsa in the mornin’.’ I got home and called Phil Spector’s office, and just left a message at midnight, and said, ‘Sorry, I can’t make it for the rest of the week.’ I canceled. That wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time. It could have been so cool. But, one of those things. For me, it was the right decision. That wasn’t fun.”
That fateful session turned out to be the last time he crossed paths with the Beatles star as well, with Carlton admitting, “I’m an admirer, but that was a bad time.”
The post “I canceled. That wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time”: Guitar legend Larry Carlton reveals how he quit working with John Lennon after one drunken session appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
