Well Well Well- John Lennon (Full Band Cover)

Thank you to ‪@HJsCorn909‬ for showing me that Lennon used a Resonator/Dobro guitar on this and other Plastic Ono Band songs! This cover is dedicated to ‪@JacobKMusics‬ who's been asking for me to cover this for a long time

Well Well Well is a heavy track off of Lennon's first solo album Plastic Ono Band (1970). It features John on electric guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass and Ringo on drums. Phil Spector produced it and added tape echo-slapback to the drums especially

I had thought that all the electric guitars on this album were John's Epiphone Casino, but a lot of evidence proves that he used his Mosrite Dobro Resonator guitar with a pickup in it. Klaus Voormann made a sketch of the sessions that quotes John "and this the guitar I'm going to use on every song", with John holding a resonator. I believe some songs were the Casino, but Well Well Well in particular has a very nasty buzzy tone that isn't very Casino-like. He of course used his Martin or Gibson acoustics on Love, Working Class Hero

After Harrison convinced me that the Resonator was the guitar, I purchased this 1974 Dorado Resonator (made by Gretsch) and had my tech install a Teisco 1960's pickup in it. This is the same pickup that was in John's! Lennon also put electric guitar strings on the Dobro and had low action to be able to do bends. I have Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11 gauge electric strings on mine

I did a lot of tests with all my amps and pedals to get the right tone. It's unclear what amp John was using on this song. But it's very likely that a lot of the distortion came from Phil Spector overloading the console, like on Revolution. It's possible John plugged in direct with no amp, but it's hard to say

I plugged my Dobro/Resonator direct into my Focusrite interface and pumped the input gain up to get it crunching just slightly. Then I used my Abbey Road REDD desk console plug-in and cranked the drive knob. I also mic'd up the Dobro to get the acoustic tone blended in. You can hear this on the record, since John's vocal mic picked up the natural guitar strings

Klaus Voormann played his 1960's Fender Precision Bass into an Ampeg B15 amp for the whole album. He put a piece of foam under the strings, near the bridge to deaden the strings. I'm using my 1978 Fender Precision Bass into my 1963/1965 Fender Bassman amp and micing it up. I put some foam under the strings as well

Ringo used his Ludwig Hollywood Maple Kit (the same one used on the Beatles White Album, Abbey Road, Rooftop) with tea towels over the snare and toms to deaden the sound. I'm using my Pearl drum kit and Ludwig snare with tea towels as well. I added slapback echo at 111ms, using the Abbey Road J37 Tape Delay plug-in

John overdubbed a second Mosrite Dobro at 1:57
It played a short solo, then doubled the punk chords of the main guitar until the song ends

Thanks for watching! Let me know what other songs you'd like me to cover

My Gear:
1974 Gretsch Dorado Dor-bro 5995
(I nicknamed mine Sir Winston Onobro)
1978 Fender Precision Bass (62 Reissue pickups)
1963 Fender 6G6-B Bassman Head
1965 Fender Black Bassman Cab (Oxford 12"s)
Pearl Export Series Drum Kit
Ludwig Jazz Fest Blue Oyster 5.5" Snare
Zildjian A Series Crash Cymbal
Neumann TLM-103
Shure SM57
AKG D112

#johnlennon #resonatorguitar #instrumental