![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/John-Lennon-Musician-The-Beatles-1974-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Tony Barnard \/ Los Angeles Times \/ UCLA Library)<\/p>\n
Sat 14 February 2026 21:30, UK <\/p>\n
The song \u2018Bony Moronie\u2019 was a big hit in 1957 for the pioneering New Orleans rocker Larry Williams, so much so that just about any kid who picked up a guitar around that time knew the riff, something John Lennon<\/a> probably should have realised.<\/p>\n By the time Lennon sat down in the studio to record his own version of it in 1973, however, he wasn\u2019t in the best headspace for critical thinking. This was smack dab in the middle of the infamous \u2018Lost Weekend\u2019, an embarrassing two-year period in which Lennon became a less-than-functional alcoholic, palling around with Harry Nilsson and wasting both of their talents on booze and debauchery. <\/p>\n The \u2018Bony Moronie\u2019 cover was part of the project that would eventually become the album Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll, a supposed celebration of the songs that had inspired Lennon in his youth and that had remained some of his favourites to play over the years. Unfortunately, he had contracted Phil Spector to produce the record, who was in an even worse state than he was. Along with a similar substance abuse problem, Spector was mentally unstable, firing off a shotgun inside A&M Studios at one point, and on another, absconding with the master tapes of the Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll sessions and disappearing for two months.<\/p>\n Dragged into this circus were the musicians whom Spector had hired to play on the record, including no shortage of esteemed names and session all-stars: Steve Cropper, Jose Feliciano, Leon Russell<\/a>, Hal Blaine, Jesse Ed Davis, Eddie Moutau, and Jim Keltner, among many others. One session player who was credited as playing on Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll when it was finally released in 1975, however, now says that he doesn\u2019t actually appear on the record.<\/p>\n In an interview last year on YouTube with Thinking About Guitar, the great session guitarist Larry Carlton discussed why he walked away after one frustrating night in the studio with Lennon. \u201cIt was a 7 o\u2019clock session,\u201d he recalled, \u201cBy 9:30, still no John Lennon and Phil Spector. So [Leon Russell] and I are just sitting around A&M Studios\u2026 So, John and Phil finally get there, 10 o\u2019clock or something, and\u2014I didn\u2019t tell this story for a lot of years\u2014but it was a bad time for John. He was drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlton was a fan of the ex-Beatle and had been excited about working with him, but he was also a seasoned pro. During the mid-70s, he recorded with a ridiculous variety of big-name artists, from Steely Dan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell to the Four Tops, Barbra Streisand, and the Partridge Family, and was thus expecting a basic level of respect and professionalism.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, we\u2019re gonna do a song, and they call it \u2018Bony Moronie\u2019,\u201d he continued, \u201cWell, I played \u2018Bony Moronie\u2019 when I was 12 years old. So I\u2019m in my cubby here, and John\u2019s right here, and he\u2019d been drinking, so he\u2019s calling the chord changes [as we play]. There\u2019s only three.\u201d <\/p>\n After listening to Lennon shout the simple chord changes at him during a few run-throughs, Carlton felt demoralised.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a drag,\u201d he said, \u201cIt was not professional\u2026 So we finished that night\u2019s session, and I drove Leon Russell back to his hotel, and he said, with his Oklahoma accent, \u2018I\u2019m back to Tulsa in the morning\u2019. I got home and called Phil Spector<\/a>\u2019s office and just left a message at midnight and said, \u2018Sorry, I can\u2019t make it for the rest of the week\u2019. So I cancelled. It wasn\u2019t how I wanted to spend my time. It could have been so cool, but it was one of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly, Carlton never got to work with Lennon again, noting candidly, \u201cI\u2019m an admirer, but that wasn\u2019t a good time\u201d.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Tony Barnard \/ Los Angeles Times \/ UCLA Library) Sat 14 February 2026 21:30,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,15763,216,150866,55501],"class_list":{"0":"post-469134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-lennon","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-phil-spector","12":"tag-sessions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}