Power To The People (Live At The One To One Concert - Afternoon & Evening Shows) John Lennon, Yoko Ono, The Plastic Ono Band, Elephant's Memory

• 1 Power To The People / Intro (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 00:37
• 2 New York City (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 04:23
• 3 It's So Hard (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 03:10
• 4 Move On Fast (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 04:01
• 5 Well Well Well (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 05:42
• 6 Born In A Prison (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 05:11
• 7 Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 03:36
• 8 Mother (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 05:30
• 9 We're All Water (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 06:00
• 10 Come Together (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 04:40
• 11 Imagine (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 03:22
• 12 Open Your Box (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 04:19
• 13 Cold Turkey (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 06:01
• 14 Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For A Hand In The Snow) (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 04:37
• 15 Hound Dog (Live At The One To One Concert, Afternoon Show) 03:57
• 16 Power To The People (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 01:02
• 17 New York City (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 04:30
• 18 It's So Hard (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 03:16
• 19 Move On Fast (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 04:12
• 20 Well Well Well (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 06:08
• 21 Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 03:48
• 22 Mother (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 05:47
• 23 We're All Water (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 06:13
• 24 Born In A Prison (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 04:55
• 25 Come Together (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 04:45
• 26 Imagine (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 03:56
• 27 Open Your Box (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 05:27
• 28 Cold Turkey (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 06:38
• 29 Hound Dog (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 03:05
• 30 Law And Order (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 02:17
• 31 Give Peace A Chance (Live At The One To One Concert, Evening Show) 10:40
• Total Runtime 02:21:45

Info for Power To The People (Live At The One To One Concert - Afternoon & Evening Shows)

Power To The People - Live at the One To One Concert, New York City, 1972 John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with Elephant’s Memory and Special Guests On August 30, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, along with the Plastic Ono Band, Elephant’s Memory, and special guests, headlined two historic One to One Benefit Concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City. These performances, held before a combined audience of 40,000 people, raised over $1.5 million to support schoolchildren with special needs. These were John Lennon’s final and only full-length solo concerts after leaving The Beatles. Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and mixed and engineered from the original tapes by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon.

“I was completely floored putting this collection together and getting to remix the concerts and hearing all the unreleased material from my parents’ archive for the first time,” said Sean Ono Lennon. “People may not realize how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him. I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone’s familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad. When I was eleven, my mum put out the Live in New York City album and film. So I grew up listening to it. It was a concert that had a legendary status in my mind, because it was my dad’s last concert. For the concerts, Paul Hicks and Simon Hilton and I spent a lot of time finding the best possible balance to keep the feeling of a live show while refining the overall sound as much as possible and Sam Gannon did some meticulous and miraculous work with audio restoration. I won’t disclose all our techniques but there was some ‘movie magic’ required, and I think in the end, the shows sound better than ever.”

“That Madison Square Garden gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since The Cavern or even Hamburg,” John Lennon told NME in 1972. “It was just the same kind of feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it.”

JOHN & YOKO IN NEW YORK CITY
When John Lennon and Yoko Ono arrived in the United States in 1971, they weren’t just escaping the ghosts of the Beatles or the British press, they were seeking a fresh start in a country teetering on the edge of political and cultural transformation. But what awaited them was not just the artistic freedom they craved, but years of surveillance, government harassment,and personal anguish that would shape their early American experience.

