JOHN LENNON: 'dead gifted'

Ivan Vaughan was the guy who introduced John Lennon and Paul McCartney at the Woolton village fête on July 6th 1957. Born on the same day as Paul, he was a childhood friend of both, and known to them as 'Ivy'. Having graduated in classics from University College, London, in 1964 he and his wife Jan set off on a hitch-hiking honeymoon around America. At the same time the Beatles were busily conquering the country, so Vaughan gave this rare interview to Datebook (the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday arts supplement) on August 16th. It contains no startling revelations, but there are a few interesting insights. Vaughan went on to become a teacher, and in 1968 discussed the idea of opening an Apple school (as detailed in Derek Taylor's autobiography). He died after a lengthy struggle against Parkinson's disease in 1993. [With thanks to Richie Unterberger.]

THE COMMON PEOPLE: 'bordering at times on the psychedelic'

I'm delighted to post what I suspect are the only two contemporary articles ever written about the enigmatic Common People. Both come from the reliably mindblowing World Countdown, and appeared in the summer of 1969, to coincide with their fascinating album. The first seems simply to be a reproduction of Capitol's press release, while the second is a gushing interview by Dodie Smith, the paper's latter-day editor (who came from Liverpool, and appears to have vanished without trace). It's interesting to learn how explicitly Christian their world view was, having gone through a biker / garage phase before a 'spiritual type sojourn in the desert', where they 'existed on bread and water for long periods of time'. Most intriguing is the fact that they tore down their rehearsal space and put everything in it 'in an immense box which they had constructed, and buried it in the ground'. Enjoy!

World Countdown 6:3 (June 27th 1969)

World Countdown 6:4 (July 10th 1969)

Incidentally, the portrait of Denny is credited to Nik Raceivic, who went on to make some interesting electronic albums in the 70s...

DENIS PRESTON: 'a smooth operator'

He's largely forgotten now, but in the 1960s Denis Preston (1916-79) was Britain's pre-eminent jazz producer and entrepreneur. He recorded innumerable albums at his own expense in his Lansdowne Studio in Holland Park, then licensed them to EMI and others through his Record Supervision company. Without him, there would probably be no albums by Rendell-Carr, Mike Taylor, Joe Harriott, Stan Tracey, Indo-Jazz Fusions, Amancio D'Silva, Guy Warren, Neil Ardley and many others. The same can't be said of any individual in any other genre, as far as I can think. There's barely info on him available, so I thought I'd post a couple of rare Melody Maker articles that fill in a bit of background.


First, a tribute by Ian Carr, published on May 18th 1968:

Second, a profile by Bob Houston, published on September 14th 1968:

TAMAM SHUD: "Sounds OK to me"

Whilst I admit to never having met anyone who likes it as much as me, it's no exaggeration to say that I think Goolutionites & The Real People by Tamam Shud is one of the best rock albums of the early 70s. I was amazed to find this article in Go-Set (Australia's main music paper of the time), dated July 4th 1970. Despite its optimistic predictions, the LP appeared in October and sank without trace.

FRED NEIL: Where Is It All Going?

As well as being one of the most talented singer-songwriters to emerge from America's mid-60s folk boom, the late Fred Neil was the most reclusive. There's next to no footage of him, and no substantial interviews seem to exist. It was therefore a surprise to discover this insightful piece in the January 1966 issue of Hit Parader magazine. At the time he was still gigging around Greenwich Village, often with the Seventh Sons (sadly their innovative collaboration went unrecorded), and had yet to record his finest album, Fred Neil, which appeared at the end of the year.

FLASHBACK #1 now available for download!

Flashback issue #1 can now be quickly and easily downloaded via this link:

http://www.flashbackmag.com/DV/download.html

Contents include Mad River, David Axelrod, Fanny, Montage, the Beach Boys, 1950s psych, the 100 most under-rated guitarists of the 60s and 70s, detailed reviews and much more.

Enjoy!

APPLE: the original logos

In December 1967 the following black and white credit appeared on the inside back cover of the Magical Mystery Tour EP set:

This seems to be the first-ever stab at an Apple logo, and Marijke from the Fool has confirmed that it was not designed by them. Perhaps worried that it looked more like a greengage, the Beatles (or, most likely, Paul) soon decided to scrap it.

The ad below appeared in International Times of January 5th-19th 1968, and shows a new design, which was designed by the Fool:

On March 23rd Disc & Music Echo announced that the image was 'the symbol of Apple, the firm run by the Beatles':

It was also used for the cloth patches sewn into many of the swingin' clothes flogged / shoplifted from / given away in in the Apple Shop (which was open for six months from December 1967). Andrew Sandoval kindly supplied this example from his collection:

However - perhaps because the Fool's effort didn't look much like an apple either - by the time the company was publicly launched in May, a more sophisticated and enduring logo had been devised by John Kosh (under close supervision from Paul, of course).