Album Cover Hall of Fame - Album Cover Art Interviews and News

Cover Story – Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Real Deal: Greatest Hits, Vol. 1", cover by Robert M. Knight

Cover Story for August 31, 2007

Subject – Stevie Ray Vaughan – Real Deal: Greatest Hits, Volume 1 – a  2006 release on Epic Legacy Recordings, with Cover Photography by Robert M. Knight.

The story of Dallas, TX born and bred guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan is legendary – a story of an incredibly gifted musician’s life of inspiration, discovery, fame, addiction, recovery and redemption, and then an untimely death. Like Hendrix before him, guitarists all over the world watched in amazement as the axe-master from Texas channeled the spirits of the blues and rock’n’roll to develop a blazing style of playing that was all his own.

A 1982 performance of his band Double Trouble at the Montreaux Festival caught the eye of David Bowie, who asked Stevie Ray to play on his new album Let’s Dance. This was quickly followed by a record deal with Epic and the release of the band’s first album, the chart-busting Texas Flood. That record was followed up by a quick succession of others (Couldn’t Stand the Weather and Soul to Soul), along with the band’s embarking on a relentless tour schedule. This continued until 1987, when Vaughan’s drug and alcohol use caught up with him and he checked himself into rehab.

After this much-needed break, the band continued to tour (although at a slower pace) and then released their most-successful album – the Grammy-winning In Step – in 1989.  In the spring of 1990, Stevie Ray and his brother Jimmie (of Fabuous Thunderbirds fame) recorded an album (Family Style) which was scheduled for release in the fall of the year. Then on August 26, 1990, after the band played an Alpine Valley, WI show (which featured a “guitar superstar” encore jam of “Sweet Home Chicago” played with brother Jimmie, bluesman Robert Cray, and SRV’s guitar idols Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton) on a warmly-received American tour, the 35-year-old Vaughan boarded a helicopter headed for Chicago. Minutes later, the helicopter crashed and killed Vaughan and 4 other passengers.

In 2006, after a string of posthumously-released recordings, Sony’s Legacy division put out a remastered and updated 16-track retrospective of SRV music titled Real Deal: Greatest Hits - Vol. 1 and went to well-known SRV photographer and friend Robert M. Knight to find just the right image to grace the cover.  Robert was the only photographer on hand that night in Wisconsin and took the last photos of SRV in performance and prior to his boarding the helicopter. Reaching back into his archives also brought back a flood of memories – some happy and life-affirming; others quite painful – when he chose an image for this package from another concert in 1990 where he’d caught SRV “in the light”. Robert recounts some of the details of his relationship with Stevie Ray, the photos he took of him that fateful night, and more in today’s edition of “Cover Stories”…

In the words of the photographer, Robert M. Knight (interviewed August 2007) –

“There was a point that night that Stevie wanted me to come back to Chicago with him to go see Buddy Guy play. I did not like the idea of flying at night in helicopters as they do not have any sort of radar, so I didn’t go.

A guest in the hotel room I was staying in had set the alarm clock to turn on a news station, and the next morning I awoke at 9AM with the news about the crash. Soon my phone started to ring with calls from magazines that wanted my photos from the night before to illustrate their stories. However, Stevie was my friend and I could not bear to have my images of him used alongside of photos of a helicopter crash. I sat on them for two years before I let them be used.

As for this particular shot, I had just come off working with Sony/Epic on the re-release of Jeff Beck’s 1969 album Beck Ola, where the label had used about 12 of my shots done in 1968 for that package. When we finished the project, Sony asked who else I might have in my archives as they were working on many re-releases of classic albums. About 80% of my album projects have been when the labels are looking for good shots that have already been done. Once they see what’s in your archive, they call back over and over for other projects.

 

I had been working with Stevie Ray since 1989, when I photographed many dates on the Stevie Ray/Jeff Beck tour. I also shot several magazine covers during pre-production at Prince’s Paisley Park in Minneapolis and got to know Stevie very well.

This image of Stevie on stage in Minneapolis was one that had been fooled with early on using a process I developed in the late 60’s using "Kodalith" film in special chemicals that prevent the silver halide from linking together - giving the illusion of blackness - but the dark areas are actually made up of the actual grain of the film.

I only got to know Stevie when he was sober. A lot of time, he would come into Los Angeles, give me a call and we'd just hang out and talk. Stevie basically died of drugs and alcohol 6 years earlier in Switzerland and after rehab he became sober and came back to life and was walking, I feel, “in the light”. Whenever I photographed him, I tended to get shots of Stevie in “The Light”.

Over the years, I have done many album projects with Jeff Beck, Robert Cray, John Lee Hooker and have also done many dozens of magazine covers with every one in rock and roll. Currently, we are in production of a major documentary on my life and work by producer Tim Kaiser (Will and Grace/Seinfeld) and will cover a lot of the Stevie story as part of the project. I’d seen a true ‘guitar legend’ in Stevie, so it was great to have this image of him on the cover of this ‘Greatest Hits’ record – he was my friend and ‘the real deal’.”

