March 4, 2001
Handed by Kai Chai
 
taken from rollingstone.com

Delayed Karma

Anticipated John Lennon tribute album to include
Bowie, Sinead and Everclear

Lennon tribute: Watching the wheels turn -- slowly.

The good folks at Capitol Records and Yoko Ono are letting a John Lennon tribute album age like a fine bottle of Bordeaux. Though no one will say why it's taken four years for the powers that be to get off their collective arses to put out the yet-untitled disc, speculation abounds that weak sales of Hollywood Record's Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon, released nearly three years ago without Ono's blessing, gave Capitol pause.

Then again, it may just be Capitol wasn't jumping for joy over the artists who expressed interest in the project (mailing in schlocky Lennon cover tunes) and it's taken this long to get an album's worth of releasable material. And it just may take a little longer. In fact, for every year the album's been in production, there's an equal number of artists almost cinched to appear on the tribute. Thus far, only David Bowie ("Mother"), Sinead O'Connor ("Mind Games"), Paula Cole ("Working Class Hero") and Everclear ("Instant Karma") have passed muster with a hodgepodge of other artists still in negotiations to hop on board. One manager had all but forgotten his artist recorded a song for the album and asked when or if it was ever going to come out. Right now, bet your band's
next residual check on next spring.

Ben Folds Five are considering taking on "God," "Hold On" or two other tunes for the album; Elliott Smith may contribute "Jealous Guy," a song he often performs in concert; Robbie Robertson is eyeing "Watching the Wheels;" and Steve Winwood may lay claim to the coup de grace "Imagine."

According to a source close to the project, Capitol is also courting Bruce Springsteen and the three remaining members of the Beatles -- Paul, George and Ringo -- to pay homage to Lennon. Other artists in consideration for the project include Peter Gabriel,
Ani DiFranco and Los Lobos. Proceeds from the album will be donated to the AIDS/HIV-related charity AmFAR.

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