yoko surely has her ways of manipulating things. great articles thanks for that.

Quoted from Geoff

I doubt it myself, but clues abound:  

^^^^^^^Oh Geoff!!!!  That picture is tooooooo funny!!!!!!!  

Quoted from alexis

3) That piano intro to "Watching the Wheels Go By" - made up by John while doodling. IMO, one of the best parts of the song, or of the album. The boy still had IT  

"Watching The Wheels" and "Nobody Told Me" - unfinished though it is - are my two favorite tracks from John's 1980 sessions.  

Quoted from alexis

1) "John had really small hands, so he really couldn't play lead on guitar ...". What a great little factoid!!

That is a cool fact. We had this terrific guitarist in high school-- best I've ever heard live. He had some strange physical peculiarity where his pinkie finger was as big as his third finger -- we called him "Phil the Phingers". He could hit notes that nobody could hit because he had that fantastic reach. He would have had a great career, I'm convinced-- but the drugs got him. *mourns*

I also noticed that thing about double-tracking live-- interesting. It seems that John either reverted, or perhaps always was, very team-oriented in the studio. "Left his ego at the door"-- which one would consider a challenge for John, as he had more personality than the average bear. But-- correct me if I'm wrong-- people always seemed to enjoy working with John, so I think this was a trademark of his working method. Get it done professionally in the studio, and save the biting commentary for "free time".

In one of my Bowie books harihead David said John was a pleasure to work with during the "Young American" sessions

Quoted from harihead

That is a cool fact. We had this terrific guitarist in high school-- best I've ever heard live. He had some strange physical peculiarity where his pinkie finger was as big as his third finger -- we called him "Phil the Phingers". He could hit notes that nobody could hit because he had that fantastic reach. He would have had a great career, I'm convinced-- but the drugs got him. *mourns*

I also noticed that thing about double-tracking live-- interesting. It seems that John either reverted, or perhaps always was, very team-oriented in the studio. "Left his ego at the door"-- which one would consider a challenge for John, as he had more personality than the average bear. But-- correct me if I'm wrong-- people always seemed to enjoy working with John, so I think this was a trademark of his working method. Get it done professionally in the studio, and save the biting commentary for "free time".

I think to do what one is told, as John apparently did in those situations, one has to have complete trust in the producer doing the telling. I'd love to know what degree of vetting John did in picking that guy for Double Fantasy - it sounds like he just sort of thought of him because he bumped into him at Gristede's or something!

I could see someone going either way after having George Martin as the producer of their formative years:

a) "I did really well doing what I was told all those years with George Martin, so I'll just carry on the same way with this bloke!" Or,

b) "Nobody measures up to George Martin, and after being a Beatle in Studio 2 with him for so many years I'm as smart as any other so called producer, nobody does it better - than me" !

From the tea leaves we all get to read about what happened in John's life, it does seem like he took the first approach.

Does the 2nd approach bring anyone to mind, maybe?  

Cute, Alexis! But I personally think it's more a matter of personality rather than a reaction to the past. John was very vata, very artistic, didn't really get numbers or factual stuff. He emphasized the emotional part of his personality. He knew he didn't want to do the picky stuff that a producer has to fiddle with to get a good-sounding record. I think artists get into directing or producing because they have that kind of mind and have an interest in it. If you like working out the details, cool. If you don't-- for heaven's sake, hire somebody else to do it. Life is too short to do something you hate if you can figure out another way of doing it.