John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band | Page 3 | Fab forum

Zig I heard that comment in the documentary as well but I'm not sure how much I believe it. Perhaps in some of their earlier recordings he played a flat d, but I would be pretty shocked if he continued to tune his guitar that way as they progressed because you'd be able to tell. I know he played a few songs in flat tuning, or down a semitone, two examples would be I'm Only Sleeping and Across the Universe. But you can hear the difference, listening to the Anthology version of I'm Only Sleeping, those guitars just have a different sound to them.
But I agree that John might have preferred the piano, particularly in his later years. I've been listening to a lot of his later demos and he was turning into quite a nice piano player.
The thing about John is that he was a songwriter first and a guitar player second, as opposed to Hendrix or Clapton who were guitar players first. So Johh studied songs, but I would seriously doubt he ever took the time to really break down the Johnny B Goode riff or something like that. That's a huge difference because learning what those old blues guys did helps tremendously when trying to put your own solos and riffs together. I'm reminded of the performance where John plays with Chuck Berry and Chuck sort of yells at John to solo, but you can see that Johh is just sort of in awe of Chuck.
Anyway, sorry this is a long post, but I just think there's a huge difference in certain guys playing because certain guys really put in the time and I don't think John really did in terms of playing lead. He was a fantastic rhythm player who will never get the credit he deserves because rhythm guitar is the least heralded of all positions which is a shame because it's not as easy as people think.

Mother in the US – UK went single less.

Hearing Mother on radio cant have been a great promotion to get people to go out and buy the album. I love the song but can see folks hearing that and thinking right, wheres the nice Macca album?"

That crappy edit that was on Legend? Remember would have made a good radio promo single with that beat that pushes the single on. Tho there arent many commercial singles you could pull apart from Love.

I dont think many if any of the Yoko b-sides proved beneficial to sales, doubt many bothered to flip the single over to check what it it was.

I once put on Listen, The Snow Is Falling and promptly turned it off, cant stand her voice. Its a struggle to get thru the 68 & 69 christmas messages, that part of bungalow bill & Happy Xmas (War Is Over).