Live Peace in Toronto 1969 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Live album by | ||||
Released | 12 December 1969 | |||
Recorded | 13 September 1969 | |||
Venue | Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Varsity Stadium, Toronto, Canada | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 39:32 | |||
Label | Apple | |||
Producer | John Lennon, Yoko Ono [2] | |||
Plastic Ono Band chronology | ||||
|
Live Peace in Toronto 1969 is a live album by the Plastic Ono Band, released in December 1969 on Apple Records. Recorded at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival, it was the first live album released by any member of the Beatles separately or together. John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono received a phone call from the festival's promoters John Brower and Kenny Walker, and then assembled a band on very short notice for the festival, which was due to start the following day. The band included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, and drummer Alan White. The group flew from London, and had brief unamplified rehearsals on the plane before appearing on the stage to perform several songs; one of which, "Cold Turkey", was first performed live at the festival. After returning home, Lennon mixed the album in a day.
The album peaked at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and was certified a gold album by the RIAA, representing 1,000,000 copies in sales. [3] The album did not chart in the UK. The original LP included a 13-month 1970 calendar. A video of several performances, not just the Plastic Ono Band's set, was released. Since its first release, the album has been reissued a number of times.
Toronto rock promoters John Brower and Kenny Walker organised a festival held at Varsity Stadium in Toronto on 13 September 1969, around the notion of a revival of rock and roll stars from the 1950s, booking Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, and Gene Vincent. [4] [5] They also booked more modern acts such as Alice Cooper, Chicago, and the Doors. [5]
On 12 September, Brower contacted Lennon, who was still a member of the Beatles, to ask him to be the master of ceremonies for the festival. [6] Instead, Lennon offered to perform at the show with a new group, the Plastic Ono Band. [6] [7] " [8] Brower readily agreed, but since Lennon did not actually have a new group, he quickly began making phone calls to potential members to accompany himself and Yoko Ono. He initially approached Beatles band-mate George Harrison to play lead guitar, but Harrison declined, [9] so Lennon turned to Eric Clapton, who had previously performed with Lennon in the one-off super group, the Dirty Mac. Bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White soon agreed to perform, [6] [10] along with their assistants, Anthony Fawcett, Terry Doran, and Jill and Dan Richter. [5] Voormann was a long-time friend of Lennon, but White, who was a respected session musician in London but did not know Lennon personally, initially thought that someone was prank calling him and only believed that the real John Lennon was on the phone when he called a second time. [11] [12]
The group was scheduled to fly to Toronto on 12 September, the day before the concert, [13] but Lennon, Ono, and Clapton were late to arrive at the airport. [6] Lennon had talked to Clapton's management, but Clapton himself did not yet know that Lennon had invited him to perform and was not even aware of the concert. [6] [8] Brower managed to reach Clapton personally and told him to contact Lennon and Ono, [14] who were still in bed. [6] Clapton said he got "a phone call on the day we were to leave and he said that someone had asked him to do that concert and it was that night! So I had to make the airport in an hour." [8] The group had two quick rehearsals before appearing on stage. [15] One was during the transatlantic flight from London to Toronto, though they could not hear the music very well since they were playing unplugged electric instruments. [15] [7] [10] They had another at the concert venue shortly before appearing on stage. [15] Lennon later said that the group "didn't know what to play" since they had not previously performed together, and they eventually settled on a set list consisting of older rock and roll standards, three Lennon-penned Beatle and solo songs, and two longer experimental songs featuring Ono. [15]
Though preparations for the show were rushed and chaotic, Lennon later said that he gained the confidence to leave the Beatles during those few days. [15] Lennon mentioned this to Clapton at the time, and upon returning to London, he privately told Beatles' manager Allen Klein. [5]
