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Showing posts with label album art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label album art. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
32. Uriah Heep - Very 'Eavy. . . Very 'Umble
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This image is not from Tales from the Crypt. This is David Byron on the cover of the UK release of Uriah Heep's debut album. His cobwebbed face occupies the whole front sleeve and
is here reproduced six times to fill the 18x10 canvass. The recolouring of the image at bottom right was done in order to match the letters of the band's name which, together
with the album title, has been distorted with the wave filter.
The album was generally panned by the mainstream critical press upon its release, although it has since been acknowledged as an early classic of the heavy metal genre.
The harshest critic was Rolling Stone magazine reviewer, Melissa Mills, who began her review, "If this group makes it I'll have to commit suicide. From the first note
you know you don't want to hear any more." Source
That's a rather horrific note, but a mouth agape could be making a sound begging to be heard. Byron is the lead vocalist and he wrote almost all of the songs
in this album. And 46 years on the band was still touring.
Down Under.
Here's David Byron not singing.
Artwork by Robin Nicol, photo by Pete Smith. Album produced by Gerry Bron. Vertigo (UK) 1970.
Uriah Heep are considered one of the most underrated progressive rock bands to come out of Britain's acclaimed classic rock era of late 1960's and early 1970's. A very diverse band,
comprised of many individual talents, namely David Byron's incredible and iconic falsetto voice, Mick Box's roaring wah-wah virtuoso guitar style and Ken Hensley's raging organ,
Uriah Heep never seemed to gain any recognition, not even in Britain. Though being considered a progressive rock band in every sense of the word, Heep's first studio album,
Very 'Eavy... Very 'Umble, released in June 1970, is a much more diverse album in style, ranging from blues to hard rock and heavy metal. Critics quickly dismissed any potential
of Uriah Heep becoming big, but regardless of critics, Very 'Eavy... Very 'Umble presents itself as a promising debut. More
The album's US release (Mercury 1970) has a different album sleeve design, also by Robert Nicol.
(A) Gypsy - Walking in Your Shadow - Come Away Melinda - Lucy Blues
(B) Dreammare - Real Turned On - I'll Keep on Trying - Wake Up (Set Your Sights)
"Gypsy" live in London 2014 from Frontiers Music srl on YouTube.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
30. The Band - The Band
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On this work, the bottom third of the the photo on the original album cover art design was cropped off and the remaining image was mirrored. The resulting image, now about equal in
measurement on all sides was positioned to the right of the brown canvass which had already been set to measure 18x10. A smaller reproduction of the original album cover photo
was pasted at left and the album title was enlarged and pasted above it.
Here's the original album cover art design.
No. 45, Rolling Stone, 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 45, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.
Album design by Bob Cato, photo by Elliot Landy. Album produced by John Simon. Capitol 1969.
Designed by the great Bob Cato, using an Elliot Landy photograph, this simple cover speaks volumes of what waits inside. Their first album, Music From Big Pink
did not show the members of the group on either the front or the back; you had to open it up to see the group. Here they confront you head-on, staring at you
from another time. This was the time of paisley and psychedelic design and fonts. Not this band, there were dressed as workers, laborers, as if they stepped
out of 1940’s America. Hell, they could’ve been mistaken for hobos then. The album was sepia toned as if taken from our grandparents’ scrapbook. And
the music reflected it all, and magnificently. A masterpiece. Source
It's as if an itinerant old-time medicine show somehow skipped a few generations, pulled off a two-lane Arkansas highway in 1910, and woke up in 1968, with
its remaining potions turned to hallucinogens. Of course the time travellers had stories to tell—about the wily old South, where men with names like Virgil
and Eustace tended the land, and there was pride just in surviving.
Four Canadians and one Southern "ringer" (drummer Levon Helm, who grew up in Arkansas), the Band caught what was wild and romantic about America,
and framed it in ramshackle grandeur with a touch of a hippieera batik. The musicians first played together backing rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins,
but became cohesive backing Bob Dylan during his shift from acoustic folk to rock. When the Band moved out of the Big Pink house in Woodstock,
New York, the group of talented multi-instrumentalists discovered they had something different, but no less profound, to say on their own.
That's instantly evident in the story-songs on their first album, Music from Big Pink, and this masterpiece — a one-two punch the likes of
which rock and roll hasn't seen since. Full article
(A) Across the Great Divide - Rag Mama Rag - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - When You Awake - Up on Cripple Creek - Whispering Pines
(B) Jemima Surrender - Rockin' Chair - Look Out Cleveland - Jawbone - The Unfaithful Servant - King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Album design by Bob Cato, photo by Elliot Landy. Album produced by John Simon. Capitol 1969.