Editor’s note – After his death, then Texas governor Ann Richards declared his birthday - October 3rd - as “Stevie Ray Vaughan Day” in Texas and there’s been a fund-raising concert (for the SRV Memorial Scholarship Fund) each year in Central Texas to commemorate this date. http://www.srvrideandconcert.org/

The city of Austin also commissioned and unveiled a statue of SRV (which is now a popular tourist attraction that stands in Lady Bird Lake park) and Fender Guitar has issued 2 different commemorative (and hot-selling) models of his best-known guitar – his beat up ’59 Stratocaster known as “Number One”.

Later this year, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of SRV & Double Trouble’s debut at Montreaux, Epic will be releasing a newly-remastered re-issue of the 1990 DVD package titled Pride and Joy that, according to the label, “has been updated, upgraded (to new Stereo and 5.1 surround-sound mixes), and expanded to more than twice its original length. The new DVD edition of Pride and Joy reprises the original eight segments, and now adds a bonus promo video clip (“Little Wing”), three acoustic numbers from the original MTV “Unplugged” series, two television commercials, and performances with Stevie Ray’s older brother Jimmie in the Vaughan Brothers (along with the EPK created for that band).  The new 17-track DVD will arrive in stores November 6th on Epic/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT."

About the photographer, Robert M. Knight –

 

Raised in Hawaii, and now based on the West Coast, Robert is a long time advertising photographer who also specializes in the Rock’n’Roll music industry. His career spans from 1968 to the present. Constantly working in the music industry for international record companies, publications and musical equipment manufacturers, Robert is best known for his “Guitar Legend” archive, having worked with such “classic” artists as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton and such contemporary artists as John Mayer, Steve Vai, and Maroon 5. His limited-edition prints are represented by a number of prestigious art galleries throughout the world. 

Robert is also part of Guitar Center’s "Hollywood RockWalk" team, working alongside RockWalk director Dave Weiderman. Robert and partner Maryanne Bilham have an exhibition of 10-foot-tall photos on the outside of the more than 200 Guitar Centers around America., making it one of the largest outdoor gallery shows of original photographic art.

Robert has published several books, including 50 Rock Guitarists (1995 Shinko Music) and Hollywood’s RockWalk – The First Decade (1996) and was part of the 1996 book Led Zeppelin – The Photographers. His most-recent venture is an artistic collaboration called “RockMachine” – an entity that produces fine art and design for the rock culture.

In July, 2007, the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas honored Robert and guitarist Slash by dedicating a case of memorabilia on the main casino floor, which was then followed by a dinner party for 50 rock celebrities and friends at Kerry Simon's restaurant. Billy Morrison (The Cult, Camp Freddy) jetted in as host DJ and the party continued at the hotel's Body English club with a audio/visual retrospective of Robert’s career as a top rock photographer.

To view Robert’s archives and purchase prints of his best-known images, please visit -www.nikonrocker.com

All images Copyright 1990 & 2007 Robert M. Knight www.nikonrocker.com
Portions of text Copyright 2004 Robert M. Knight
All other text Copyright 2007 - Mike Goldstein & RockPoP Gallery - All rights reserved.

Cover Story – Queen - "Queen II", art direction and photography by Mick Rock

Cover Story for August 24, 2007

Subject - Queen II – a 1974 release by Queen on EMI/Elektra Records, with Art Direction, Cover Design and Photography by Mick Rock.

Mick Rock’s cover photo for Queen’s 1974 recording has the distinction of being an image that both served to establish the band’s unique “class act” image and, later on, provided the setting and inspiration for the video production that convinced record labels and music fans that “the music video” could be much more than simply “promotional”.

Queen II was the second album by the band and featured two different themes – their “white”/emotional side (side A) and their “black”/fantasy side (side B) – as well as their individual and collaborative songwriting and performing abilities. And while not a commercial success when compared to later releases (while it was their first Top 5 album in the U.K., it only reached #49 on the U.S. album charts and did not “go gold” until many years later), it showed the band maturing and a new confidence in their abilities to produce over-the-top glam/prog songs and still rock with the best of them. They certainly were not trying to be a “pop” band – only one song (“Seven Seas of Rhye”) even attempted to serve as a “pop single” – but it set the basic formula and dramatic tone for the next records, starting with Sheer Heart Attack later in 1974 and then A Night At The Opera (which featured the aforementioned music video – for the epic “Bohemian Rhapsody”).

