The album Roots: John Lennon Sings The Great Rock & Roll Hits was released in the US on 7 February 1975.
It was sold via mail-order by the Adam VIII record label, and contained early mixes of the Rock ‘N’ Roll album recordings by John Lennon.
Roots came about following a plagiarism lawsuit over the similarity of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ to Chuck Berry’s song ‘You Can’t Catch Me’. Lennon was sued by music publisher Morris Levy, whose Big Seven Music Corporation owned the rights to ‘You Can’t Catch Me’.
Keen to avoid a court case, Lennon agreed to record at least three songs owned by Levy on his next release. Between October and December 1973 he recorded a number of rock ‘n’ roll oldies with Phil Spector, but the project was shelved when Lennon and Spector’s working relationship proved untenable. They had, however, recorded two Levy-owned songs: ‘Angel Baby’ and ‘You Can’t Catch Me’.
Lennon and Levy met on 8 October 1974, and Levy came away believing he had the rights to issue the recordings. Lennon gave Levy a rough tape of the work in progress, and met to discuss the release on 14 October.
However, when Adam VIII began selling the album, Capitol Records issued cease-and-desist notices on this day. Lennon’s label brought forward the release of Rock ‘N’ Roll to take the wind out of Levy’s sails and sales.
The case against Lennon was eventually concluded in July 1976, when Levy’s Big Seven Music Corporation was awarded $6,795 for breach of an oral agreement. Lennon’s countersuit, regarding the unauthorised release of Roots, resulted in him, Capitol Records and EMI Records receiving $109,700 to compensate for lost income; Lennon was awarded an additional $35,000 in punitive damages.