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Ken Geringer Books

Ken Geringer: Nobody Told Me: From Basement Band to Jack and the John Lennon Sessions

I had heard of Ken Geringer, he was the guy who got arrested for allowing Luther Campbell and 2 Live Crew to go onstage in his Hollywood Florida club. Once the profanities and vulgarities spewed from Luther’s mouth the police swooped in and put Ken in handcuffs and carted him off to jail.

The story had been played out on the news all over America but especially in South Florida which was my home. So when Ken called me during the run of my radio show “Pop go the Beatles" in 2002, I knew him by incident only. He started telling me he was a big fan of the show and that he was promoting his new book about John Lennon.

He asked me if I wanted to interview him for the show and I immediately said yes. I did not know how I was going to work this interview into the show, but then I had the idea of doing a show (my Pop shows were two hours) about the books I used to create the show and maybe I could interview other authors…getting to the point, I was able to interview Bruce Spizer, Paul Saltzman and Andrew Croft the publisher of Beatlology Magazine and create a really good show.

So we interviewed Ken and here is an excerpt transcribed from our exclusive -

Pop Go the Beatles interview with Ken:

PGTB: How did you get your hands on these John Lennon tapes?

Ken: I worked with record producer Jack Douglas who produced “Double Fantasy” and engineered “Imagine’. I started working with Jack in the eighties. At 40 years old John was starting to gain a clear perspective to his life. Prior to being 40 John was very insecure of himself and his music and just hated dealing with the outside world. Those were the years he stayed home and he supposedly was the man behind the woman and raised his young son. John was back in the studio in 1980. John decided one day that he wanted to go to Bermuda so had his assistant Fred Seaman charter a sailboat and they go to Bermuda, where he tells Fred to get some percussion instruments and some guitars and lays down twelve great tracks. He calls them the Bermuda Tapes. Now fast forward a little, John is back home in NY where he feels great about himself and NY. People were saying hi and asking about the baby.  He does his Bob Gruen picture shoot. One day he takes Sean to the YMCA gym to go swimming and on the way he goes into a deli where he bumps into Jack Douglas. He says to Jack, his former producer, “Hey Jack you’re a big shot now”, which was now true as Jack had worked with Aerosmith, the Who and Cheap Trick in the seven years since they worked together. So John says “If I decided to go back and make a record would you want to produce me?” They exchange phone numbers. A few months later Jack gets a call…not from John but from Yoko. She was acting very mysteriously, like it was some type of CIA operation and tells Jack to meet her at 34th Street and the East River, where Jack finds a seaplane waiting for him. He gets on and is flown to the Lennon mansion in Cold Spring Harbor. Yoko and Elliot Mintz are waiting for him. Yoko gives Jack an envelope with single cassette tape in it. On the tape was written “For Jack’s ears only”. She also gives him a box of reel to reel tapes. So Jack takes the box and the single cassette, thinking man John has been busy and goes to Record Plant and listens first to the reels, which turn out to be hours and hours of just Yoko doing her screaming and warbling. After many hours he finally puts the cassette tape on and is rewarded with this incredible group of John Lennon tracks that no one has heard. It’s just john and his guitar. Of course Jack is blown away by it. Next he gets another call from Yoko who says “Did you listen to it? And Jack says “Did I listen to it…it’s amazing!” Yoko, of course is talking about her reels and Jack is talking about John’s cassette.
PGTB: It’s a good thing that he didn’t out his foot in his mouth right at that moment.
Ken: The next thing she tells him is that John is thinking about going back into the studio and making a record but she would be in control and every other song would be a Yoko song…I don’t know if you have copy of the album…
PGTB: Are you psychotic…of course…I have a sealed copy.
Ken: Well what we did was record all the John tracks onto a cassette and just listen to the Lennon songs.
PGTB: We did the same thing because even though a few of her songs are tolerable no one could listen to all of them.. I thought one of the most interesting parts of the book was John and Yoko’s decision to distribute the album.  John and Yoko could have named their fee to distribute but ended up going with David Geffen’s small new label.
Ken: This record made his company and the word had gotten out that John was back in the studio and every major label wanted them but most just wanted the John songs.
PGTB: What did David Geffen actually say to win this lottery?
Ken: Well David Geffen met with Yoko and he told her that he was very excited because he wouldn’t just be getting one artist but two great artists and that was all that Yoko had to hear.

Ken’s book was published by Hipway Press and new Hardcover copies are still available through Amazon as well as used copies. It gives a nice glimpse into John Lennons’ last production and the ways of that Japanese artist that he fell for…What the hell is her name?
I enjoyed the book, the John sections are quite interesting but there is a lot more about Ken’s life that did not interest me. I would recommend buying a used copy for a couple of bucks and not the new version…just the humble opinion of this writer.

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