This has really been a great week for me as a collector of Klaus Voormann‘s record and CD cover art. German musician Volkwin Müller has either read this blog or seen my list of Klaus Voormann‘s record covers on Rate Your Music and informed me of two recent releases of his–both with cover art by Klaus–that weren’t on my list. So, a big thank you to Volkwin. The CDs are Volkwin Müller & Friends “Strawberry Songs” from 2012,
and Volkwin‘s “Mit anderen Augen” CD from 2016
But the greatest thing was the arrival of Klaus Voormann‘s new book “Birth of an Icon-Revolver 50“. Well, The Beatles‘ “Revolver” album was released (in the U.K.) on 5th August 1966 and John Lennon asked Klaus Voormann, friend of the Fab Four since their Hamburg days and in 1966 living in London and playing with various bands including the Mike d’Abo fronted Manfred Mann, to design a cover for their new record. This book tells the story in comic strip form of how Klaus Voormann came to design the cover which earned him a Grammy.
Two of The Beatles‘ record covers have won Grammys for their design. First was Klaus Voormann‘s cover for “Revolver” and then the album that followed it “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“, which earned Peter Blake and Jann Haworth Grammys for their joint design. Klaus Voormann has been nominated for a Grammy one further time–for the design of his “A Sideman’s Journey” box set. He was narrowly beaten by Rob Jones‘s and Jack White‘s design for the White Stripes‘ box set “Under the Great Northern Lights“.
The “Birth of an Icon-Revolver 50” book is a beautiful production with many photos and text in English and German. It can be ordered from Klaus Voormann’s site http://www.voormann.com.
While researching the book, I discovered the August/September 2016 number of the German Magazine “Good Times” which has five cover variations of portraits of The Beatles by Klaus Voormann:
Thus Klaus Voormann (born 29th April 1938) is still going strong at the age of 78. May he long continue to produce great record covers.
recordart 
One Klaus cover I really like is the Gary Wright album, ‘Extraction’, very reminiscent of the Lennon drawing featured above.
I heard about his book when researching my own Revolver post. Sounds great!
https://vinylconnection.com.au/2016/07/29/still-revolving/
I read your Revolver essay and can appreciate the amount of work that went into writing it. Great stuff!
I’m really pleased with Klaus’s “Revolver 50” book. The drawings are quite amazing. Voormann is, of course a consumate draughtsman and his pencil drawings are great. I don’t really have a favourite Voormann cover, but I can still get excited about the Revolver art!! And it’s a wierd coincidence that Voormann used collage to create the Revolver cover and then Peter Blake and Jann Haworth used a kind of collage (albeit on a larger scale) to create the Sgt Pepper cover.
Hi Richard. The Voormann book really looks great. Think of buying it.
I also had a look at Volkwin’s website, and Voormann’s. Did you see the Volkwin cd ‘Signale’ and Voormann’s poster ‘Abbey Road’? Funny, that!
Hi Guy! The Revolver 50 book is definitely worth buying! I just bought the “Good Music” magazines with the Voormann Beatles portraits. I bought the Signale CD some time ago and have just got hold of Volkwin’s two latest CDs with Voormann cover art “Strawberry Songs” and “Volkwin”. It seems Klaus Voormann is in a particularly productive phase at the moment.