The group played eight songs to a crowd of 20,000 people. [16] Before the start of the Plastic Ono Band's performance, they were introduced by Kim Fowley, [5] and Lennon said to the crowd that the group were going to play only songs that they actually knew. [13] They performed the Beatles' "Yer Blues", because Clapton had performed it with Lennon for The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus , [5] [17] and his two solo songs, "Give Peace a Chance" and "Cold Turkey", the latter of which had its premiere at the festival. [nb 1] [17] "Cold Turkey", presented as "the newest song that John wrote" by Ono, had Lennon reading the lyrics off a clip-board. [5] Ono selected a song that was to be B-side of "Cold Turkey," "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)", which also had its premiere at the festival. [13] Shortly before the band went into "Don't Worry Kyoko", Lennon announced that Ono was "gonna do her thing all over you". [5] The band closed with an electric version of the Wedding Album track [1] "John John (Let's Hope for Peace)", [13] an extended experimental number consisting of her screaming the title repeatedly to the feedback of the electric guitars. [13] [19] Towards the end of Ono's performance, the audience began to boo and whistle, and the band departed the stage leaving their guitars and bass to resonate until Mal Evans turned off the amplifiers. [20] With their stage remarks, Lennon and Ono linked their appearance there to their ongoing campaign for peace. [7]
Lennon went to Abbey Road Studios on 25 September 1969 to mix the album from their eight-track recordings. [21] While at the session, Lennon finished the stereo master for the album, although he did go back on 20 October to re-do the "Don't Worry Kyoko" stereo master, removing the majority of Ono's vocals from his songs and Clapton's backing vocals. [21] The album is technically a soundtrack recording, [21] being part of the audio portion of the documentary film being made of the festival by D.A. Pennebaker, later released as Sweet Toronto . Lennon and Ono made a deal with Pennebaker to license their portion of the show for record, in exchange for rights to include their appearance. According to the Beatles Monthly , due to the adverse reaction to Ono's performance, Pennebaker removed the segments with Lennon and Ono after limited screenings of the film, later re-edited as Keep on Rockin'. [22] Showtime ultimately presented the performance in 1989, and the full movie appeared later on home video and DVD. [7]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [23] |
Robert Christgau | C [24] |
MusicHound | 3/5 [25] |
Paste | [26] |
The album, released on the same day in both the UK and US, [27] failed to chart in the UK [nb 2] but peaked at number 10 in the US. [nb 3] [6] It was released to quash any bootleg versions that Lennon was sure would leak onto the market. US editions of the album wrongly stated that the album was recorded in England. [21] The album came with a 13-month calendar [21] that had photos, poems and songs in it, [13] from Lennon's 1964 book In His Own Write , his 1965 book A Spaniard in the Works , and Ono's 1964 book Grapefruit . [5] In the US, Capitol was reluctant at first to issue the album, after the commercial failures of Lennon's and Ono's experimental albums. [21] Lennon recalled in an interview in December 1980 that he had to persuade Capitol to distribute the album: "They said 'This is garbage, we're not going to put it out with her screaming on one side and you doing this sort of live stuff.' And they refused to put it out. But we finally persuaded them that ... people might buy this." [21] In an interview with Rolling Stone , Lennon said that Capitol "were on the [Paul] McCartney bandwagon, which they were on, and they thought that I was just an idiot pissing about with a Japanese broad and the music we were making, like Toronto, they didn't want to put out, because they didn't like that." [28]
Criticism was directed at side two of the LP, the side consisting entirely of two Yoko Ono songs. In a retrospective assessment, Richard Ginell of AllMusic remarks:
Side two, alas, was devoted entirely to Ono's wailing, pitchless, brainless, banshee vocalizing on "Don't Worry Kyoko" and "John John (Let's Hope for Peace)" – the former backed with plodding rock rhythms and the latter with feedback. No wonder you see many used copies of the LP with worn A-sides and clean, unplayed B-sides – and Yoko's "art" is just as irritating today as it was in 1969. But in those days, if you wanted John you had to take the whole package. [23]
In contrast, fellow musicians over the years remarked how Yoko Ono's half was a lot more inspirational and groundbreaking than the first half. Iggy Pop praised Yoko's part as "the part that stands out. The rest of it‘s just kinda pedestrian." Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction echoed similar feelings, stating that Ono's sound experimentations were a cornerstone of his musical education. [29] Music author Chuck Eddy wrote that despite Clapton's sporadically "really loud" playing, side one's covers were rendered "quaint" by the Flying Lizards' versions ten years later. However, Eddy believed Lennon's "Yer Blues", which features noisier feedback "than the LP's start and end combined", was the album's most disquieting moment. [30] He also described Lennon's grooves on side two as "proto-harmolodic". [30]