They settled at 105 Bank St. in New York City’s Greenwich Village, drawn to the city’s raw energy and progressive undercurrent. Almost immediately, John & Yoko immersed themselves in radical politics and avant-garde art. They aligned with activists, performed at protests, and used their platform to amplify causes like feminism, anti-war resistance, and prison reform. The couple’s outspoken views and growing ties to the counterculture quickly caught the attention of the Nixon administration. Alarmed by John’s potential influence on young voters, particularly with the 1972 election looming, President Richard Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover made John a target. The FBI began extensive surveillance, tapping phones, tailing the couple, and compiling hundreds of pages of intelligence files. The government also launched acampaign to deport John, citing a minor 1968 marijuana conviction in the UK as a pretext. At the same time, Yoko was fighting her own personal battle: to locate and regain custody of her daughter, Kyoko, who had been abducted by her ex-husband, Anthony Cox and disappeared. Unbeknownst to Yoko, he had hidden himself and their child behind the walls of a religious cult in Idaho. Her grief over Kyoko’s absence haunted both her art and private life.Amid all this turmoil, John & Yoko continued to perform and create. Their 1972 album Sometimein New York City reflected their politics and passions, addressing everything from racial injustice, the Attica Prison riots, civil rights activists like Angela Davis, to women’s liberation, using blunt lyrics and sharp wit to confront inequality and oppression. John & Yoko share lead vocals throughout, with Yoko contributing a number of her own politically charged tracks such as “We’re All Water” and “Sisters, O Sisters.” Designed to resemble a newspaper, the record’s cover mimics the New York Times, complete with headlines, columns, and photos that reflect the themes addressed in the songs, underscoring its mission to inform, provoke, and spark dialogue. The album was recorded primarily at New York’s Record Plant Studios with backing by Elephant’s Memory, a hard-edged local band known for their activism and gritty sound. The group, consisting of Adam Ippolito (keyboards), Gary Van Scyoc (bass), Richard Frank Jr. (drums), Wayne “Tex” Gabriel (guitar), Stan Bronstein (saxophone), plus drummer Jim Keltner, provided a muscular, streetwise foundation for the record’s mix of rock, soul, and protest music.

Phil Spector co-produced the album alongside John and Yoko, continuing a collaboration that began with Imagine. On August 30, 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, backed by Elephant’s Memory, and joined by special guests, headlined two historic One to One Benefit Concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City. These performances included an afternoon matinee and an evening performance, held to a combined audience of 40,000 people, raising more than $1.5 million (today’s equivalent of $11.5 million) to support children with with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including children from the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, N.Y. John & Yoko became aware of Willowbrook, a state-supported institution for physically and mentally handicapped children, after seeing an investigative report from Geraldo Rivera that exposed the horrible conditions and questionable medical practices the children endured. The electrifying concert featured songs from across John and Yoko’s solo albums, songs from their just-released album, Sometime In New York City, a Beatles cut and and peace anthems like “Imagine” and “Give Peace A Chance.” It also included an appearance from Stevie Wonder. These were John Lennon’s only full-length concerts after leaving The Beatles. The pressure mounted in late 1972 as legal battles over John’s immigration status dragged on.For several years, the threat of deportation loomed large. With the help of attorney Leon Wildes, John challenged the government’s case, and by 1975, just as the Watergate scandal brought down Nixon, the tide turned. John was finally granted permanent U.S. residency in 1976. The early 1970s were a defining period for John & Yoko – a time of political activism, intense scrutiny, legal struggle, and profound personal pain. But through it all, they remained united in their mission to challenge the system, express themselves freely, and, above all, imagine a better world. Power To The People stunningly documents this vital era in John and Yoko’s musical and personal lives.

John Lennon, vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, Wurlitzer 200a electric piano
Yoko Ono, vocals, piano, Wurlitzer 200a electric piano, percussion
Jim Keltner, drums
Elephant's Memory:
Wayne 'Tex' Gabriel, lead guitar
Gary Van Scyoc, bass
John Ward, bass
Stan Bronstein, saxophone
Adam Ippolito, piano
Richard Frank Jr., drums

Digitally remastered

Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and his 5 x GRAMMY® Award-winning Ultimate Mixes team
Mixed and engineered by Paul Hicks and Sam Gannon and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios

John Lennon
If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured. The so-called “smart Beatle,” he brought a penetrating intelligence and a stinging wit both to the band’s music and its self-presentation. But in such songs as “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” “Rain” and “In My Life,” he also marshaled gorgeous melodies to evoke a sophisticated, dreamlike world-weariness well beyond his years. Such work suggested not merely a profound musical and literary sensibility – a genius, in short — but a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.

While in the Beatles, Lennon displayed an outspokenness that immersed the band in controversy and helped redefine the rules of acceptable behavior for rock stars. He famously remarked in 1965 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” – a statement that was more an observation than a boast, but that resulted in the band’s records being burned and removed from radio station playlists in the U.S. He criticized America’s involvement in Vietnam, and, as the Sixties progressed, he became an increasingly important symbol of the burgeoning counterculture.

