Single of rare tune by Beatles' friend Klaus Voormann to benefit Syrian refugees

The demo of "Lu La Le Lu," a song Klaus Voormann wrote and gave to the band Wishful Thinking in the early 1970s, is being pressed to vinyl as a benefit single for Intereurope Human Aid Association, a group working to help Syrian refugees.

Voormann met the Beatles during their Hamburg days and became a close friend to the group, creating the cover to their Revolver album and later playing bass for solo recordings by George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr.

The benefit single is being made available via Apcor Books, publishers of a recent history of the Beatles' Apple Records label.

Details:

The A-side features Klaus Voormann on vocals, accompanying himself on guitar, singing his own composition Lu la Le Lu. This demo version was recorded on his Grundig tape recorder. Around the time of this recording Klaus was staying in a small cottage at George Harrison's Friar Park Estate. The acetate was given to Wishful Thinking and has never been heard outside a very small circle of people and certainly never officially released before. The single will initially be issued in a limited run of 1,000 copies, housed in a beautiful picture cover with original art work by Klaus, drawn around the time of the demo recording (1969/1970) and made available by Klaus and Christina Voormann especially for this release, of which the first 250 copies will be personally signed by Klaus Voormann!

We will be taking orders for the first 250 copies of this limited edition at 50 Euros (which includes worldwide shipping). We expect the singles to be ready for shipping in 2 months, but reserve your copy now to avoid disappointment! You can reserve your copy/copies at: order@aisforapplebook.com.

The remaining 750 copies of this single, also with the beautiful gatefold cover, will retail at 15 Euros including worldwide shipping. Wholesalers are welcome to inquire at order@aisforapplebook.com. Apcor will be mailing press reports to announce the release of this single within a few weeks to get as much coverage as we can. In one of our upcoming newsletters we will give a full financial statement on the sales of this single and how much will go to the IHA organization.  

Apcor also shares this message from Voormann about the release:

People associate my name with The Beatles, Revolver, good old Hamburg Days. However, there is also another story: the story of little seven-year old Klaus, who - together with his mother, 3 older brothers and baby brother Rolf - was forced to flee from the Russians amidst a long stream of refugees. Mother pushed the pram, Max pulled the handcart with our few belongings. We slept in barns, took shelter in road ditches when the Russian bombers were flying over our heads, rode in a horse carriage among soldiers who were in the retreat, and during this time my little brother died of bacterial dysentery. Thousands of refugees are still on the way via the Balkan Routes. In the frontline Dominik Kodlin, a very good and dear friend of our family. He is co-founder of the Munich NGO InterEuropean Human Aid Association/www.iha.help. He belongs to the volunteers who provide immediate assistance and help on Europe's borders, refugees camps and hotspots. Day and night in tireless dedication to be there where help is not (fully) implemented yet e.g. when boat people are reaching Greece islands, soaked and undercooled or thousands of people desperately wait in front of closed boarders and barbed wire fence meters high. When he told us about all these people passing him by - elderly, invalids, injured, children, often carried by extremely exhausted humans over hundreds of kilometres-, it brings back the images of my own escape back then when I was a little child and my heart starts bleeding. 

Klaus Voormann
March 2016