- CAT STEVENS & RINGO STARR
- JAM SESSION
A newly discovered September 30.1976 Jam Session between Cat Stevens & Ringo
Starr at 10:00 PM at Sweet Silence Studios, Copenhagen, during the making of the IZITSO
Album. Other players were Jean Roussel and Bruce Lynch.
This bootleg jam session 'Sink
in the Can' was brought to the public attention in the autumn of 2000.
While Cat was recording his
Izitso album at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen,
Sweden. Ringo Starr happened to be in Copenhagen at the same time. So on September 30,
1976 Cat was joined in the studio by Ringo Starr, which led to an impromptu jam session.
The music created this spectacular night was never released to the public. It was first
mentioned in a book that was published in 1998, which mentions the recording session
among others which the Beatles had with other musicians.
From ‘Beatles Undercover’ by
Kristofer Engelhardt 1998
The history of the Beatles’ musical
contribution to other artists’ recordings.
Entry for Cat Stevens:
Record 351
Recording Location/Date: Sweet Silence
Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark
Side (a) Blue Monday – unreleased
Side (b) I Just Want to Make Love to You -
unreleased
Cat Stevens: Lead Vocals; Ringo Starr:
Drums
Excerpt from the book: (Kristofer talked to
Yusuf about this record)
"Yusuf said that he
met Ringo at a hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, and invited him down to a recording session
for his album Izitso at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen. He recalled that the party
atmosphere of the sessions led to a jam of him singing Blue Monday and I Just
Want to Make Love to You, with Ringo joining in on drums. The tracks were not proper
takes, so they were never used, though Yusuf thinks he still has the tapes somewhere. He
seems quite sure Ringo did not play on any of the tracks that ended up being used on the Izitso
album."
Most Beatle fans as
well as Cat fans had not ever heard of this incredible jam session. But as I was doing
some research one night for a new angle for Majicat, I suddenly came upon a mention of
this interesting night in Copenhagen and a possible recording of it, which was a complete
surprise to me. So I immediately called upon my whiz kid Cat Stevens detective. He sprang
into action, searching out information for the two songs from the session that were
pressed onto record. Within a week he was hot on the trail of this elusive material. But
what he found was even more exciting than what we had expected.
What we expected were the 2
songs mentioned in the Beatles handbook. What we found appears to be a studio jam with
Ringo and Cat Jamming to10 songs including 2 versions of 'Blue Monday' - written
by Fats Domino, and an 8-minute rendition of 'Hang on Sloopy/Looking For The Sailor'.
These are not small snippets of songs, but songs that are 3-4 minutes in length. Plus for
added pleasure there is Cat’s own version of the old song 'Working in a Coal Mine'.