Image Copyright 1974, 2007 Mick Rock www.mickrock.com

Photographer Mick Rock had a feeling about this young band and their approach towards their music, their image, and how the two could be artfully combined to show just how special they were. They knew that, based on Rock’s success with Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and others, they’d found someone with the creative chops to establish their “look” from that point forward. How did he do it? Let’s let him tell you in this edition of Cover Stories…

In the words of the photographer, Mick Rock (interviewed August 2007) –

"One day in the late summer of 1973, while recording 'Pinups' with Bowie, David's co-producer/engineer, Ken Scott, told me that there was a new band who was very interested in working with me. They were signed to a production company, Trident Audio Productions, who also owned Trident Studios in London where Ziggy Stardust and Transformer, among many other classic albums, were recorded. Ken Scott, was also managed by Trident. They were virtually unknown at the time (I didn't know anyone who'd heard of them). They told me that they were especially impressed with the work I had done with Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, and so I agreed to meet with them.

Later that year (in October 1973), we met in the board room at Trident Studios. Their first album Queen had been released and had garnered little interest. They wanted to grab some of the 'glam' allure that was the hot image at the time. It was almost certainly Freddie's idea. And of course I had all the right credentials!! They were very articulate and confident and when they played me the Queen II acetate I understood why - it was a unique and powerful sound. 'Like Ziggy Stardust meets Led Zeppelin,' was my immediate response. And that was what they wanted to hear from my mouth – I’d 'gotten it' immediately – it was 'the sound of success'! So the game was afoot. They needed two things from me - a publicity session to try to help their first album get some attention, and then a package for their new album. The publicity photo session took place in December of ’73, and then it was on to the cover for Queen II. As was often the case in those days, I served as both the art director and the photographer for the Queen II cover (no one got paid very muck for either job back then, so it made sense to do both if I could!). The band's brief to me was: it had to be a gatefold cover (those were the days!!), it had to have a black and white theme and it had to feature the band. After that I was on my own.

From the power of the music and the palpable ambition of the band I knew that the image had to have a 'grand' quality. I really only came up with one basic idea. I had recently come across a photo of Marlene Dietrich on the set of Shanghai Express with her arms crossed, fingers spread. I showed it to Freddie and he got it immediately and corralled the rest of the band. This would be the 'black’ image. Of course there was also the 'white' image, and we shot both on the same day (there was no budget to shoot a second day!).

It was just the band and me. No one else was needed. They were very strong-minded, and even though they hadn't sold many records, they were masters of their own destiny and insisted on doing it their way from the start.  I had to make sure I had clean black and white seamless paper. I had an assistant and a makeup artist and the band bought or brought their own black and white clothes. Everything else was about lighting and composition.

It did take a few Polaroids and a lot of adjusting to get the angle and the band's heads lined up in the right way to achieve the required effect and Queen were a very lively (if inexperienced) band. This was only their second ever studio session (after the publicity shoot I had done in December so they did have some experience of working with me ); they already knew that I was a fan of their music. I took a lot of frames in both black and white and color film, though of course it was the color ones that ended up on the cover.

Image Copyright 1974, 2007 Mick Rock www.mickrock.com

The tricky part was the politics of deciding which image would go on the outside of the cover and which would go on the inside. This was left open when we actually did the session. For a while afterwards Brian, John and Roger were leaning towards the 'white' one. They were somewhat concerned that the obvious power of the 'black' one would leave them open to criticism that it was 'pretentious' since they were a virtually untested band. As I recall this was a word that one of the few critics who had bothered to review their first album had applied to their music and it bothered the three of them somewhat. But not Freddie. He and I were firmly and unshakably in the 'black' camp from the start! And as seemed to be the case for most things visual about the band in those early days, Freddie could always armtwist the others in the final analysis. 'Pretentious' was not a word that could scare Freddie!

The management and record company had no involvement at all in the process, and we didn't show them anything or even describe it to anyone. There were no comps or sketches. They were going to have to use what we came up with. The band was not at all interested in their comments. They trusted me and their own instincts. It was entirely their decision to work with me. Because of my own rising star at the time I don't think anyone had any objection, but the band wouldn't have cared if they did!!

As Brian May says in the introduction to our beautiful photobook Killer Queen, 'We were full of ideas and precocious enough to want to control everything. But in Mick Rock we had found our match, our foil, stocked with his own ideas and his own matching stubbornness.'"

About the photographer, Mick Rock -

Often referred to as “The Man Who Shot the Seventies”, legendary rock and roll photographer Mick Rock first met David Bowie in early 1972. Most of the memorable images of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust were shot by Mick Rock in his capacity as Bowie’s official photographer.

Rock was instrumental in creating many other key rock ‘n roll images such as album covers for Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, Lou Reed’s Transformer and Coney Island Baby, Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power, Queen’s Queen II (recreated for their classic music video ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’) and Sheer Heart Attack, the Ramones' End of the Century and Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘N Roll. He was the chief photographer on the films The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus. He also produced and directed the seminal music videos for Bowie to be found on Bowie’s Sound and Vision DVD collection: ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’, ‘Jean Genie’, ‘Space Oddity’, and ‘Life On Mars’.