Designed by the great Bob Cato, using an Elliot Landy photograph, this simple cover speaks volumes of what waits inside. Their first album, Music From Big Pink
did not show the members of the group on either the front or the back; you had to open it up to see the group. Here they confront you head-on, staring at you
from another time. This was the time of paisley and psychedelic design and fonts. Not this band, there were dressed as workers, laborers, as if they stepped
out of 1940’s America. Hell, they could’ve been mistaken for hobos then. The album was sepia toned as if taken from our grandparents’ scrapbook. And
the music reflected it all, and magnificently. A masterpiece. Source
It's as if an itinerant old-time medicine show somehow skipped a few generations, pulled off a two-lane Arkansas highway in 1910, and woke up in 1968, with
its remaining potions turned to hallucinogens. Of course the time travellers had stories to tell—about the wily old South, where men with names like Virgil
and Eustace tended the land, and there was pride just in surviving.
Four Canadians and one Southern "ringer" (drummer Levon Helm, who grew up in Arkansas), the Band caught what was wild and romantic about America,
and framed it in ramshackle grandeur with a touch of a hippieera batik. The musicians first played together backing rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins,
but became cohesive backing Bob Dylan during his shift from acoustic folk to rock. When the Band moved out of the Big Pink house in Woodstock,
New York, the group of talented multi-instrumentalists discovered they had something different, but no less profound, to say on their own.
That's instantly evident in the story-songs on their first album, Music from Big Pink, and this masterpiece — a one-two punch the likes of
which rock and roll hasn't seen since. Full article
(A) Across the Great Divide - Rag Mama Rag - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - When You Awake - Up on Cripple Creek - Whispering Pines
(B) Jemima Surrender - Rockin' Chair - Look Out Cleveland - Jawbone - The Unfaithful Servant - King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" live from Robbie Robertson's studio in Woodstock NY from promised land on YouTube.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
22. Paul Simon - Graceland
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The original album cover art design depicts Saint George from an ancient Ethiopian manuscript called a harag dating back to the late 15th century. Saint George is the patron saint of Ethiopia. There is a
cathedral of Saint George in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Saint George is often depicted in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian art where his icons are placed next to the Virgin Mary. One such
depiction is a mural in the church of Mengitsu Berhan Selassie in Gondar.
African art was the main influence of Proto-Cubism. The Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), one of the early cubist works of Pablo Picasso, the co-founder of the Cubist movement,
is classified under his African-influenced period.
The work above is a primitive study in cubism and an experiment of the use of the craquelure texturizing tool. The original album cover art design was halved and pasted at left.
The other half was pasted at right. It was reduced so that its outer frame would fit into the borders of the left half. My intention was not clear as I was doing this, but it
transformed the horse into a galloping mood.
Here is the work of Pablo Picasso. The eyes are always facing up front even if the head is facing to the side.
Saint George slaying the dragon, a popular subject in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian iconography.
This is the original album cover art design.
No. 18, Entertainment Weekly, 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 43, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 71, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 85, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 124, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time.
Centre image from Ethiopia, The Christian Art of an African Nation: The Langmuir Collection, Peabody Museum of Salem by Elizabeth Cross Langmuir,
Stanisław Chojnacki, Peter Fetchko, Peabody Museum of Salem. Photo by Mark Sexton. Album produced by Paul Simon. Warner Brothers 1986.
Recorded between 1985–86, Graceland features an eclectic mixture of musical styles, including pop, rock, a cappella, zydeco, isicathamiya, and mbaqanga.
Simon created new compositions inspired by the recordings made in Johannesburg, collaborating with both African and American artists. Simon faced controversy
for seemingly breaking the cultural boycott imposed by the rest of the world against the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. In addition, some critics
viewed Graceland as an exploitive appropriation of their culture. Following its completion, Simon toured alongside South African musicians, combining the
music of Graceland and their own music.
Despite the controversy, Graceland was a major commercial hit. His highest-charting effort in over a decade, Simon's return to the forefront of popular music was
considered a remarkable comeback. It attracted rave reviews from music critics, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and sold over 16 million copies
worldwide. Graceland has been called one of the best albums of the 1980s, and is present on list of "greatest" albums by multiple publications. It was added to
the National Recording Registry in 2007 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important." More
(A) The Boy in the Bubble - Graceland - I Know What I Know - Gumboots - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
(B) You Can Call Me Al - Under African Skies - Homeless - Crazy Love, Vol. II - That Was Your Mother - All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints
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