Klaus Voormann
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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 was born and grew up in Berlin where he was one of six brothers. In the late fiftes, 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" the 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 Voorman faded out of the history of that rock group (which became The Beatles with Sutcliffe gone and a drummer switch).
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 of it 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, and Ringo Starr, and with a number of other artists. 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."
More recently, Voormann did the covers for the Beatles Anthology albums (using his scrapbook style) as well as producing the German band TRIO.
External links
- Personal website (http://www.voormann.com)