Category Archives: Klaus Voormann’s Record Cover Art

Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art

Gaby Moreno and Van Dyke Parks — iSpangled! and a Voormann cover that I haven’t been able to find.

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Back way back when, I was a Van Dyke Parks fan and I had his albums Song Cycle, Discover America, Clang of the Yankee Reaper and Jump! I also picked up the single The All Golden / Sassafrass (that one because of Klause Voormann’s pastural cover painting.)

A year (or more) ago I received Klaus Voormann’s limited edition book It Started in Hamburg and therein were pictures of Klaus’ record cover designs I had never seen, among them were Jesper Munk’s Favourite Stranger and Gaby Moreno & Van Dyke Parks iSpangled! I emailed Klaus to ask whether these records actually existed or were just designs, and he replied that they were soon to be released. I found the Jesper Munk album relatively quickly but I have been looking out for the iSpangled! album for some considerable time. It was finally released on 4th October 2019, but I didn’t get my hands on a copy until 1st August 2020, when I popped into Bengans Stockholm record store and found a copy with the blue background. I knew there were two colour variations of the cover picture, The one I found with a blue background to the aeroplane and the a grey, ghost-like figure on the left and a cover with a purple backgound for the plane and a beige figure on th eleft who looked less like a ghost. However, the salesperson at Bengans couldn’t order a copy of the purple cover for me.

The two cover variations with the aeroplane against a blue background (left) and a purple background (right). Is the hatted figure on the left Van Dyke Parks I wonder?

I saw copies of the purple cover on Ebay and emailed a record store in England whether their copies were blue or purple but never received an answer. I finally tracked one down from Chalkys_UK and it arrived in pristine condition on 29th October 2020, a little more than a year after its release.

There are a couple of Klaus Voormann record covers that seem impossible to find. The first is his cover for The Typhoons’ 1964 single Walk…Don’t Run–a cover of the Ventures’ hit–and the second is a 1979 bootleg with the (at least for me) tongue-twisting title Wir nie im Bett Programm gemacht. I once saw a copy of the Typhoons single for sale on Ebay (without the record) that sold for a whopping €110! The record is quite easy to find without the cover and can be bought for abut €5-10. So I bought the record.

Then decided to make my own cover and found the design on Klaus Voormann’s site. So that was easy!

The Typhoons’ “Walk Don’t Run single cover.

Finding a good quality picture of the Wir nie cover wasn’t so easy. And I had to photoshop the pictures I finally found to make a reasonable facsimile.

My facsimile Wie nie cover. Not perfect, but okay.

I’m sure there ar still more klaus Voormann covers waiting to be discovered. The man himself doesn’t have a list of all the covers he has designed, so I’ll just have to keep looking to see if any new ones turn up.

Autographs, Banksy's art on record, Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art, Peter Blake

Banksy, Blake, Voormann Additions to My Collection.

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Here I go again! I regularly boast that I have complete collections of Banksy’s, Peter Blake’s and Klaus Voormann’s record covers (well, I usually admit to lacking one Klaus Voormann cover, but still) only to find out that none of these boasts is true.

I recently found the cover to an unreleased 7″ single version of DJ DangerMouse’s “Keep It Real” cover (you can read about it in an earlier blog post). Now it seems there are a couple of other Banksy covers that I had previously never heard of. I’m not going to say more at the moment, but you can be sure that I shall return to this subject in due time.

My blog posts on the latest record cover art by Peter Blake have only mentioned the various vinyl, CD and cassette versions of The Who’s latest album “WHO“. I had bought two limited edition issues of the album: the 45 rpm double LP version with extra single-sided 10” single “Sand” sold via The Who Store and the HMV “Nipper1” double LP. A mate in Liverpool popped in to see Sir Peter while on a recent visit to London and got him to sign both the 45 rpm and HMV covers for me as well as a copy of the reissued “Stanley Road” album (signed previously by Paul Weller himself.)

