Background
In mid-1973, as Yoko Ono was completing her fourth album, Feeling the Space, Lennon decided he also wanted to record a new album. He liked the musicians assembled for Ono's album by their assistant and production coordinator, May Pang, and he asked Pang to book them for his sessions. Lennon then quickly wrote the songs for Mind Games.
Just as the sessions were to get under way in June at New York's Record Plant Studios, the Lennons separated. With Ono's approval, Pang would become Lennon's companion and lover in what would become an 18-month relationship known as Lennon's 'lost weekend'. Lennon's design for the Mind Games sleeve represented his symbolic walking away from Ono and her apparent mountainous influence on him.
Under the incarnation of 'The Plastic U.F.Ono Band', Lennon engaged the services of session drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, Gordon Edwards on bass, Arthur Jenkins on percussion, and the vocal backing of a group called Something Different. Lennon produced the album without the aid of Phil Spector.
Read more about this topic: Mind Games
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