118. Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

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I haven't counted the number of copies of the album front sleeve design I used in filling the space above because I was preoccupied with creating the patterns of
insertions left and right. I did start at bottom centre moving upwards and sideways. The decisions I made were spontaneous with the creative effort and
once the patterns were established it was only a matter of measurements and, of course, some mathematics.

The fan pattern  (or the rays,  as you may love to call it)  on the album art did give me the seminal idea and the direction from which to progress.
The horizontal bars  (and more rays)  at the top and the  bottom of  the design  also gave me a sense of  balance and  structure. That may
sound like much analyses, but really, I was amazed at my own work.

Every picture tells a story. The album title aptly describes the work itself.  

No. 172, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 236, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.

Art direction by Des Strobel, design & illustration by John Craig, photo by Lisa Margolis. 
Album produced by Rod Stewart. Mercury 1971.


Radio overplay of “Maggie May” at the time of this album’s release proved that familiarity can breed contempt (at least when it comes to music). As a result, I
never got “into” early  Rod Stewart  solo material  at the time it was released.  But with the  passage of time, exposure and  perhaps a bit of nostalgia, I
started listening to his early albums. (The same thing happened with Elton John but that’s another story and a different article).

Rod had already proven his mettle as a blues wailer on Truth (a Jeff Beck Group album),  and had a couple  interesting albums on Vertigo (Records)
while also working with the Faces (the English rock band that was formed by members of The Small Faces after Steve Marriott left the group
to form Humble Pie). This, his third album, really carried the ball forward for Stewart as a brand name talent. Despite its commercial
success, it is a very good album, perhaps even better with the passage of time. I now regard it as a classic. Why?

It’s a combination of some  good songs and a few great ones;  some impressive stringed instrument playing that adds layers of
texture and interesting details,  but at bottom, it just rocks– Rod is in prime form,  and the power of the songs, top-tier
playing and  a driving  beat gets your  head  bobbing.  One of  the things  I like  about this era  of rock  is that the
recordings typically  are not over-produced.  There is a lot going on here,  but it isn’t  “slick” sounding. The
fact that some of these  songs are so familiar is no  longer a negative to me;  I guess that’s where the
nostalgia  part kicks in.  It’s a hell  of an album,  and if you  haven’t  listened  to it in years, be 
prepared to enjoy yourself. Immensely. The Vinyl Press


(A) Every Picture Tells a Story - Seems Like a Long Time - That's Alright - Amazing Grace - Tomorrow is a Long Time

(B) Henry - Maggie May - Mandolin Wind - I Know (I'm Losing You) - Reason to Believe

"Reason to Believe" live from diegol3d on YouTube.

                

      

  www.rodstewart.com

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122. Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys

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The original album cover art shows Jimi Hendrix  performing at Fillmore East under multi-colored lights.  It is reproduced here three times in different sizes.
Band of Gypsys, which were Hendrix without The Jimi Hendrix Experience,  his original group, but with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, recorded
the album live at Fillmore East on January 1, 1970. Band of Gypsys was Hendrix's last before he died of accidental drug overdose on September 18, 1970. The
image of Hendrix at left is from a poster I obtained from another source (which I couldn't locate anymore - many thanks to the artist!).  It reminds me of the
tongues of fire that consumed his guitar on stage on the cover of Fire: The Jimi Hendrix Collection, his posthumous album. It is also like the spirit of Hendrix
hovering above his audience as he played on stage.

Jimi Hendrix is ranked as the greatest rock guitarist of all time.


This is the original album cover art design.

No. 529, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.

Photo by Jan Blom, cover design by Victor Khan.
Album produced by Jimi Hendrix (listed as Heaven Research). Capitol 1970. 