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Then I saw an ad for Dr. John Cooper Clarke’s 2018 book and CD “The Luckiest Guy Alive” whith its cover portrait of Cooper Clarke by Peter Blake and Blake’s classic alphabet tiles for the album title and artist’s name.

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The cover of John Cooper Clarke’s CD “The Luckiest Guy Alive”.

So, naturally, I ordered a copy of the book and CD. I wonder if my Peter Blake collection is complete now?

Then I saw an ad for The Blues Band’s album “Itchy Feet” that stated that the cover was designed by Klaus Voormann. I immediately went through my Klaus Voormann collection only to find that I had missed this album (though I had bought the other two Blues Band albums when they came out, and even seen the band live.)

fullsizeoutput_6569While going through the Voormann albums, I noticed that my copy of Gary Wright’s “Extractions” LP was in less than mint condition. It is a U.S. promo copy with a large cut-out hole through the top right corner of the cover, so I looked on Discogs for a better copy and saw that the U.K. original was released in a six panel poster cover that I had never seen.

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The six-panel poster cover for Gary Wright’s “Extractions” LP.

So I ordered both the “Itchy Feet” and the “Extractions” records to “complete” my Klaus Voormann collection even though I’m still missing at least one of his covers. I was lucky that the “Itchy Feet” LP was one of the limited edition pressings that included the large poster of the band in action.

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The poster from the “Itchy Feet” album.

I have to say that I feel I’m nearer to having complete collections of these three cover artists. I’ll just have to keep a lookout to see if I find further missing covers.

 

Album cover art, Klaus Voormann, Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art, Record cover art

More Klaus Voormann Covers I Didn’t Know About.

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I’ve been quite confident that I had all of Klaus Voormann’s record and CD covers bar one (the LP “Wer nie im Bett Programm Gemacht“), but a fellow rateyourmusic.com member (Warpkernbruch) showed my that there were several CD covers that I had missed by a musician named Achim Schultz and his band Achim Schultz Over Twenty. I had never heard of Achim Schultz. A Google search reveals little. He is a music producer with his own studio and record label (imaginatively called Achim Schultz) in Munich and has recorded several CDs. He must be on good terms with Klaus Voormann as Klaus has provided cover art for three CDs by Schultz and one for a German group called The Pleasure. I know nothing of them except that they have released two albums: “The Pleasure” in 2006 and “Travel Inside” in November 2008, Klaus drew the cover for the latter album.

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Klaus Voormann’s cover for The Pleasure’s CD album “Travel Inside”.

Achim Schultz’s CDs include “Bye Bye George Harrison“, released on Achim’s own label in 2006, which includes the tribute track with the same title, a CD single “Give Peace a Chance” from 2008 and “Welcome“, from 2009 the latter two credited to Achim Schultz Over Twenty.
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All four covers show Klaus Voormann’s incomparable draughtsmanship.

Klaus Voormann in his recently published book “It Started in Hamburg” provides pictures of several recent covers that I haven’t been able to trace. Klaus says some of the records for which he has designed the covers may, or may not, be released. These are Gaby Moreno’s & Van Dyke Parks’ “Spangled!“, Wukong & The Grim Shadows same titled album, and Stephen Dale Petit’s “2020 Vision“. I’ll keep an eye out for these to see if they ever surface.

Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art

A Couple More Klaus Voormann covers.

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The great thing about having a blog is that readers often find covers that I haven’t discovered. Super collector Stefan Thull reported that he had recently found a copy of German band Fools Garden‘s album “Who Is Jo King?“, with its “Revolverish” Klaus Voormann cover, on vinyl. I already had the CD, but I had to find copy of the vinyl. It was listed on Discogs, but there wasn’t a copy on sale there, so I took a chance and Googled Fools Garden‘s official site to see if they sold copies. Sure enough! So I ordered it. Apparently there are only 250 copies, so it is quite rare!

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The “Who Is Jo King?” vinyl album cover.

