New Book About The Beatles Reveals Clues Of Jimmie Nicol On Cover

The Beatle Who Vanished – All About the Book The Cover

Many people have asked Author Jim Berkenstadt about the design origin on the cover of his new Beatles book, The Beatle Who Vanished. Berkenstadt says he wanted to create a visual sense of the urgency of The Beatles having to replace their regular drummer Ringo Starr and find a replacement before leaving on their first world tour in less than 24 hours.

“I started with an idea of using Ringo Starr’s actual 1960s Tom-Tom tour case that traveled-the- world with The Beatles on tour. We took a photo of the case by itself to start,” says Berkenstadt.

Then the author digitally “slapped” a licensed news photo of Jimmie Nicol’s first tryout with The Beatles at EMI Studios, on the front of the tour case. Berkenstadt says, “We used this photo to partially cover Ringo’s stenciled name on the front, and placed masking tape on it, to create the rushed feeling of having to find a replacement drummer - quickly getting him up to speed with The Beatles.” People with a sharp eye for detail will also notice that Berkenstadt digitally moved the TWA luggage sticker to the front of the case to add some color.
 

 

“It was a fun visual project”, says Berkenstadt. “I just wanted to create a sense of the pressure in the story and show how Nicol got his ‘15 minutes of fame’.”

 

 

 

The photo of the drum case was taken by Madison, Wisconsin photographer Brian Ebner. The Beatles with Nicol photo is from the archives of © Mirrorpix. And the digital layout was created by Elizabeth Neely Designs in Madison, Wisconsin.

Jim Berkenstadt will be appearing along with former Beatles bass player Chas Newby (who wrote the Foreword for the book) at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago August 9-11, 2013.

The Beatle Who Vanished is available at: www.thebeatlewhovanished.com and Amazon .


(c)2012 Rock And Roll Detective(r) LLC
All Rights Reserved.