Sean Ono Lennon shares rare insights in new Lennon box set
Talking to Chris Hawkins on BBC Radio 6 Music this morning, Sean Ono Lennon has spoken about his father’s legacy and the new super deluxe edition of Power to the People.
It features 123 tracks including 90 previously unreleased recordings. The set coincides with the release of a documentary One to One: John & Yoko, covering John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s most politically active period in the early 1970s.
During the conversation with Chris, Sean reflected on the challenges and excitement of curating the project.
He explained that his father recorded his own phone calls during the Nixon era when he feared surveillance, and these tapes have now been unearthed for the film.
“It really feels more than anything like a time machine or a time capsule, where you just get to be a fly on the wall,” Sean said.
The new release includes performances from the One to One concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1972, Lennon’s only full-length post-Beatles concerts and his final live shows with Ono.
The concerts also featured Elephant’s Memory and a guest appearance from Stevie Wonder. Sean admitted that mixing the recordings was difficult due to technical issues at the time, but said it was rewarding to improve the audio quality.
He also addressed the political nature of Lennon and Ono’s music during this period, describing their activism as both bold and controversial. “As soon as you become violent, you’ve lost the moral high ground,” he said, reflecting on lessons from his parents’ experiences.
The box set follows last year’s Grammy-winning Mind Games collection, also produced by Sean, and is designed with new artwork that blends images of both Lennon and Ono.
Power to the People: The Ultimate Collection is available now.
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You can listen back to the interview here – https://www.bbc.co.uk/