John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band - Power To The People John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1972 album Some Time In New York City and their 1972 concerts at Madison Square Garden (less than three months after the album’s release) are the focus of a marathon 9CD + 3 x blu-ray box set, Power To The People, to be released in October, the day after what would have been Lennon’s 85th birthday.

Following last year’s similarly exhaustive Mind Games extravaganza (watch the SDEtv unboxing), 92 of the 123 songs across the 12 discs are previously unreleased. These include demos, outtakes, jams, home recordings and additional live performances. The box set has been compiled by Sean Ono Lennon, helped by mixing from Paul Hicks and audio restoration by Sam Gannon, with mixes mastered at Abbey Road by Alex Wharton.

Now retitled as simply New York City, the studio tracks from Some Time In New York City were co-produced by Lennon and Ono with Phil Spector. The new edition has omits the controversial ‘Woman Is The N****r Of The World’, which, don’t forget, was actually a single in some territories including North America (although not the UK) – the only one to be released from the album. The last official release of this song was 2010 when it was included in the Signature Box and on the reissued Some Time in New York City album. It wasn’t included on 2020’s Gimme Some Truth compilation and so it was always going to be an issue if John’s Estate wanted to reissue the 1972 album.

The new edition features extended versions of ‘John Sinclair’ and ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. It has been remixed Ono Lennon and his team as The Ultimate Mixes, while a separate disc by Sam Gannon, The Evolution Documentary, is an audio montage detailing New York City’s tracks via demos, rehearsals, outtakes and studio conversations.

A disc of jams from the sessions includes many covers of the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and The Coasters, plus “Elements Mixes” which isolates the orchestral parts of four songs.

Now retitled as simply New York City, the studio tracks from Some Time In New York City were co-produced by Lennon and Ono with Phil Spector. The new edition has omits the controversial ‘Woman Is The N****r Of The World’, which, don’t forget, was actually a single in some territories including North America (although not the UK) – the only one to be released from the album. The last official release of this song was 2010 when it was included in the Signature Box and on the reissued Some Time in New York City album. It wasn’t included on 2020’s Gimme Some Truth compilation and so it was always going to be an issue if John’s Estate wanted to reissue the 1972 album.

The new edition features extended versions of ‘John Sinclair’ and ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. It has been remixed Ono Lennon and his team as The Ultimate Mixes, while a separate disc by Sam Gannon, The Evolution Documentary, is an audio montage detailing New York City’s tracks via demos, rehearsals, outtakes and studio conversations.

A disc of jams from the sessions includes many covers of the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and The Coasters, plus “Elements Mixes” which isolates the orchestral parts of four songs.

2LP and single CD editions offer the 17-track ‘hybrid’ best of The One to One concerts and there’s also a 2CD edition (with lenticular sleeve) with the afternoon show on CD 1 and evening show on CD 2.

The One To One Concert will be available separately as 4LP vinyl and 2CD editions (these both might possibly be direct-to-consumer, since retail links are hard to come by), with a hybrid version of the two concerts also available separately as 2LP and 1CD. Vinyl versions feature an eight page 12” booklet, a newsprint poster and two postcards.