Mick’s massive (186 prints) 2003 retrospective exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography was dubbed ‘one of the finest collections of pop art to ever reach these shores’ in the local press. Mick Rock’s enthusiasm for his art has remained undimmed and he has continues to capture the musical spirit of succeeding eras through his work with musicians of the 1980’s and 1990’s and the new millennium.

His 150 print exhibition at Manchester, England's Urbis Cultural Centre (which ran from Sept 2005 to Jan 2006) was voted Manchester's # 1 exhibition for 2005, and after reviewing it the London Times dubbed him ' the music world's top snapper'. In the feature Mick, talking about how he shoots, is quoted - "I've never felt like a voyeur, although I've certainly done plenty of looking! I work from the inside out. Like a cook, I gather all the ingredients and keep mixing and stirring and tasting until this kind of effluvia starts to rise, then I'm off to the races. It's an addictive kind of a feeling that I need a regular shot of otherwise I don't feel right..."

He has had major exhibitions in London, Liverpool, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oslo, Stockholm and Rotterdam, with upcoming ones for 2008 in Milan, Paris, Adelaide and Helsinki.

His recent subjects include Michael Stipe of REM, Kate Moss, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Chemical Brothers, The Rapture, The Killers, Razorlight, The Libertines, Queens of the Stone Age, New Order, The Editors, the Magic Numbers, The Flaming Lips, Kasabian, The Scissor Sisters, Snow Patrol, The Fratellis, The Horrors, Mika, The Klaxons, Peaches, Franz Ferdinand, Fat Joe and old friends Bowie, Lou Reed and Debbie Harry.

In recent years, he has published a series of books, many based on his classic images, including: A Photographic Record 1969-1980 (Century 22 Books 1995), Glam: An Eyewitness Account with foreword by David Bowie (Omnibus Books, Spring 2006)), Psychedelic Renegades / Syd Barrett (Genesis Publications 2002), Moonage Daydream / Ziggy Stardust (with David Bowie)(Genesis Publications), Rock ‘n Roll Eye (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 2003), Killer Queen (with Brian May and Roger Taylor) (Genesis Publications 2003), Picture This – Debbie Harry & Blondie with foreword by Debbie Harry (Omnibus Books 2004), Raw Power – Iggy & The Stooges with foreword by Iggy Pop (Omnibus Books 2005), Rocky Horror with foreword by Richard O'Brien (Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Autumn 2006) and Classic Queen (Palazzo Editions 2007)

Upcoming publication:  Exposures - a 35 year retrospective (Palazzo Editions, Autumn 2008)

To see and buy the beautiful co-signed and slipcased limited-edition Killer Queen photobook featuring the photos of Mick Rock , please visit the Genesis Publications web site at www.genesis-publications.com

As mentioned above, Mick has a new book coming out in the U.S. at the end of September called Classic Queen. For more information on this item, please visit the Sterling Publications web site at  www.sterlingpublishing.com

All images Copyright Mick Rock 1974, 2007 www.mickrock.com

All text Copyright 2007 - Mike Goldstein & RockPoP Gallery - All rights reserved.

Cover Story - Elvis Presley - "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong", artwork by Bob Jones

Cover Story for August 17, 2007

Subject – 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong: Elvis' Gold Records - Volume 2 – a 1959 recording by Elvis Presley, released on RCA Records and featuring design and art direction by Bob Jones.

With the marking this week of the 30th anniversary of the untimely death of Elvis Presley, this week’s Cover Story will be presented in a slightly different format, with the details behind the making of this iconic record cover coming from a variety of different sources, most notably the descriptive literature produced along with a series of lithographs produced in the early 1990s by a now-defunct publisher called “Record Art”.

Released just prior to Elvis’ return from his stint in the Army, this record was the first “Greatest Hits, Volume 2” rock & roll compilation (with his first Greatest Hits album coming out in early 1958, just before he entered into his military service) and consisted of all five of his Top 5 singles released in ’58-’59 (both “A” and “B” sides). His records sold so well that even the “B” sides charted in the Top 40!

Included in the compilation were a number of songs that showed just how mature a performer he had become while still being able to rock the socks off his competition. All the more impressive was the fact that these songs were recorded while Elvis was in the Army (when the set was re-released in the late 1990’s, the re-mastered recordings improved the sound dramatically), so you’d think that he’d have been slightly distracted, but cuts such as “I Need Your Love Tonight” and “A Big Hunk of Love” proved that he’d be even more formidable once he was out of the Army and back in the studio.

According to Bob Jones, who served as art director for RCA Records for this (and many other) recordings – “To the best of my knowledge, Elvis was indifferent to his image and to the graphics on his covers…the overwhelming number of Elvis Presley’s album covers were produced according to a formula – a large color photo of his head; a bold, horsey hand-lettered ELVIS, a title and the repertoire. During my brief and infrequent visits with him, the subject of covers never came up. It was just another matter of business that The Colonel (Tom Parker) took care of.

