I have Astrid Kirchherr – a retrospective, a new book that’s a companion to Astrid’s exhibit at the Victoria Gallery and Museum in Liverpool, that runs through the end of January. I am very pleased to see that the book includes a photo with my dear friend, Prudence Bury.
I’m hoping Santa will bring me the new Best of Apple Records compilation. It includes ‘Sweet Music’, a track from ‘Brother’, Lon and Derrek Van Eaton’s album on Apple that certainly deserves a CD release. The credits for ‘Brother’ include many familiar names — George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Jim Gordon (drums), Phil McDonald (engineer), and Clive Arrowsmith (photos).
Tonight, Lon Van Eaton will be appearing in his home state of New Jersey, at The Record Collector.
It’s nice to see that Apple Records has added a web page about Lon and Derrek.
Lon & Derek Van Eaton
Lon and Derrek van Eaton were one of the last acts signed to Apple Records and the first to record at the newly built Apple Studios. The brothers had previously been in a band called Jacobs Creek, who issued one self-titled US album on Columbia Records in 1969.
After that band split up, Lon and Derrek made a demo of ‘Sweet Music’, which they sent to Apple in New York. John Lennon heard it and was impressed. George liked it too, and it was George who called the van Eatons to ask if they would like to record for Apple.
A couple of quibbles. They’re inconsistent about the spelling of “Derek” vs. “Derrek,” and ‘Sweet Music’ is cited as the demo that was sent to Apple’s New York office. Apple’s original promotion for Lon and Derrek says they submitted a home recording, and based on the liner notes for ‘Brother’, the song would have been ‘Warm Woman’. Here’s that recording.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/DEC/WarmWoman.mp3|titles=Warm Woman|artists=Lon and Derrek Van Eaton]
If this isn’t the best TV appearance the Beatles ever made, it’s the best one they did on The Ed Sullivan Show.
When Denro and I were at the Boston Super Megafest concert, we were given our choice of two photo prints, and these were my picks. The microphone in this one is from channel 7 in New York, and it looks like it was taken in ’65. I’ll see if I can get a fix on the exact date.
And this is a somewhat curious pic of Paul, maybe also from ’65, with his left eye looking like mine did after surgery.
For Andrew Chapman: Following the steps I put on Facebook, here’s the extracted MP3 from the FLV downloaded from YouTube.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/NOV/The Beatles-Getting Better-Isolatedvocals.mp3]Here’s one I particularly like.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/NOV/HelloGoodbye_Instrumental.mp3]