https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(John_Lennon_song)
Wiki says John Lennon’s “Imagine” was released on October 11, 1971. Yet Garcia and Saunders played it on September 24, 1971. Corry has explained that release dates are a little fuzzy, but can someone narrate how Merl Jr. would have had the record to play some time before 9/24? (He says he was playing it in his room over and over, the guys heard it, liked it, and worked it up.)
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I'll guess there were a lot of promotional copies of the record floating around, the recording was done 7/4/71 so there were a couple of months before it was released.
Very helpful, thank you!
I suspect the record was played well before release on KSAN and other stations of that ilk, so Merl J. might have taped it if he had access to a recorder.
My memory of this is fuzzy, but I remember reading (maybe in an early GD/Jerry bio?) Merl saying that he had a pre-release copy and that they were so taken by Imagine that they started playing it right away.
fwiw, I believe that was the case with Dear Prudence as well: Kahn or Garcia heard a recording of Graham Central Station's cover of it (which wasn't released at the time) and were inspired to play it in that style.
Mmmm, man, if you could locate those references I'd love that.
11 October was when the 45 was released, the album had been out since 9 September according to wikipedia so that's two weeks to learn the song before playing it on the 24th.
Here's Merl in a Sandy Troy 1993-12-20 interview published in "Captain Trips" p 168-169
"Lennon wrote 'Imagine' in 1971 and the record had just come out that September. I was at Fantasy Records that fall with Garcia, Tom Fogerty, John Kahn and Bill Vitt to record my album. This guy at the studio had a promotional copy of the record. I listened to 'Imagine' and thought it was gorgeous, so I wanted to do an instrumental cover version of it. This was before 'Imagine' became a hit. I let Jerry hear the song and he said 'It's a neat song, let's do it.'"
That's what I was thinking of! The Dear Prudence story might be in that book, too?
cool
As someone who has *literally* written the book on John Lennon, let me clarify. First of all, “Imagine” was recorded at Lennon’s home in England on May 27, 1971. The strings were overdubbed in New York City on July 4, 1971. The album was released in America on September 7, and the single followed on October 11. Plenty of time for Merl to have heard it in September.
I was hoping you would chime in. Thanks!!!
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