TOM HARTMAN (Aerovons)
Florida dwelling Tom Hartman has been a composer of music for commercials, and a commercial songwriter for his band The Aerovons. The songs written by Tom in our catalogue are those which make up the extraordinary album Resurrection and it’s follow up A Little More. Here is how the former was received upon release :
New Musical Express said “It’s like hearing newly discovered Beatles tracks while walking down Carnaby Street wearing Ringo’s candy striped hipsters.” The Guardian asserted “They should have been as big as The Beatles.” In America, Rolling Stone heaped acclaim on a “stunning album of bull’s-eye Beatle pop…with the soft-brush folk rock of Rubber Soul gilded with the opulent psychedelia of ’67-’68 Fabs.”
Signed to The Beatles’ label Parlophone, The Aerovons recorded the tracks on Resurrection in 1969. Beatles’ sound engineers Alan Parsons and Geoff Emerick worked on the sessions. The album was written and produced by Tom, and he was 17 at the time.
Yet although two singles were released in 1969, Resurrection was first issued in 2003 having remained on the shelf all that time. This was when the music papers and newspapers went overboard for The Aerovons and learned their mind-blowing story and how they had hung out with The Beatles, went to the pub with The Hollies and met Jimi Hendrix at The Speakeasy. Finally, they got their day in the sun. And despite how it seemed, The Aerovons were from St Louis, Missouri.
That number resonated again as 17 years later Tom Hartman came back in 2020 and finally completed the follow up, A Little More. Although the sensibility running through A Little More is that of a man who has lived life rather than that that of a wide-eyed teenager, there’s a sensation that time has blurred. Not that time has stood still, but that Tom still draws from what inspired him in the first place. (see the Tom Hartman Music entry in Recordings for more on this album).