Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – J – L
J –
Sacha Jafri – Nominee for an Individual Achievement Award (2014) for his cover work on Silver Rails for Jack Bruce.
(b. 1977 in the U.K) – As a young man of Iranian/Indian/French descent, Jafri attended and graduated from several of the country’s best schools, beginning with Eton College and then the Kent Institute of Art & Design (graduating in 1996), receiving both Bachelor of Arts (with first class honors) and Master of Arts degrees from Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art in 1999. His approach to pop art/painting was met with tremendous interest, culminating first in a popular touring show – launched in 2005 and on display in 12 museums throughout the world – of 20 of his early works paired with a then recently-discovered trove of 14 prints by Andy Warhol titled “Jafri Meets Warhol”, followed by a retrospective show of his work in 2008 at the Museum of Modern and Islamic Art in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
His paintings are in the permanent collections of museums and galleries around the world including The Royal Academy of Arts and the House of Lords in London; the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Chagall Museum in Nice, France and the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. Celebrities who’ve added Jafri’s work to their personal collections include HH Prince Albert of Monaco, David Beckham, Sir Richard Branson, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Roger Federer, Bill Gates, Sir Ben Kingsley, Madonna, John McEnroe, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and the Royal Families of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Sharjah.
In 2009, Jafri was selected to serve as a judge on the illustrious panel of artists, tastemakers and human rights experts that would choose the winner of that year’s “Freedom To Create Prize”, awarded each year “to support and recognize artists who strive for social change in places where there is no Freedom to Create”. Then, in 2010, Jafri was awarded with the Karic Award for his Humanitarian and Artistic endeavors, with the foundation particularly impressed with the millions of dollars the artist has raised for charities world wide via the sale/auction of his works.
More recently, Jafri was commissioned to create the official “1000-day countdown” painting, along with the Lord Mayor’s Olympic painting, for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
More information on this artist is available via his listing on the Artnet website at http://www.artnet.com/artists/sacha-jafri/biography
Bob Jones – Notable album cover work examples – Elvis Presley – 50 Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong; Hall & Oates – Rock ‘n Soul: Part 1 – Greatest Hits
As Art Director for RCA Records Bob and his team 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 covers for 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.
David Juniper – Notable album cover work includes – Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II; Quantum Jump – Quantum Jump; UFO – Wild, The Willing and the Innocent, Mechanix, Making Contact and Chrysalis Years; Thinkman – Life is a Full Time Occupation
Raised in Epson Surrey UK, and attended art schools in the same area (“I would have liked to have taken the time to learn the guitar, but decided instead to concentrate on drawing and painting. I still wish I had done both”). After art school, Juniper joined the Ogilvy ad firm as a “visualizer” and art director, taking on the additional role of illustrator when, according to David, “I could not find good illustrators to do jobs for me”. Thus began a 40+ year career in art and design, working for various agencies, then a partner (with fellow illustrators Bob Murdoch and Trevor Smith) in his own studio called “Wurlitzer” and then as a freelance designer and illustrator.
Well-known for his lush, “retro-style” illustrations that combine both traditional and digital painting methods, his work has added style and panache to promotional campaigns for an impressive list of clients in a wide range of industries including Publishing (The Guardian, Harper Collins, Random House, Oxford University Press, Time Life, Playboy and Financial Times), Ad Agencies (BBH London, JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, Young & Rubicom), Automotive (Nissan, Renault, VW) and many others.
For his work on the Led Zeppelin II album cover (for which he also produced the inside gatefold image), Juniper was nominated for Best Album Cover at the 1970 Grammy Awards and was awarded two D&AD Awards for design and illustration.
Find out more about this artist by visiting his web site at http://www.davidjuniper.com
K –
Art Kane – notable album cover credit include – Johnny Winter – White, Hot & Blue; Jim Morrison – An American Prayer; The Who – The Kids Are Alright, The BBC Sessions and Greatest Hits ; Judas Priest – Point of Entry; Gloria Gaynor – I Am Gloria Gaynor and I Am What I Am; Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
(b. April, 1925 in New York City, NY; d. February, 1995) When Arthur Kanofsky was young, he was fascinated with fairy tales, fantasy illustrations and, as a Boy Scout in his Bronx troupe, reptiles (earning himself a Reptile Study merit badge!). Hoping to become a world-famous artist when he grew up, he took the first step in preparation for this career when he enrolled in NY’s Cooper Union College but, a year into his studies, he was drafted into the Army, bringing his talents to a special unit – the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops AKA “The Ghost Army”. These artistically-trained troops were sent in to areas where they created the illusion of the presence of actual Army units, fooling the enemy into thinking that they were out-manned/gunned via inflatable tanks, artillery, sound effects and dummy battalions. After his deployment, he returned to the U.S. and worked briefly in the theater before returning to his studies in art, design and photography at Cooper Union and graduating with honors in 1950.
With his experience and impressive talents clear to prospective employers, Arthur (now Kane) accepted a position as the art director for Seventeen Magazine becoming, at age 26, one of the youngest holding this position at a major publication. Working under the prominent designer/illustrator Cipe Pineles, Art enjoyed both the challenges he faced and the environment he worked in, meeting a number of other influential peers and beginning to explore other forms of artistic expression, including photography. Another art director at the magazine, Rudolph DeHarak, invited Art on photo shoots and encouraged his experimentation while he continued to build his confidence in the medium. Kane continued to work at Seventeen until 1956, when he left to join the fashion advertising firm the Irving Serwar Agency as an art director. This move also allowed Art to study photography under the legendary former Harper’s Bazaar designer and photographer, Alexey Brodovitch at The New School, where his skills and portfolio expanded and his work within the field began to receive notice.
In the summer of 1958, Kane was sent on a photography assignment for Esquire Magazine that would prove pivotal to his career. The magazine was doing a story on the history of Jazz music and asked Art to shoot photos of the leading proponents in the field. The resulting series, which included shots of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, a memorable photo of the grave of saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker and a group photo of 57 legendary jazz music alumni (including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and many others) proved to be so popular and impressive that Kane decided to give up art direction and begin a full-time career as a photographer (Editor’s note – this photograph would became the basis for Jean Bach’s Academy Award-nominated 1995 documentary, A Great Day in Harlem).
With his highly-unique talents and experiences combining to give Kane exceptional conceptual/compositional skill set, Kane became a must-have photographer for all of the best-known photo journals and magazines of his time, with his works appearing in the U.S. in Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Look, McCall’s and others and overseas in the Italian versions of Bazaar and Vogue, Amica, Stern, German Vogue and Zeit. His subjects included celebrities in the fields of music (Bob Dylan, Cream, Aretha Franklin, Jefferson Airplane, Jim Morrison, Sonny & Cher, The Who and Frank Zappa), art (Christo, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers and Cy Twombly) and photo illustrations for a wide range of subjects, from the struggle for civil rights down South to the plight of wounded war vets and many articles on the politics and cultural changes taking place in the 1960s and 1970s.
Having developed his skills as a playwright, songwriter and videographer, Kane was able to offer his advertising and commercial clients with many styles of ad imagery, keeping clients like American Airlines, Avis, Bloomingdale’s, Coca Cola, DeLorean Motors, Exxon, Heineken, Johnson & Johnson, Marlboro, Revlon, Saab, TWA, Volkswagen and many, many others coming back for more. Beginning in 1989, Kane led a series of week-long summer photography workshops featuring a number of his notable peers at his studios in Cape May, New Jersey, which he continued hosting until his death in 1995.
His works were honored many times during his career, with major awards including the “Photographer of the Year” Award in 1964 from the American Society of Magazine Photographers, the “Page One Award” in 1966 from the Newspaper Guild of America, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Medal for Distinguished Achievement awarded by Cooper-Union in 1967 as well as medals and awards from the Art Directors Clubs in Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. In addition to further honors given him by the AIGA, the Society of Typographic Arts and Communication Arts magazine, Kane received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Collections of his photos are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Books featuring the work of Art Kane include: Art Kane: The Persuasive Image, by John Poppy (published in 1975 by Crowell); Art Kane (self-published, 1977); Contemporary American Erotic Photography, Vol. 1 (Melrose Publishing, 1984) and Paper Dolls (TBS/Grove Press, 1984).
For more information on this artist, please visit his web site at – http://www.artkane.com/
Catherine Kanner – Notable album cover work – Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming (Columbia Records, 1979)
Catherine Kanner is an illustrator, author and publisher. She has written, illustrated or designed more than 20 books including her own texts (The Book of the Bath and Beauty From a Country Garden), and has designed or illustrated books for other authors including Michael Crichton’s Timeline, Fun With Ballet, San Francisco Access, Town & County Cookbook, and Angelina’s Ballet Class.
Catherine has created a line of 75 greeting cards with Michel & Company, and has designed products for The Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York. Other clients include Bank of America, Microsoft, Edison, Texas Instruments, Fidelity Investments, Sun Microsystems, Amtrak, Citizen, Sprint and Kraft Foods, among others. She has been a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times “Opinion” section with her work syndicated to 2000 newspapers in the U.S. and 1,000 worldwide. She has won numerous illustration and design awards including the Society of Newspaper Design Award, Print’s Regional Design Award, The Louie Award and the Rounce & Coffin Award for excellence in book design. She has also toured throughout the U.S. as a spokesperson for Proctor & Gamble.
In 1995 she became publisher of The Melville Press, producing limited edition, fine press books, and was creative director for Calamus Gift & Trade Editions. In addition, Kanner currently is Design Director for Los Angeles Ballet. More recently, Catherine has involved herself with another Dylan – this time, author Dylan Thomas – with her works used to illustrate a limited-edition book by The Melville Press titled In the Direction of the Beginning.
To see more of Catherine Kanner’s work, please visit her web site at – http://www.kannerbook.com/
Dean Karr – notable album cover credits include – Pantera – Far Beyond Driven; N.W.A. – The N.W.A. Legacy, Vol. 1: 1988 – 1998; Alice Cooper – The Definitive Alice Cooper; 40 Below Summer – Invitation To The Dance; Busta Rhymes – Genesis; Iron Maiden – Rock In Rio and Brave New World; Soil – re.de.fine; Chris Rock – Never Scared; Machines Of Loving Grace – Concentration; Matchbox 20 – Exile On Mainstream and Mad Season; Easy-E – 5150:Home 4 Tha Sick; Tool – Undertow; Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar and Born Villian; Goo Goo Dolls – Gutterflower; A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step and Weak & Powerless; ZZ Top – Live In Nashville; Megadeth – Rude Awakening
(b. February, 1965 in Seattle, WA, USA) – Born and raised in Seattle, WA, Dean prepared for his career in the fine arts and design by studying first at Washington State University (where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on Graphic Design and Photography in 1988) and then moving down the coast to spend the next several years at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA before leaving in 1991 to launch his professional career in photography and film-making.
His early work led to a gig directing the music video for rocker Marilyn Manson’s 1995 single “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)”, a work that proved to be a boon for both Manson’s music career and for Karr’s reputation as an image-maker, leading him to a host of assignments for his talents as both a photographer (shooting covers and promo images for musical acts including AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz, Tommy Lee, Busta Rhymes and Three Doors Down, among others) and as a director/creative lead on music video projects for Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, Evanescence, Godsmack, Iron Maiden, Korn, The Dave Matthews Band, Willie Nelson, Stevie Nicks, Ozzy Osbourne, Queens of the Stone Age, Velvet Revolver and many others, with those works earning praise and awards (“Video of the Year”, “Best Rock Video”, etc. ) from Billboard, MTV, Much Music and the MVPA.
