Letter from John Lennon asking Eric Clapton to form new supergroup with him goes up for sale
A handwritten letter that John Lennon wrote to Eric Clapton inviting him to be part of a new supergroup is to be offered at auction next month.
The eight-page letter sees Lennon express his heartfelt admiration for Clapton and his music, as he outlines his vision for a musical project that he hoped would have a “revolutionary” effect on live performances.
Dated September 29, 1971, the signed draft — which features several corrections and deletions — sees Lennon outline his plans for a “nucleus group” that would include musician and producer Klaus Voormann, drummer Jim Keltner, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer and songwriter Phil Spector, all of whom had previously worked with the Beatles.
Lennon told Clapton he believed the prospective group, which would also be joined by his wife, Yoko Ono, would “bring back the balls in rock ‘n’ roll.”
The letter is expected to fetch up to €150,000 (around $158,000) when it goes up for auction on December 5. International Autograph Auctions Europe SL, which is holding the online sale, described it in a media statement as “one of the rarest forms of Lennon’s personal communications available.”
Lennon wrote: “You must know by now that Yoko and I rate your music and yourself very highly. You also know the music we have been making and hope to make. Anyway… after missing the Bangla-desh concert we began to feel more and more like going on the road but not the way I used to with the Beatles, night after night of torture.”
Source: Lianne Kolirin/cnn.com