"but what about [John Lennon's] guitar playing? Wasn't he one of rock's greatest rhythm guiarsts? Tat claim would be hard to judge from the Beatles' records because John is always hidden inside the mix. You hear Paul on bass, George on lead, Ringo on drums -- but where is John? It is not until later years, when he struck out on his own, and later still, when his demos came floating to the surface, that you could finally judge Lennon as a guitarist. And then two things are unmistakable: he plays with an iron-fingered rigidity that summons up visions of Parkinson's Disease, and when he departs from rudimentary strumming to essay melodic figures, he betrays a clumsy ineptitude."

He can be lively as in All My Loving
Often his chord changes are loose but add color
He sometimes strums vigorously for emphasis

Maybe not the best, but I like it

On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 11:10:25 +0000, nyarlathotep1@hotmail.com
(Norbert) wrote:

>"but what about [John Lennon's] guitar playing? Wasn't he one of rock's greatest rhythm guiarsts? Tat claim would be hard to judge from the Beatles' records because John is always hidden inside the mix. You hear Paul on bass, George on lead, Ringo on drums -- but where is John? It is not until later years, when he struck out on his own, and later still, when his demos came floating to the surface, that you could finally judge Lennon as a guitarist. And then two things are unmistakable: he plays with an iron-fingered rigidity that summons up visions of Parkinson's Disease, and when he departs from rudimentary strumming to essay melodic figures, he betrays a clumsy ineptitude."

"All My Loving" has some good guitar from JL.

There are a lot of Youtube videos that attempt to address the question of how good Lennon was as a rhythm guitarist -- and most of the ones I've seen focus on Lennon's early stuff -- his pre-"eating acid like candy" work.