"It was 1971, and we were working at the Fillmore East, and we had a recording truck set up out there, because we were doing an album. And we'd played one night until about three in the morning, and I was sound asleep the next afternoon when I heard this knock. I opened the door and here's this guy from The Village Voice, with John Lennon standing next to him and this microphone aimed at my face, waiting to record my first gasp of whatever. I said, "Come on in." And the first thing John said to me was, "You're not as ugly as you look in your pictures." I thanked him very much and offered him a chair. I told him we were working at the Fillmore East and, you know, "How'd you like to come down and sit in?" I thought it'd be good for a few laughs. So he said yeah, and they did."

From All Music Guide's review of Sometime in NYC

"At the time of its release in June of 1972, all except the most devoted fans were put off by the album's topicality and in-your-face didacticism, and the bonus live disc was challenging in other ways. Heard today, the studio disc rocks in enough of the right places, as well as drawing on influences ranging from blues to reggae, to surprise listeners and even delight them. The relatively tuneless "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" manages to favorably recall elements of "Come Together," and both it and "New York City" have some of the best electric guitar ever heard on a Lennon album, while "John Sinclair" shows off Lennon's blues playing (on a steel National guitar, no less) brilliantly. Even those who were of the left at the time may wince at "Angela" some decades on, but "We're All Water" has lost none of its intellectual or musical resonances, even if Nixon and Mao are long dead."

Angela Davis

Angela Davis first came to national attention in 1969 when she was removed from her teaching position at UCLA because of her radical politics. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List on false charges and was the subject of an intense police search culminating in one of the most famous trials in recent history. After a 16-month incarceration, Davis was acquitted. Today she remains an advocate of penal reform and a staunch opponent of racism and classism in the criminal justice system.

In 1972 a world-wide movement aimed to get attention for the situation and to free Ms. Davis. Yoko Ono and John Lennon joined the movement.