His commercial work has expanded far beyond the music/entertainment business, adding happy clients such as Astrella Designs, Best Buy, Busch Gardens, Coca-Cola, HBO, Tommy Hilfiger, LG, Mazda, Mortal Combat, Trident Gum, Woolrich and Universal Studios and many of the world’s top ad agencies. Karr’s art photography has been included in museum and gallery shows here and abroad, including displays at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Art Modern Gallery in Moscow, the Institute of Actual Art in Kiev and at the Merry Karnowsky and City Galleries in Los Angeles.
More about this artist is available on his web site at http://www.deankarr.com/
Keef/Marcus Keef – See “Keith McMillan” listing
Keith “Keef” McMillan (or Macmillan) – Notable album cover credits include – David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World; Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath, Paranoid (covers) and Master of Reality (inside sleeve); Fair Weather – Beginning From An End; Coloseum – Valentyne Suite; Nirvana (UK) – Local Anaesthetic; Al Stewart – Orange; Rod Stewart – An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down
A bit of mystery surrounds this entry as our researchers have had some difficulty determining whether this artist, who used the pseudonyms “Keef” and “Marcus Keef” while working in the field of album cover photography, is “Keith McMillan” or “Keith Macmillan”. In any case, the persons credited for the works listed above may have had quite the varied careers in the creative arts.
Keef #1, Keith McMillan (b. April, 1934 in Cuckfield, Sussex, UK – d. March, 2012), began his career in the arts as a dancer, joining the Royal Ballet at the age of 17 on a scholarship and becoming a protege of Dame Margot Fonteyn. In another weird identity twist, during his time as a dancer, he changed his name to “Keith Milland” so as not to be confused with Ken MacMillan, the company’s choreographer! His career was interrupted in 1952 when he was drafted into the military, serving two years in the Royal Medical Corps.
Keith’s second love was of photography and his association with the ballet allowed him to photograph others in the field, including many well-known dancers. Soon, he was commissioned by The Sunday Times to photograph other celebrities in the arts, with his first assignment being to shoot fellow dancer Rudolph Nureyev. From that point forward – from 1965 to 1997 – he took on photographic commissions for a wide variety of publications including the Daily Express, Harpers Bazaar, Harpers & Queen, Time Out, Vogue and many others, expanding his portfolio to include subjects such as Mick Jagger, Tom Jones, John Lennon, Roy Orbison, Keith Richards and fine artists Henry Moore and Man Ray for clients in the media, advertising and recorded music businesses.
Working under a new alias (“Michael Heseltine”) beginning in 1972, Keith accepted the position as their chief photographer for a new ad industry publication called Campaign and continued on in that role until 1997. It was during the early 1990s that McMillan began to explore another facet of his artistic talents, enrolling in art school to study painting and sculpture and, during a trip to Australia in 1993, realized that this would be the ideal place for him to discover new visual inspirations while developing his talents as a painter, so he moved there and, camera in hand, began photographing his new world, using these shots as the basis for his work in other media. For the rest of his life, he would produce a number of well-received works that would be shown in galleries throughout the world.
Not much background info is available on Keef #2, Keith MacMillan, beyond his resume and details provided by some of the people he worked with. Having met – and made a lasting impression on – Olav Wyper, the former creative director of Philips/Phonogram Records and now one of the founders of the Vertigo record label – while he was a student in the late 1960s, Keith was given album cover assignments for a number of the prog-rock label’s early acts. Left to work on his own, with only music samples for inspiration, MacMillan’s unique styles of photography and graphics were well-received by the musical acts he designed for. While many design firms at the time based their designs on a more modernistic approach, MacMillan’s covers stood out for their decidedly non-modern aesthetics, using grainy, natural images and straight-forward graphics and typography.
For what it’s worth, based on the timeline, I’m guessing that Keef #2 is the Keef that has done the design and photography for the records listed at the top of this bio – here’s hoping that someone can help clarify who the “real” Keef is at some point soon!
John Kehe – notable album cover credits include – ELO – Eldorado, Face The Music, On The Third Day, and The Night the Lights Went On (in Long Beach); Ike & Tina Turner – The Gospel According to Ike & Tina; Bobby Womack – Lookin’ For A Love Again; Rare Earth – Back to Earth; Elvin Bishop – Struttin’ My Stuff; Roger McGuinn – Cardiff Rose; Kinky Freidman – Lasso From El Paso; Lynyrd Skynyrd – One More From The Road; Eddie Money – Eddie Money; Heart – Little Queen; Sparks – Introducing Sparks; The Marshall Tucker Band – Carolina Dreams, Together Forever and Greatest Hits; Allman Brothers Band – Enlightened Rogues; Dixie Dregs – Dregs of the Earth; The Doobie Brothers – Brotherhood; The Pointers Sisters – Steppin’; Waters – Waters; The Jinns – The Jinns; Rusty Weir – Black Hat Saloon; Bobby See – Legendary Masters series; The Jacksons – Triumph; Sea Level – On the Edge; Michael Stanley Band – Ladies’ Choice; Johnny Rivers – Blue Suede Shoes and Last Boogie in Paris; Kinky Friedman – Lasso From El Paso; Waters – Waters; Bobbi Hutchinson – Cirrus
(b. May, 1949 in Elmhurst, Illinois, USA) Having played in various bands since junior high school and having a great love of music, John was working on a degree in English while attending Principia College near Alton, IL in the late 1960s when, drawn by the cute girls he’d seen in the school’s art department, he switched his major to Art, following in the steps of his mother, a talented artist herself. His professors felt that he had a knack for design and suggested that he apply for admission to the famed Art Center college in Los Angeles and, after he was accepted, achieved his lifelong dream of living in California at the age of 19. Essentially starting his schooling over, John completed the school’s rigorous four-year Bachelor of Arts program in less than three years (going to school all year) and received his BA in Graphic Design/Film (with honors) in 1972.
Fortunate to be learning and living in LA in the early 1970s – to many, the “golden age of album cover design” – John knew he’d find happiness working in that area and had asked his Art Center instructors for permission to convert his assignments into album cover concepts he’d put into his portfolio. Most of his teachers allowed him this leeway and, by the time he’d graduated, he had a dozen or so “pretty decent” LP covers in his portfolio. After graduating, he made a beeline to visit “superstar” Art Director Mike Salisbury, who’d just moved to take over the art department at the United Artists record label and was looking for help. Several months later, the now-engaged-to-be-married Mr. Kehe got the good news from UA and went to work, with his first work assignments being to come up with covers for well-known singer/songwriter Johnny Rivers and for a brand new act on the label, The Electric Light Orchestra, whose first album hadn’t sold well in the U.S. and whose music and make-up greatly impressed the young designer and music-lover.
John’s role at UA grew over the next couple of years grew, with Kehe becoming an associate art director and, after hiring another talented designer – Mick Haggerty – to help him with several projects. Discovering that he and Haggerty meshed well, and after Mike Salisbury left for a job at Rolling Stone magazine, the pair decided to set up shop together in 1975 in an agency they called “Art Attack”, with Kehe bringing ELO’s Face the Music project along with him. After going separate ways later in the 1970s, Kehe expanded his resume with work as a film effects designer until landing a job in New York City as Design Director at The Walker Group, where he created retail/brand identities for retailers including FAO Schwartz, moving back into the entertainment business in 1984 while working as a design director with the respected firm of R. Greenberg Associates, better-known as R/G/A, where he was responsible for all print, motion graphics and logo designs, motion picture title sequences, television commercials, show opens, print advertising and movie one-sheet campaigns.
A job in senior management for Sony Pictures Entertainment brought John back to the west coast in 1990, with Kehe becoming accountable for all of Sony and Columbia motion pictures’ promotional materials. Then, in 1998, John moved to the Boston, MA area to redesign the Christian Science Monitor, becoming the publication’s design director for the next 20 years. In 2003, he met his future wife Marjorie in the Monitor newsroom, where she worked as the Book Editor. Before retiring from the publication in 2018, he’d go on to create their distinctive logotype, an online magazine and over 500 print magazine covers, while also keeping busy with his own freelance clients in the music, film, website design and graphic identity worlds. While, sadly, Marjorie passed away in 2019, John continues to work on select projects from his studio in Boston.
John’s love for music and song-writing has manifested itself via his membership in several musical groups, including drumming for Boston’s popular indie pop/rock band Field Day, which he helped found in 2013. The band’s roster included a former music writer for The Boston Globe newspaper, another graphic designer and a bass player with a perfect rock star name – Phil Magnifico! – and after lots of gigging and the release of three EPs, John bowed out of the group in 2017, when his wife’s deteriorating health required his complete attention. In 2020, John assembled a new group of Boston-area studio aces and cut a new album based on his own music (and album cover design), released under the name The Good Silver – is available on vinyl, via all the streaming services and the online music company Bandcamp: thegoodsilver.bandcamp.com
Alton Kelley – Notable album cover credits include – The Sopwith Camel – The Sopwith Camel; The Sons of Champlain – Loosen Up Naturally; Jefferson Airplane – The Worst of Jefferson Airplane; New Riders of the Purple Sage – New Riders of the Purple Sage; Grateful Dead – Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses – also seen on Vintage Dead), Built To Last and The Closing Of Winterland: December 31, 1978; Jan Hammer/Neal Schon – Untold Passion; Dinosaurs – Dinosaurs; Journey – Greatest Hits and The Essential Journey; Bob Weir – Ace and Weir Here: The Best of Bob Weir; Harvey Mandel – The Mercury Years: Steve Miller Band – Book of Dreams and Greatest Hits 1974 – 78; King X – Ear Candy
(b. June, 1940 in Houlton, Maine; d. June, 2008 in Petaluma, California) Born in Maine, Kelley’s family moved to Connecticut in the mid-1940s, where he first expressed a desire to learn more about the arts and engineering. He took classes at both the New York City Art Students League and the Philadelphia Museum College of Art but soon chose to apply his talents working as an aircraft mechanic at the Sikorsky helicopter factory in Connecticut before chucking it all in 1964 to hitchhike across the U.S. to the West Coast, first to Los Angeles, where he worked as a motorcycle mechanic and then up the coast to San Francisco, landing squarely in the center of an area going through an immense influx of people looking to be part of the emerging psychedelic scene.
After a summer working with his friends building a venue in Nevada called the “Red Dog Saloon” that featured music by a band called The Charlatans, his troop, working under the name “The Family Dog”, turned to concert promotion/production, and it was Alton who was tasked to create the promotional flyers for those events. When promoter Chet Helms joined in the group in 1966 to produce shows first at the Fillmore Auditorium and then at the Avalon Ballroom, Kelley became the Art Director and, after a spot opened up for a poster artist, he brought in friend and fellow hot rod/motorcycle fanatic Stanley “Mouse” Miller to fill that position, a partnership that would lead to an amazing portfolio of iconic poster and album cover designs over the next two decades.