For several years during his career, the sales of Presley product accounted for well over 20% of all of RCA Victor Records’ gross income. At the time, RCA had at least one hundred contract recording artists on the label, and my department was producing over 400 LP and 45EP covers each year. The “man behind the man” was Colonel Thomas A. Parker, and he was a far more interesting and complex character than his artist. As the music and motion picture industry knew, he was an aggressively shrewd and calculating man. He sensed from the beginning that Elvis was “product”. The Colonel was a master of promotion, merchandising and exploitation.

Of the more than 70 combined LP and 45EP covers I was responsible for, the only departure from the Parker formula was the 50,000,000 Elvis Fans cover. My final stab at trying to bring a fresh look to Presley’s covers came when I took samples of some big name illustrators to the Colonel in L.A. I took portraits by Bob Fawcett, Austin Briggs, Al Parker, Victor Kalin and even young Andy Warhol. I had hardly started my pitch when it was brought to a screeching halt. ‘Damn it, I’ve told you I don’t want any of your artistic stuff!’ However, The Colonel had been unable to come up with a single gimmick to promote the album. He then gave me a picture of Elvis in a gold lame suit and told me to come up with something.

While Tom and Harry Jenkins – the RCA V.P. – started discussing merchandising schemes, I started making a few thumbnail sketches for a cover. The Colonel looked over to me and asked to look at what I had been doing. With barely a glance at the sketches, he chose the one with the full figure surrounded by the six or eight smaller ones. He said ‘That’s it, but I want at least a couple of dozen of the little pictures in there’. I later sent him a mechanical and he approved the image with less than two dozen figures (ed. note – there are 16 pictures of Elvis on the record cover).

The album sold well over $1,000,000 worth of product. The Colonel loved that gold lame suit. He kept it in one of his closets in his home for years. Elvis Presley hated the damned suit from the first time he put it on…”

The now-famous cover photo montage of multiple Elvises (or would that be Elvi?) dressed in his gold lame’ “Nudie Suit” – as well as the record’s title - has inspired many knock-offs record packages, including (in descending order) Bon Jovi’s 100 Million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong, 1,000,000 People Can’t Be Wrong by Blues Traveler, 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong by The Fall, and Phil Och’s 50 Phil Ochs Fans Can’t Be Wrong!.

About the artist - Bob Jones -

Bob Jones – Art Director, RCA Records – won a Grammy Award in 1965 for “Best Album Cover, Photography” for Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts, an RCA recording featuring a shot by photographer Ken Whitmore. Other credits include covers for Hall & Oates (Rock ‘n Soul: Part 1 – Greatest Hits) and many other RCA artists. He is considered one of the early pioneers of LP/45 cover design, working at various points with other classic cover artists such as Jim Flora and Alex Steinweiss.

Interview text Copyright 1991 - Record Art

All other text Copyright 2007 - Mike Goldstein & RockPoP Gallery - All rights reserved.

“Elvis” and “Elvis Presley” are Registered Trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

Cover Story - The Eagles - "Hotel California" artwork by Kosh

Cover Story for August 10, 2007

Subject – "Hotel California” – a 1976 recording by The Eagles, released on Warner/Asylum Records and featuring designs, artwork and art direction by Kosh.

The follow-up to the successful 1975/early 1976 releases – the Grammy-nominated One Of These Nights and the huge-selling Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 - Hotel California was the first album to feature guitarist Joe Walsh, whose playing and song-writing influence brought the band from their more country-leaning efforts towards a more mainstream rock audience.

During the year and a half spent in the making of the record, drummer/singer/lyricist Don Henley emerged as the “featured player”, and much of the record’s tone and subject material reflected his commentary on success (and the excesses it can breed), love lost and just how strange life in California can be.

With their arena-rock-ready musicianship now well-honed (Don Felder and Walsh on guitars and Henley and Randy Meisner providing the rhythmic fundamentals), the band was now ready for the big time and Hotel California proved that they could create music that could both sell countless millions of albums (the record went platinum in 1 week!) and make a countless millions of fans in stadiums around the world cheer loudly as they sang aloud every word of every hit song. Hotel California won the Grammy in 1977 for Record of the Year and the songs “Life in the Fast Lane”, “New Kid in Town” and the epic “Hotel California” (which you can never leave) became enduring classic Eagles tracks.

As the designer of some of the most well-known album cover images in history, Kosh has always appreciated a challenge (and a nice production budget), and so when the Eagles’ manager and record label called looking for an image to properly illustrate the release of a record by a “new” Eagles band – and a band that needed no introduction – Kosh and his team braved the California winds in a death-defying effort that produced an iconic cover image and one very exciting Cover Story…

In the words of the designer, Kosh –

“I had been designing album covers and promotional material in London for The Rolling Stones, The Who (Who’s Next?) and The Beatles (Abbey Road) at Apple and working closely with John Lennon on his 'War Is Over' campaign. Peter Asher was head of A&R at Apple Records at the time.

