Written by: Lennon
Recorded: July-August 1974
Producer: John Lennon
Released: 4 October 1974 (UK), 23 September 1974 (US)
John Lennon: electric guitar
Jesse Ed Davis: electric guitar
Klaus Voormann: bass guitar
Arthur Jenkins: percussion
Jim Keltner: drums
Bobby Keys, Steve Madaio, Howard Johnson, Ron Aprea, Frank Vicari: horns
Various: vocals
Available on:
Walls And Bridges
The mostly-instrumental Beef Jerky was an album track on John Lennon's fifth solo album Walls And Bridges, and was also the b-side to his single Whatever Gets You Thru The Night.
Beef Jerky was one of the songs rehearsed prior to the full recording sessions for Walls And Bridges. In July 1974 Lennon brought the session musicians together at Los Angeles' Sunset Studios and New York's Record Plant East, where at least 10 different songs were worked on.
Walls And Bridges was recorded in New York in July and August 1974. Beef Jerky was a funk-and-blues performance based around some jagged guitar riffs and a soulful brass arrangement which harks back to George Harrison's White Album song Savoy Truffle.
The central guitar riff for Beef Jerky had previously appeared in a home demo Lennon recorded in 1973 of the Mind Games track Tight A$. Lennon performed the part alongside guitar virtuoso Jesse Ed Davis; the sleeve notes credits Davis along with "Dr Winston and Booker Table and the Maître d's".
One of the licks also had echoes from an unlikely source: Paul McCartney's Let Me Roll It, from 1974's Band On The Run, itself widely believed to be inspired by the stark John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band sound.
Savoy truffle?
No doubt.
Exactly. Don’t know how the “Beatles Bible” writers missed that obvious reference.
I’ve added it now. Thanks.
I always took Booker Table etc as a reference to guitarist Steve Cropper of Booker T and the MG’s. Cropper played along side Lennon on Ringo’s Only You from Goodnight Vienna whose sessions were held during the same period.
John and Paul jammed together in March ’74 at the Nilson sessions, perhaps the riff came from that
Band on the Run is the third studio album by Paul McCartney and Wings, released in December 1973.