Among the best-known images (Kelley would create three dozen posters for Family Dog events and then another six for the Bill Graham organization) the pair would create – with Kelley designing the collages and photographs and Mouse taking care of the lettering and printing details – was one in 1966 that became synonymous with the Grateful Dead – the “Skull and Roses” design, adapted from a drawing from the 1938 poetry book by Edward Fitzgerald titled The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and still in use today on t-shirts, posters and other Dead merch.A 1968 show of work by Kelley, Mouse and three other top psychedelic designers – Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso and Wes Wilson, together known as “The Big Five” – at the Moore Gallery put Kelley’s talents on display to the fine art world and established him as an exceptional talent.
Besides their partnership in their design company (Mouse Studios), Alton would also work together with Stanley to open a head shop in the Haight district (“Pacific Ocean Trading”, or “POT”) and another business (Monster Co.) silk-screening their designs onto t-shirts. In November,1979 their joint auto-biography Mouse & Kelley was published by Paper Tiger Press, with Kelley continuing on as a solo act for the remainder of his life, during which he focused his art on the subject material he was most passionate about – hot rods and custom cars! On occasion, he was commissioned to do posters for Bay Area gigs (several more for his mates in the Grateful Dead) and, in early 2008, he’d team up once more with Mr. Mouse to create the graphics for the program for that year’s induction ceremony for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Kelley died later that year (June, 2008) in his Petaluma home at the age of 67 from complications from his battle with osteoporosis.
NY Times obituary (June 4, 2008) – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/arts/design/04kelley.html
Ken Kelly – notable album package credits include – Manowar – Fighting The World, Kings of Metal, Warriors of the World and Hell On Stage Live (9 total); Majesty – Swords & Sorcery; Bludgeon – Crucify The Priest; KISS – Destroyer and Love Gun; Skin Yard – Start at the Top; Ace Frehley – Space Invader; Alabama Thunderpussy – Open Fire; HolyHell – HolyHell; Four Year Strong – Enemy of the World; Rainbow – Rising; Derwood – Renegade; Coheed & Cambria – Good Apollo I’m Burning Star 4, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow
(b. May, 1946 in New London, Connecticut; d. June, 2022) According to the artist’s web site bio, “Ken Kelly practically came into our world with a pencil in his hand. He started drawing at the fragile age of two and has not stopped since”. An art teacher recognized Ken’s talents and eagerness to explore his artistic side and served as his mentor throughout his formative years. After a stint in Marines (where he did the illustrations for The Gitmo Gazette while stationed in Cuba), Ken paid a visit to the studios of noted illustrator Frank Frazetta in 1968 (his uncle through marriage) and impressed him with his portfolio, after which he was invited to both study and work with Frazetta, getting his first commission within the year, creating a painting titled The Lurking Terror for Vampirella Magazine.
Soon after this initial success, Kelly turned his sights towards creating book covers and, from that time forward, found himself getting calls for work from most major authors/publishers in the fantasy art world and completing hundreds of great covers for books and magazines. His fame also found him work in the toy/model/video game businesses and, along the way, with a number of recording acts, including KISS, Manowar, Coheed & Cambria and many others.
After Kelly’s unexpected death in June, 2022, KISS frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley posted tributes via their social media accounts, with Stanley writing – “A moment to remember the great Ken Kelly. His fantasy art captured the larger-than-life image of KISS perfectly. Rest In Peace”, while Simmons noted that he was “sad to find out Ken Kelly, who painted our Destroyer album cover, passed away. A kind and beloved gentleman. Rest In Peace.” On his website, former Kiss drummer Peter Criss wrote that he was “heartbroken to hear of the passing of my dear friend Ken Kelly. He was an amazing man and talent. A gentle, kind, funny honorable man. A man of integrity and grace. I loved him so much… He brought out the super heros in us. He will live on through his incredible work.” Manowar’s bassist Joey DeMaio stated that he was “deeply saddened by the passing of the great Ken Kelly…He was a giant and will live forever through his art and the memories he left with those who got to know him. I will never forget our years together. Condolences to his family. RIP, Ken. Valhalla awaits you.”
More information on this artist is available on his web site at – https://www.kenkellyfantasyart.com/musicalbums.html
Trevor Key – notable album cover credits include – Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells and Platinum; Sex Pistols – The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and Flogging A Dead Horse; OMD – Organisation, Sugar Tax and Genetic Engineering; New Order – Fine Time, Low-Life and Technique; Peter Gabriel – So; X Ray Spex – Germ Free Adolescents; Phil Collins – Hello I Must Be Going, …But Seriously, Both Sides and Take A Look At Me Now…; Mandalaband – Mandalaband; Can – Unlimited Edition; Keith Hudson – Too Expensive; Section 25 – From The Hip; Jethro Tull – Bursting Out
(b. July, 1947 in Hull, U.K.; d. December, 1995) To prep for a career in photography, Trevor studied at the local Hull Art College and began his career in London as an assistant to photographer Don McAllester, known to album art fans as the creator of the unique cover image for the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, a project that Key assisted on. He quickly developed his skills in both photography and project management, which came in handy working on the many advertising projects they were hired for.
In 1973, the head of PR for Virgin Records proposed that Trevor take on a project – the cover for Mike Oldfield’s soon-to-be-classic LP Tubular Bells – and the resulting image (which Key created by crafting the bell, building the backdrop and painstakingly photographing and manipulating the elements that made up the final image – way before computers, fans!) served to expose Key’s talents to a world-wide audience. The record also launched the Virgin label, with Key becoming the company’s go-to shooter.
Soon after, Key partnered with another creative individual – Brian Cooke – to form a full-service design agency they called Cooke Key Associates. Their first client – Virgin Records (surprise!) – hired them to design the company’s logo, promotional materials and advertising designs and, over the next several years, the company created scores of album covers for Virgin and associated acts and labels.
In the mid-1970s, Key and Cooke met designer Jamie Reid, who asked them for their help on a project for a new Virgin-label band called The Sex Pistols. While not punks themselves – working with Reid and meeting the band to get a feel for what they were selling – they conspired to produce dozens of memorable images to help promote the new act and their music (note – they accompanied the band on their June 1977 boating excursion on London’s Thames River during the Queen’s Jubilee, hanging a “celebration” banner they’d created over the size of the boat during the trip which would ultimately get the band canned).
A meeting in 1979 with an emerging talent in design – Peter Saville – and the senior team at Tony Wilson’s Factory Records resulted in a creative collaboration that would last for over a dozen years, during which Key brought an experimental photo/compositing process involving special photo paper and masking technique which he called Dichromat to a project for New Order’s 1986 release True Faith, with the resulting image garnering great praise from both the music and fine art worlds.
In 1981, Key and Cooke parted ways so that they could each focus on their own photography, with Key continuing to collaborate with Wilson and Saville at Factory and also teaming up with other designers to craft unique and memorable images for a variety of clients. And while, quite tragically, Key would die of a brain tumor in 1995 (at the age of 48), his influence on the field of photography remains, with his works included regularly in print publications and a variety of gallery and museum shows, including one in October, 2017 at his alma mater, the Hull School of Art, which would then go on to be displayed in venues throughout his home town. As part of that exhibition, there was a star-studded lecture on September 20th of that year titled “Trevor Key’s Top 40: Music & Pictures – The Influence of Trevor Key”, with Creative Review Editor Patrick Burgoyne, designer Ian Anderson (The Designers Republic), Toby McFarlan (photographer and Key’s former assistant) and Scott King (art director) discussing Key’s influence and ongoing legacy. Creative Review published a profile of the artist, which can be found via this link – https://www.creativereview.co.uk/trevor-key-archive/
While the BBC News channel provided additional coverage of the show at – http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-41331715
More information on this artist can be found via this tribute site, managed by his estate – https://www.trevorkey.com/
Fritz Klaetke – notable album cover credits include – Woody Guthrie – Woody At 100 (Grammy Award, 2013); Rounder Records – Various Artists – O Sister! and O Sister 2, Mississippi John Hurt – Legend, Boozoo Chavis – Down Home on Dog Hill, Corey Harris – Mississippi To Mali, Sleepy LaBeef – I’ll Never Lay My Guitar Down, many more; Smithsonian Folkways Records – Lead Belly – Last Sessions, Various Artists – Friends Of Old Time Music, Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology and There Is No Eye: Music For Photographs and many more; MB Records – E’Lissa Jones – This Melodie, Dr. Ra – Hip-Hop Remix Vol.1, Antonio Cruz – TC and many others
The offspring of an architect and a painter, Fritz Klaetke was genetically pre-destined to be a designer. He grew up in Detroit and founded Visual Dialogue in 1988 while still a student at the University of Michigan. Today, the studio is located in a renovated row house in Boston’s historic South End neighborhood.
The output from Visual Dialogue ranges from brand identity to music packaging, print collateral to websites, magazines to sculpture, and book design to interiors. Clients include The Art Institute of Boston, Barbara Lynch restaurant group, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Harvard University, Institute of Contemporary Art, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MIT, Moshe Safdie and Associates, New York Public Radio, and Smithsonian Institution.
Visual Dialogue has received recognition from organizations including the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, and The Webby Awards and the work has been featured in publications such as Communications Arts, HOW, I.D., Novum and Sports Illustrated. In addition, several of Fritz’s projects are included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City.
The design of Big Wet Kiss for the Boston-based band Chucklehead was Fritz’s first foray into music packaging in 1992. Since that time, he has created music packaging for artists including Lead Belly, Boozoo Chavis, Johen Cohen, Roscoe Holcomb, Langston Hughes, Mississippi John Hurt, Ella Jenkins, Sleepy LaBeef, Bill Monroe, Jonathan Richman, Pete Seeger, Doc Watson, Mary Lou Williams, and Bob Wills.
Besides the Grammy-winning (Best Box Set/Limited Edition Package, 2013) Woody At 100 package and over 70 music packages, Fritz and his team at Visual Dialogue also designed the Webby-nominated Folkways website: www.folkways.si.edu.
For more information on Fritz Klaetke and Visual Dialogue, please visit their website at www.visualdialogue.com
Mati Klarwein – Notable album cover work examples – Santana – Abraxas, Miles Davis – Bitches Brew and Live Evil, Earth Wind & Fire – Last Days And Time, Gregg Allman – Laid Back
Abdul Mati Klarwein (b. 1932 in Hamburg, Germany – d. 2002 on the island of Majorca) was an influential artist and painter best known for his Surrealist paintings that were used on a wide range of record covers. His “Annunciation” was chosen for the cover of Santana’s album Abraxas and other paintings were used by Miles Davis for the covers of Bitches Brew and Live Evil. His artwork has been widely shown in galleries in New York, Paris, and all over Spain.
Mati’s most unique installation was the “Aleph Sanctuary”, a free-standing room that featured 68 paintings including the ‘Tree of Life’ and “Annunciation”. The Sanctuary has been on display at both the Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, California and as part of the “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” exhibition in 2007 at the Whitney Museum in New York City.
