Tag: Apple Records

British brass band themes

“Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records” has some real surprises on it, from the never-released “King of Fuh” (can you say Fuh King?) to this 1968 gem by Paul McCartney, the theme song to a TV show called “Thingumybob”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlV6A_7ZSV0

The Black Dyke Mills Band dates back to 1855, long before John Philip Souza, who wrote the “Liberty Bell March”, that is best known as the theme for “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yfm2HSoD50

Years later, Julian Nott wrote the delightful brass band theme for Nick Park’s wonderful “Wallace & Gromit” series.

Lon Van Eaton and Friends

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]

Another ‘Applet’

Elaine Staats has forwarded a link to a new item about Lon Van Eaton. You’ll find it here. And on the Amazon link for the upcoming Best of Apple Records CD, that includes Lon and Derrek Van Eaton’s Sweet Music, there’s this promo video.

[media id=219 width=512 height=308]

Here are Lon and Derrek from after they had moved from Apple to A&M.

Fresh Apples

Later this month, Apple Records will release a pricey CD box set of non-Beatles albums from its catalog. Of wider interest is a companion collection of selected tracks. I’m happy and relieved that the song Sweet Music, from the Brother album by Lon and Derrek Van Eaton is listed, because I didn’t see it in Apple’s original announcement for the CD. Wednesday night, Lon Van Eaton talked with Randy “Now” Ellis on WTSR, at The College of New Jersey. There’s a short gap about 12:15 into the recording.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/OCT/WTSR_LonVanEaton.mp3]

Thanks go to Elaine Staats for the tip on the radio show, and for the link to this interview with Lon.

So who was Harry Nilsson, and where are the Apple digital downloads?

Almost three years ago I mentioned a documentary called Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? It seems that at long last the film has a distribution deal, and will be out on DVD before the end of year.

And this just in, Denro says…

I just saw it in an email from James Taylor. The first step in Beatles stuff being available for download?

http://www.applerecords.com/

Apple Records Catalogue Remastered and Reissued on CD and Digital Download, Classics Set for Release on October 26th

Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music raise the curtain on remastered CD and digital download releases of 15 key albums from the Apple Records catalog. All 15 titles will be released on October 26th. Most of the physical CDs will include bonus material. Together, the 15 albums represent the first ever Apple Records releases to be available via digital download.

Is see that somebody has asked what I asked Denro — “Where is “Brother” by Lon & Derrek [Van Eaton]?” And there’s no mention of the other Apple, or iTunes. Perhaps Apple Records is testing the waters for doing its own online Beatles catalog.

The fact is that the ultimate digital copy of the Beatles catalog is already available on Beatles.com, in (lossless) FLAC 44.1 kHz 24-bit and MP3 320 Kbps formats.

Eaton An Apple

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]