John Lennon wanted Eric Clapton to join a supergroup alongside Phil Spector in the early 1970s in order to “bring back the balls in rock’n’roll”, according to an eight-page letter that is being auctioned.
The letter was written a few weeks after the release of Imagine and showed Lennon considering a dramatic shift in styles as his nascent post-Beatles solo career was taking off.
Dated 29 September 1971, Lennon writes about his desire to bring back the vibrant rock sound, bolstered by Clapton’s blues rock guitar, while outlining his vision for a new musical project that aimed to revolutionise live performances.
The letter describes in detail his proposal to form a “nucleus group” with musicians including Klaus Voormann (who drew the cover for the Beatles’ Revolver album and played with Yoko Ono), Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins (who played on records by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) and the “wall of sound” producer Phil Spector, who was convicted of murder in 2009.
Clapton had already joined one supergroup, Cream, which consisted of the bassist Jack Bruce and the irascible Ginger Baker, who would later collaborate with Fela Kuti, on drums, in the mid-1960s.
Lennon’s suggested group would have had Voormann (who played with Manfred Mann) on bass, the session star Keltner on drums, Hopkins on keys and piano, with Clapton on lead guitar and Lennon on vocals – presumably with Spector on the controls as producer.
“You must know by now that Yoko and I rate your music and yourself very highly. You also know the music we have been making and hope to make,” wrote Lennon before referring to George Harrison’s charity concert for Bangladesh, which took place in August 1971.
“After missing the Bangladesh concert we began to feel more and more like going on the road but not the way I used to with the Beatles,” he added.
Lennon wanted to approach touring in a completely new way. Rather than the nightly “torture” he experienced out on the road with the relentless Beatles schedules, he wanted Clapton to be part of a group that eschewed the usual formal nature of the music business.
“I know I can bring out something great in you … I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us,” he writes. “No one will be asked to do anything they don’t want to … no contracts. We’re not asking for your name … it’s your mind we want.”
The prospect of touring internationally is also suggested in the letter, Lennon expressing interest in audiences in Russia, China, Tahiti, Tonga, New Zealand and Australia.
Lennon would go on to work with Spector again on his final solo studio album, Rock’n’Roll, a covers album where he returned to the songs that inspired him as a young musician in Liverpool. Spector produced Let It Be, the Beatles’ final studio album.
His final collaboration with Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy, was released in 1980, a few weeks before his murder in New York.
The letter is the latest artefact up for auction to shed new light on the Beatles’ connections to Clapton, who had an affair with George Harrison’s first wife, Pattie Boyd.
Earlier this year, Christie’s auctioned several revealing letters from Clapton to Boyd while she was married to Harrison, providing insight into one of rock’s most notorious love triangles.
In a 1970 letter, Clapton writes to Boyd: “What I wish to ask you is if you still love your husband, or if you have another lover? All these questions are very impertinent I know but if there is still a feeling in your heart for me … you must let me know!”
Speaking to Christie’s, Boyd said she initially “thought it was a letter from a weird fan” and only realised what it was after Clapton followed up on the phone. Her memorabilia eventually sold for almost £3m.
The Lennon letter goes on sale on 5 December, the owner timing the sale to come shortly after the release of Martin Scorsese’s Beatles ’64 documentary, which is out this week.