Track (Records) used album cover art which proved controversial. It depicted unflattering puppets or dolls that resembled Hendrix,
Brian Jones,  Bob Dylan,  and John Peel  huddled next to a drab,  corrugated  backdrop.  The significance  of posing the three with
Hendrix was not evident as they had no known association with the Band of Gypsys nor the group's material. wikipedia

 The album mixes funk and rhythm and blues elements with hard rock and jamming,  an approach which later became the basis
of funk rock.  "Machine Gun"  is generally  regarded as the album's  highlight and  one of Hendrix's greatest  achievements. The
influence of Band of Gypsys is heard in the funk rock  developments of the 1970s and has been cited as an inspiration by various
later rock musicians.

Writer Rickey Vincent  describes  Band of Gypsys as  "a never-heard-before  amalgam of punishing guitar  riffs over crisp rhythm
and blues grooves. . .  The funk-rock sound would change the face of black music,  setting a template for the spectacular glam-
funk of the 1970s".  Music writer  Corey Washington adds,  "the Band of Gypsys  pioneered a unique  style of funk that placed the
guitar in the mix right along with the bass. . . [they] took funk to the next level because of their rock background." wikipedia

(A) Who Knows - Machine Gun

(B) Changes - Power of Soul - Message to Love - We Gotta Live Together

"Machine Gun" from ABC/MONS on YouTube.




   

www.jimihendrix.com

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115. Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac

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On the cover of Rumours  Mick Fleetwood is seen laying a crystal ball on the palm of his right hand
as if making an offer to Stevie Nicks,  who appears to be so  intently gazing at it,  with her left leg
bending and willingly resting on Mick's right as her body arches towards him and her arms stretches
to her back, seemingly ready to offer everything in return to pursuit to that crystal ball. 

This was the way it was in 1977.

On the cover of Fleetwood Mac's  second eponymous album,  released two years earlier,  a stretched
Mick Fleetwood  is seen sipping  champagne  from a  trumpet looking  detached from a  compressed
John McVie who nervously tosses a crystal ball into the air. 

Maybe that crystal ball carried a different meaning in 1977, or perhaps that was a lesser ball back in
1975.   


On my work above, I took the figures away from the arched French door frame that was their background and added an inversion of the image of
Mick and John at left.  Now, it's John's turn to be  stretched and he still has  that crystal ball.  The arched frame is returned at centre without the
figures and the band's name, in the calligraphy of Rumours, is added below. 

These are doubled in contrasting shades to match the figures of Mick and John.  The doubling tells us it's the band's second eponymous album. The
cutout from John's upper body suggests Fleetwood Mac  was part history when Rumours came.  Changing the background  from white to the murky
shade of light yellow signifies that Rumours had greater impact on Fleetwood Mac fans than Fleetwood Mac  or that the crystal ball is now seen as
a window that can foretell the future of the band. 


Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 182, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 184, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000  

Photography by Herbert W. Worthington. Album produced by Fleetwood Mac & Keith Olsen. Reprise 1975.

Adding Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to the group wasn’t like any other band member change that Fleetwood Mac had gone through since
their formation  in the late 60s.  There was  something  about the  chemistry  that just exploded,  and the band  decided to re-brand themselves.
Hence Fleetwood Mac (1975).  If you’ll recall,  the very first Mac album was also self-titled,  so this move appears to be a very  blatant call for a
new image.  Fleetwood  Mac ’75  is also  the 10th  studio  album released  by the band.  So there  are all sorts  of reasons  for the  repeat name.
Fleetwood Mac ’75 reached number one on the US Billboard top 200. Maggie Felisberto's blog. 

(A) Monday Morning - Warm Ways - Blue Letter - Rhiannon - Over My Head - Crystal

(B) Say You Love Me - Landslide - World Turning - Sugar Daddy - I'm So Afraid

"Rhiannon" live from Stevie Nicks on YouTube.

                

      

www.fleetwoodmac.com

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114. Joni Mitchell - Hissing of Summer Lawns

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On this work, I tried to fuse two images together while seeing to it that the resulting image would fit an 18X10 frame. The two images are
a photograph which has been processed  to look cartoonized  and the illustration that was inspired by it.  These two images are opposites of
each other in their own right. 

