The Aerovons - Resurrection (1969)

The Aerovons - Resurrection (1969)

The Aerovons' story sounds like a fairytale, and in most respects it was a fairytale come true, except for the anticlimactic grim ending. It was probably the dream of millions of teenage American boys to meet the Beatles and record at Abbey Road Studios in the late 1960s. The Aerovons, unlike virtually every other such band, did so. Personnel instability intervened, however, and the group only got to issue a couple of rare singles before splitting up. They did record an entire album of promising material heavily influenced by the late-'60s Beatles, which finally saw release on CD in 2003.The Aerovons were formed in 1966 in St. Louis, and in late 1967guitarist/pianist Tom Hartman recorded a demo of his composition "A World of You" at the instigation of his mother. The demo was heard by a representative of Capitol Records, and though he offered the group a session in Los Angeles, Hartman's mother told him the band wanted to record in London. In early 1968, the still-young Aerovons — Hartman was 16 — flew to London to play their demo for EMI. EMI was impressed enough to sign them when Hartman and his mother returned to London in August 1968, and the Aerovons even got another offer at the time with Decca. The whole band came back to London in March 1969 to record.Over the next few months the group cut about an album's worth of material at Abbey Road. Unsurprisingly considering the surroundings, and considering that the Beatles were the group's heroes anyway, the material sounded much like the Beatles did circa 1967-1969, though on the lighter side of what the Beatles themselves came up with. More surprisingly, the album was produced by Hartman himself, who also wrote most of the songs laid down in the studio. Though the sessions were quite well-produced and well-arranged, with some of the settings also reminiscent of the late-'60s Bee Gees or (more distantly) Hollies, the songs were still too derivative to have stood much chance of making a big mark had everything been issued at the time.In a perfect world, perhaps such a young group should have been given some more time to hone a more original sound. It was and is an imperfect world, however, and before an album could even be released, fate intervened to end the Aerovons' brief career. The sessions had themselves been done as a three-piece, although they'd come over to London as a quartet, when guitarist Phil Edholm left before recording began. Shortly after returning to St. Louis in mid-1969, drummer Mike Lombardo left. EMI, concerned about the personnel shifts, canceled the album, and the band split up shortly afterward, though a couple of rare singles were issued on Parlophone in 1969. Hartman did a single for Bell in 1970 before abandoning the record business to go to college, though he later got into writing music for television, radio, and film. The Aerovons' canceled album was issued on CD by RPM in 2003, with both tracks from a non-LP single, a demo, and an unreleased song added as bonus cuts.

The dozen songs that would have been on the Aerovons' album had it come out (though a couple of the songs did come out on a 1969 single) form the core of this release, Resurrection,the U.K. bonus edition also tacks on four bonus tracks. The Aerovons' unusual story — a band from the American Midwest recording in Abbey Road in 1969, led and produced by their 17-year-old singer-songwriter — might be the main reason there was interest in excavating these sessions, but this CD is not a mere curio. It's quite respectable late-'60s Beatles-style pop/rock, if a little green around the edges and pretty derivative. In fact, in a couple of spots it's downright imitative, with "Say Georgia" taking licks from "Oh! Darling," and "Resurrection" itself lifting from "Across the Universe." (Neither of those songs had yet been released by the Beatles at the time of the sessions, but the group heard them by virtue of working in Abbey Road.) Fortunately, those are the only blatant cops, though Beatles comparisons abound throughout, particularly in the Paul McCartney-esque piano-playing. Songs like "With Her" and "The Years" recall the acoustic outings of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney on The White Album, while "Bessie Goodheart" uses McCartney's more vaudevillian Sgt. Pepper-era outings as an obvious launching pad, and "Something of Yours" brings to mind "Michelle." To this list you could also add the very Lennon-esque echo on the vocal of "The Children." The Aerovons leaned more toward wistful and sadness-tinged moods than the Beatles did, though. One of the best tracks, "World of You," brings out that quality very well, recalling the better late-'60s orchestrated Bee Gees opuses. The bonus tracks include both sides of a non-LP 1969 single ("The Train," their poppiest number, which echoes both the Hollies and the Bee Gees), the outtake "Here" (very much like McCartney's piano ballads), and a demo of "World of You." (allmusic.com)

Tracklist:

1 World of You [Single A Side] Hartman 2:30
2 Resurrection Hartman 3:03
3 Say Georgia [Single B Side] Hartman 2:20
4 With Her Hartman 2:23
5 Quotes and Photos Hartman 2:33
6 Words from a Song Hartman 3:50
7 Bessy Goodheart Hartman 1:59
8 Something of Yours Hartman 2:22
9 She's Not Dead Hartman 2:48
10 The Years Hartman 1:37
11 Everything's Alright Hartman 2:48
12 The Children Hartman 5:05
13 The Train [*] Hartman 2:56
14 Song for Jane [*] Lombardo 2:36
15 Here [#/*] Hartman 2:17
16 World of You [#/demo version] Hartman 5:06

The Aerovons - Resurrection (1969)