A prolific painter, Klarwein is known to have painted at least 600 pieces, including 280 landscapes and “mindscapes”, 270 portraits, and 120 improved paintings. There is a limited edition fine art book available (with text by author and family friend Serge Bramly) titled Mati and The Music: 52 Record Covers 1955/2005, and this and more information on this artist can be found on his website at www.matiklarweinart.com
Nick Knight – notable album cover credits include – Bjork – Homogenic ; Seal – Killer and Seal [1994]; Suede – Beautiful Ones, Coming Up, Head Music and Singles; Squeeze – Six of One; Da Real Choppa – Comin Back Home; Paul Weller – Paul Weller; The Style Council – Greatest Hits; Kylie Minogue – Fever; Robbie Williams – Greatest Hits; Massive Attack – Collected; Rolling Stones – A Bigger Bang; Spandau Ballet – Through The Barricades; David Bowie – Black Tie White Noise; Lady Gaga – Born This Way; Gwen Stefani – Love.Angel.Music.Baby;
Born in London, England in 1958 and a 1982 graduate, with distinction, from the Bournemoth & Poole College of Art & Design (part of The Colleges association of technical and professional schools located in the South of England), Nick Knight’s first choice for a career was not photography. Rather, he’d enrolled in pre-med classes, hoping one day to become a doctor. As his studies progressed, he realized that he disliked biology immensely and, as photography had been a hobby of his, he decided to further his studies in that area. A quote taken rom a live online interview conducted in 2006 (https://showstudio.com/project/in_camera/nick_knight) gives us a bit more on the topic – “I decided to take photographs when it was a way of having some sort of social purpose. It was a way of chatting up girls. But I took it up as a career because I was doing something I hated (human biology) that I thought I had to do on my way towards medicine. Photography was a hobby, a pleasure and it was the only thing in my education that I shone at, had any skill at. When people praise you for doing something, it’s very pleasurable. More than being a mediocre science student. ”
While still studying at Bournemouth, he was commissioned by I-D Magazine to shoot a series of portraits, the results of which he then published in a photography book titled Skinheads, which received much acclaim and lead to more commercial work, including a 1986 collaboration with designer Peter Saville for a catalog for Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.
Not wanting to be labeled a “photographer” (rather, an “image-maker”), Knight was one of the first to fully-embrace the new possibilities in image-making brought about by the advent of digital imaging equipment and software, creating images of great imagination and fantasy. In an interview in 2015 with Business of Fashion Magazine Editor-At-Large Tim Blanks, Nick shared his opinions the creation and consumption of media by stating that “for 150 years they (‘they’ being the many great photographers who worked up to the modern age) did the same thing. Then something else comes along at the end of the 1980s and you could do things you could never do before. And now we’re much further down the line than that. Now I can take an iPhone and form a sculpture. And some people are still calling it photography.” Blanks then asked “What do you call it, then?”, to which Knight replied “I call it image-making — please could someone get a better description of it — because that’s what I do. Because that can take in sound and movement and 3D, which I think are really part of this new art form. So it’s based on image. That gets away from the thing of truth. Photography has been saddled as the medium of truth for so many years. That’s where its criticism has always been directed…I’m very pleased that image-making has freed itself from those constraints. It’s a totally new medium and that’s what I think I do.”
Since that time, in addition to his music-industry work, Knight has worked on both commercial and editorial projects for clients including Audi, British Vogue, Dazed & Confused, Christian Dior, Tom Ford, i-D Magazine, Calvin Klein, Alexander McQueen, Mercedes Benz, Paris Vogue, Royal Opera House, Yves Saint Lauren, Jil Sander, Levi Strauss, Swarovski, Louis Vuitton and W Magazine, just to name a few. In 2000, he launched his own web business called SHOWstudio designed to “show the entire creative process from conception to completion.”More recently (2016), Knight collaborated with designer Tom Ford to showcase his spring/summer 2016 collection via a film (an homage to the 70’s music series Soul Train) featuring a cameo by Lady Gaga.
Knight lives with his wife Charlotte and their three children in London. He was awarded the OBE in 2010 for his services to the arts. He is an honorary professor of the University of the Arts London and was awarded an honorary PHD by the same university.
Knight has been honored with a many awards during his career, with highlights including: 2015 – British Fashion Council’s British Fashion Awards – Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator; 2009 – Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Royal Birthday Honours (the same year that Status Quo singer Francis Rossi also received the honor); 2006 – Moët et Chandon Fashion Tribute; 2001 – ‘Most Inspirational Photographer’ & ‘Most Admired Person in the Creative Industries’ in the Ultimate League Table, Creative Review and Terence Donovan Award for Major Achievement in the Previous Year by a British Photographer in the field of Commercial, Advertising or Editorial work, Royal Photographic Society; 1999 – Best Front Cover of the Year for the September, 1998 issue of Dazed & Confused, along with a silver award for “Most Outstanding Music Poster” for Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’ at that year’s Total Publishing Magazine Design awards.
Other awards received during his career include ones in 1997 for Best Photographic Campaign, Designers & Art Directors (D&AD) Award and Royal Mail’s Stamp Innovation Award for Photography of 1996 Olympics Stamps; a Most Influential Fashion Photographer in the World’ by Face Magazine in 1995, Photographer Of The Year Awards from Kodak U.K in 1985 and 1987 and Best Book Cover award for Skinheads from Designers & Art Directors (D&AD).
Knight has been exhibiting his work in galleries and museums since 1982, with shows featuring Nick’s work having included displays at London’s National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Festivals De La Photo De Mode Exhibition in Barcelona and Monaco, the Saatchi Gallery, Japan’s Kobe Fashion Museum, the Musee De La Mode in Paris, the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna and, more recently, in shows such as Punk: Chaos To Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, Killer Heels at the Brooklyn Museum and solo shows in Seoul, Zurich and Paris.
More information on Nick’s roles as the Director of the SHOWStudio agency can be found at – http://showstudio.com/about while you can keep up-to-date with the latest in his career via his personal website – http://www.nickknight.com/
Robert M. Knight – Notable album cover work includes – Stevie Ray Vaughan – Real Deal Greatest Hits, Vol. 1; Jimi Hendrix – Winterland; Aerosmith – Essential Aerosmith; Taj Mahal – Blues With A Feeling; Steve Lukather – Santamental; Carlos Santana – Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles Live
Born in Los Angeles, CA, Robert was raised in Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. While attending Kaimuki High School and working part-time as a travel agent, in 1966 he travelled to London during a break and found himself housed by a family that took care of a local photographer’s studio. Knight soon found himself invited to visit the set of a movie being shot locally by director Michelangelo Antonioni (and being chronicled by his photographer host) called Blowup that featured members of the popular band The Yardbirds. Intrigued by the experience, Robert decided that photographing rock musicians would be his calling and set the wheels in motion on his career soon after his return to Hawaii. He bought a camera and began shooting local bands, with the quality of his work leading to other music and fashion jobs locally and along the Mainland’s West Coast.
Wanting to hone his craft, Knight began his studies at the University of Hawaii and then, in 1968, the San Francisco Art Institute, with his influences including music industry photographers Jim Marshall and Gered Mankowitz. He introduced himself to club impresario Bill Graham, who allowed Robert to shoot shows at The Fillmore West from the front row. Soon after he started, he added Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, The New Yardbirds (who soon after changed their names to Led Zeppelin) and became a fixture on the rock concert scene. His outgoing personality and quality photographic work endeared him to many of the stars he met, including Elton John, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Robert became very close with Stevie Ray, and is still haunted by his place in history as the photographer that took the last shots of the guitar ace shortly before his fateful helicopter crash outside of East Troy, Wisconsin in 1990.
Now based on the West Coast and working alongside his wife, photographer Maryanne Bilham, in a busy commercial photography business, Robert is now perhaps best-known for the impressive photographic murals found leading in to over 200 Guitar Center stores in the U.S. and the “Guitar Legend” photo archive, featuring iconic images of the aforementioned classic musical acts and newer ones including Maroon 5, John Mayer and Steve Vai. Robert has published several books, including 50 Rock Guitarists (1995) and Hollywood’s RockWalk – The First Decade (1996) and was part of the 1996 book Led Zeppelin – The Photographers. He’s also teamed with Maryanne and another long-time collaborator – T.A.Z. designer Jim Evans – on a multi-media venture titled “RockMachine” – an entity that produces fine art and design for the rock culture.
Knight’s been honored with a permanent exhibit at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas and, in 2009, a documentary film about his life (produced by Tim Kaiser and directed by John Chester) titled Rock Prophecies was released. In addition to his photographic work, Robert has managed rock bands including the current iteration of The Yardbirds and the Australian band Sick Puppies.
To learn more about this artist, please visit www.robertmknight.com
Marijke Koger-Dunham (part of The Fool Design Collective) – see entry on “The Fool” – https://albumcoverhalloffame.wordpress.com/artist-biographies-d-f/
Masaki Koike – notable album cover credits include – Black Sabbath – Mob Rules, Heaven & Hell, The Rules of Hell and The Dio Years; Various Artists – Women & Songs and What It Is!: Funky Soul And Rare Grooves (1967–1977); Hootie & The Blowfish – The Best of Hootie & The Blowfish 1993-2003; De La Soul – Live at Tramps, NYC; Joni Mitchell – Dreamland and Songs of a Prairie Girl; Ol’ Dirty Bastard – The Definitive Ol’ Dirty Bastard Story; Cream – Royal Albert Hall: London May 2,3,5,6 2005; Ray Charles – Genius & Friends; Mick Jagger – The Very Best of Mick Jagger; Phish – The Clifford Ball; Seal – Soul 2; Grateful Dead – Cornell 5/8/77; The Cars – Moving In Stereo: The Best of the Cars; The Jesus & Mary Chain – The Power of Negative Thinking and music journalist Howard Smith’s The Smith Tapes interview series.
(b. April, 1972 in Los Angeles, CA) According to the artist recollections of his youth, young Masaki’s early interest in design came from his appreciation of the beauty of the packaging of the gifts his family received from relatives in Japan. “Whether it was a box of soba noodles or snacks, it came beautifully packaged. The printing, colors and graphics, worked harmoniously with the materials. My dad would take out the item and throw the packaging away and I would dig it out of the trash!” He’d go on to earn a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Cal State University in Fullerton, CA in 1998 and set out to further-develop his talents (and his portfolio) via a series of jobs that began with an internship at movie poster powerhouse Cimmarron Bacon O’Brien (C/B/O). From there, he moved on to another studio working on graphics for the arthouse/indie film industry (Command A Studios) before doing some fine freelance design work for Smog Design, a studio well-known for their fine work for clients in the music industry.
His love of both music and design provided him with a lot of incentive to do good work in the album cover arena. According to Masaki, “Album cover design projects are great for designers because you’re dealing with photography, illustration, concepts, typography, layout and composition – all the formal elements of what makes a good design. But, I think that it was more than the album covers that really caught my interest, it was the whole package because you’re also dealing with structure and materials. The tangibility and unraveling of a package – preferably while listening to the album – makes the experience whole.”
After a stint as a freelancer with the Nokia Design Center, where he designed packages and graphics for their latest lines of mobile phones, Masaki set out on his own, finding work as a freelance designer for Rhino Records, a position that soon found him moving up the ladder until he was hired on full-time as their art director, a position that lasted until 2008 and, after which, he launched his own studio known as Phyx Design in Pasadena, CA. While his studio clientele is diverse, his packaging work in the music industry has earned him two Grammy Awards (and several more nominations), with samples of his work also being featured in Print Magazine’s regional design annual.