But it was only after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world now recognizes as “John Lennon” truly came into being. Whether he was engaging in social activism; giving long, passionate interviews that, once again, broadened the nature of public discourse for artists; defining a new life as a self-described “househusband;” or writing and recording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity. If he saw himself as larger than life, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once to absorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leaving a Zen-like tranquility and calm. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,” he sang in “Imagine,” which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace. “I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”

Such imagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often led to Lennon’s being sentimentalized as a gentle prince of peace gazing off into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In fact, he was a far more complex and difficult person, which, in part, accounts for the world’s endless fascination with him. Plastic Ono Band (1970), the first solo album he made after leaving the Beatles, alternates songs that are so emotionally raw that to this day they are difficult to listen to with songs of extraordinary beauty and simplicity. Gripped by his immersion in primal-scream therapy, which encouraged its practitioners to re-experience their most profound psychic injuries, Lennon sought in such songs as “Mother” and “God” to confront and strip away the traumas that had afflicted his life since childhood.

And those traumas were considerable. Lennon’s mother, Julia, drifted in and out of his life during his childhood in Liverpool – he was raised by Julia’s sister Mimi and Mimi’s husband, George – and then died in a car accident when Lennon was seventeen. His father was similarly absent, essentially walking out on the family when John was an infant. He disappeared for good when Lennon was five, only to return after his son had become famous as a member of the Beatles. Consequently, Lennon struggled with fears of abandonment his entire life. When he repeatedly cries, “Mama, don’t go/Daddy come home,” in “Mother,” it’s less a performance than a scarifying brand of therapeutic performance art. And in that regard, as well as many others, it revealed the influence of Yoko Ono, whom Lennon had married in 1969, leaving his first wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian in order to do so.

The minimalist sound of Plastic Ono Band was significant too. Lennon had come to associate the elaborate musical arrangements of much of the Beatles’ later work with Paul McCartney and George Martin, and he consciously set out to purge those elements from his own work. Co-producing with Ono and the legendary Phil Spector, he built a sonic environment that could not have been more basic – guitar, bass, drums, the occasional piano — whatever was essential and absolutely nothing more. Lyrically, he turned away from the psychedelic flights and Joycean wordplay of such songs as “I Am the Walrus” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” – as well as his books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works — and toward a style in which unadorned, elemental speech gathered poetic force through its very directness.

On his next album, Imagine (1971), Lennon felt confident enough to reintroduce some melodic elements reminiscent of the Beatles into his songs. Working again with Ono and Spector, he retains the eloquent plainspokenness of Plastic Ono Band, but allows textural elements such as strings, to create more of a sense of beauty. The album’s title track alone ensured its historical importance; it is a call to idealism that has provided solace and inspiration at every moment of social and humanitarian crisis since it was written.

From there Lennon turned to a style that was a sort of journalistic agit-prop. Sometime In New York City (1972) is as outward-looking and blunt as Imagine was, for the most part, soft-focused and otherworldly. As its title suggests, the album reflects Lennon’s immersion in the drama and noise of the city to which he had moved with Yoko Ono. And as its cover art suggests, the album is something like a newspaper – a report from the radical frontlines on the political upheavals of the day. His activism would create enormous problems for Lennon, however. The Nixon administration, paranoid about the possibility that a former Beatle might become a potent leader and recruiting tool of the anti-war movement, attempted to have Lennon deported. Years of legal battles ensued before Lennon finally was awarded his green card in 1976.

Lennon’s political struggles unfortunately found their match in his personal life. He and Ono split up in the fall of 1973, shortly before the release of his album, Mind Games. He moved to Los Angeles and later described the eighteen months he spent separated from Ono as his “lost weekend,” a period of wild indulgence and artistic drift. Like Mind Games, the albums he made during this period, Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock N Roll (1975), are the expressions of a major artist seeking, with mixed results, to recover his voice. None of them lack charm, and their high points include the lovely title track of Mind Games; Walls and Bridges’ “Whatever Gets You Through the Night,” a rollicking duet with Elton John that gave Lennon his first number-one single as a solo artist; and the sweet nostalgia of Rock N Roll, a covers album that was Lennon’s tribute to the musical pioneers of his youth. But none of those albums rank among his greatest work.

In 1975, Lennon reunited with Ono, and their son Sean was born later that year. For the next five years, Lennon withdrew from public life, and his family became his focus. Then, in 1980, he and Ono returned to the studio to work on Double Fantasy, a hymn to their life together with Sean. The couple was plotting a full-fledged comeback – doing major interviews to support the album’s release, recording new songs for a follow-up, planning a tour. Then, shockingly, Lennon was shot to death outside the apartment building where he and Ono lived on the night of December 8, 1980. (Anthony DeCurtis). Source: www.johnlennon.com

This album contains no booklet.