Then another of my record collecting friends, Thorsten Knublauch, reported that there was a 7″ single “O, Come All Ye Faithful/Jingle Bells” taken from the Les Humphries Singers‘ album “Seasons Greetings“. I’m not really wild about Christmas carols and songs but the single’s cover is a reduced copy of the Klaus Voormann‘s cover for the LP. The cheapest copies were on Ebay, so I ordered one of those, too. While searching Discogs, I noticed that there are, in fact, two variations of this cover. The one Thorsten told me about (on the left below) was the German pressing, but there was also a Belgian pressing with “Jingle Bells” as the A-side which has a blue cover.

So, that’s three more additions to my collection of Klaus Voormann covers. Now I only need the “Wer nie im Bett programm gemacht” album cover to complete my collection.

If any reader can tip me off on where to find one of these, I’d be able to complete my collection of Klaus Voormann covers.

Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art, Record and CD cover art

Klaus Voormann’s Covers.

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I don’t really know why I haven’t done it before. I felt kind of forced to make a list of my covers with art by Banksy before the collection was shipped off to Rome for the “War, Capitalism & Liberty” exhibition which opened in May 2016. I had a basic list of my collection of covers with Andy Warhol art, but I needed lists of Peter Blake‘s, Damien Hirst‘s and Klaus Voormann‘s covers. Finally last month I  sat down and started compiling these lists and was surprised to find that there are seventy-six covers with Klaus Voormann‘s art!

Then, just as I had finished my list I saw an advert for a book entitled “Albums with Cover Art by Klaus Voormann“. Well, naturally, I thought someone else had done the work for me. So I bought it. What a disappointment! It only lists eleven covers designed by Klaus and included a number of covers not designed by him. None of his covers designed for German artists are mentioned and none of his early jazz covers. There are several pages devoted to the recording of “Concert for Bangladesh” with pictures of the original box set and a reissue, neither of which were designed by Voormann! The book, produced by Books LLC, Wiki Series, Memphis, Tennessee, is thus a complete waste of money. Well, not quite–the book did show a picture of Wet Wet Wet‘s 2007 single “Too Many People” which has a cover drawing by Klaus Voormann.

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A little booklet purporting to list Klaus Voormann’s record covers.

I already have Wet Wet Wet‘s CD “Timeless“, both as the official CD and a promo version with two different Voormann covers. After a bit of research I found the there were two CDs of the “Too Many People” too.

CD 1 and CD 2 cover art for Wet Wet Wet’s 2007 single “Too Many People”

Then Thorsten Knublauch, an expert on The Beatles‘ early days in Hamburg, who sold me my original copy of the Paddy, Klaus & Gibson 10″ compilation EP tipped me off about a CD by Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes entitled “Fretterning Behaviour” with classic Voormann art.

Fretterning Behaviour
Cover art for Albert Lee & Hogan’s Heroes CD “Fretterning Behaviour”.

Almost simultaneously, I saw a seven-inch single advertised on Ebay of Klaus Voormann‘s song “Lu Le La Lu“, which he recorded for Apple in the sixties but which was never released. A group called Wishful Thinking released the song as a single in 1974. Now http://www.aisforapplebooks.com released a limited edition of 1000 copies (250 of which were autographed by Klaus) featuring a remastered version of Klaus‘s recording of the song backed with Wishful Thinking‘s version. The single, in a gatefold cover with Klaus Voormann‘s self portrait from 1960 on the front cover, is sold in aid of a charity for refugees.

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The front cover of the split single with Klaus Voormann’s version of “Lu Le La Lu” on the “A” side and Wishful Thinking’s version on the “B” side. The cover picture is Klaus Voormann’s 1960 selfportrait.

At the same time another Ebay seller was selling a 1974 Jimmy Smith album entitled “Black Smith” and stated that the cover was by Klaus Voormann. I was very surprised to see this and started searching for confirmation that the cover art was by Klaus as I didn’t feel that it was typical of his work. It didn’t take long to find a picture of the rear cover with clear credit to Voormann. So I had to order a copy, which wasn’t too difficult as there were many for sale at very reasonable prices.