Lennon later said he "couldn't remember any of the words but it didn't matter—I just made them all up and we made a great wonderful noise." [31] Carl Perkins said to Lennon after the show that he was "so beautiful you made me cry." [31] A bootleg album of the concert appeared, under the title JL-YO-EC, thanks to an audience recording, which was released about the same time as the official album. [5]
After Lennon's death, the album, along with seven other Lennon albums, was reissued by EMI as part of a box set released in the UK on 15 June 1981. [nb 4] [32] The album was reissued in the US in 1982, by Capitol, [nb 5] and again in 1986. [21] The album was originally scheduled to appear on CD for the first time in June 1989, but the plan was scrapped. [13] Ono, with the help of Rob Stevens from Quad Recording, [13] supervised a remixing of Live Peace in Toronto 1969 for its compact disc issue, [nb 6] [34] released on 1 May 1995. [13] Two of the remixed tracks feature a variation in Ono's vocals: while "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" has additional backing vocals from Ono, "Money" has fewer backing vocals from Ono. [5] The CD booklet included a 1995 calendar, mimicking the original release. [13] The album is also available from the audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, [nb 7] utilizing the same remix. The booklet for the 2006 Mobile Fidelity release also included a current calendar.
Side one
Side two
Chart (1969–1970) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Kent Music Report Chart [36] | 7 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [37] | 19 |
US Billboard 200 [38] | 10 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA) [39] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Some Time in New York City is a part-studio, part-live double album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono as Plastic Ono Band that included backing by the American rock band Elephant's Memory. Released in June 1972 in the US and in September 1972 in the UK on Apple Records, it is Lennon's sixth album to be released under his own name, and his fourth with Ono. Like Lennon's previous solo albums, it was co-produced by Lennon, Ono and Phil Spector. The album's agitprop lyrics are politically charged compared to its predecessors, addressing political and social issues and topics such as sexism, incarceration, colonialism, and racism.
Wedding Album is the third and final in a succession of three experimental albums by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It followed Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions. In Britain, the album was released credited by "John and Yoko", without last names mentioned. In the United States, it was released credited by "John Ono Lennon & Yoko Ono Lennon."
Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions is the second of three experimental albums of avant-garde music by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, released in May 1969 on Zapple, a sub label of Apple. It was a successor to 1968's highly controversial Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, and was followed by the Wedding Album. The album peaked in the United States at number 174, 50 places lower than the previous album. The album, whose title is a play on words of the BBC Radio show Life with The Lyons, was recorded at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London and live at Cambridge University, in November 1968 and March 1969, respectively. The Cambridge performance, to which Ono had been invited and to which she brought Lennon, was Lennon and Ono's second as a couple. A few of the album's tracks were previewed by the public, thanks to Aspen magazine. The album was remastered in 1997.
Live in New York City is a posthumous live album by English rock musician John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band. It was prepared under the supervision of his widow, Yoko Ono, and released in 1986 as his second official live album, the first being Live Peace in Toronto 1969.
"Give Peace a Chance" is an anti-war song written by John Lennon, and recorded with the participation of a small group of friends in a performance with Yoko Ono in a hotel room in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Released as a single in July 1969 by the Plastic Ono Band on Apple Records, it is the first solo single issued by Lennon, released while he was still a member of the Beatles, and became an anthem of the American anti-war movement during the 1970s. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the British singles chart.
