Drunk Lennon recording grabs $30K at auction

[hibgal]

Drunk Lennon recording grabs $30K at auction

Cassette tape made by a drunk John Lennon sells to unknown buyer
Sunday 21 December, 2008

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/21/drunk.lennon.auction/art.lennon.file.afp.gi.jpg
John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, seen here in 1969 at a Paris Flea Market.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Maybe it wasn't John Lennon's best musical effort, but a tape of an apparently inebriated Lennon warbling a cover of Lloyd Price's "Just Because" brought a sobering $30,000 at auction Sunday in Los Angeles.

Bonhams and Butterfields auction house spokeswoman Margaret Barrett said Lennon had apparently had one too many when he got behind the mic in the 1973 recording session.

"It was six minutes, 16 seconds, and John singing very drunk and with John ad-libbing his own lyrics into the song -- so it's actually a fun song to listen to," Barrett said.

Described in the auction catalogue as "One standard orange-colored cassette tape with audio of Lennon in fall of 1973 singing the Lloyd Price song 'Just Because,' " the never-before-heard-in-public cassette was given to the former owner personally by Lennon, the auction house said.

That former owner was not identified, nor was Sunday's buyer -- for whom another Fab Four classic -- "Money" -- now might have new meaning.

Link to article (http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/21/drunk.lennon.auction/index.html)

[Freda_Peeple]

What economic crisis? :tongue6:

[Legs]

It's around on bootlegs.
which are cheaper to buy.
Not something owned personally by John tho,
but still.

[Freda_Peeple]

Scarlett Johansson recently blew her nose into a tissue and put it up for auction online where it sold for $5,300. Considering that, I don't think $30,000 is nearly enough for a tape of John Lennon drunkenly belting out an old Lloyd Price song. If only Bonhams and Butterfields had known how much celebrity snot was worth, they might have thought to add "may possibly have been sneezed on by a drunken (and highly allergic to orange cassette tapes) John Lennon" to their item description and garnered an additional $10,000.

I remember reading a story (was it here on the BL forum?) about someone who managed to get the Beatles to record a message for his teenage daughter on a cassette tape, and later, the daughter was showing it off to some friends and accidentally recorded over it! This makes me wonder: What would cause you the most anguish and heartbreak, the accidental and irrevocable loss of a recorded, personalized message from the Beatles to you, or the equally accidental and irrevocable loss of a $30,000 recording in which an inebriated John Lennon sings a cover song for six minutes?

[OzBeatleFan]

I would say, the personalised message from the Beatles. Losing something like that would cause me to do some serious headbanging....against a really hard surface....like a brick wall.:teeth1:

[Starshyne]

This song has been around for YEARS on bootlegs. So it isn't really THAT rare of a recording.