After a 6-month stint in New York, the family moved to LA in 1974 and I soon fell – with great enthusiasm - into the West Coast music scene. Heady times. I began working with Peter Asher again, who was now managing James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt in LA. This led me directly to Linda's label - Asylum - and the Eagles. Irving Azoff, their manager, called me in to meet Don Henley and Glenn Frey (they were still friends at this point so the conversation was fresh and lively). Don Felder was also there, along with the amazing falsetto, Randy Meisner. It was a jolly affair - the Eagles were huge, enjoying hit after hit, and the California rock scene was burgeoning. Their producer and engineer, Bill Szymzyk, brought in an acetate of Hotel California - destined to be the first cut on, and the title of, their next album. It was an obvious hit.

For the album cover, Don wanted me to find and portray THE Hotel California – a hotel which would best-exemplify a classic 'California hotel', and to portray it with a slightly sinister edge. Photographer David Alexander and I set out to scout suitable locations. We photographed three hotels (including some with a rather ‘seedily genteel’ character) that fit the brief and large prints were made for approval. By now I was dealing mostly with Henley - the rest of the band would saunter in as we progressed and mutter their approvals – and he preferred more sumptuous images. The shot of the Beverly Hills Hotel against the golden sunset was deemed the favorite.

To get the perfect picture, David and I had perched nervously atop a 60' cherry picker dangling over Sunset Boulevard in the rush hour, shooting blindly into the sun. Both of us brought our Nikons up in the basket and we took turns shooting, ducking and reloading. We used high-speed Ektachrome film as the light began to fade. This film gave us the remarkable graininess of the final shot.

Beautiful dye-transfer prints of the chosen frame were made by the great Ted Staidel. I designed and drew out the master Hotel California logo which was to become the theme of the package and the promotional materials. The script was almost impossible to bend in real neon and so, after many experiments, Bob Hickson was commissioned to airbrush the neon effect on the logo – which he did wonderfully - and it was pasted over the Beverly Hills Hotel sign on Ted's print. The whole piece was then re-photographed, re-printed on the same stock as the original image and retouched to match the grain and hide the surgery.

Next we organized the gatefold spread – a photo of the band surrounded by friends in the hotel lobby. This was shot inside a cleverly re-decorated flop house, called The Lido, in Hollywood by David Alexander. Our combined rock 'n' roll friends were all invited. Nobody knows what the sinister figure lurking in the balcony window is doing - or who he is. I assume he must have been a benign spirit as Hotel California went platinum immediately (and then some!).

A lot of great talent contributed to this LP’s packaging. Photographer Norman Seeff was commissioned to shoot portraits of the band, which were arranged as a gritty black and white fold-out poster montage that was to be inserted in the package. Throughout the package (and the related promotional items), the graphics were carefully coordinated to retain the unique color and typographic schemes. It was, for its day, and expensive effort, but a very satisfying one.

It is interesting to note that I got tangled in the same heated debate with Asylum Records over the using of the band’s name on the cover that I had years earlier with EMI in London. I thought it unnecessary to use the words, ‘The Beatles’ on Abbey Road considering the album was so eagerly anticipated and The Beatles were the biggest band in the world at the time. Such was the case with Hotel California. By 1976 the Eagles were the biggest band in the world and eventually only the title, ‘Hotel California’ appeared on the original cover of the album.

Subsequently, as the sales of Hotel California went through the roof, lawyers for the Beverly Hills Hotel threatened me with a 'cease and desist' action - until it was gently pointed out by my attorney that the hotel's requests for bookings had tripled since the release of the album.”

About the designer, KOSH –

As a designer and art director, KOSH became prominent in the mid-1960s with the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera. He met up with the Beatles towards the end of the decade and, as creative director at Apple Records, was responsible for design, promotion and publicity for The Beatles. His clientele expanded to cover the cream of the British rock bands including the Rolling Stones, the Who, and many others. He handled John Lennon’s crusades including the "War Is Over" campaign in 1969 and art-directed and produced the world-renowned Abbey Road and Who’s Next? album covers, among many others.

Kosh became well known in the London avant-garde art scene, designing and producing exhibitions, posters and books. After garnering several awards with the London Design & Art Directors Club, he was elected to the British Art Directors’ Jury before moving to Los Angeles in 1974. A seven-time Grammy nominee, Kosh won three of the coveted awards for his work for Linda Ronstadt (Lush Life, Get Closer and Simple Dreams). He served as faculty member of Otis Parson’s Institute of Art and on the Board of Governors of the National Recording Academy.

Kosh’s client roster has included Capitol Records, Tri-Star, Disney Studios, Fox Television, CNN, MCA, MGM, NFL (he designed the Super Bowl XXI logo), Disney, Sony Records and Warner Bros., Records. Artist clients include The Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, the Eagles (including Hotel California - voted No.6 in Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Best Album Covers of All Time"), Humble Pie, Randy Newman, Pointer Sisters, Linda Ronstadt (Kosh has prepared all her graphics since 1974), Bob Seger, Electric Light Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Spinal Tap, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, 10,000 Maniacs, T. Rex, The Who and many others. A display of his more prominent graphics was exhibited at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum.

