A fascinating letter written by John Lennon has been unearthed, inviting Eric Clapton to join a ‘supergroup’ that would, in Lennon’s words “bring the balls back in rock 'n’ roll.”
It’s expected to fetch up to £150,000 when it’s auctioned off next week. International Autograph Auctions Europe SL, which is holding the online sale, has described it as “one of the rarest forms of Lennon’s personal communications available.”
The Lennon letter is dated 29 September 1971 - shortly after the release of the Imagine album and the Lennons’ move to New York. In it, the ex-Beatle proposes a group that would include Klaus Voormann on bass, Jim Keltner on drums, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Clapton as lead guitarist.
“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,” Lennon writes, before referring to the recent Concert For Bangladesh, which took place in New York 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. “I consider Klaus, Jim, Nicky, Phil, Yoko, you could make the kind of sound that could bring back the balls in rock ’n’ roll.”
“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.”
Lennon had been a huge admirer of Clapton for a while. The pair had played together at the Rolling Stones’ Rock N’ Roll Circus in December 1968, and when George Harrison briefly quit The Beatles the following month during the fraught Let It Be sessions, it was Lennon who immediately suggested roping Clapton in as a replacement.
After the Beatles split, the ex Cream man went on to back Lennon on his Cold Turkey single and played live with a version of the Plastic Ono Band at a UNICEF fundraiser in late 1969.
There is no more detail in the letter about the project Lennon had in mind, and it’s not known how (or even whether) Clapton replied. The guitarist might well have had his fill of supergroups by then, having already passed through Cream and Blind Faith.
He was also battling heroin addiction and as well as struggling with his attraction to Patti Boyd, then married to George Harrison. There’s a hint Lennon knew about this when he writes: “Both of us have been thru the same kind of shit/pain that I know you've had - and I know we could help each other in that area.” Lennon himself had his own on/off relationship with heroin during the late '60s/early 70s.
In the event the group never happened, and Lennon turned his attention to combining activism with songwriting on his next album, Some Time In New York City. But the Clapton letter provides a fascinating ‘what-if’, a road not taken for two of rock’s most iconic names.
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