Picked this up from peregrine9's news.
Beatles fan Dr. Dieter Hoffmann has fulfllled a labor of love and produced an official limited edition 10-inch colored vinyl EP with all six tracks released by the Beatles-connected group Paddy (Chambers), Klaus (Voormann) and Gibson (Kemp), Beatles author Thorsten Knublauch told Beatles Examiner. Voormann, of course, has multiple connections to the Beatles, beginning with their days in Hamburg and his involvement with Astrid Kirchherr before Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe.
In the fall of 1963, Voormann moved from Hamburg to London, where he lived with Ringo Starr at Whaddon House in Williams Mews. Prior to that, he lived on Green Street, where all four Beatles had lived at one point, though John Lennon and Paul McCartney had since moved out and George Harrison had his own apartment there.
Shortly after Voormann found a job in the advertising agency Smith & Warden and moved into his own apartment. He got a call from his friend Gibson Kemp from Hamburg asking him to join his band The Eyes as bass player. Gibson had replaced Ringo in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and later joined King Taylor and the Dominoes in 1963. Voormann, using Sutcliffe's Höfner bass which he had bought from him in 1961, played bass in the band along with Gibson on drums, Chambers on guitar and John Frankland on vocals and guitar. Frankland had previously also been with the Dominoes. Chambers had been in the Big Three.
One of the first gigs the band played with Voormann was at the Star-Club in Bielefeld, which also featured Pete Best's band in October 1964. During his stint with The Eyes, they released a total of four songs, including the rare Star Club single "She"/"Peanut Butter" (Star-Club 148519). Voormann even painted the group picture for the back cover, which Dieter Hoffmann used as a cover of the new 10-inch record. The Eyes' titles "Baby Baby" and "Another Saturday Night" only appeared on a sampler in the Sixties.
At the end of 1964, they also accompanied Tony Sheridan at the Star-Club in Hamburg. Reduced to a trio, they traveled to England in 1965 under the new name Paddy, Klaus & Gibson. Knublauch says Voormann's age was changed to five years younger. “Even today one finds the wrong year of birth 1943 in biographies of Manfred Mann,” he says.
Brian Epstein became manager of the band. According to a report by the Bravo Magazine Epstein bought out the band for DM 56,000 from the previous management by Tony Stratton-Smith. But Epstein didn't help the band. "We got £50 a week from NEMS as a retainer whether we worked or not,” said Chambers. “And that's all we ever got because we never worked. It was a joke as far as the business was concerned."
They released three singles, but only in England: "I Wanna Know" / "I Tried" (Pye 7N 15906) was released in 1965 and "No Good Without You Baby" / "Rejected" (Pye 7N 17060) and "Teresa / Quick Before They Catch Us" (Pye 7N 17112) in 1966. Unfortunately, the records were not very successful and are now hard to find today. However, the song "Quick Before They Catch Us" became the theme music for a British television series and can be found today on the various Soundtrack samplers.
Paddy, Klaus and Gibson appeared in the show “Thank Your Lucky Stars” on British television. The band broke up after a tour with the Everly Brothers and Cilla Black in 1966 soon and the split was announced on June 13, 1966. Recent accounts have reported that Voormann was released on July 15, 1966 from the contract with Epstein, so that he could join Manfred Mann. Chambers went to join The Escorts and died in 2000.
Voormann played for a short time with the Hollies as a session musician. In the meantime, he designed the cover for the Beatles' "Revolver." He then got the offer from Manfred Mann to join his band as successor to Jack Bruce, who had left to join Cream with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. In his biography, Voormann said that Paddy, Klaus & Gibson were probably the inspiration for Clapton to form a trio.
Voorman told Knublauch in an email that "The band (Paddy, Klaus & Gibson) was a good live band, but had no good songwriter. It lacked many things that you need to be a successful band. Only playing well is not enough!”
The EP produced by Dieter Hoffmann is a great memory of this episode from Klaus` life. It features these tracks: Side 1, “I Wanna Know,” “I Tried,” “”No Good Without You Baby.” Side 2: “Rejected,” “Quick Before They Catch Us,” “Teresa.” The disc is limited to 300 copies, is available in three colors and can be purchased for €27 ($30.76 USD) including shipping by emailing him.