The photo looks raw,  down-to-earth and portrays  an actual and not so unusual event for the characters  involved it.  The illustration that it
inspired retains the former's somewhat primitive character but possesses a finesse and cosmopolitanism far detached from the original while
still assuming the same animal forms that gave it essence.   

In the dedication on the inside gatefold of her album The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Canadian singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell thanks National Geographic Magazine,
amongst others, but doesn’t explain why. Here’s why:

The photographer was explorer W. Jesco von Puttkamer, who documented the plight of “Brazil’s Beleaguered Indians” for National Geographic‘s February 1975 issue.

Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns was released in November 1975.  In her notes,  Mitchell tells us that she “drew the cover and designed the package with
research help and guidance from Glen Christensen, Elektra/Asylum Art Director.” She thanks National Geographic Magazine and others, as I’ve already said. She does
not, however, mention W. Jesco von Puttkamer by name.

Of course,  I realize that 1975 is a long time ago,  but it was only today at a garage sale  that I purchased the  National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our World (1979)
for a buck and instantly  recognized the reprint of  W. Jesco von Puttkamer’s  photo on page 72 as one  of the  primary reference  sources for Joni Mitchell’s drawing.
Ragged Claws Network



Photo from mylonesomeblues.tumblr.com

This is the album's outside gatefold.

This is the version of the gatefold which I used for the work above.

No. 217,  The Virgin  All-Time Album Top 1000

Album produced by Joni Mitchell. Asylum 1975.


"I drew the cover and designed  the package with research  help and guidance  from Glen Christensen,  Electra/Asylum Art Director.  The photo is Norman Seef's."
- Joni Mitchell (with thanks to National Geographic Magazine) jonimitchell.com

"But even on the scuffle, the cleaner’s press was in my jeans/And any eye for detail caught a little lace along the seams,” sang Joni Mitchell on a song called "The
Boho Dance"  from her 1975 album  The Hissing of Summer Lawns.  If the couplet was an acknowledgment of her Canadian well-bredness,  it was also the perfect
metaphor for the increasing sophistication of her music at that time, the “lace along the seams” of her songs.

“For a long time,  I’ve been playing in straight rhythms,”  Mitchell told her friend,  Malka Marom,  in 1973,  in the first of the three extended interviews that are
included in the book Both Sides Now.  “But now,  in order to sophisticate  my music to my own taste,  I push it into odd places  that feel a little unusual to me, so
that I feel I’m stretching out.”

Sophistication  –  melodic, lyrical, compositional  – is an undervalued currency in popular music, though it illuminates the finest songs written by artists as diverse
as Lennon and McCartney,  Randy Newman,  Ray Davies, Brian Wilson,  Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield  as well as the songwriters for hire of an earlier era – Cole
Porter, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin. It also defines the best songs that Joni Mitchell wrote at her creative peak, which, for me, stretched from the release
of Blue (1971), For the Roses (1972),  Court and Spark (1974)  and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975),  to the pared and broodingly atmospheric Hejira (1976).
Sean O'Hagan on The Guardian, edited

(A) In France They Kiss on Main Street - The Jungle Line - Edith and the Kingpin - Don't Interrupt the Sorrow - Shades of Scarlett Conquering

(B) The Hissing of Summer Lawns - The Boho Dance - Harry's House/Centerpiece - Sweet Bird - Shadows and Light

"The Hissing of Summer Lawns" music video from sonicboy19 on YouTube.


               

    

www.jonimitchell.com

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113. Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic

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The original album cover art design is from an illustration by Ingrid Haenke. On this work, the image was copied and flipped (left) and
was used to mirror the original (right)  and the background at the sides was removed.  The idea was to create a rectangular image out
of a square and the joint at centre had to be precise in order to make the letter "A" on the pink drum perfect. 

