The Abbey Road album opens with a song called Come Together - a song that although credited to Lennon/McCartney was written entirely by Lennon. The first line of the song, "Here come old flat top, he come grooving up slowly" is not much of a re-working of the 1956 Chuck Berry single, You Can't Catch Me, which features the line, "Here come old flat top, he was grooving with me".
Legal action was taken by the publishers of the Chuck Berry song and, over the following few years, one of rock 'n' roll's great legal sagas was played out; the end result being, inadvertently, a great Lennon solo album.
Just as they were falling apart, The Beatles decided to do a covers album of all the great rock 'n' roll standards that influenced them growing up.
Once the legal writs about the dissolution of the band began flying, though, the idea was binned, but Lennon was determined to record an "oldies" album.
During his 15-month "lost weekend" in Los Angeles, beginning in 1973, Lennon went into the studio with nut-job Phil Spector to make the album The Beatles had always planned. In lieu of McCartney, Harrison and Starr, Lennon had assembled musicians such as Charlie Watts, Jim Keltner, Harry Nilsson, Barry Mann and Jose Feliciano. The sessions were moving speedily along until Morris Levy (the publisher of the Berry song) won a copyright infringement case against Lennon over the Come Together song.
Levy, realising the sales potential of a solo Beatles album, had it put into the settlement that Lennon was to record three other songs that he published. Since Lennon was mid-way through an "oldies" album, there shouldn't be a problem. Ha ha.
Back in the studio though, Phil Spector was playing with his guns again.
One night, he ran away with the master tapes, calling them the "John Dean tapes" - Watergate was the big story at the time. Pressed to return the tapes, Spector rang Lennon to tell him he had been in a car crash and his nose had fallen off. A few law suits later and Lennon, by now back in New York, got the masters back but decided to start from scratch.
During all this, Lennon's Walls and Bridges album hit the shops. Problem. The settlement with Maurice Levy was that three of Levy's songs would feature on Lennon's "next" album. Walls and Bridges was all Lennon originals. Lennon blamed it all on Phil Spector. Pressed by the court, Lennon went into the studio in New York to finish the covers album.
Two of the songs Lennon recorded were rich in irony. One, Sam Cooke's Bring It On Home To Me, was owned by Allen Klein, who The Beatles were sueing at the time - Lennon was indirectly helping to pay Klein's legal bills. The other song, Peggy Sue, was owned by Paul McCartney - who had bought up the Buddy Holly catalogue - and Lennon was also sueing McCartney at the time.
Lennon had given Morris Levy a rough tape of the covers album; Levy then proceeded to release the album as the "new" Lennon release, called John Lennon Sings The Great Rock 'N' Roll Hits or, as it is more commonly known, the Roots album.
Lawsuits heaven: Lennon sued over the Roots album, Levy counter-sued over the original Come Together agreement; and the whole episode became so farcical that a portable stereo player was produced in court one day to demonstrate that the songs on the Roots album were only a rough mix compared to the songs on the by-then official Lennon release, Rock 'N'Roll. The judge, being a judge, played both 33 rpm's at 45 rpm; days were spent arguing about the length of Lennon's hair on the cover shoot of Roots and proceedings were regularly interrupted by court officials asking for Lennon's autograph.
Roots was eventually with- drawn, with the official Rock 'N'Roll winning the day. It's a remarkable album, in more ways than one, and good 'ol Yoko has just overseen its re-issue, with four previously unreleased tracks now included. How sarcastically apt that it all happened because of a song called Come Together.
