John Lennon and The Lost Lennon Tapes

From January, 1988 until March, 1992, Westwood One produced "The Lost Lennon Tapes", a weekly, hour-long exploration through the archives left behind by John Lennon. The show was hosted by Elliot Mintz, a journalist and friend of John & Yoko's, and she entrusted him and producer Norm Pattiz with hundreds of reels, cassettes and acetates dating from the 1950s through the final days of John's life. As noted in this exhaustive episode guide (taken from original Westwood One cue sheets), most of the best stuff aired in the first two years of the show. And as noted here, bootleggers helped themselves to high-quality reproductions of rare Lennon, turning out 35(!) volumes of "The Lost Lennon Tapes" on vinyl LPs. Did Yoko not realize that FM radio+rare stuff+Beatles=bootlegs?! Or maybe she did...


The pic above features an original, Westwood One-produced edition of the show, as sent to radio stations. Below, you'll see one of the 35 botleg LPs from Bag Records (Volume 6, featuring a cover photo from the session that produced the photos used on "The John Lennon Collection").

The 35 LPs were later compiled onto 22 CD sets (some of them, double-sets). And the best of the material supposedly came out on the 1998 "John Lennon Anthology". I say supposedly because, as with every boxed set ever made, ever -- they probably missed a few things that would have otherwise made the set perfect. I don't know, because I wasn't allowed to stay up late enough to hear the show when it was on! I did get to hear the successor show, "The Beatle Years", produced by the same team, hosted by Mintz, but featuring only released music (although I seem to recall a couple shows from 1994-95 with either rare BBC tracks, or outtakes such as the original version of "Norwegian Wood"). "The Beatle Years" started the first week in April, 1992, immediately after the final "Lost Lennon Tapes," and ran until 2011!

The Lennon Tapes episode guide also includes a rundown of a 50th birthday special from 1990; I have to assume that's also a Westwood One production. Not listed is a different special, "John Lennon: His Final Interview, His Greatest Music," which took sections of an interview conducted the morning John was killed, and intersperesed them with music, all hosted by the hilariously named Jimmy Fink. I believe this was a Westwood One/Norm Pattiz special as well... anyone know?

Finally, below is a photo of a six-audio-only-DVD boxed set (obviously bootleg) of the entire series, although the cover states 218 episodes, not 219; it also says "DVD-A," which is technically a different format, which some DVD players apparently can't decode (it was meant as a competitor to SACD; we all know how great that turned out for everyone).