А это - из "The Telegraph" -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/10316228...Jackie Lomax, who has died aged 69, was tipped for pop stardom in the 1960s, but although The Beatles themselves enthused about his talent, he never managed to break into the big time.
His musical roots lay in the sweaty all-night rock sessions at Liverpool’s Cavern Club during the Merseybeat boom of 1962, singing and playing bass guitar with a group called The Undertakers, who often dressed in funereal suits, top hats and black ribbons. But such was his promise that by 1968 he was poised for fame in his own right when The Beatles launched their own Apple record label and included Lomax on their roster of new artists.
The Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison, an early fan of The Undertakers, wrote a song especially for Lomax — Sour Milk Sea — which was released as one of Apple’s “First Four” singles, along with Mary Hopkin’s Those Were The Days and the Black Dyke Mills Band’s Thingummybob. Released simultaneously on August 11, the four discs were packaged together in a shiny black presentation box, as if to emphasise The Beatles’ affinity with their protégés, with copies delivered to the Queen and the prime minister, Harold Wilson.
Sadly for Lomax, however, the fourth single was The Beatles’ tour de force Hey Jude, and although Sour Milk Sea featured the formidable combined musical and production talents of Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, it sank without trace.
Harrison in particular took Lomax under his wing, and rated his singing and songwriting abilities so highly that the Beatle spent several weeks working with him in the recording studio. From Lomax, Harrison seemed to draw the musical nourishment the other Beatles denied him.
With Harrison’s encouragement , Lomax completed his debut album Is This What You Want? (1969) . But in spite of an extensive campaign which marketed him as the new Jim Morrison – moody genius with a great voice – the record flopped as badly as the single. “We tried and tried,” Tony Bramwell of Apple recalled. “The material was great, but we just couldn’t get it to fly … It looked good, sounded good — and didn’t work.”
John Richard Lomax was born at Wallasey in the Wirral on May 10 1944. Playing blues-tinged rock as a youngster, he was still only 17 when he left a group called Dee and the Dynamites to join The Undertakers, who became regular fixtures at the Cavern Club in 1962 and played a summer residency at the Star Club in the Kaiserkeller, Hamburg, the same year.
Although their third single for Pye Records, Just A Little Bit, was a top 20 hit in the summer of 1964, further chart success eluded them in Britain, and the group fared little better when they moved to the United States.
On a visit home in 1966, by which time he had formed a new band called The Lomax Alliance, he encountered the singer Cilla Black who told him that Brian Epstein, The Beatles manager, was looking for him.
Although Epstein died the following year, The Beatles’ own label, Apple, signed Lomax on a contract. According to the former editor of Mersey Beat newspaper, Bill Harry, the failure of Lomax’s records “completely baffled The Beatles because Jackie had one of the rare and distinctive voices which have the potential of turning its owner into a superstar”.
After leaving Apple, Lomax joined a band called Heavy Jelly and in 1971 he returned, disillusioned, to America, where he reunited with members of the Lomax Alliance and The Undertakers. But two albums they released also failed to make headway, and he again returned to Britain in late 1973, joining the progressive rock band Badger, with whom he recorded another disappointment, White Lady.
Resuming his solo career in the United States, he recorded two unsuccessful albums for Capitol, and for several years played guitar and sang background vocals on demos for various artists. He briefly played with a Los Angeles group The Tea Bags and in the 1990s toured with other British artists on America’s West Coast, and as the bassist for The Drifters, The Diamonds and The Coasters. During thin times, Lomax took jobs in the catering trade, and during the 1980s was working as the maître d’hôtel at the Cat & Fiddle restaurant in Hollywood.
In 2001 Lomax released another solo album, The Ballad of Liverpool Slim, and in 2003 made a comeback appearance at the relocated Cavern. He then played session dates and toured as a backup musician, mainly performing in small clubs in Britain and the United States. Last year, with his old group The Undertakers, he appeared at a gig marking the 50th anniversary of the Star Club in Hamburg, where The Beatles had been blooded as a live band.
His ill-fated Apple album Is This What You Want? was remastered in 2010 and reissued with bonus tracks including alternate mixes and out-takes from the original sessions. He had recently finished a new album, Against All Odds.
Lomax reportedly returned to Merseyside in July to attend the wedding of one of the three daughters of his first marriage, and died there after a short illness.
Jackie Lomax’s second wife, the former Norma Kessler, mother of the fashion photographer Terry Richardson, died last year.
Jackie Lomax, born May 10 1944, died September 15 2013
