John Lennon's letter justifying The Beatles Early Covers inspired by American Black Music - 1971

In May 2006 Bonhams sold John Lennon’s letter to a journalist justifying The Beatles Early Cover Records inspired by American Black Music.

In an article The Beatles Betrayal in the New York Times, written in 1971, a journalist accuses the Beatles, and other white artistes, of imitating and exploiting American black music in their early cover records. Upset at the charges levelled against him and his fellow musicians, Lennon was stung into sending a response. His reply – a concise summation of how much the Beatles and their contemporaries admired American black music and the debt they owed to it was sold in a sale of Rock n Roll & Film Memorabilia at Bonhams in Knightsbridge on Wednesday 24 May 2006.
John Lennon’s letter reads:

'Money', 'Twist'n'Shout', 'You really got a hold on me' etc, were all numbers we (the Beatles) used to sing in the dancehalls around Britain, mainly Liverpool. It was only natural that we tried to do it as near to the record as we could - i always wished we could have done them even closer to the original. We didn't sing our own songs in the early days - they weren't good enough - the one thing we always did was to make it known that there were black originals, we loved the music and wanted to spread it in any way we could. In the '50s there were few people listening to blues - R + B - rock and roll, in America as well as Britain. People like - Eric Burdons Animals - Micks Stones - and us drank, ate and slept the music, and also recorded it, many kids were turned on to black music by us. It wasn’t a rip off. it was a love in, signed John + Yennon P.S., what about the 'B' side of Money? P.P.S., even the black kids didn't dig blues etc it wasn't 'sharp' or something. [SIC]

Included in the lot was a photocopy of the article and a carbon copy of the journalist's reply to Lennon, which remained unanswered.