You can learn more about this artist and his work on his company’s web site – https://phyxdesign.com/
John Kosh (AKA “Kosh”) – notable album package credits include those for The Eagles – Hotel California and The Long Run; Linda Rondstadt – Simple Dreams, Lush Life and Get Closer (all Grammy winners), The Beatles – Abbey Road and Let It Be; The Who – Who’s Next?; ELO – Out of the Blue and A New World Record; T. Rex – Tanx, Zinc Alloy & The Hidden Riders of Tomorrow and Bolan’s Zip Gun; King Crimson – Red; Rod Stewart – Atlantic Crossing; Humble Pie – Smokin‘; REO Speedwagon – High Infidelity; James Taylor – Greatest Hits and JT
(b. London, England) This winner of three Grammy Awards for best packaging design met The Beatles in the 60’s and joined them as the creative director for Apple Records after working earlier that decade with the Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera and as art director for Art & Artists Magazine. His iconic designs for the band – he was responsible for design, promotion and publicity – led to work creating memorable images for artists such as James Taylor (JT), Linda Ronstadt, ELO, T-Rex, The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and many others (including Spinal Tap’s Break Like The Wind!). He was also the art director for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous “War Is Over” campaign, making him a fixture in the London art underground.
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 where 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 #6 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s “100 Best Album Covers of All Time”), Humble Pie, Randy Newman, Pointer Sisters, Linda Ronstadt (Kosh has produced 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 American 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.
Ten Worlds also produced 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. Kosh and his Ten Worlds cohorts continue to work on projects with a wide roster of clients, including the development of a “rock doc” feature on Apple Records and two animated series – one with comedian Lewis Black and the other with Tea & Chesse from the UK. Additionally, Ten Worlds reached a deal with SPS and Nomad to create and develop projects with and around Robin Petgrave and his Tomorrow Aeronautical Museum.
From his L.A. offices – formerly used by another talented Englishman, director Alfred Hitchcock – Kosh and Ten Worlds continue to work on projects with a wide roster of clients.
To see more of Kosh’s work, please visit – http://www.tenworlds.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/koshart
Daniel Kramer – Notable examples of album cover work – Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited & Bringing It All Back Home; George Benson – Giblet Gravy; Joan Baez – Any Day Now
(b. 1932; d. April, 2024) Based in New York, photographer Daniel Kramer was perhaps best-known for the photos he took for the covers of three Bob Dylan records – 1965′s Bringing It All Back Home (which was nominated for a Grammy Award), Highway 61 Revisited in 1966 and the 1985 Biograph compilation. His iconic photographs of Dylan have appeared in museum and gallery exhibitions internationally and he is the author (along with W. Eugene Smith) of the first major photographic book about Bob Dylan – 1967’s Bob Dylan : a Portrait of the Artist’s Early Years, which featured 140 of those early shots.
Daniel Kramer’s archive is breathtaking – in addition to the album cover sessions, he spent over a year (367 days in a row, to be exact) on the road and in private with Bob Dylan in 1964 and 1965. This came about after Kramer had heard the young singer/songwriter perform on the Steve Allen show in 1964 and, amazed by the performance, he sought out Dylan’s management and contacted them to schedule a photo session, only to be told Dylan wasn’t available. It took Kramer six months to negotiate and secure a one hour portrait session in Woodstock with Dylan; that session ultimately ran to five hours. An invitation for Kramer to travel by car with Dylan to a performance at Town Hall Philadelphia immediately followed and Kramer’s year-long photo odyssey commenced.
He was also in the recording studio in January 1965 when Bob recorded Bringing It All Back Home and later that year, Like a Rolling Stone, and he also photographed “the electric performance” with The Hawks at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. “I photographed a lot of wonderful and tremendously exciting subjects in my career, but Dylan remains one of the few at very the top of my list,” Kramer says. “I have always admired his courage as a performer who—as he wrote once in one of his books—steps out. He’s said incredible things and moved a lot of people. His lyrics and music have had an amazing influence on his time, and for a photographer, this is always great when you have an opportunity to document a part of that.”
In addition to documenting Bob Dylan, he photographed Norman Mailer extensively over a three-year period. His work has also been published in LIFE, TIME, Fortune and other publications. In 2016, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles hosted an exhibition of over 50 of Kramer’s photos of Dylan taken in 1964-65, as he began to morph from folk singer to rock icon, which they called Bob Dylan: Photographs by Daniel Kramer – https://grammymuseum.org/event/bob-dylan-photographs-by-daniel-kramer/
Daniel did on April 29, 2024. He was 91 years old. The biographical information and quotes you see here were excerpted from Mr. Kramer’s bios on his (now shuttered) web site at danielkramer.com, but several notable photo dealers still actively promote his works.
L –
David LaChapelle – Notable album cover credits include – Liza Minelli – Results; Cycle Sluts From Hell – Cycle Sluts From Hell; Tom Jones – The Lead And How To Swing It; Ricky Martin – A Medio Vivir; Fleetwood Mac – The Dance; Mariah Carey – Rainbow; Lil Kim – The Notorious K.I.M. and No Matter What They Say; No Doubt – Return of Saturn; Elton John – One Night Only; Jennifer Lopez – The Reel Me
(b. March, 1963 in Fairfield, CT, USA) Running away from his North Carolina home to escape the bullying in school he experienced for being gay, David landed in New York City, where he took a job as a busboy at the famed Studio 54 nightclub. His parents brought him back to NC and he enrolled in the North Carolina School of Arts, a conservatory in Winston-Salem (and, coincidentally, the school also attended later by a well-known romantic interest of his, choreographer John Byrne). At the age of 17, David returned to NYC with, as he stated in a 2012 keynote speech at the PhotoPlus Expo, “nothing to fall back on but photography” (and, ultimately, to study at the Art Students’ League school and, later, the School of Visual Arts) when his work was seen by Andy Warhol, who enlisted the young photographer as a shooter for the popular arts and culture magazine her produced, Interview.
His celebrity photos for the magazine were well-received (with his first assignment being to shoot an up-and-coming new musical act called The Beastie Boys, capturing them in black and white on the streets near Times Square) and quickly becoming part of the NYC arts scene, where he befriended artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. As a result, he was commissioned to help illustrate a number of other publications at the time, including Details, The Face, GQ, i-D, the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and the Italian and French editions of Vogue, where his subjects included musicians (Eminem, Lil’ Kim, Madonna, Britney Spears, Tupac Shakur and others), actors (Pamela Anderson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.), and other celebrities including Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, David Beckham, Hillary Clinton, Paris Hilton, architect Philip Johnson, artist Jeff Koons, transgender model Amanda Lepore and actress Uma Thurman.
In 2001, LaChapelle brought his prodigious talents to the world of music video, producing impressive shorts for musical acts including Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Macy Gray, Jennifer Lopez, Moby, No Doubt, The Vines, Amy Winehouse and others, and none other than Sir Elton John enlisted David to help him stage his Red Piano stage spectaculars in 2004. He then moved on to film, producing the award-winning documentary about the street dance style called “krumping” (titled Krumped) and the film RIZE, which opened up the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival.
Deciding to focus on his fine art work, LaChapelle stepped away from commercial assignments in 2006 and, since that time, his work has been shown in galleries (inc. the Paul Kasmin and Tony Shafrazi galleries in NYC and others in Brussels, Hong Kong and Munich) and museums world-wide, including exhibitions at the Barbican Museum in London (2002), the Palazzo Reale, Milan (2007), Museo del Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City (2009), the Musee de La Monnaie, Paris (2009), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Taiwan, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, The Lever House, New York (2011) and retrospectives at the Hangaram Design Museum in Seoul (2012), Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2012) and the Museo Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (2012). In 2012, LaChapelle staged simultaneous exhibitions – titled Earth Laughs in Flowers – at four different international galleries, including the Reformierte Dorfkirche in St. Moritz, the London and Milanese outposts the Robilant + Voena Gallery and the Fred Torres Collaborations in New York.
During his career, he’s received numerous awards, including the 1996 Photographer of the Year at the 1996 VH-1 Fashion Awards; the International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 1997 for Applied Photography; the award for “Best Video” for Moby’s Natural Blues at the 2000 MTV Europe Music Awards; the “Adult Contemporary Video of the Year” award in 2003 at the 12th Annual MVPA Awards for Elton John’s Original Sin and returning to the MVPA Awards show the next year to receive two awards (“Best Rock Video of the Year” for No Doubt’s It’s My Life and “Director of the Year” for Christina Aguilera’s Voice Within and Jennifer Lopez’s I’m Glad). Again in 2004, David won the prizes for “Best Documentary” at the Aspen Shortsfest and the “Special Jury Prize” at Mountainfilm in Telluride for his documentary Krumped. Also, in 2010, the gay & lesbian community awarded him the 2010 “Out in Art Award” at the GLAAD OutAuction in New York.
To find out more about this artist, please visit his web site at –http://www.davidlachapelle.com/
Jim Ladwig – Notable album cover art credits include – Ohio Players – Honey (Grammy Award – 1976), Fire, Gold and Skin Tight; The Faces – Ooh La La; Bachman Turner Overdrive – Bachman Turner Overdrive, 4 Wheel Drive, Freeways and Not Fragile, ; Thin Lizzy – Fighting; REM – Automatic For The People; Spanky & Our Gang – Like To Get To Know You; The Supremes – Right On; Rush – Fly By Night; Thin Lizzy – Fighting; The Dells – Love Connection; John Prine – Bruised Orange; Stevie Wonder – Stevie Wonder Live
(b. 1934 in Oak Park, IL; d. April, 2014 in Vero Beach, FL) After a stint in the Army that lasted until 1957, designer Jim Ladwig took a job at Mercury Records and soon designed covers for some of his favorite musical acts, including Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughn, and Quincy Jones. After rising through the ranks to the position of art and advertising director, in 1968, a printing vendor named Don Hosterka asked Ladwig if he would like to work with him in a new business, brokering printing jobs for clients in the music business. Given Ladwig’s background, the company expanded its scope and capabilities to include package design, production and printing and, as the music industry at the time was rapidly expanding the role of album packaging and graphics, the Chicago-based Album Graphics, Inc./AGI grew quickly and by the late 1970s, AGI would be tasked to produce nearly 3/4-million records per day.
As record labels began to invest considerable resources into record cover design and packaging (now considered a marketing imperative), they now wanted to work with companies that could combine creativity with unique physical packaging designs, and it was here that Ladwig and his AGI team shined. They’re perhaps best known for putting their stamp on unique packaging for both vinyl and CD projects. For the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album package, they incorporated a working zipper into the design, whereas for The Faces’ 1973 album Oh La La (which was lauded by Q Magazine in the U.K. for being “one of the greatest gimmick-based works of album cover art” – Ladwig created an animated cover featuring a photo of “Gastone” (a character from an Italian opera), a man in a top hat whose eyes rolled and mouth opened into a strange smile when you pressed down on the top of the cover.
During his career, Ladwig was nominated for six Grammy Awards for packaging – once when at Mercury (in 1963, for Bach’s Greatest Hits) and five times with AGI, beginning in 1973 for the aforementioned cover for The Faces and ending in 1996 for Frank Sinatra’s Complete Reprise Studio Recordings. He won the award in 1975 for his erotic gatefold cover for the Ohio Players’ album Honey (with photo by Richard Fegley), one of many similarly-themed covers he did for the band.
