Written by: John Lennon
Recorded: 27 May; August; September 1976
Producer: Arif Mardin
Released: 17 September 1976 (UK), 27 September 1976 (US)
Available on:
Ringo’s Rotogravure
Personnel
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums
John Lennon: piano
Danny Kortchmar: guitar
Dr John: electric guitar, organ
Will Lee: bass guitar
Jim Keltner: drums
King Errisson: percussion
Melissa Manchester, Duitch Helmer: vocals
‘Cookin’ (In The Kitchen Of Love)’ is the sixth song on Ringo Starr’s 1976 album Ringo’s Rotogravure.
It was written by Starr’s former Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who had contributed ‘I’m The Greatest’ and ‘(It’s All Down To) Goodnight Vienna’ to Starr’s previous two albums.
I asked John and he worked on it and worked on it and came up with ‘You Got Me Cooking’ [sic]. You know he’s really into that now – cooking.
New Musical Express, 16 October 1976
‘Cookin’ (In The Kitchen Of Love)’ was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles on 27 May 1976, with Lennon playing piano. At that time he hadn’t been inside a recording studio for almost two years, and had embarked upon his five-year househusband period. The Starr session was his final studio engagement until August 1980.
Asked by Playboy interviewer David Sheff in 1980 whether he contributed the song purely out of friendship, Lennon said: “Yeah. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
I was cooking at the time. I just sort of knocked it off for him. The Arif Mardin … no fault of Arif’s, but just the vibes in the studio were not good that day. And I’d come all the way from New York with Yoko. I didn’t really wanna go down there and do the session. And Ringo had asked, so we went down there and did it, but the feeling in the studio wasn’t good and the track didn’t come alive at all. And I’m thinking what the hell am I doing down here, you know, being taken for granted, I felt.
The track originally featured Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, but his part was replaced with one by Will Lee during an overdub session in the summer of 1976. Also added were backing vocals by Duitch Helmer and Melissa Manchester.
