Jagger, Lennon, Nilsson and others: Too Many Cooks (1973)

 |   |  <1 min read

Jagger, Lennon, Nilsson and others: Too Many Cooks (1973)

Superstar sessions are often disappointing: too many competing egos (not so with the Traveling Wilburys) and mostly inferior material (often rock'n'roll covers or just lesser originals knocked together).

In December 1973 when John Lennon was on his famous Lost Weekend with May Pang and even more famously being drunk and obnoxious, he was palling around with Harry Nilsson, guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and the like.

They – and drummer Jim Keltner, Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys and others -- ended up in the Record Plant in LA with Mick Jagger.

The result was Too Many Cooks – a telling title, it's an old Willie Dixon song – which finally ended up on a Jagger compilation in 2007.

This is a different version from that and if you are wondering where Lennon was on it, he's behind the desk producing.

During that Lost Weekend of about 18 months Lennon actually wrote, recorded and produced at quite a rate, giving the lie to belief he was just boozing it up and trying to get his Rock And Roll album together with Phil Spector.

This slice of urban-funk blues – very much Jagger's thing at the time – perhaps wasn't his finest moment but he certainly salvaged something enjoyably raucous out of what could have otherwise been a real mess.

Sad to think too that just about everyone on this session is now dead.

.

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

World Party: You're All Invited to the Party (1990)

World Party: You're All Invited to the Party (1990)

Because he wrote She's the One which became a hit for Robbie Williams in 1999 -- and more so because he was sidelined for four years by a brain aneurysm in 2000 -- little has been heard of Karl... > Read more

John Cale; Chinese Envoy (1982)

John Cale; Chinese Envoy (1982)

As with anyone who was there, I have a vivid memory of John Cale's show at the Gluepot back in September '83, and in fact I still have the poster ("Tickets sold! Limited door sales. Be... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

TIGI NESS AND UNITY PACIFIC, AN OVERVIEW (2007): Fruits from the roots

TIGI NESS AND UNITY PACIFIC, AN OVERVIEW (2007): Fruits from the roots

The drums tickle a beat into life, the dark drop of a bass builds and the guitars lock in to the distinctive rhythm, and as if by magic the reggae groove emerges. Heads nod, bodies move, and there... > Read more

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FABULOUS: Money for nothing and the chicks for free

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FABULOUS: Money for nothing and the chicks for free

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we... > Read more