Ladwig and AGI expanded their business into all forms of packaging design and manufacturing and, by the mid-1980s, had expanded into consumer products (toiletries and cosmetics) and new forms of CD packaging, pioneering the use of the “Digipak” to give record labels a vehicle by which they could package and promote deluxe CD releases.
For his efforts in the advancement of entertainment-related packaging design, Ladwig won an “Alex Packaging Awards – Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 2005 Alex Packaging Awards ceremony at the Entertainment Media Expo.
Ladwig died in 2014 after a battle with cancer. He was 80 years old.
More information about this artist is available available at – http://news.creativecow.net/story/854619 or in his obituary on the VeroNews (Vero Beach, FL) web site – https://veronews.com/2014/04/08/james-ladwig-80-vero-beach/
Elliott Landy – Notable album cover work includes – Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline; Van Morrison – Moondance; The Band – Music from Big Pink
Born in 1942 and graduating from the Bronx High School of Science in 1959, Elliott began photographing the anti-Vietnam war movement and the underground music culture in New York City in 1967. He photographed many of the underground rock and roll superstars, both backstage and onstage, from 1967 to 69.
His images of Bob Dylan and The Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, Richie Havens, and many others documented the music scene during that classic rock and roll period which culminated with the 1969 Woodstock Festival, of which he was the official photographer.
After that, Elliott moved on to other inspirations and art forms, photographing his own children and travels, creating impressionist flower photographs and doing motion and kaleidoscopic photography in both still and film formats.
His photographs have been published worldwide for many years in all print mediums including covers of Rolling Stone, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, etc. and on numerous album covers, calendars, photographic book collections, etc. He has published “Woodstock Vision, The Spirit of A Generation”, in book and CD-ROM format, and then authored the book Woodstock 69, The First Festival. More recently, Elliott has published a book based on his photographs of The Band (Elliott Landy: The Band Photographs, 1968-1969), with more books based on his archives planned in the future.
Elliott Landy trivia – “curiously, because our names are anagrams of each other – DYLAN/LANDY – many people thought I didn’t exist – that I was Dylan under an alias!”
For more on this artist, please visit his site at https://www.elliottlandy.com
Colin Lane – notable album cover credits include – The Strokes – Is This It and Comedown Machine ; Kings of Leon – Youth & Young Manhood; The Vaccines – Come of Age; Karima Francis – The Remedy; Marc Broussard – Keep Coming Back; One Night Only – Started A Fire; American Hi-Fi – The Art of Losing; The Kooks – Inside In/Outside Out; Cage The Elephant – Melophobia; John Cale – Black Acetate
(b. ?, New York, NY) Growing up in Stamford, CT, Colin enjoyed going to the movies, and it was after seeing Apocalypse Now at the age of 13 that he decided that he would seek out a career in the visual arts. He went on to study film at the University of Texas (Austin) before setting out on his own as a professional photographer.
His love of music (he owns thousands of vinyl records) and concert-going led him to find work photographing musical acts of all types – his portfolio features images of performers on stage, behind the scenes, in intimate portraits and, of course, for album covers. In addition to the acts featured in his album cover collection, he’s shot memorable images of acts including Beck, The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams and RufusWainwright. Commercial advertising clients include Boden, Clarks, Levis, L’Oreal and Specsavers, among many others, and he’s produced editorial imagery for publications including Giant Magazine (portraits of the cast of The Wire for HBO) and Sport & Street Magazine (featuring Hispanic youth from NYC’s Lower East Side).
His best-known image so far was the one he produced for use on the album cover of The Strokes’ Is This It, which features the gloved hand and sections of lower hip area of his then-girlfriend taken after she emerged from a shower in their apartment. The controversial image was a world-wide sensation, with certain “family values”-oriented retailers in the U.S. and U.K. very reluctant to stock the album. While, due to overwhelming demand, U.K. retailers ultimately gave in to fan pressure, U.S. retailers demanded, and eventually received, a different album package.
More recently, Colin has been working on a series of photos featuring chefs and has recently shot portraits of a new band called The Orwells (after seeing them perform on The David Letterman show).
More information on this artist is available on his web site at http://colinlane.com/index2.html
Simon Larbalestier – Notable album cover credits include – The Pixies – Pilgrim, Doolittle, Surfer Rosa, Monkey Gone To Heaven and Minotaur (box set); Heidi Berry – Pomegranate: An Anthology; Various Artists – Dig For Fire: A Tribute To The Pixies
(b. 1962 in Pembrokeshire, U.K.) Simon Larbalestier began his education in the arts first with a degree in Graphics from Newcastle-Upon Tyne Polytechnic college and then a Masters Degree in Illustration from the Royal College of Art, London in 1987. He studied under a number of fine photographers at RCA, but it was Terry Dowling that introduced Simon to graphic designer Vaughan Oliver, who was impressed with the young photographer’s work and chose two of his shots from Simon’s senior year exhibition to use in his album cover project for The Pixies’ Pilgrim album. Thus began a long-standing creative collaboration between the designer and Larbalestier.
He soon took on a number of various commercial projects, including photo collage/illustrations for editorial clients and many book covers for publishing clients such as Random House (15 photos for a series of Charles Dickens novels) and Seckler & Warburg. Since 1987, his talents have been put to use by many well-known clients, including British Airways, The British Council, Midland HSBC Group, Euro Tunnel, Olympia and York, Mercury Communications, Guinness, Hooch, Gordon’s Gin, Asda Wines, Standard Steamship, Prudential, Esso, Mazda, Sony Music, Alberta Ferretti, Capital Radio, Central Office of Information, New Scientist, Penguin and the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
Now based in Bangkok, his current work involves several long term projects outside of the music industry – chronic disability in Cambodia with the Cambodia Trust; children living with HIV in Thailand, supported by the Australian charity Born To Live; and the daily struggle of Khmer and Thai nationals, especially the elderly, the underprivileged and the disabled. He has also taught at colleges throughout the U.K., given many guest lectures and given a series of workshops at Bournemouth College of Art, Bath College of Art, Manchester College of Art, London College of Printing, Royal College of Art, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD), Camberwell College of Art, The London Institute and University of the Creative Arts (UCA), Epsom, UK.
Throughout his career, Simon has been featured in a number of solo and/or group exhibitions world-wide. There have been over 10 solo exhibitions – with his music works featured in shows in Athens, Greece, Arnhem, Netherlands, London, UK, Barcelona, Spain, Stockholm, Sweden, Seattle, WA and San Francisco, CA – and over two dozen appearances in exhibitions (beginning in 1987) in galleries and museums in France, the UK, Japan and the U.S. In 2006, Simon was given a Portfolio Contest Excellence Award by B&W Magazine.
In 1993, Simon was commissioned by publisher Mitchell Beazley to research and write the book, The Art and Craft of Montage, depicting the work of 40 artists, notably Terry Dowling, Dan Fern, Russell Mills, Richard Caldicott, Andre Klimowski, the Douglas Brothers, David Blamey and Jake Tilson. He’s also contributed to a book (published in 2000)on Vaughan Oliver’s career titled Visceral Pleasures.
To learn more about this artist, please visit the following web sites –
Main site – http://www.simon-larbalestier.co.uk
Archive pages – http://www.lightrocket.com/simonlarbalestier and http://simonlarbalestier.photoshelter.com/#!/index/G00000RoVH1b2T74
while his blog (titled “Addenda”) can be read at http://simonlarbalestier.typepad.com/addenda/
David Larkham – notable album cover credits includes – Elton John – Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across The Water, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy and Greatest Hits; Three Dog Night – Cyan and Hard Labor; Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic; Leo Sayer – Endless Flight; Ambrosia – Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled; Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace; Van Morrison – Too Late to Stop Now and Bryan Ferry – Boys & Girls
UK-born and educated, David attended the Bootle Grammar School in Liverpool and then, ultimately, the Kingston College of Art at Kingston University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. He began his career in the arts as graphic designer for The Evening Standard newspaper, after which he worked as a freelance designer for clients such as The Observer (magazine and newspaper) and The Daily Mirror’s “Mirrorscope” magazine. In the early 1970’s, David moved to Los Angeles and launched Tepee Graphics/David Larkham & Friends studio, working closely with photographer Ed Caraeff on a number of well-regarded music industry projects, including work for John Reid Enterprises (Elton John & Queen), MCA, CBS and Warner Bros. Records and Universal Film Studios.
After 10 years working in California, David re-located back to London, where he gradually morphed from a senior designer at London’s Cream Limited Agency into the co-proprietor of a music/entertainment related advertising agency called The Complete Works. In addition to doing packaging work for various acts and record labels, David’s team also helped Tower Records launch into Europe, and represented quite a few concert promoters and booking agents. Their major client was Solo Promotion who – during the 80s, 90s and “noughties” – handled live event duties for a range of acts including The Rolling Stones, Phil Collins, David Bowie, Genesis, Simple Minds, Suzanne Vega, The Spice Girls, Celine Dion and many more. Other clients promoted acts such as Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan and too many others to mention. For these artists, Larkham was involved in creating graphics for posters, publicity, press kits, pamphlets, programs, passes, press-ads, promotional merchandise and propaganda – for one-off events, European tours, world tours, etc. They also handled radio and TV advertising – in those days of pre-internet publicity.
David also worked on a wide range of projects for The Sanctuary Group, where he served as art director and designer for Iron Maiden for a number of years during the 80’s and 90’s, concentrating on music packaging (LP’s, Video and DVD covers from the era – Seventh Son of A Seventh Son, Fear of The Dark, A Real Live One, No Prayer For The Dying, A Real Dead One, Infinite Dreams, Maiden England, etc.). In the early 1990’s, David joined the Haymarket 2 agency as their Art Director, working on campaigns for a wide variety of clients and remaining there until 2001, when he launched his own graphic design consultancy called David Larkham Ink and continued work with previous and new clients such as The Sanctuary Group, Universal Music Group, MPL Ltd (Paul McCartney), 21st Artists Management and Mersey Beat magazine, among others. In 2013, David produced the cover art for a book by author Keith Hayward (and published by Soundcheck Books) titled Tin Pan Alley: The Rise of Elton John. He also continues to paint serious fine art and portraits.
