Best Versions of Lennon Demos

[Zack371]

Hello,

I’m wondering if someone could tell me on what releases
the best available versions of the Lennon demos of Free As A Bird, Real Love, and Now and Then can be found? I loved the Pegboy disk back in the day but haven’t kept up with more recent releases. I got the MCD At Home release but it doesn’t include Free as a Bird.

For what it’s worth, the piano version of Real Love is an all-time favorite Lennon piece for me.

Anyways, I’d appreciate any info.

Thanks and Kind Regards,
Zack

[cliftdean74]

The “Between The Lines” set is probably the best one stop shop. It’s been recently uploaded here:

viewtopic.php?t=7739

[Zack371]

Oh fantastic! I’ll check that out.

Thank you very much for the suggestion!

Zack

[Applejam101]

Just an FYI, Between the Lines is far from complete. It doesn’t have any pre 1975 songs and it hasn’t been updated with any of the upgrades that came out since then. I don’t think there is a comprehensive set of pre 1975 demos. I think Misterclaudel copied Between the Lines and included a disk of the upgrades and such.

They guy who created BTL was waiting for Chip’s Lennonology Vol 2 to come out so he could update it, but Lennonology seems like it will come out after Lewisohn’s Tune In Vol 2. And who knows when that will happen.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Just an FYI, Between the Lines is far from complete. It doesn’t have any pre 1975 songs and it hasn’t been updated with any of the upgrades that came out since then. I don’t think there is a comprehensive set of pre 1975 demos. I think Misterclaudel copied Between the Lines and included a disk of the upgrades and such.

They guy who created BTL was waiting for Chip’s Lennonology Vol 2 to come out so he could update it, but Lennonology seems like it will come out after Lewisohn’s Tune In Vol 2. And who knows when that will happen.

yes indeed, the Between The Lines set was up-to-date and the best set using the best source before the label His Master's Choice came out in 2009 with first "At Home", the "Borrowed Time" : featuring : new unbooted before piano or acoustic demo by John Lennon (such as "Grow Old With Me", "Solitude" new demos of "Woman", etc...) but also some tape upgrades "She's A Friend of Dorothy's tk 2", "Real Love", etc... but not all the takes...

An update of this set was planned, but postponed when His Master's Choice announced a new title.
If some songs are still available in best source (composite using LLT + several silver CDs for instance) "Free As A Bird" takes are not outdated, neither is She's A Friend Of Dorothy take 7 because His Master's Choice did not release it;
The last updatesreleased through His Master's Choice maybe John's re-demoed of "Mucho Mungo" from a tape source (with Sean in the background) with the missing coda from the LLT.

This would have need to speed correct each track if necessary, check if some composite source were necessary to complete a track, and Chip's book to assemble all this new material in a cohesive and chronological way.

Thus, so far I recommend when you have a song or a particular take in your mind to check every title released by His Master's Choice; and if this does not appear on a His Master's Choice title, well, this particular song or particular take is still available in its best quality possible - to this date - in the Between The Lines set.