Suddenly there were these five Klaus Voormann covers, which I had missed! I could have almost done without the book on Klaus Voormann‘s record cover art, although it did tell me about the Wet Wet Wet singles. But, apart from that, I’m sure I could do a better job myself.

Klaus Voormann's Record Cover Art, Record collecting

A New Klaus Voormann Record Cover – And An Old One I Didn’t Know Existed

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The Internet is a fantastic research tool for collectors. One doesn’t have to buy anything but it provides a wealth of databases from which to search. Researching record covers has been made so much easier thanks to record databases such as Discogs, Musicstack and others. Even Ebay and Etsy are great databases to use in searches.

I researched my post on Kate Moss on record covers entirely via the Internet. I owned three covers with Kate Moss’s portrait and bought a fourth as I found it available despite apparently being very rare. I have even researched Roy Lichtenstein‘s art on record sleeves via Ebay and Discogs without buying a single cover.

So, despite a smug feeling that I already had ALL his record covers, I was doing my usual weekly search for Klaus Voormann’s record cover art a couple of weeks ago when a new cover appeared. A record by a group which went by the (not so lyrical) name of Paddy, Klaus & Gibson.

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Paddy, Klaus & Gibson’s 10″ EP.

A copy was for sale on http://www.ebay.de and I jumped at the chance. It turned out that the seller was famous German Thorsten Knublauch, collector of Beatles material from their Hamburg days and author of books on the Fab Four. He told me that fellow Beatles expert Dieter Hoffmann had produced this compilation album to document an early phase in Klaus Voormann‘s musical career.

The following information comes from a blog post by Thorsten Knublauch reviewing the album (see: http://wogew.blogspot.de/2015/02/paddy-klaus-gibson.html). Klaus Voormann had bought ex-Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe‘s Höfner bass when he left the band and hopped into a band together with Paddy Chambers (guitar) and John Frankland (vocals, guitar) and Gibson Kemp (drums) called The Eyes. The Eyes released two singles and Klaus Voormann drew a band portrait on their “She / Peanut Butter” single cover. Paddy Chambers had previously been a member of legendary Liverpool band The Big Three, Gibson Kemp (who later married Astrid Kirchherr) has been drummer for The Hurricanes and John Frankland who had been a member of Kingsize Taylor & The Dominoes.

The Eyes
The Eyes “She / Peanut Butter” single cover drawn by Klaus Voormann.

And, yes, it’s the same drawing on the cover of the “Paddy, Klaus & Gibson” album, but with John Frankland (he in the cap peering over Gibson’s head) removed as he had left the band. Klaus Voormann had approved the revised cover design.

The “Paddy, Klaus & Gibson” album was produced by Dieter Hoffmann to collect the six tracks released by the trio in 1965-1966. He produced 300 copies – 100 copies each on black, clear and read vinyl. After contacting Dieter – a fellow medical doctor – I also bought the black and red vinyl versions to complete the collection.

So, once again I started to congratulate myself on “completing” my collection of Klaus Voorman record cover art when Thorsten Knublauch mentioned an early jazz album that Klaus had done a cover drawing for, much in the same style as his series for the “Pioneers of Jazz” series on the Coral Record label. The record, a radio broadcast recording, has the impossible title “Wer noch nie im Bett Radio gemacht hat“, which he translated as “Who never ever did radio in bed“. He even had a picture of the cover – a patient in a hosital bed hooked up to drop bottles.

The cover of Klaus Voormann's early Jazz LP
The cover of Klaus Voormann’s early Jazz LP “Wer noch nie im Bett Radio gemacht hat”.

Well, I really have to do some serious research to find a copy of this, not only because it’s a Klaus Voormann cover, but because I really love the medical subject! So, dear readers, please excuse me if I do not post any further posts for the foreseeable future – I’ll be out looking for this album.