For more information on this artist, please visit his web site at http://davidlarkham.com/
Ed Lee – notable album cover credits include Meatloaf – Bat Out of Hell; Aerosmith – Aerosmith; Isley Brothers – 3+3; Beck Bogart & Appice – Beck Bogart & Appice; MFSB – Summertime, Mysteries of the World and Love Is The Message; The O’Jays – Ship Ahoy; Labelle – Nightbirds; Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes – Wake Up Everybody; Kansas – Kansas and Song For America; Johnny Winter – Still Alive & Well; Billy Paul – Going East and 360 Degrees of Billy Paul
(b. 1929 in Walnut Grove, CA; d. October, 2008 in Ossining, NY) After Edwin E. Lee graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts (San Francisco, now known as the California College of the Arts), he eventually moved to New York City and began his album cover design career in 1959, becoming an art director at CBS/Columbia Records, where he worked with the label’s creative head John Berg and was responsible for Custom Label products, released under the “Associated Labels” banner. Working for many years as a designer, AD and teacher of graphic arts, he’d go on to win a number of awards and special citations, including an Art Director’s Club of New York Gold Medal in 1972 for Billy Paul’s Going East LP.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ed-lee-mn0002137084/credits
Acy R. Lehman – notable album cover/package credits include – Roy Orbison – The Orbison Way; Kenny Burrell – Guitar Forms; Maurice Jarre – Dr. Zhivago (Original Soundtrack); Herman’s Hermits – The Best of Herman’s Hermits; Dizzie Gillespie & Orchestra – Night In Tunisia; Lour Christie – Lightning Strikes; Hugh Masekela – The Americanization of Ooga Booga; The Righteous Brothers – Go Ahead & Cry and Soul & Inspiration; The Animals – Animalization; The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico; The Siegel-Schwall Band – The Siegel-Schwall Band; Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson; Pure Prairie League – Pure Prairie League and Bustin’ Out; Jefferson Starship – Dragonfly; John Denver – Rocky Mountain Christmas and Windsong; The Kinks – Celluloid Heroes;
(b. Acy Rudy Lehman in September, 1920 in New York City, NY, USA; d. June, 2002 in St. Helena, CA, USA) During his long career in the recorded music business as a designer, art director and business manager (having managed acts including Harry Nilsson and The Jefferson Airplane) , Acy R. Lehman was responsible for the design/art directior of over 600 record albums on labels including Verve, MGM, VSP, Kama Sutra, Buddah and RCA Victor Records.
He received eight Grammy Award nominations in the record packaging categories, with his first two at the 2nd Grammy Awards in 1959 and his last in 1976, winning one in the “Best Album Cover” category in 1972 for the cover of The Siegel-Schwall Band. He also served as the Director of Creative Services for RCA’s foray into the videodisc business, RCA SelectaVision.
To view this artist’s complete discography, please visit the Discogs.com page at https://www.discogs.com/artist/504698-Acy-Lehman?
Annie Leibovitz – Notable album cover credits include – Peter Tosh – Mystic Man; Cyndi Lauper – True Colors; Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love; Patti Smith – Gone Again; Laurie Anderson – In Our Sleep; Tony Bennett – The Art of Excellence; Judy Collins – Portrait of an American Girl; J. Geils Band – Best of the J. Geils Band; Lucinda Williams – West; Paul Anka – Duets
(b. October, 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut). The daughter of a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and a modern dance instructor, young Anna Lou (as she was called at the time) and her family followed her father’s assignments around the world during which she took photos of the places they lived. While in high school in Silver Spring, MD, she showed a passion for artistic endeavors and, in 1967, she enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute (getting her BFA in 1971), where she focused her attention on painting and, in 1968, after receiving a camera as a gift from her parents, photography.
After spending some time on a kibbutz in Israel, Annie returned to the Bay Area where, in 1970, she met Rolling Stone Magazine’s art director Robert Kingsbury who, after seeing her portfolio, asked her to join on as a staff photographer, with her first major assignment being a cover story on John Lennon. In 1973, at the age of 23, she became Rolling Stone’s chief photographer, a position she’d keep for 10 years, during which time she’d be credited with nearly 150 cover shots and hundreds of images for articles on a wide range of subjects. In 1975, Mick Jagger asked her to accompany the Rolling Stones as their official photographer on their U.S. tour. While she took many memorable shots while working for the magazine, she’s probably best remembered for her photo of a nude John Lennon lying with his fully-dressed wife Yoko Ono that was taken a few hours prior to his shooting and untimely death.
Leaving Rolling Stone in 1983, the next phase of her career brought her to Vanity Fair magazine, where she produced a long string of noted cover images, including the portraits of a very pregnant Demi Moore and artist Keith Haring, who’d painted himself to resemble one of his works of art. At the same time, she produced a series of award-winning shots for advertising clients including American Express, The Gap, Givenchy, HBO/The Sopranos, Honda and The Milk Board (“Got Milk?”). In 1984, a Leibovitz-covered record – Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A., was nominated for 4 Grammy Awards. Also in the 1980s, she added Vogue Magazine to her list of regular clients (in addition to the three-dozen covers she’s shot, she’s also been responsible for their highly-regarded “storybook” portfolios the magazine publishes around the Christmas Holidays.
Continuing on from that point and throughout her career, Ms. Leibovitz has taken on assignments that have produced a truly impressive portfolio of highly-regarded images. Examples include her 1991 portrait of dancer David Parsons perched on one of the gargoyles high atop the Chrysler Building in NYC, taken while she herself was perched (quite dangerously) on another nearby gargoyle (!!) and her collection of portraits of notable American athletes participating in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA, where she served as the official photographer for the event.
Notable exhibitions – either solo or group shows – include her ground-breaking 1991 show titled Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970 – 1990 at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. (ground-breaking in that she was the first woman so honored there); a show titled Women at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1999; a show titled Annie Leibovitz: American Music premiered at the Experience Music Project in Seattle in 2003 and, in 2006, a career retrospective, based on her book titled Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990 – 2005 held at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in NY. The show was so well-received that it went on to tour seven museums in the U.S. and Europe through mid-2009.
Leibovitz has received a number of prestigious awards throughout her career, including the “Photographer of the Year” award in 1984 from the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP), a Clio in 1987 for her American Express campaign photography, a “Living Legend Award” in 2000 from the Library of Congress, a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres award given by the government of France in 2002 and in 2005, the ASMP ranked two of her photos #1 and #2 in their listing of the “Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years”. In 2009, Annie received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography and she was also awarded a Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship from Britain’s The Royal Photographic Society “in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography”.
Among the books she’s authored, co-authored and published are Photographs: Annie Leibovitz (1984); Annie Leibovitz: Photographs 1970-1990 (1991); Dancers: Photographers At Work (1992); Olympic Portraits (1996); Women (with longtime partner Susan Sontag), published in 2000; Annie Leibovitz: American Music (2003); A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 (2006); Annie Leibovitz: At Work (2008) and Pilgrimage (with Doris Kearns Goodwin), published in 2011.
To learn more about this artist’s latest work, please visit her Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/annieleibovitz/?hl=en
Michael Lavine – notable album cover credits include – Notorious BIG – Life After Death and Born Again ; Outkast – Stankonia; Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty; Slayer – Undisputed Attitude ; Indigo Girls – Rights of Passage; Buckwheat Zydeco – The Ultimate Collection; Lunachicks – Binge & Purge; Wu-Tang Clan – The Essential Wu-Tang Clan: Soundgarden – Louder Than Love; Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation; Nirvana – In Utero; Cher – Living Proof; White Zombie – PsychoHead Blowout; Lee Ranaldo & The Dust – Last Night On Earth
(b. October, 1963 in San Francisco, CA, USA) As a fifth grader growing up in Denver, Colorado, Michael Lavine took his first step into his life as a photographer when he made a pinhole camera from a milk carton, learning darkroom techniques from his mother’s boyfriend and, as a teen in 1978, bought his first serious camera – a Nikkormat of suspicious origins – “from a friend”. Realizing that he had a photographer’s eye, he signed up as his high school’s yearbook photographer and, after graduating in 1981, he enrolled in an art program at the very-progressive Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA) where, after a few years, according to an April, 2013 interview in the publication This Is The What?, “it became clear that I excelled in photo and sucked at everything else, so I just went with my strengths”.
Graduating from Evergreen State in 1985, Michael moved to New York City to attend the Parson School of Design, ultimately receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the school. While in school, he introduced himself to a student named Sean Yseult, who then asked him to shoot some photos for a band that she and her boyfriend, fellow graphic arts student Rob Zombie, had started. The group was releasing a new EP (titled Psycho Head Blowout) and wanted a picture of the foursome for the cover, with the resulting photo being Lavine’s first album cover commission. Later on in his career, it was rekindled relationship with fellow Evergreen student Bruce Pavitt – who had gone from indie radio host to record store owner to founder of the influential NW music label Sub Pop – that gave Michael the opportunity to build relationships – and his portfolio – by documenting the burgeoning “grunge rock” scene in the Seattle area, photographing bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jame, Sonic Youth and The Flaming Lips. Back in New York, he brought his talents to the hip-hop scene after producer Rick Rubin (who he knew from his time spent partying at CBGBs) introduced him to the people at Geffen Records, with one of Lavine’s best-known album cover images being the eerily-prescient photo of rapper Notorious B.I.G. standing next to a hearse, featured on the front of the CD titled Life After Death, which hit the streets two weeks after Biggie was murdered.
Since then, Michael has been kept busy shooting portraits of stars in all aspects of the arts, music, entertainment and political worlds, along with shot documenting everyday life here in America. His photos have appeared in a number of influential publications, including BUST Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, NERO (Japan), People Magazine and Spin Magazine (among many others) while, more recently, Michael has expanded his palette to include work in film (writing and directing short films including Weekend Away and Swan Dive and as photographer for the documentary The Devil & Daniel Johnston), television (promos and posters for Oxygen Network and Fox TV), fine art photography (with a new show titled Interior Lives) and an Instagram project combining photos with poetry titled Pale Souls.
Lavine’s works have been included in several catalogued exhibitions, including shows at the Team Gallery in NYC and the Art Exchange Show, also in NYC. His work has also be recognized with a number of awards Communication Arts‘ Photography and Advertising Annual, American Photography, the Art Director’s Club and Photo District News.
Lavine currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, Laurie Henzel and two daughters.
More information on this artist is available at his website at http://www.michaellavine.com/
Laura Levine – notable album package credits include – Leo Kottke – That’s What; Various Artists – The Essential American Singers; Stevie Ray Vaughan – Live Alive; The Georgia Satellites – Open All Night; The B-52s – Cosmic Thing; Hall & Oates – The Essential Darryl Hall and John Oates; The Gun Club – Destroy The Country; Richard Thompson – Rumor & Sigh; Sarah Vaughan – The Essential Sarah Vaughan; Alessi – Ark;
(b. ____ New York, NY, USA) Laura grew up in New York City’s Chinatown section and took to photography early on, bringing her camera to local shows (photographing the Ramones in 1977 while still in school) and, after graduating from Harvard University in 1979, she returned home and went to work as photographer/photo editor for a local punk/new wave music publication known as The New York Rocker. In 1981, she covered The Clash’s residence at the NYC/Times Square nightclub Bond’s (with some of the city’s top punk/rap talent opening for the band) and then, in 1982, she travelled to Europe to cover the many bands emerging in the New Wave scene there. Later that year, Levine took on a commission to shoot a then-unknown (but soon to be VERY well known) but very confident young singer/songwriter from Long Island named Madonna, capturing some of the earliest images of her as she posed in Laura’s loft.
Laura’s ability to make subjects comfortable allowed her to make the most of the time she spent shooting editorial photos (live events, publicity photos, etc.) and portraits of over 500 musical acts for a wide variety of music and entertainment industry clients between 1980 and 1994, with her work gracing the pages of publications both in the U.S. and overseas – Blab, Blue, Interview, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Sounds U.K. and many others. Eager to try her hand in other artistic areas – including film/video, animation, illustration, painting…even children’s books – Laura often switched gears to begin to apply her talents to these new opportunities, first releasing a film she shot while working with R.E.M. and other musicians in the Athens, GA area titled Just Like A Movie in 1984.