Susan Shearer and Kosh formed Ten Worlds Productions in 1995. Tenworlds achieved critical acclaim for their work on The Last Days of Kennedy and King for TBS and the ten hour documentary 100 Years -100 Movies for the America Film Institute and CBS. In 2006, Ten Worlds produced and directed DECLASSIFIED: The Rise and Fall of the Wall, which shed new light on the Berlin Wall for The History Channel.

Tenworlds is presently producing a 13 part series of DECLASSIFIED documentaries on subjects such as John Lennon, Fidel Castro, the Tet Offensive, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Stalin and World War 1 for The History Channel, with Kosh directing. Aimed at younger audiences, these shows combine interviews with U.S. presidents, top echelon politicians and rarely seen archival footage, overlaid with innovative graphics and searing rock soundtracks. Ten Worlds is also in pre-production for a documentary celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ Apple Corps.

To see more of Kosh’s work, please visit – http://www.tenworlds.com/.

Cover Story - Pink Floyd - "The Wall/Hammers" artwork by Gerald Scarfe

Cover Story for August 3, 2007

Subject – "Hammers" from The Wall – a 1979 recording by Pink Floyd, released on Columbia Records and featuring illustrations by Gerald Scarfe.

Pink Floyd’s “rock opera” The Wall (released on Columbia Records in the U.S. and on Harvest Records in the UK), is the best-selling multi-disc recording of all time, having sold well over 30 million packages since its 1979 release. The record reached #1 in the U.S. (topping at #3 in the U.K.) and included the #1 hit single “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”, along with the hits “Hey You”, “Run Like Hell”, and the epic “Comfortably Numb”. It was voted #87 of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” in the 2003 survey published by Rolling Stone Magazine.

It was after this record that founding keyboardist Richard Wright departed, to return as a paid player when the band performed The Wall on tour, finally re-uniting as a full member in 1987.

According to the legend, songwriter/lyricist Roger Waters was inspired to begin writing The Wall while on tour in 1977 promoting their Animals record. Near the end of the tour, an angry Waters spat in the face of an audience member who was trying to jump up onto the stage with the band. Whatever the motivation, the record required 8 months in the South of France to complete.

All Pink Floyd records since their 1967 release The Piper at the Gates of Dawn had featured cover designs/packaging by Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis. For The Wall, the band chose U.K. cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe, who then also designed the giant puppets of the 'Mother', 'Wife' and 'Teacher', as well as the animations that were projected around the theater and onto the Wall constructed during the public performances of the opera. The selection of Mr. Scarfe as illustrator was inspired, as he creates “drawings that are often a cry against that which I detest, and in showing my dislike I have to draw the dislikeable.  To horrify people with a drawing of the waste of war I must make a horrific drawing of war, and when I come to draw people, their bodies become vehicles for their emotions – greed, lust, cruelty.” Considering The Wall’s subject material, the story behind the making of today’s Cover Story image is particularly compelling….   

In the words of the illustrator, Gerald Scarfe (interviewed July 2007, with additional quotes and info provided by Julie Davies and the nice folks at geraldscarfe.com) –

“In 1973, the BBC sent me to Los Angeles to work on a twenty minute animated film about all things American – a psychedelic stream-of-consciousness work featuring Mickey Mouse, Black Power, Playboy Magazine, the Statue of Liberty, Nixon and John Wayne. We used a new animation system called the ‘De Joux’ system. In full Disney-type animation there are twelve drawings to one second of film.  The 'De Joux' system cut that number to only six or eight by mixing photographically between every drawing and producing the illusion of extra movement.  This still meant an immense amount of work, drawing every second of a twenty minute film.  I worked, ate and slept that project for six weeks, drawing every cliché I knew about America straight onto 70mm film - from Coca Cola to John Wayne.  I called the film Long Drawn-Out Trip.

Two members of Pink Floyd (Roger and Nick) saw this film when it was shown on the BBC and asked me to make an animated film for their next series of live concerts, based on their LP Wish You Were Here. I didn’t take up the offer for some time – it seemed like a lot of work and I feared it might stop the flow of my other work (it did!). Directing animation is a full-time job. I ended up with a studio of about forty animators whom I tried to wean away from the Disney system in which most are trained.

The first animations I made for Wish You Were Here were projected onto a circular screen at the back of the stage, behind the band. I drew a man who walked slowly towards the camera, stopped and was eroded, like sand, by the blowing wind. A metal monster that stomped across the landscape for the song, 'Welcome to the Machine', a sea of blood that appeared over the horizon, raced towards us and engulfed two shining, circular metal towers. The blood turned to groping hands which prayed to the metal monoliths. A leaf tumbled through the sky and slowly turned into a naked man who, still tumbling, smashed through the sky as though it were made of glass.

