Grapefruit

Grapefruit were a London-based British band of the late 1960s, brought together by Terry Doran of Apple Publishing, a music publishing company started and owned by the Beatles. Their brand of music was a typical late 1960s blend of rock, which they often fused with psychedelic effects such as phasers and vocoders, or classical arrangements. Biography In summer 1967, Doran, a longtime friend of Brian Epstein's and the new managing director of Apple Publishing, signed Scottish-born singer and bass guitarist George Alexander, born Alexander Young, the older brother of the Easybeats' guitarist/songwriter George Young (and also of Malcolm and Angus Young, both founding members of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC), to a publishing contract. Alexander Young had chosen to remain in Britain when the rest of the Youngs emigrated to Australia, and had previously played with The Bobby Patrick Six, with whom he toured Germany in the mid-1960s. In November 1967, John Perry, a former member of Tony Rivers and the Castaways, pitched some of his songs to Doran at Apple Publishing. Doran rejected the songs but proposed combining Perry and his bandmates Geoff Swettenham and Pete Swettenham with Alexander to form a new group. The band was named Grapefruit by John Lennon after a book written by his future wife Yoko Ono that was also entitled Grapefruit. Doran became their manager, seeing some commercial potential in them. Apple promptly licensed Grapefruit's music publishing rights for the U.S. to a new publishing and recording label being formed by Terry Melcher entitled Equinox. However, since Apple did not have its own record label at the time, Doran arranged for the band's records to be licensed to RCA Records in the UK and to Equinox in the U.S. They were the second band signed to Apple Publishing, following the Liverpool group Focal Point, who were signed by Doran in September 1967. In addition, the Beatles continued to take an interest in Grapefruit, with John Lennon introducing the band to the media in January 1968 and inviting John Perry to join in on the recording of the hit single "Hey Jude". In addition to Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr of the Beatles, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Donovan, and Cilla Black attended the press launch and were photographed with the band.