As I continue discovering the art of album covers, an art that was almost lost to the world of digital music and streaming, I’ve come to realize that some albums were done by very famous visual artists. I don’t mean the copy of Beethoven’s 5th that has some painting by Monet on the cover, I mean artwork that was actually made for and produced specifically to be an album cover.
The first album that had a famous artist produce the artwork for it was the cover of Jackie Gleason’s 1955 easy listening release “Lonesome Echo”. It is not really music that you can hear on KEOM but if any of the audience happens to be fans of the 20th century artist Salvador Dali, then you will be scouring the used record shops to find your very own copy of the only album cover the painter did.
Another famous pop artist that made special art for an album cover was Andy Warhol for the band the Velvet Underground . I’m not sure when KEOM will ever put Velvet Underground into the play rotation, but it is still a great piece of album art and worth noting. You did get to hear some Velvet Underground at the intro of today’s show(Small Clip From Sweet Jane). The artist had a relationship with the band for a few years prior to the 1967 release with his artwork on the cover. Mr. Warhol had been producing a very different style of art from items or pictures that most Americans were already familiar with. He remade things like soup cans and pictures of Marilyn Monroe in to crazy pieces of art. The album is a simple picture of a banana in the usual cartoony Warhol style that is easy to identify.
(One Less Bell To Answer by The 5th Dimension)A song that you might hear on KEOM is this one by the 5th Dimension, “One Less Bell to Answer” from their 1970 “Portrait” album. This time the famous artist was known for his sports related art and was the official artist of the Olympic Games. He painted everything from golfer Arnold Palmer to famous racehorses and was even on television as he painted the otherwise dull chess match between Boris Spassky and american Bobby Fischer. His name was LeRoy Neiman and like the two artists I mentioned before, his style was unmistakable. Mr. Neiman never had his subjects “sit” for him but rather insisted that he do his sketches as the action took place. He went to the studio and drew the group in action and then returned to New York and turned those sketches into an amazing full color album cover.
I’ll have examples of these covers on my blog site so you can enjoy them too. Next time we’ll talk about some covers that were just too much for the censors. And remember, as you’re looking through those old used albums, that cover may be by a famous artist.