I continued my association with Pink Floyd by collaborating on The Wall.  Begun in 1979, this project became three years of work. Roger and I worked out the cover design in the South of France and I completed it on my return to London. Roger gave me complete carte blanche, complete control over it.  Besides showing me the libretto, they didn’t interfere at all in crafting of the images.  They obviously saw what I was going to do, but they never altered them.  I remember Roger saying that “when we employ an artist, we employ him for what he does, not for what we would like to make him do.”

In as far as what inspired the 'Hammers' imagery, we obviously wanted to have some figure of oppression, and I came up with the hammers.  I had to think, ‘what would be the most obvious symbol of oppression’, and the most unrelenting, crushing, unthinking thing that I could think of was a hammer.  The violence of a hammer when it comes down is horrific. I was slightly worried that they might be adopted by some fascist, neo-Nazi group as a symbol but thankfully it didn’t happen. And I think that when I did the hammers, and Roger wrote 'hammer, hammer' into the lyrics, it was the one instance when the drawings influenced the lyrics. 

I knew the images were ultimately going to be used in an animated sequence. The actual images came to me quite quickly, but of course the animation is an incredibly time consuming process. When we began the animation for the film there were only about 8-10 people on the project, but by the end there were around 40-50 animators using pen, paper, ink and paint.

From the original LP of The Wall, a stage show was produced, for which I art-directed. I made puppets and inflatables and directed another animated film, The Trial.  The Wall was subsequently made into a feature film which I designed and for which I directed two further pieces of animation – 'Empty Spaces' and 'Goodbye Blue Sky'. 

As a child who grew up in the war, 'Goodbye Blue Sky' came completely from my mind, because I had memories of the war.  Roger was born after the war; as you may know, he lost his father in the war, and that’s why he refers to it, but I actually lived through it, and remember the bombs falling in London, and being in air raid shelters.

But above all else I remember having to wear a gas mask, which is a very claustrophobic thing for anyone to wear, let alone an asthmatic. I’d put this thing on and fight for breath.  We had to put them on for practice – thankfully there was no occasion when gas bombs were actually dropped, to my memory.  But I hated the mask. They tried to make it look cute and childlike by putting Mickey Mouse ears on it and calling it a 'Mickey Mouse children’s gasmask'. But the memory of the mask came in useful for the 'Frightened Ones'. I gave them gas-mask heads and they are running for cover into air raid shelters as the dove which explodes into the Germanic Eagle, and flies across the landscape, lays its trail of waste. 

When I do my illustrated talks I like to show the 'Goodbye Blue Sky' sequence, because it ties up with my childhood really, it’s a sort of poem to the Second World War, and it was the Floyd that gave me the opportunity to do it.  I am often asked if I think my drawings change anything.  I don’t believe they do, but on occasion I hope they may crystallize a mood or sum up an attitude.  If I have succeed in demonstrating this – or even better, in making people laugh – then I can ask for no more."

About the illustrator, Gerald Scarfe -

Illustrator and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe was born in 1936 in London. He was asthmatic as a child and spent much time drawing and reading. After a brief period at the Royal College of Art in London, he established himself as a satirical cartoonist, working for Punch magazine and Private Eye during the early sixties. He has had many exhibitions worldwide, including ones in New York, Osaka, Montreal, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago and London, as well as 50 one-man shows. He has designed the sets and costumes for plays, operas and musicals in London, Houston, Los Angeles and Detroit. His film work includes designing and directing the animation for Pink Floyd's rock opera The Wall (he also created the graphics and animation for Roger Waters' 1984 solo album titled The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking and its supporting tour). Scarfe has written and directed many live action and documentary films for BBC and Channel 4.

He has also  published many books of his work, including Heroes & Villains: Scarfe at the National Portrait Gallery, which was published in September 2003. His most recent book, Gerald Scarfe: Drawing Blood: 45 Years of Scarfe Uncensored was published in November 2005. Gerald Scarfe has been political cartoonist for the London Sunday Times for 40 years, and has worked for The New Yorker magazine for 14 years. His work regularly appears in many periodicals and in 2005, he was selected as one of the 40 Most-Influential Journalists by the U.K.’s Press Gazette. In 2006, he received the British Press Award as Cartoonist of the Year.

Most recently, he has just completed working with Ozzy Osbourne on illustrating a 10-foot guitar for Gibson Guitar and their special charity event held for the Prince’s Trust.

He is married to British film/TV actress and author Jane Asher, and they have 3 three children.

You can see more of Mr. Scarfe’s work, please visit – www.geraldscarfe.com. Not only will you find a large selection of illustrations covering his whole career (including the work with Pink Floyd), but there is more information about Gerald, his book Drawing Blood (where some of today’s material was excerpted from), a CV, and writings on all the different subjects of his work.