The Plastic Ono Band was a rock band formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 for their collaborative and solo projects based on their 1968 Fluxus conceptual art project of the same name.
"Instant Karma!" is a song by English rock musician John Lennon, released as a single on Apple Records in February 1970. The lyrics focus on a concept in which the consequences of one's actions are immediate rather than borne out over a lifetime. The single was credited to "Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band", apart from in the US, where the credit was "John Ono Lennon". The song reached the top five in the British and American charts, competing with the Beatles' "Let It Be" in the US, where it became the first solo single by a member of the band to sell a million copies.
"Cold Turkey" is a song written by English singer-songwriter John Lennon, released as a single in 1969 by the Plastic Ono Band on Apple Records, catalogue Apples 1001 in the United Kingdom, Apple 1813 in the United States. It is the second solo single issued by Lennon and it peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 14 on the UK Singles Chart. The song's first appearance on an album was Live Peace in Toronto 1969 where the song had been performed live on 13 September 1969 with Lennon reading the lyrics off a clip-board.
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo studio album by Japanese artist and musician Yoko Ono, released on Apple Records in December 1970 alongside her husband's album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album features Ono's vocal improvisations accompanied by the Plastic Ono Band, with the exception of "AOS", on which she is backed by the Ornette Coleman Quartet.
Fly is the second album by Yoko Ono, released in 1971. A double album, it was co-produced by Ono and John Lennon. It peaked at No. 199 on the US charts.
Sweet Toronto is a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, a one-day festival held September 13, 1969, at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto and attended by some 20,000 people. The event was produced by John Brower and Ken Walker. John Lennon, who seven days later would unofficially resign as a member of the Beatles, played as part of the Plastic Ono Band, whose members also included Yoko Ono, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, and Eric Clapton. Their set was released as the album Live Peace in Toronto 1969.
"Well Well Well" is a song by English musician John Lennon from his 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The eighth and longest track on the album, "Well Well Well" features an aggressive guitar sound, screaming vocals and a pounding backing track.
The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival was a one-day, twelve-hour music festival held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on September 13, 1969. It featured a number of popular musical acts from the 1950s and 1960s. The festival is particularly notable as featuring an appearance by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann and Alan White as the Plastic Ono Band, which resulted in the release of their Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album. The festival was also the subject of two films: D.A. Pennebaker film Sweet Toronto and the 2022 Ron Chapman film Revival 69: The Concert That Rocked the World.
"Why" is a song written by Yoko Ono that was first released on her 1970 Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band album. In the U.S. it was also released as the B-side of John Lennon's "Mother" single, taken from his John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album.
"Touch Me" is a song written by Yoko Ono that was first released on her 1970 album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. An edited version was later released in the U.S. as the b-side to John Lennon's single "Power to the People."
"Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for A Hand in the Snow)" is a song by Yoko Ono that was originally released by Plastic Ono Band in October 1969 as the B-side of the "Cold Turkey" single, and was later released on Ono's 1971 album Fly. Several live versions have been released, including on Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto 1969 and the John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant's Memory album Some Time in New York City in 1972. An early version was titled "Mum's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow". It has been covered by several other artists.
"Listen, the Snow Is Falling" is a song written by Yoko Ono and recorded by Ono and the Plastic Ono Band that was first released as the B-side of John Lennon's 1971 single "Happy Xmas ." A version of the song was later released on a reissue of Lennon and Ono's Wedding Album and was covered by Galaxie 500.
Go Cat Go! is an album by the American musician Carl Perkins, released in 1996. For most of the songs, Perkins performs with other artists. The album includes recordings from all four ex-Beatles, with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr recording new material, while John Lennon's version of "Blue Suede Shoes" comes from his album Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Jimi Hendrix's version of the same song is also an archive recording.
Footnotes
Citations
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)