Klaus Voormann
From Free net encyclopedia
| Klaus Voormann |
|---|
| Born |
| April 29, 1938 Berlin, Germany |
Klaus Voormann (born April 29, 1938) is a German artist, musician, and record producer who was associated with the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg and later designed the cover of their album Revolver.
Voormann (pronounced "foreman") was born and grew up in Berlin where he was one of six brothers. In the late fifties, he moved to Hamburg to continue his art studies and began dating Astrid Kirchherr. One day, after a fight with her and another friend of his, he wandered into the "bad" part of Hamburg, the Reeperbahn. He walked into a club and heard a performance by a band called The Silver Beetles. He was enthralled by these musicians from Liverpool, and ran back to Astrid to tell her about them. Klaus, Astrid, and a few other friends attended the next Silver Beetles concert. They began to talk to The Silver Beetles after the performance, and a new circle of friends was formed - the Exies. Astrid began dating Stu Sutcliffe, though she remained close friends with Klaus. Klaus Voormann faded out of the history of that rock group (which became The Beatles, with Sutcliffe gone and a new drummer).
When The Beatles returned to Hamburg in the mid-1960s, they met up with Klaus and invited him to do the art for their upcoming album. Klaus had a style of "scrapbook collage" art, and did a very good job for the sleeve of Revolver; he won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts.
Voormann became a member of the 1960s band, Manfred Mann, playing bass guitar. After that, he became a session musician, playing on solo efforts by John Lennon (sometimes as a member of the Plastic Ono Band), George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Lou Reed, James Taylor and with a number of other artists. In an Interview with EMI about his album "Walls And Bridges", John Lennon was asked who is playing bass on this album. John answered with a hard german accent: "Klaus Voormann, We all know Klaus, ja(german: yes)!". He also played in Harrison's assembled band in the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh; Harrison fittingly introduced him to the audience by saying, "There's somebody on bass who many people have heard about, but they've never actually seen him, Klaus Voormann." In the Concert for George on November 29, 2002, he played bass as part of the supporting band.
After the breakup of The Beatles, there were rumours of The Beatles reforming with Voormann on bass as a replacement for Paul McCartney.
More recently, Voormann designed the covers for the Beatles Anthology albums (using his scrapbook style) as well as producing the German band TRIO and doing a cover for the Norwegian band Turbonegro.
In October 2003, he published a book Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John ? Erinnerungen an die Beatles und viele andere Freunde ("Why don't you play Imagine on the white piano John? Memories of the Beatles and many other friends").
A 2005 BBC documentary, Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle featured interviews with Voormann and showed drawings he made of the Beatles in Hamburg.
External link
References
Klaus Voorman, Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John ? Erinnerungen an die Beatles und viele andere Freunde, Heyne 2003. ISBN 3453873130de:Klaus Voormann nl:Klaus Voormann ja:クラウス・フォアマン sv:Klaus Voormann