The Aerovons - World Of You: The Complete Recordings

In late 1963, 12-year-old Tom Hartman was captivated by The Beatles after seeing a news story about them on TV.  As a result of this he ended up spending hours and hours with his guitar learning how to play "I Want To Hold Your Hand".  After a stint in the local St Louis band The Dartels, in 1966 Hartman formed his own band, The Aerovons.  That initial lineup went through some personnel changes and in late 1967 consisted of original members Hartman (lead vocals, guitar, piano) and Bob Frank (rhythm guitar) along with Nolan Mendenhall (bass) and Mike Lombardo (drums).  Tom's mother (also their manager at this point) told them the best thing for them to do was record an original song, so they booked a studio and recorded "World Of You" accompanied by a hired cellist. A short time later a rep from Capitol Records stopped by the studio, heard the demo, and asked if they wanted to go to LA to audition.  Hartman said he would prefer to record in London at Abbey Road, where The Beatles record.  Capitol put them in touch with EMI's UK chief Roy Featherstone and in January 1968 they went to London to meet the band.  In the fall of that year they were signed.  The label told them they wanted them to wait until March to record and to go home and write songs.  By the time they got to the studio there had been more lineup changes with Billy Lombardo (Mike's brother) now on bass and Phil Edholm on rhythm guitar.  Featherstone had decided that they had enough good songs to release an album, but the band ended up recording them as a trio after getting rid of Edholm, who was complaining that they didn't consider his songs.  The album was finished in June 1969, and they headed back to the States, but before they could return to London for the album launch, drummer Mike Lombardo left the band after dealing with personal issues in his marriage.  This left them with only two members, and while they did end up releasing two singles, since that meant they couldn't promote the record, the label canceled its release.  Fast forward to 2001 and the album finally got a vinyl release, followed by a CD release in 2003, which included four bonus tracks.  Now with the new 2 CD set World Of You: The Complete Recordings all of those tracks have been reissued, along with outtakes, demos, alternate version and more, including eleven previously unreleased tracks.

As you make your way through the album and singles on disc one, it is more than apparent how much of an influence The Beatles were on tracks like "With Her" and "Something Of Yours", which are primarily guitar, vocals and drums with a little keys on the latter.  There are also a few where it’s more than that.  Apparently, an EMI engineer let Hartman hear “Across The Universe” and “Oh Darling” before they were released and he said he heard them a little too well, resulting in “Resurrection” and “Say Georgia” sounding extremely similar to those two songs.  Having said that, songs like their debut single "The Train" draw strongly from early Bee Gees (flipside “A Song For Jane” is a gorgeous, acoustic psychedelic tune that was strong enough to be the A-side), while the second single, the gorgeous baroque pop tune "World Of You" walks the line between both The Beatles and Bee Gees (the 1967 demo, with just a cellist they hired instead of the full string section, is also included here).  They showcase their vocal harmonies on “Words From A Song”, a slower tune with a nice arrangement that brings to mind The Lettermen, and “Quotes And Photos” is a slow, kind of lazy, blues track with some great guitar work.  Some of the other tracks that bring to mind The Beatles include "She's Not Dead", which has a bit of a jazz beat, the bouncy "Everything's Alright", that has a chorus a bit like "With A Little Help From My Friends", and the captivating psychedelic suite "The Children" (there is also an alternative version with Edholm on vocals).

The second disc contains a demo Hartman wrote upon returning home after the band broke up, his solo single that was released in 1971, some songs he recorded over the years from 1980 to 2020 and then released as an album in 2021, and a handful of previously unreleased songs he recorded after 2020.  For his solo single "Sunshine Woman", Hartman went in a more hard rock direction than his previous work, sounding a bit like the Stones, while the flipside "A Little More" was a very McCartney influenced ballad.  The songs on the 2021 album still have a lot of that McCartney sound, but often with elements of power pop that weren’t really present on his earlier work.  The influence of Jeff Lynne and ELO can be heard at times, especially in a song like “Shades Of Blue”, while “The Things Went Tonight”, with its fantastic harmonies, has The Beach Boys written all over it.  There isn’t a bad cut among these eight cuts, but the definite standout to me is the brilliant “Swinging London.”  The final six cuts were recorded after 2020 and while they are more polished and produced, they still continue down the path he laid over fifty years earlier.  “Here” is a gorgeous Beatles-ish ballad, “Airline 59” harkens back to early Bee Gees, “Mary’s Purple Village” has that late sixties psychedelic sound and “Little Red Rocket” is pure power pop.  This two-CD set is an outstanding release that not only shines the light again on this once largely undiscovered band, but also does a great job of showing what mainman Tom Hartman has been up to over the years.  Per the liner notes, The Aerovons advertised themselves as “the fabulous group with that ‘smashing’ English sound” – were influenced by The Beatles, but also by The Who, The Bee Gees, The Kinks and, in Tom’s own words, “others who were masters of the hook-laden single”, which absolutely describes them perfectly.  

(Grapefruit)