Description
Very good quality copy of Rock and Roll, hand signed by John Lennon in white pen. Extremely rare! Rock ‘n’ Roll is a 1975 album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs covered by John Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned a year. Though critically derided, it reached #6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Lennon planned to use some of his childhood drawings for the cover of his oldies album, and production had already begun when Lennon switched gears, so the artwork was used instead for Walls and Bridges.
In September 1974, May Pang attended the first Beatlefest convention at Lennon’s behest, and met Jurgen Vollmer, an old friend of the Beatles from Hamburg, Germany, who had photographed the band from their Hamburg days. He was selling some striking portraits, and Pang immediately phoned Lennon to tell him of her find.
Reuniting with Vollmer in New York, Lennon chose one of his photos for the album’s cover. The photo depicts Lennon in a doorway with three blurry figures walking past him in the foreground. Those figures are Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stu Sutcliffe. The album’s working title had been Oldies but Mouldies; no official title had been chosen until Lennon saw the neon sign prepared as cover art by John Uomoto, with Lennon’s name and the words “ROCK ‘N’ ROLL” beneath. This struck Lennon in a positive way, and it became the album title.