Album Cover News Recap for May, 2016

 

 

 

 

ALBUM COVER HALL OF FAME’S ALBUM COVER NEWS RECAP FOR THE MONTH OF MAY, 2016

It’s the first day of June, 2016 and perhaps you’re just noticing and saying to yourself  “you know, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a monthly summary on the Album Cover Hall of Fame site”. Well, in truth, it has been a while – yours truly was away from the office for a period of a couple of weeks in late April/early May and, unbelievably for an American, I chose NOT to work through my trip and, instead, chose to relax (“how dare you!”). At the same time, I decided to modify both the form and frequency of my album cover news summaries, the result of which you’ve seen the past few weeks and hope that you’ve enjoyed. Rather than daily missives, you’re getting a summary once a week (on Fridays, with the occasional timely updates inserted as needed), with each week’s news broken into several categories (the human mind loves to categorize, so I’m just giving you a head start in that effort). With this month’s summary, I am going to introduce a format chance that more closely follows the weekly updates, with news stories divided up into those same categories, making it easier for you to focus on the topics that might be more interesting to you than others. I am hoping that these changes increase your enjoyment of the monthly summaries – of course, if you have any concerns or suggestions, I do hope that you’ll contact me (curator@albumcoverhalloffame.com) and let me know how I might better deliver the ongoing supply of album art/artist-related content I’m dedicated to providing you on an ongoing basis.

So much has happened since we last chatted – even with the media circus that dominates our daily news feeds (#1 – “It hurts when I watch this.” #2 – “So don’t watch this!”), the people that make our favorite album imagery continue to draw interest from fans and the press, so there’s been an ongoing stream of articles, interviews and the like on a wide range of related topics:

Interview with Dave McMacken – Frank Zappa’s Over-nite Sensation Album Cover

Interview with artist Dave McMacken on the making of the cover of the Frank Zappa album titled Over-Nite Sensation, released in 1973 on DiscReet Records.

Dave McMacken’s artwork for Frank Zappa’s Over-Nite Sensation (1973)

 

 

 

 

 

I credit my brother Bob for introducing me to Frank Zappa. Forty years ago this year, while I was engrossed in my Black Sabbath, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Santana albums, Bob was happy to memorize every word of his George Carlin and Frank Zappa records and, since we had to share the stereo (located on top of my mother’s player piano), I listened (and learned) while Bob would play Over-Nite Sensation almost endlessly.

I’d always been attracted to bands whose lyrics included doses of comedy and nod-nod wink-wink innuendo (beginning with The Kinks and, later on, The Sex Pistols), but this Zappa album was the first one where I just could not believe that I was hearing what I was hearing (and, at the same time, praying that my Mom was not listening closely as well). He goofed on TV programmers, Montana ranchers and sex, but these parodies were laid on top of really impressive musical underpinnings – the Mothers band augmented by virtuosos including George Duke on keyboards and Jon-Luc Ponty on violin – and so the total package resonated with me in ways unlike anything I’d heard before.