{"id":201285,"date":"2025-12-24T08:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/201285\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T08:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:53:10","slug":"guitar-legend-larry-carlton-reveals-how-he-quit-working-with-john-lennon-after-one-drunken-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/201285\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar legend Larry Carlton reveals how he quit working with John Lennon after one drunken session"},"content":{"rendered":"

Session ace Larry Carlton<\/a> has opened up about a chaotic, late-night studio date with John Lennon<\/a> that turned out to be such a \u201cdrag\u201d he ended up quitting after just one night<\/p>\n

The session in question was for Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll, Lennon\u2019s fifth and final solo album, released in February 1975. A covers record paying tribute to the rock and roll songs of Lennon\u2019s youth, the album\u2019s creation was famously turbulent, unfolding amid Lennon\u2019s legal battle with Morris Levy over The Beatles<\/a> track Come Together and his separation from Yoko Ono.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t end up on the album,\u201d he says [via Ultimate Guitar<\/a>]. \u201cPhil Spector, the producer, had booked a lot of us musicians for seven o\u2019clock 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\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut anyway, what I\u2019m getting at, is the seven o\u2019clock session. [It\u2019s] nine-thirty, still no John Lennon and Phil Spector. We\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lennon and Spector finally arrived, Carlton says the atmosphere only deteriorated further.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, John and Phil finally got there at ten o\u2019clock or something. I didn\u2019t tell the story for a lot of years, but it was a bad time for John,\u201d Carlton recalls. \u201cHe 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\u2019s right there, and he had been drinking. He\u2019s calling the chord changes; it\u2019s only three. He\u2019s going, \u2018A!\u2019 \u2018Oh, I got it!\u2019 \u2018D!\u2019 I said, \u2018I got it!\u2019\u2026. It was a drag.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the night, Carlton had made up his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not professional,\u201d says the guitarist. \u201cSo, we finished that night\u2019s session, I drove Leon Russel back to his hotel, and I said, \u2018Man, that was a drag, darn it!\u2019 And with his Oklahoma accent, Leon said, \u2018You\u2019re kiddin\u2019, I\u2019m back at Tulsa in the mornin\u2019.\u2019 I got home and called Phil Spector\u2019s office, and just left a message at midnight, and said, \u2018Sorry, I can\u2019t make it for the rest of the week.\u2019 I canceled. That wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fateful session turned out to be the last time he crossed paths with the Beatles star as well, with Carlton admitting, \u201cI\u2019m an admirer, but that was a bad time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Session ace Larry Carlton has opened up about a chaotic, late-night studio date with John Lennon that turned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[3257,146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-201285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-artist","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}