Shadows were applied  beneath the carpet so now it seems to float and the wooden floor was processed with the Liquify filter in order
to make it look like another layer. What looks like the carpet now is the brown border on the original album cover.

Here's the original illustration by Ingrid Haenke.




Ernie Cefalu,  Creative  Director,  Pacific Eye and Ear:  "After a three-day  meeting  with  Joe Perry and  Stephen Tyler on
this cover,  there was only one  illustrator in my mind that  could give the band what they wanted,  fashion and children’s
book illustrator, Ingrid Haenke. She is a beautiful person and a great artist and In the end this piece is one of Areosmith’s
biggest and most recognized albums of all time."
originalalbumcoverart.com


Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 177, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 229, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 274, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time


Album design by Pacific Eye & Ear, photography by Bob Belott, illustration by Ingrid Haenke.
Album produced by Jack Douglas. Columbia 1975.


Aerosmith got off to a solid start  with their debut album and avoided the  sophomore jinx with their second.  With their third, 1975’s
Toys in the Attic, they truly took off.

Released in April 1975,  Toys in the Attic   found the  group working to  maintain its rock  audience while  making another  bid for the
crossover success that, to that point,  had continued to flit just out of reach.  Reconvening at the Record Plant  in New York City during
the early winter months of the year,  the band members were  under the gun in terms of delivering new material  —  but after years of
live performance, they were better prepared than ever.

“Toys was the first  record where  we had to write  everything  pretty,  much from scratch,”  guitarist  Joe Perry told  Ultimate Guitar.
Jeff Giles on Ultimate Classic Rock


For his review  of Toys in the Attic  for AllMusic,  Stephen Thomas Erlewine  called the  album's  style  a mix of  Led Zeppelin  and The
Rolling Stones riffs,  and said it was filled with songs about sex with a  different style than there ever was before.  Greg Kot called the
album a   landmark  of hard  rock.  For the  Blender  magazine  review,  Ben Mitchell  called  Toys in the Attic  cocaine-influenced and
mentions the songs "Toys in the Attic", "Walk This Way", and "Sweet Emotion" as "standout tracks". wikipedia


(A) Toys in the Attic - Uncle Salty - Adam's Apple - Walk This Way - Big Ten-Inch Record

(B) Sweet Emotion - No More No More - Round and Round - You See Me Crying

"Sweet Emotion" live from AerosmithVEVO on YouTube.

            

  

www.aerosmith.com

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110. The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo

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On this work, the square album cover art design was extended in order to fill an 18X10 resolution screen by adding more flowers to the lei, doubling up the cowboy images on the sides and
repositioning the cowboy images on top and the band's name by vertically  cascading the letters on the sides of the lei.  The finished work is still very much identical with the original - and
that is the point, for, after all,  the original album cover art design is just a detail of "Sweetheart" of the Rodeo,  a poster from 1932 by the  Uraguayan-born artist Joseph Jacinto "Jo" Mora.


The Collier Gallery labels this work "The Evolution of the Cowboy."

Image from MutualArt.com


Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released in 1968. Columbia Records launched an accompanying print advertising campaign proclaiming "This Country's
for the Byrds" and featuring the tag line  "Their message is all country. . . their sound is all Byrds."  The album is notable for being the first Byrds LP
to be issued  exclusively in  stereo in the US.  The album reached number 77  on the  Billboard Top LPs chart,  during a chart stay of ten weeks,  but
failed to chart in the UK. 

Despite receiving generally  favourable reviews from the critics,  the country rock style of Sweetheart of the Rodeo  was such a radical departure  from the band's previous sound that large
sections of the group's counter-culture following were alienated by its contents,  resulting in the lowest sales of any Byrds album up to that point.  Barry Gifford, in the August 1968 edition
of Rolling Stone magazine,  said of the album:  "The material they've chosen to record,  or rather, the way they perform the material, is simple, relaxed and folksy. It's not pretentious, it's
pretty. The musician-ship is excellent." Gifford added that "The Byrds have made an interesting album. It's really very uninvolved and not a difficult record to listen to. 

