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Oct. 9, 2004, Salvador Astucia
In the Seventies, John Lennon had a run-in with a known mobster, Morris Levy. Levy had founded Roulette Records in 1956, and owned copyrights to several songs. Levy wasn't really a music publisher per se, but he realized copyrights were a valuable commodity. So he obtained as many as possible, including rights to Chuck Berry songs and countless others.
Lennon's last album with the Beatles, Abbey Road, included his song "Come Together," which used a lyric from a Chuck Berry song, "You Can't Catch Me," which Levy owned. In 1970, Lennon revealed in an interview that he had borrowed the lyric ("here come ole flat top") from the Berry tune. As a result, Levy sued Lennon, but backed down when Lennon proposed a settlement. His next album would be a collection of oldies, including three songs Levy owned. Recording began in late 1973, but the project was delayed. Morris interpreted the holdup as a breach of settlement. He had dinner with Lennon, who promised to complete the oldies album. Shortly thereafter, Levy asked Lennon if he could borrow the unedited tape of songs intended for the album, just for listening. Lennon complied. When Levy received the tape, he immediately released the songs as a TV mail-order album, Roots. Lennon sued and won.4
If Levy was able to steal an unreleased tape of recordings from a superstar like John Lennon and not be prosecuted as a criminal, then he may have been "protected" at that time by the United States government in exchange for doing the dirty work for certain intelligence agencies. Therefore, it is highly possible that a man like Levy might have supplied certain right-wing factions within the FBI with a hit man to kill Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, a month before Ronald Reagan's inauguration. Of course, pinning the crime on Chapman wasn't a mob operation. Grooming a patsy and getting the news media to cover up the crime was clearly the work of US intelligence working jointly with Jewish media moguls.
To read excerpts from a Usenet discussion on the topic of John Lennon's law suit against Morris Levy, click here.
END
SOURCE: Fredric Dannen, "Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business" (2003 edition), p 49
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