Record Plant, New York City
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector
Engineers: Roy Cicala, Shelly Yakus, Jack Douglas
The 10th recording session for John Lennon’s second solo album Imagine took place on 4 July 1971.
The song had been mostly recorded in May 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios, Lennon’s recording studio at his Tittenhurst Park home. On this and the following day, final overdubs were recorded and the songs were mixed at New York’s Record Plant.
This first session was predominantly for string overdubs. The arrangement and conducting was by Torrie Zito, and the musicians were members of the New York Philharmonic orchestra whom Lennon dubbed The Flux Fiddlers. They were violinists Aaron Rosand, David Nadien, Emanuel Green, Frederick Buldrini, Harry Glickman, Harry Katzman, John Pintavalle, Joseph Malignaggi, Julius Brand, Julius Schachter, Leo Kahn, Matthew Raimondi, Paul Gershman, Peter Buonconsiglio, Raoul Poliakin, and Stanley Karpienia; viola players Alfred Brown, Emanuel Vardi, Harold Coletta, and Theodore Israel; cellists Anthony Sophos, Charles McCracken, George Ricci, and Kermit Moore; and double bassists George Duvivier, Jack Lesberg, and John Beal.
Strings were added to five songs: ‘How Do You Sleep?’, ‘Imagine’, ‘How?’, ‘Jealous Guy’, and ‘It’s So Hard’.
Klaus Voormann also overdubbed an additional bass guitar part onto ‘Gimme Some Truth’. The session ended with mixes made of ‘Gimme Some Truth’, ‘How Do You Sleep?’, and ‘Imagine’. The latter song was remixed on the following day.