Some of her most-notable early photo projects early on include her coverage of a multi-week/multi-show residence by The Clash at Bond’s nightclub in New York City’s Times Square in the Spring of 1981 (where, according to her site’s bio, “I went to five of those nights and saw everyone from the Slits to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five open for them”); shooting a number of emerging British musical acts for the Sounds music paper in the Summer of 1982 and her 1982 commission from Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine to do a photo profile of a young singer from Long Island named Madonna, which was shot in Laura’s Chinatown tenement apartment and captured the soon-to-be-megastar at her playful (yet thoroughly professional) best.
In the mid-1990s, Laura applied her talents as a painter to a series of portraits of some of music’s pioneers, which she then adapted and published in a series of illustrated children’s books including Wig!, a 1995 collaboration with the B-52’s (Hyperion Books for Children); Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll (2004 Houghton Mifflin, co-authored by writer Holly George-Warren) and Honky-Tonk Heroes and Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneers of Country & Western Music (2006 HMH Books for Young Readers, also co-authored by Ms. George-Warren). Her illustrations can also be found in and on many magazines, books and music packages and were included in a number of museum and gallery exhibitions, including those at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas, the Brooklyn Museum of Art (as part of the 2009 touring exhibition Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present), DZINE Gallery in San Francisco (the 2016 show “Laura Levine: ALTHIPHOPINDYPUNK Picture Show: Intimate Portraits of Musicians, 1980-1994”), The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles (Hip-Hop, A Cultural Odyssey in 2011), NYC’s Museum of Modern Art (Looking at Music 3.0, 2012), the Portland Museum of Art (included in the 2009 exhibition Backstage Pass: Rock and Roll Photography), the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland (2012’s Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power), and many others.
In addition to her work in the arts, since 2001 Laura has been the proprietress of Homer & Langley’s Mystery Spot (“the Catskill’s most unusual vintage odditorum”), an unusual antique/ junk/oddities shop in Phoenicia, New York.
More on this artist can be found on her web site at https://www.lauralevine.com
Bill Levy – Notable examples of album cover work – Jesus Christ Superstar (Original Soundtrack), John (Cougar) Mellencamp – American Fool and Uh-Huh, Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers, Bon Jovi – Bon Jovi, 7800 Degrees Fahrenheit and Slippery When Wet; Roy Clark – Roy Clark Live and The Entertainer; Focus – Focus 3; Climax Blues Band – FM/Live; B.J. Thomas – Longhorns & Londonbridges; Rainbow – Down To Earth; Kool & The Gang – Something Special; Yoko Ono – It’s Alright (I See Rainbows) and Starpeace; John Lennon & Yoko Ono – Milk & Honey; Roger Glover – Mask; Kurtis Blow – America and Kingdom Blow
Bill started his career as a trainee at Columbia Records after having been introduced to the GM there, Bill Gallagher, by a mutual friend. Since the company was still small at the time, he did a bit of everything – A&R work, writing, graphics and also producing a regular mailer to give to the promo teams with information on all new releases. Soon after, he worked as the Creative/Art Director for Special Products, serving clients such as Goodyear and American Airlines.
He then moved to a job at MCA Records, leading the project for Jesus Christ Superstar and then followed Bill Gallagher to Gulf + Western’s record group. This company ultimately morphed into Mercury/Polygram/Polydor Records, where he worked on and directed hundreds of project until 1989, leaving Manhattan for Scottsdale, Arizona.
He’s been nominated 4 times for Grammy Awards for “Best Packaging” (in 1973, 1984 and twice in 1986). Since moving to AZ, he’s written a number of screenplays and novels, mostly in the entertainment/humor genre, and a basketball humor book for the Phoenix Suns. He has also served as the Production Designer on a full-length movie called Desert Snow and consulted on a documentary about J.C. Superstar.
Lately, he’s also been producing a series of old world art reproductions based on manipulated images of Tuscany (printed on hand-made paper) and have also started to sell limited-edition prints of the many photos he’s taken of musical acts he’s worked with, including concert and studio shots of Janis Joplin, Big Brother & The Holding Company and The Who during performances of Tommy live at the Fillmore East. For more information on this artist’s album cover work, please view his summary pages on the Discogs.com site at https://www.discogs.com/artist/1603135-Bill-Levy?
Laura Lipuma-Nash (see entry under “Nash”)
Dave Lively & Jeff Motch DBA “Lively & Motch” – notable album cover credits include – Blink 182 – Cheshire Cat ; Rocket For The Crypt – Group Sounds ; Jack Johnson – In Between Dreams, Breakdown, Sleep Through The Static and To The Sea ; G-Love – Lemonade, Superhero Brother, Fixin’ To Die and Sugar; Kate Earl – Fate Is The Hunter; Various Artists – Revolution Number 9: A Tribute To The Beatles; Ash – Meltdown; Matt Costa – Unfamiliar Faces; The Sultans – Shipwrecked; The Heartaches – Too Cool For School
Hailing from the San Diego, CA area, where Jeff attended San Diego State University and served as the Art Director for Cargo Music until 2001, the duo soon after launched Lively & Motch, providing design services for a variety of music industry and commercial clients including the Bonaroo Music Festival, Innes Clothing, the San Diego Padres baseball team, Patagonia Clothing, Tumyeto and Zero Skateboards (where Lively had previously served as Art Director), to name just a few.
More about their current businesses – after Lively and Motch dissolved in 2009, Motch went on to launch San Diego’s Blind Lady Ale House, Automatic Brewing Company and Motch Design (http://www.blindladyalehouse.com/) while Lively remained in the design and packaging world with a venture named Lively & Sons (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-lively-b050594)
Overton Lloyd – notable album cover credits include – Parliament – Motor Booty Affair; Zapp – Zapp; George Clinton & The P-Funk All Stars – Dope Dogs, The Greatest Funkin’ Hits, T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M, Live and Kickin’ and How Late Do U Have 2 B B 4 U R Absent?; Bootsy’s Rubber Band – This Book is Made For Fonk-N; Bill Laswell – Moody’s Mood For Love; Nat King Cole – Re: Generations
(born April 20, 1954 in Detroit, MI, USA). Painter/illustrator and costume designer perhaps best-known for his mind-boggling work for funkmaster George Clinton and Parliament/P-Funk All Stars.
We’re working on a more-comprehensive bio for this artist (and 2021 ACHOF Inductee in the Illustrator category), so in the meantime we’d invite you to learn more about this artist on his web site at https://www.overtonloyd.com/about
Peter Lloyd – Notable album cover work examples – Jefferson Starship – Dragonfly; Rod Stewart – Atlantic Crossing; Kansas – Song For America and Audio Visions; Graham Central Station – My Radio Sure Sounds Good To Me; Ronnie Laws – Pressure Sensitive
(b. 1944 – d. 2009) Born in the UK, Peter moved with his family to the U.S. in 1959 and attended the Art Center College of Design in the Los Angeles area, where he went on to become the youngest graduate of the college’s Master’s Degree program. He quickly found work as a freelance illustrator, producing work for a wide range of clients throughout the 1960s, including the National Football League and publications including National Geographic, Esquire and Playboy magazines.
His advanced talents with an airbrush allowed him to create graphics that were unique and compelling and, for Playboy, he was asked to produce illustrations that were almost “touchable”. The best-known of these images was the one he created in the early 1970s to illustrate an article written by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov about the use of advanced robots in the workplace. It was titled “The Robots are Coming” and Peter interpreted the title to mean something much more erotic than a story about robotic aids in manufacturing might have otherwise required. This, of course, pleased the magazine’s art director and the resulting image garnered a LOT of attention by readers and those in the design field, bringing Lloyd a good amount of fame and requests for work, particularly in the entertainment area.
Besides his colorful album covers, some of his most-remembered work took place in the film industry where he was called on to join artist Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud and futurist designer Syd Mead to create the trend-setting visual aesthetic for the 1982 movie TRON, where he created advanced effects using the most-rudimentary of digital tools. The plaudits he received for his work kept him busy for years creating concepts, storyboards and design guides for a number of films for clients including Disney and Paramount. In 1993, Lloyd joined Santa Barbara Studios as an art director for the 1995 film 500 Nations and he later worked with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the 1996 IMAX documentary Cosmic Voyage. He also served as visual effects art director for films including 1997′s American Werewolf in Paris, 1998′s Star Trek: Insurrection, 2004′s The Day After Tomorrow, 2005′s Sin City and Snakes on a Plane in 2006. His work was awarded with numerous awards, including the New York Society of Illustrators Gold Medal Award.
Lloyd was one of 4 artists featured in the book Overspray: Riding High with the Kings of California Airbrush Art that was published in 2008.
More information on this artist is available at – http://overspraybook.blogspot.com/2009/09/peter-lloyd-19442009.html
Dennis Loren – notable album cover credits include – Ted Lucas – Ted Lucas; Tag Team – Whoomp! (There It Is); The Romancers – The Slauson Shuffle; Flamin’ Groovies – Supersneakers; Marty Balin – Freedom Flight; Frank Zappa – Cucamonga; Barry White – Boss Soul: The Genius Of Barry White; Brian Wilson – SMILE; Freddie Steady – Mockingbird, Tex Pop, 1000 Miles and Ten Dollar Gun; Roky Erikson – Halloween; Otis Redding – Live On The Sunset Strip; The Explosives – Three Ring Circus; Willie Nile – Hard Times In America
(b. June, 1946 in Detroit, MI, USA) Past Designer at the Detroit Sun; Past Art Director for Goldmine, Music Archives Press, RPM Magazine and Cambray Publishing (Creem and Metal magazines). Freelance designer for many music industry clients including labels such as Bomp, Curb, Del-Fi, Rhino, Solid/Navarre and Vanguard and music venues including The El Rey Theater, The Hollywood Bowl, The House of Blues, The Palladium, The Roxy and The Whisky A Go-Go.
While he’s created many album cover packages for a variety of music clients, he’s best-known for his psychedelic gig poster creations for dozens of musical acts including Joan Baez, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Starship, Paul McCartney, Moby Grape, Moon Alice, Muddy Waters, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, The Velvet Underground and many others.
His work has been featured in many books, including The Art Of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King (Chronicle Books), The Art of Punk: The Illustrated History of Punk Rock Design by Russ Bestley and Alex Ogg (Voyageur Press) and Sal Canzonieri’s A Fistful of Rock & Roll: Real Rock Art for Real Rock Bands (CreateSpace). He and his art also appear in the 2009 documentary film by Merle Becker about rock posters and the artists that make them titled American Artifact – The Rise Of American Rock Posters. In 2013, Metro Books published Classic Rock Posters, which Dennis authored and edited with Mick Farren. 500 posters are featured covering rock poster design from the 1950’s to the present.
In July, 2014, Dennis moved back from the San Francisco Bay area to his roots in the Detroit area and continues to produce illustrations, CD & LP packages, posters and other music related merchandise.
A more-complete biography about this artist will be posted soon.
More information on this artist can be found on his web site at http://dennisloren.com/
Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – A – C; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – D – F; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – G – I; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – M – O; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – P – R; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – S – U; Artist Biographies – Sorted by Last Name – V – Z
Album Cover Hall of Fame.com 