THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
851) The Aerovons — “The Train”
The Aerovons’ (see #16) first A-side is “their poppiest number, which echoes both the Hollies and the Bee Gees” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/album/resurrection-mw0000359226), the band’s “attempt at a commercial single, and we all felt bad about being up front about it”. (Tom Hartman, liner notes to the Resurrection CD) Don’t feel bad, it is glorious, wistful, inventive and Beatlesque pop psych . . . and it was recorded at Abbey Road by some teen Beatlemaniacs from St. Louis!
Hartman, the songwriter, “had a melodic facility and confidence far beyond his seventeen years.” (Jason Toon, https://www.riverfronttimes.com/music/abbey-roadkill-2465232) The Aerovons “created a magic, melancholy cobweb of sound, drenched in cellos, the cries of seagulls and even Big Ben chimes.” (Dave Simpson, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/jul/16/artsfeatures.popandrock)
This is one one of those stories of what could have been, of boundless talent and potential that disappeared like the morning fog. But this story is relatively unique, for this time, the record company wasn’t the villain. EMI desperately wanted the Aerovons to succeed and spent almost as much money recording them as it did to record Sgt. Pepper’s. And this time, there was no lingering bitterness over what was snatched away, but rather gratitude over what the band was allowed to experience. This is what makes this story so special.
First, let’s hear from Richie Unterberger:
It was probably the dream of millions of teenage American boys to meet the Beatles and record at Abbey Road Studios in the late ’60s. The Aerovons . . . 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 1967, guitarist/pianist Tom Hartman recorded a demo of his composition “A World of You” (see #16) 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. . . . [which] 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 . . . . [T]he album was produced by Hartman himself, who also wrote most of the songs laid down in the studio. . . . [B]efore 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.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-aerovons-mn0001420543/biography
Second, with more detail, Dave Simpson:
Hartman was 17, and his band, the Hartman, a child prodigy who played piano and guitar, formed the Aerovons with two brothers, bassist Billy and drummer Mike Lombardo. All three shared an obsession with the Fab Four. They had the same equipment as the Beatles, and were persecuted by greaser gangs for liking the Liverpudlians . . . .
It was through sheer naive bravado that the band ended up on the same label as their heroes. Initially they were offered a deal by . . . Capitol USA, but Hartman turned it down, declaring: “I don’t want to be like all those Beach Boys groups.” Despite the rejection, Capitol pointed the Aerovons in the direction of . . . the Beatles’ A&R man at EMI. With just the “thinnest of leads”, the band set off for London in September 1968, armed with their Beatlesesque demo, World of You. “Looking back, it was so easy,” says Hartman. “He . . . just went, ‘You’re from St Louis and you wanna come to record here? That’s great!’ It was like something out of the movies.” EMI courted the band not with huge advances, but with a trip to the Speakeasy – the exclusive nerve centre of celebrity swinging London. Among the guests that night were Diana Ross, Michael Caine… and Paul McCartney. . . . Hartman’s voice quivers at the memory. “It was dark, dinner tables. I walked up to Paul and said, ‘Hi, we’re from the States.’ Our band card said, ‘The Smashing English sound.’ He said, ‘Oh, Smashing English sounds – from America. Can I keep this?’ It was the biggest moment of my life to that point.” The Aerovons returned to London in March the following year to record at the Abbey Road studio – at the same time as the Beatles were recording the album Abbey Road. “They were forever sneaking off to have their pictures taken with Beatles equipment,” remembers Alan Parsons, who engineered both albums. The Beatles would often ask how Resurrection was progressing and were always on hand for advice. . . .
“The buzz around Abbey Road was that these guys are really good,” says Parsons. “I remember thinking, ‘My God, they really have a chance to be the next Beatles.’ Everybody at the label thought that.” But then trouble struck. The band’s additional guitarist, Pete Edholm, began to moan that Hartman was dominating the songwriting – and so EMI sent him back to St Louis. The label was also worried about the album’s budget (£35,000, not far off Sgt Peppers’ £50,000). It didn’t help that the band’s single, Train, wasn’t being taken up by DJs. Worst of all, the Aerovons arrived back at St Louis airport to find that Mike Lombardo’s wife was having an affair. “He fell apart,” says Hartman. “Me and Billy were staring at each other and EMI were calling saying, ‘Look, you’ve already lost one member. Are you guys ready to promote this?'” They weren’t, and the label pulled the plug. . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/jul/16/artsfeatures.popandrock
Third, Jason Toon talks with Bob “Ferd” Frank, another band member who had quit:
The band hit the mid-’60s teen-club circuit, regaling venues . . . with its Brit-fixated sound. “As soon as a new Beatles album came out,” Frank says . . . “[w]e’d sit there and just study every song. At that time, we weren’t thinking originals. We wanted to be a damn good copy band.” The Aerovons might have remained as such were it not for Maurine Hartman, Tom’s mother, who stepped in to manage the still-teenaged band’s business and booking. In Frank’s words, Maurine “wanted to be in showbiz, but she got married and had kids. So she was sort of living through Tom.” Her hardball attitude and business savvy opened doors for the fresh-faced teens. . . . Suddenly we were playing a lot of good gigs. “Some of them didn’t make us money but got us talked about on the radio[.”] . . . Under Maurine’s direction, the band played up its Anglophilia even more. . . . [including with] promo photos of the Aerovons in full-on Rubber Soul mode . . . beneath prodigious Swinging London hairdos. Business cards and fliers proclaimed “The Band With That ‘Smashing’ English Sound.” . . .
By 1967, giddy with local success and naïve enthusiasm, the band members set out to record at Abbey Road. That being the case, Maurine Hartman advised them to start writing their own material. . . . Frank says. . . . “All we did was start writing songs and recording.” . . . Tom Hartman says that a Capitol Records rep heard the Aerovons recording . . . in St. Louis and brought the band to London. . . . Still in high school, the impressionable Aerovons did a week on the London rock-star circuit, mouths agape and hearts aflutter. “The second night we’re there (in London), she gets us into this club called the Speakeasy,” Frank recalls. “There’s Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Michael Caine. I’m still in high school, seventeen years old at that point, and we’re standing in the same room with these people! Later that night, I’m in the bathroom taking a leak next to Paul McCartney! “There was this little black guy running around the club in this big bolero hat. And Hartman and me are like, ‘Who’s this f*cker think he is, Jimi Hendrix?'” Sure enough, it was. . . .
A contract was signed with EMI/Parlophone, and the Aerovons were sent home to write more songs before returning to Abbey Road in March of 1969. “Buzz” wasn’t a music-industry term yet, but the Aerovons had it; EMI execs were trembling with anticipation of the band’s limitless future. But Frank wouldn’t be around to see it. . . . [H]e was led astray by “a girl” and his youthful impulses, and he quit the band. . . .
After the sessions, it all started falling apart. Phil Edholm, Frank’s replacement on rhythm guitar, had already quit the band, complaining that his songs weren’t given a chance. Upon returning to St. Louis, drummer Mike Lombardo discovered that his wife had been cheating on him and went into shock, disappearing for long stretches at a time. EMI, balking at the dicey line-up situation, dropped the Aerovons and canned the album. “World of You” was released as a single in September 1969 — a melancholy postscript, not the herald of a new sensation.
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/music/abbey-roadkill-2465232
Hartman recalls:
“I was talking to my mum one night before she died and I told her that my big regret was not being successful enough to buy her and dad a house,” he says. “But she just said, ‘Tom, don’t you realise that it was a ton of fun for me, too?’ She was as big a Beatles nut as any of us.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/jul/16/artsfeatures.popandrock
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Phil didn’t quit the band…he was fired.
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