World Of You: The Complete Recordings (CD)

Two CDs. First-ever complete anthology by this American band who recorded an unreleased, heavily Beatles-influenced album at Abbey Road in 1969. Includes the full album, outtakes, demos, alternative versions, solo recordings and no less than eleven previously unissued tracks. After a locally-recorded demo attracted the interest of Capitol Records, The Aerovons – Beatles-obsessed teenagers from St. Louis, Missouri – persuaded the company to let them approach EMI with a view to recording at Abbey Road. Three separate visits to England followed, with an impressed EMI overseeing an Aerovons album, recorded March-June 1969 in between the group’s trips to Carnaby Street and starstruck encounters with various Beatles and Hollies members. Two singles were issued in the UK, but Parlophone cancelled the album’s release at test pressing stage after the group suffered personnel issues that left them unable to promote it. World Of You features that stillborn 1969 album, various demos and alternative versions from the same period as well as Tom Hartman’s 1971 solo single and a clutch of subsequent home studio recordings that follow the trail of musical breadcrumbs left behind by his teenage band. Featuring eleven previously unreleased tracks, ‘World Of You’ is the final, definitive word on a group whose story reads more like a fan fiction fantasy than the real-life adventures of American teens suddenly transported to the heart of the late 60s British music industry.