Rolling Stone also  praised the album in its September 1968 issue,  with Jon Landau writing "The Byrds,  in doing country as country,  show just how
powerful and relevant  unadorned country music is to the music of today."  Landau added "they leave just enough  rock in the drums to let you know
that they  can still play  rock & roll."  Noted rock critic,  Robert Christgau,  described  Sweetheart of the Rodeo  in a 1969  article for  The New York
Times as "a bittersweet tribute to country music." In more recent years, AllMusic critic Mark Deming noted in his review of the album that "no major
band had gone so deep into the sound and  feeling of classic country as the Byrds did on Sweetheart;  at a time when most rock fans viewed country
as a musical "L'il Abner" routine, the Byrds dared to declare that C&W could be hip, cool, and heartfelt." 


The Byrds' biographer, Johnny Rogan, noted that the album "stood alone as a work almost completely divorced from the
prevailing rock culture.  Its themes,  mood and instrumentation  looked back to another era at a time when the rest of
America was still recovering from the recent assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy."  Ultimately, The
Byrds'  experimentation  with the  country  genre on  Sweetheart of  the Rodeo  was slightly  ahead  of its time,  to the
detriment  of the  band's commercial fortunes,  as the international  success of  country rock  flavoured  bands like The
Eagles, America and Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show during the 1970s demonstrated. wikipedia


This is the original album cover art design.




No. 120, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 229, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000


Cover design from the work of Joseph Jacinto Mora, 1932.
Album produced by Gary Usher. Columbia 1968. 


Released at a time when  The Byrds' surprising  immersion  in the world of  country music  coincided with  their declining  commercial appeal,  Sweetheart of the Rodeo  was  certainly an
uncommercial  proposition at  the time of its release.  However,  the album has proved to be a landmark,  serving not only as a blueprint for  Gram Parsons' and Chris Hillman's  The Flying
Burrito Brothers,  but also for the  entire nascent 1970s Los Angeles  country rock movement.  The album was also influential  on the outlaw country and new traditionalist movements, as
well as the so-called alternative country genre of the 1990s and 2000s.  Among fans of The Byrds, however,  opinion is often sharply divided  regarding the merits of the album, with some
seeing it  as a natural  continuation  of the  group's  innovations,  and others  mourning the loss  of the  band's  trademark  Rickenbacker guitar jangle  and  psychedelic  experimentation. 
Nonetheless, Sweetheart of the Rodeo is widely considered to be The Byrds' last truly influential album.

Although it was not the first country rock album,  Sweetheart of the Rodeo  was the first album widely labelled  as country rock  to be released by
an internationally  successful rock act.  However,  the genre's  antecedents can be  traced back to the  Rockabilly music of the 1950s,  The Beatles'
covers of Carl Perkins  and Buck Owens' material on Beatles For Sale and Help!,  as well as the stripped down arrangements  of Dylan's John Wesley
Harding and The Byrds' own  forays into country music on their pre-Sweetheart albums.  The Band's debut album,  Music from Big Pink,  released in
July 1968,  was also influential on the genre but it was Sweetheart of the Rodeo  that saw an established rock band playing pure country music for
the first time.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo went on to inspire the name of the 1980s country duo,  Sweethearts of the Rodeo, who paid
tribute to The Byrds' album with the sleeve of their 1990 album, Buffalo Zone. wikipedia

www.coversresource.com


(A) You Ain't Goin' Nowhere - I Am a Pilgrim - The Christian Life - You Don't Miss Your Water - You're Still on My Mind - Pretty Boy Floyd

(B) Hickory Wind - One Hundred Years from Now - Blue Canadian Rockies - Life in Prison - Nothing Was Delivered

 

"Pretty Boy Floyd" live by Rogerr McGuinn from Justice Through Music, Inc. on YouTube.


               

      

www.thebyrds.com

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