Everybody knows the story of George Harrison meeting Pattie Boyd on the set of A Hard Day’s Night. But who is the girl in this photo?
For my money, for sheer beauty she is in Vivien Leigh territory, and she outshines Pattie. Here they are together in AHDN.
[flv:/Video/2008/MAY/AHDN.flv 440 330]
But who is she? I’m not 100% sure, but I believe her name is Prudence Hooper. There is virtually no information available on Prue Hooper that I have ever been able to find. Where are you, Prudence?
Recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who I’ve featured probably half a dozen times now, has been in Florida lately, working on a Beatles tribute by Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander. Here’s the article. For once a local piece, in this instance from the St. Petersburg Times, and not something from the AP and picked up by everybody.
As discussed at this blog entry, Curvebender Publishing’s deluxe, limited edition book, Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day in the Life of Sgt. Pepper, is out. Everything Curvebender does is unique and classy, even their e-mail, so I’ll share what I received from them today.
Dear Curvebender customer,
We are pleased to announce that our newest title, Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day in the Life of Sgt. Pepper, is in stock and ready for immediate shipping. You may have received a pre-order brochure for this book in the mail several months ago, but if not, please read on (we also have a limited remainder of the brochures in stock, and if you would like to receive one, please reply to this email with your mailing address).
Kaleidoscope Eyes [official release]
As a followup to Recording The Beatles, we are pleased to announce the publication of our newest title: Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day In The Life Of Sgt. Pepper. Photographer Henry Grossman spent an evening in the recording studio with the Beatles in February 1967. Only a handful of the more than 250 black and white images he captured that night have ever been published. In an exclusive partnership with Mr. Grossman, Curvebender proudly presents his entire collection of black and white Beatles studio photographs in the form of Kaleidoscope Eyes. Housed in a deluxe limited edition volume, the photos are presented in chronological order, allowing the evening to unfold for the reader just as it did for Henry. The result is a stunning photographic essay, an intimate fly-on-the-wall view of the Beatles at work. It is the first of several upcoming volumes showcasing Mr. Grossman’s remarkable body of work.
Strictly limited to 1,967 hand-numbered books, each copy of Kaleidoscope Eyes is hand-signed by Henry Grossman and accompanied by four prints and a contact sheet reproduction. No expense has been spared in creating a true piece of book-art, from the design and presentation, to the choice of materials and packaging. It will undoubtedly be a one-of-a-kind addition to any Beatles fan’s library.
We invite you to visit our website to learn more about this unique title. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Best wishes, from everyone at Curvebender Publishing.
It’s always been my intention to not make my posts comprehensive. I try to keep each one focused on one thing, and provide what I can from my collection of stuff, without doing a lot of research. Tom Tastewar, who shall henceforth be called just Tastewar, because it sounds edgier, has done some checking into Lon and Derrek Van Eaton. 
In this instance, a little looking on my part would have served me well, because Tastewar found a link with animated GIFs of something that was included in Brother, the Van Eaton’s Apple LP. Here’s the link. I had totally forgotten about this! It’s a strip of paper with slits, printed on both sides, that you put into a loop, placed on the turntable, and played like a zoetrope. One side had Lon, the other had Derrek. It’s the next step up from a flip book in animation technology. Mine has been lost for ages. I remember the first time I realized it was missing, but I have no idea what happened to it.
Way back in high school, in the November 23, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone, was a review of a record by a pair of brothers, Lon and Derrek Van Eaton. Click the thumbnail picture to see a scan from my original copy of the magazine. The LP was on the Beatles’ Apple label, and it was called, fittingly, Brother. The cover looked a bit weird, with the brothers bare-chested and embracing, but the review was a rave, it was on Apple, and George Harrison was involved, so I bought it. I enjoyed the record a lot, and being very much into church at the time I liked the religious theme that ran through many of the tracks. The Van Eaton brothers had a follow-up record, but by then Apple Records as a recording studio was gone, so they were on a different label. I forget which one (A&M) because I was a totally broke college student and my record purchases were very few.
A brief account of the demise of Apple Records as anything but a logo and a legal entity (albeit a significant one, ably run by the late Neil Aspinall), is told in the memoir of recording engineer and producer Geoff Emerick, Here, There and Everywhere. Emerick also describes his involvement, or lack of it, with the recording of the Brother album.
One of George Harrison’s new signings was the Von [sic] Eaton brothers–Lon and Derrek… Harrison started out producing the brothers’ album, with me doing the engineering, but then he got fed up and frustrated, so he had his old friend Klaus Voormann take over as producer. I knew him from as far back as the Revolver days, when he’d come into the sessions to talk about the album cover he was designing. He and I just didn’t click, though, so I begged off from the project and turned the reins over to another engineer.
I’ll play a couple of tracks from the album. First, the song produced by George Harrison, “Sweet Music,” that the Rolling Stone review characterized as being similar to, and as good as, “My Sweet Lord.”
To hear this song, buy this CD.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/APR/SweetMusic.mp3]
And this is “Sun Song,” produced by Klaus Voormann.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/APR/SunSong.mp3]