‘For Your Love book release party’

    

The New York book release party for Bro. Francis Dumaurier’s For Your Love will take place on Tuesday the 27th. For Your Love is the biography of Bro. Giorgio Gomelsky, the rock and roll impresario of Swinging Sixties London who later became a Freemason in l’Union Française Lodge 17 in Manhattan. From the publicity:

For Your Love

Book Release Party

Tuesday, June 27 at 6:30

Free admission, but RSVP here

Journey NYC

27 West 24th Street, Manhattan

Francis Dumaurier, author and close friend of Giorgio, will present his recently published book about the incredible life of Giorgio Gomelsky. Raul Gonzalez, musician, late friend, and last manager of Giorgio’s Red Door, will co-host the event and share some of the works his band, Barra Libre, produced with Giorgio.

If you would like to collaborate in this event and have something about Giorgio you would like to share (multimedia, videos, photos, etc.), or share a story about Giorgio, please contact Raul here.

A limited number of copies of the book will be available for sale ($20) and will be signed by the author upon request.

To order a copy, click here.

RSVP by Friday, June 23 here.

Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

     

‘For your Brotherly Love’

    

For Your Love, Bro. Francis Dumaurier’s biography of Bro. Giorgio Gomelsky, has been available in digital format for more than a year, but the high quality print versions are coming to market now. In fact, on Sunday, Dumaurier will launch his book in London with a celebration at the historic Crawdaddy Club, where the Rolling Stones got their start and the Yardbirds later served as the house band. (A New York City book launch is coming in June.)

Giorgio Gomelsky (1934-2016) was the impresario and record producer who figured significantly in the Swinging Sixties without himself becoming a household name. I mean he was a name in my household—or at least in my bedroom where my record collection was—but I don’t think he ascended into the stratosphere like Brian Epstein, George Martin, Andrew Oldham, et al.

But, did you know it was Gomelsky who introduced the Beatles to the Stones? Sure, they would have met eventually, but that encounter was sixty years ago last Friday at the Crawdaddy Club. Later in 1963, the Stones would have their first hit single with “I Wanna Be Your Man,” penned pretty much for them by Lennon and McCartney.

Born in Soviet Georgia and died in New York City, Gomelsky’s story has ups and downs, all of which are pretty amazing. He was at Masonic labor in l’Union Française 17 in the Tenth Manhattan District, as is Bro. Francis.

Francis Dumaurier

Tickets to the event Sunday can be had here. There will be a book-signing, live music, and more.

     

‘Giorgio Gomelsky was a Freemason?!’

     
I first encountered the name Giorgio Gomelsky more than 35 years ago when, as a teenager, I was busy tracking down Yardbirds records, and spotted his name in the liner notes. It wasn’t easy finding those LPs in the early ’80s. You needed a sympathetic merchant willing to keep an eye out for used out-of-print vinyl, and imports, and reissues, and bootlegs, and whatever else, but I gradually accumulated them. I don’t know why Giorgio Gomelsky remained in the trivia section of my brain all this time, except that I once thought it a highly unlikely name for a purveyor of early 1960s London blues-rock bands, and such quirky things tend to stick.

So I was bowled over today to learn that Gomelsky, who died in 2016, was a Freemason. And a New York Mason at that.

Bro. Francis Dumaurier announced the progress of his new book. From the publicity:

The French editor Camion Blanc has recently published my book, Mon Ami Giorgio Gomelsky—Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, Magma, Gong which is available in paper and Epub versions on Amazon. It features 40 original photographs and illustrations that are published for the first time. I am finishing the English translation, and will try to find an American publisher when the final version is cleared by my editor.

This book celebrates the love of life and phenomenal vision of a giant of a man with whom I shared a close friendship of 30 years. He was the first manager of the Rolling Stones, and introduced the Stones to the Beatles. He managed and produced the Yardbirds, launching the careers of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. And he managed and produced Gong and Magma in France, and was a keystone of the New York underground rock music scene for more than 30 years.

Brother Giorgio Gomelsky was also a member of l’Union Française Lodge 17 from 1986 to 1996, where he served as Senior Warden.


Francis Dumaurier, in addition to being an author, is an actor you might know from The Post and a slew of television programs.