It was in Hamburg that Voormann first met
Astrid Kirchherr. One day, after an argument with her and
Jürgen Vollmer, Voormann wandered down the
Reeperbahn, in the
St. Pauli district of Hamburg, and heard music coming from the
Kaiserkeller club. He walked in on a performance by
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. The next group to play was the Beatles. Voormann was left "speechless" by the performances. He had never heard
rock 'n' roll before, having previously only listened to
traditional jazz,
Nat King Cole, and
the Platters. Voormann invited Kirchherr and Vollmer to watch the performances the next day. After joining Voormann at a performance, the trio decided upon spending as much time as possible close to the group and immersing themselves in the music. The St. Pauli district was a dangerous section of town, with illicit behavior commonplace. It was an area where prostitutes worked, and anyone who looked different from the usual clientele was at risk of violence. As a trio, Voormann, Kirchherr and Vollmer stood out in the Kaiserkeller, dressed in suede coats, wool sweaters, jeans and round-toed shoes, when most of the customers had greased-back
Teddy boy hairstyles and wore black leather jackets and pointed boots. During a break, Voormann tried to talk (in faltering English) to Lennon, and pressed a crumpled
record sleeve he had designed into Lennon's hands. Lennon took little interest, suggesting that he talk to
Stu Sutcliffe, who Lennon said was "the artist 'round here". Sutcliffe was fascinated by the trio, who he thought looked like "real
bohemians". He later wrote that he could hardly take his eyes off them, and had wanted to talk to them during the next break, but they had already left the club. Sutcliffe managed to meet them eventually, and learned that all three had attended the Meisterschule für Mode, which was the Hamburg equivalent of the Liverpool art college that both Sutcliffe and Lennon had attended. Lennon dubbed the trio the
Exies, as a joke about their affection for
existentialism. Voormann was in a relationship with Kirchherr at the time, and lived just around the corner from her parents' upper-class home in the Altona district of Hamburg. Kirchherr's bedroom, which was all in black, including the walls and furniture, was decorated especially for Voormann. After the visits to the Kaiserkeller, their relationship became purely
platonic as Astrid started dating Sutcliffe, who was fascinated by her. Nevertheless, she always remained a close friend of Voormann. In the early 1960s, Voormann decided to leave Germany and move to London.
George Harrison invited him to live in the Green Street flat in London's
Mayfair, formerly shared by all four members of the Beatles: Lennon had moved out to live with his wife
Cynthia Lennon, and McCartney went to live in the attic of the home of the parents of his girlfriend
Jane Asher. Voormann lived with Harrison and
Ringo Starr for a time, before finding work as a commercial artist and renting an apartment of his own. He returned to Hamburg in 1963, where he founded a band called 'Paddy, Klaus & Gibson' with Paddy Chambers on guitar and vocals, Voormann on bass and vocals and Gibson Kemp on drums. Voormann secretly married his first wife,
Christine Hargreaves, an English actress, at
Hampstead Register Office in
London on 29 November 1965. The couple separated in 1971, after five years of marriage. While not legally separated, he moved out of their home to live at
Olivia and George Harrison's
Friar Park in
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. (Hargreaves died from a spontaneous
brain haemorrhage at
University College Hospital in
Fitzrovia on 9 August 1984, aged 45. The couple were still married at the time of Hargreaves' death.) In 1965, Voormann returned to London and was asked by Lennon to design the sleeve for the album
Revolver. Voormann had a style of "scrapbook collage" art in mind. The cover went on to win the
Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts. Voormann later designed the cover art for Harrison's 1988 single "
When We Was Fab", which included the image of Harrison from the cover of
Revolver along with an updated drawing in the same style. He was a member of
Yoko Ono and Lennon's
Plastic Ono Band, with Ono,
Alan White and
Eric Clapton, playing on their album
Live Peace in Toronto 1969, recorded in
Toronto on 13 September that year, prior to the break-up of the Beatles. After the Beatles disbanded, there were rumours of them reforming as the Ladders, with Voormann on bass as a replacement for
Paul McCartney, but the plan never materialised. This line-up (Voormann, Lennon, Harrison and Starr) did perform on Starr's 1973 song "
I'm the Greatest". Voormann served as the three former Beatles' bassist of choice through the mid-1970s, playing on Lennon's albums
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970),
Imagine (1971),
Some Time in New York City (1972),
Walls and Bridges (1974) and ''
Rock 'n' Roll'' (1975); Harrison's
All Things Must Pass (1970),
Living in the Material World (1973),
Dark Horse (1974) and
Extra Texture (Read All About It) (1975); and Starr's
Ringo (1973),
Goodnight Vienna (1974) and ''
Ringo's Rotogravure'' (1976). In 1973, Voormann created the album sleeve and booklet artwork for Starr's album
Ringo, on which he also played bass. He played bass at Harrison's
Concert for Bangladesh shows, at which Starr also appeared, in August 1971; Harrison introduced him to the audience by saying, "There's somebody on bass who many people have heard about, but they've never actually seen him – Klaus Voormann." In 1971, Lennon told an interviewer that although the Beatles had disbanded, "if you'd said that George, Ringo and John had an idea they might play a live show or two, then Klaus would be our man to play with us." == With Manfred Mann, and other work ==