Brother (Lon & Derrek Van Eaton album)
[3][4] The two brothers then concentrated on songwriting, and recorded a series of demos on a pair of standard tape machines at home, in their rented house on North Hermitage Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey.[2] Led by younger brother Derrek's vocals,[5] the Van Eatons sang and played all the instruments on the recordings, using various surfaces of the house to replicate drum sounds.[6] Their manager, Robin Garb, forwarded seven of the songs on to various record company A&R departments,[7] one of which was the New York office of the Beatles' Apple label, run by Allan Steckler.[5] "Sweet Music" received highly favorable reviews;[25] Record World magazine said it was "a stirring ballad that will make them immediate chart contenders" and added: "Production by George Harrison couldn't be better."[6][7] In response to Harrison's complaints about Apple's lack of promotion for the single, the brothers were called to Allen Klein's office in New York and asked what the company could do to help them.[6] Apple's advertising for the album carried the tagline "With good vibrations from Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Mike Hugg, Jim Gordon and T.J.[8][29] The brothers attributed this to Apple's inadequate promotion of the release;[34] author Stan Soocher cites its commercial failure as a "case in point" that demonstrates Klein's ineffective management of the label during the early 1970s.[46] Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone wrote: "This staggeringly impressive first album ... displays more energy, good feeling, and sheer musical talent than any debut rock record I've heard this year."[6] He admired the range and versatility of Derrek's singing and said that the Van Eatons' "combined talent makes them far more than the equivalent of a gutsy Todd Rundgren or Harry Nilsson".Holden found the album's music "frankly derivative", with Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, George Harrison and Paul McCartney among the most obvious influences, yet it was "of such a high order as to pay one-to-one tribute to its sources rather than simply to parody or rip them off".[5] Reviewing the 2012 Brother reissue, for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger remarks on the similarities of the Van Eatons' sound with that of Badfinger and McCartney, and describes the album as "on the pleasantly innocuous side as a whole".[47] Writing for the reissues website The Second Disc, Joe Marchese similarly views "Sweet Music" as the "centerpiece" and he highlights "The Sea" among the bonus tracks as a "fascinating collaboration" with Tavener.admired the soaring quality of the brothers' "sweet, high vocals", and Alan Jones wrote in Music Week: "it is an album that has survived the passing of nearly 40 years very well.