John Lennon Bassist Still Awestruck By Debut Solo Set

Longtime Beatles confidante and solo sideman, Klaus Voormann, remains awestruck by John Lennon's first mainstream solo set, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album was among the six Lennon albums to feature Voormann on bass. Highlights on the set include such classics as “Working Class Hero,” “Love,” “Mother,” “Isolation,” and “God.”

Out now is the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – The Ultimate Collection deluxe box set. The box features the album completely remixed from the original multi-tracks with 159 new mixes on six CD's and two Blu-Ray discs in Stereo, 5.1 & Dolby Atmos — plus a 132-page book, along with a poster and postcards.

Voormann, whose sketches of the sessions are also included in the new box set, told us that one cannot overstate the importance of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album as an artistic force: “I think for anybody in the whole world, this, to me, is a milestone. This record is so special, and it's so direct, and it's so simple. To me, it's magic. This LP will never die. And it's not only for John, but for anybody who listens to it, or listens to that record, I think it's incredible. It says so much. There's so much emotion in it. There's all of it. There's happiness, there's sadness, there's pain — it's just incredible. I love it.”

In the immediate years following the Beatles' split — especially in the Rolling Stone interview promoting Plastic Ono Band — John Lennon admittedly went over the line when bashing Paul McCartney — slamming him personally, his extended family, and the music he made in the years following the group's breakup. McCartney admitted he took it all with a grain of salt: “It doesn't mean I didn't get hurt when he said hurtful things about me. But I knew from my relationship with him, that the kind of person John was, was that he was quite likely to say that about anyone — but not necessarily likely to mean it. He often said things he didn't mean. And I know that when he died, that was one of the great things that Yoko did for me; was that she took me aside, kinda, and said, 'Y'know, he did love you.' She was gracious enough to do that for me, y'know?”