Prefatory statement: we shall return to our regularly scheduled Halloween programming next week.
    Two weeks ago, the nominees for next year's Songwriting Hall Of Fame were announced. It includes George Harrison. All Together Now: he wasn't in already?!?
    Last week was John Lennon's 75th birthday.
    This week is the 45th anniversary of the conclusion of the sessions for Lennon's first solo album, a month after Harrison concluded his.
    This curious entry to Stonic Notes is not a means to a pro George end. But IMHO, there's no contest as to the victor in the post Beatle stakes. Paul McCartney, having completed his entry back in the Winter, is irrelevant to the subject, but to address: his was a strictly autonomous recording, and comparatively lightweight (to perpetuate an understatement), said Captain Obvious. That said, it was pleasantly listenable and would do until he deigned to deliver the more ambitious Ram the following Winter. Ringo? Well, Ringo was Ringo, and he (just) got by with a little (lot) help from his friends.
    Okay, I concede that George had the advantage going into the project - and a project of mass undertaking it was. Including "It Don't Come Easy", recorded a few months after the sessions proper, the triple album comprised 20 tracks in two and a half hours as rereleased in the deluxe anniversary edition. His star studio collection included the nascent Derek And The Dominos, Billy Preston (who was controversially a fifth Beatle for the Get Back And Let It Be sessions of January 1969), Bobby Keys, Ringo, and Klaus Voorman on bass, the latter two also comprising the whole of the so called Plastic Ono Band with Lennon. And perhaps most significantly  Harrison had a backlogue of songs previously poohpoohed by the dominant half of his former band, "All Things Must Pass" the exception, having been recorded during preproduction ahead of Abbey Road in Spring 69. "I'd Have You Anytime"/"If Not For You" were Bob Dylan cocredits but all other titles were exclusively Harrison's, half hour album closing jams excepted. Elsewhere, "Beware Of", "Let It Down", "What Is My Life", "Isnt It A Pity", and "Let It Roll" alone were not only sufficient to claim as worthy of any Hall Of Fame, but can be mentioned in the same breath as any Beatles song. Even "Wahwah", which George dismissed as "overproduced" and in fact featured Eric Clapton on the titular effect, would be worthy of inclusion in a single album best of version.
    All this despite Beatle ocnophile Liam Gallagher's hilarious insult of  the guitarist as a "nipple".
    Much worse has been said of John Lennon. The most I'll say is his debut didn't measure up to his less celebrated former bandmate's and there's a case to be made that, song for song, their Beatles credits were equal.
    Famously, the albums had two things in common: Starr/Voorman, and, with the aforementioned overproduction in mind, svengali/Wall Of Sound mastermind/mad scientist/Brian Wilson inspiration Phil Spector. Past his prime since the disappointing reception that greeted magnum opus "River Deep Mountain High"  (at least in this country, a typical case of the US being a mile/a year behind the UK) in 1966/7 - a career trajectory comparable to Wilson's contemporaneous collapse - Spector had been called in to salvage the unreleased January 69 Beatles tapes. The result  gave McCartney fits, but Lennon still respected the uber producer so as to have him helm brilliant minimalist solo single "Cold Turkey" and subsequently the more representatively reverb drenched "Instant Karma", and ultimately the Plastic Ono  Band album immediately following his involvement with Harrison (who had, incidentally, played on the latter single). Difference was, where the by now brandy brained auteur's heavy hand was all over Harrison, Lennon was ultimately in charge for his own debut, leaving Spector to mix the results...
    ... of which only the unforgettable "Mother" lived up to the promise of the pre album singles. And the post album single "Power To The People" was mostly memorable for the Spectorian echoplex drum sound. As for the rest, including much hosannaed followup “Imagine,” I say "meh".
    To be fair, Harrison never equalled himself either. "Bangladesh" was a worthy followup, but it was all a dark horse from there.
    And Paul? Band On The Run was three years away. After that, run from that band.