Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Link Summary for December, 2022

Posted December 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Greeting to you all – nice to see you all again!

Once again, I have to apologize for leaving you without an update for the month of November, but my wife and I decided to brave the travel scene to complete a vacation trip we’d started in late 2019 that had to be truncated a) by a death in the family and b) that crazy COVID-19 thing that shut things down a bit for a year or two. This journey, which took us to NYC and then over to the U.K. and Ireland, was quite restorative and, I must admit, was timed so that we’d be out of the country on November 8^th so we’d be able to have some distance between us and the pre-and-post-election media madness for a while. Of course, there was no escaping the news, but at least it was offset by all of the excitement that took place in the UK’s government while we were there, and we enjoyed the scenery/people/food there so much that it kept us in the right frame of mind, allowing us to return after a month with some degree of sanity and appreciation of life’s better things in tact.

Of course, during our travels we came across a number of album/music art-related things that added to the overall enjoyment of the experience, including a visit to the site of the new (set to open in its entirety in 2024) Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx Marketplace (NYC), with a tour provided by the museum’s director, Rocky Bucano; a visit to Liverpool, England (our first) that included an escorted overview provided by designer/author/all around great guy Andrew Dinely (of the Soft Octopus design studio there) that also included a stop at the British Music Experience – an “immersive exhibition” that takes attendees through an illustrated (via memorabilia, videos, etc.) review of the immense and diverse pop music scene in the U.K., from its beginnings in the 1950s through the most-recent BRIT Award-winning artists, and several other finds along the way (such as a memorial sculpture dedicated to the late Irish rock guitarist Rory Gallagher). I’ll be including brief articles about that as I unpack the info gathers and photos taken over the course of the next month or so.

Of course, while I was away, the first ACHOF Reader’s Poll took place, and the results of the voting will be shared a bit later in this newsletter. At the same time, another major album art-related poll – Art Vinyl’s Best Art Vinyl Awards – began gathering votes on its site (see more on this a little later as well) and the Recording Academy here in the U.S. released the names of the nominees for their upcoming Grammy Awards voting, with results to be announced early next year. Lots of great art and artistry on display, so it’ll be interesting to see how the voters/voting public responds to the announcements of the top vote-getters in all of these competitions.

Album Cover Hall of Fame’s News Update and Link Summary for October, 2022

Posted October 1, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Greetings to you all. I have to first warn you that this month’s edition of the ACHOF newsletter will be a truncated one as I’ve had to spend a lot of time and energy managing several things that have popped up and couldn’t be ignored. It will also force me to put off the publishing of the next summary until December 1^st.

Sorry about that.

In any case, there should be enough basic info now to get you the basics, but it’ll be up to you to click through to get “the rest of the story” (apologies to Mr. Harvey).

I’m also working feverishly to set up the voting for this year’s fan-driven voting for “the best of the best of” in all of the main ACHOF categories, so be on the lookout in a week or so for the official announcement and a link to the polling site. Voting will be open from October 10^th thru November 13^th, with the final tallies announced right before Thanksgiving here in the U.S.. It’ll be exciting to see who the fan favorites are in each category – tough choices must be made, but let’s do our best to honor all of those whose names will be on the lists.  

Thanks in advance for your help and your patience while I get my world back in order. Now, on with the newsletter.

Mike G

ACHOF Breaking News Update for April 23, 2021

Looking for a good way to invest your latest stimulus check besides NFTs, crypto-currencies or short-squeezing stocks?

Consider these items:

1) The original painting by commercial artist/designer Gary Norman that graced the cover of Boston’s 1978 smash hit album Don’t Look Back is one of the featured items in an upcoming “Illustration Art Signature Auction” to be staged by Heritage Auctions and scheduled for next Friday, April 30th.

After receiving the original painting (done with airbrush and acrylics on a 25” x 46” board) back from the label (surprise!), Gary hung it in a spare bedroom, where it’s sat for the past 40 years. According to the article on the Art Daily site – https://artdaily.cc/news/135040/Original-artwork-for-Boston-s–Don-t-Look-Back–heads-to-Heritage-Auctions#.YILvnpBKg7M – he just thought that it was time to find it a new home. Based on the fact that bidding so far has blown through the original $5-7,000 pre-auction estimate (bidding stands at over $15K at the time of this writing), it will be finding itself in a very nice new home sometime soon.

To see the item and consider a bid yourself, head on over to the Heritage Auction site – https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/gary-norman-american-20th-century-boston-don-t-look-back-album-cover-1978acrylic-and-airbrush-o/a/8030-71060.s Don’t look back post-auction and, instead of feeling satisfied, you find that you’ve become the man you’ll never be – it’s easy to bid and, if you win, party!

2) Several album cover-related lots are featured in an upcoming Bonham’s auction in London – https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26708/?#/aa1=1&MR1_length=48&w1=list&q1=album%2520cover&m1=1

Many of the items in the grouping that will be auctioned off on May 5^th come from the personal collection of famed UK music producer Harvey Goldsmith, perhaps best-known to fans in the US as the promoter for such famed events as Live Aid, the several live tours of Pink Floyd’s The Wall  and the Prince’s Trust charity concerts. As a pre-auction bonus, the team at Bonham’s has organized a Zoom conference-based interview with Mr. Goldsmith on Thursday, April 29^th at 6PM London time during which, according to pre-show publicity, he’ll be “joined by Journalist and Broadcaster John Wilson to reflect on his pop culture-defining career, share music industry insider knowledge, and discuss highlights from Goldsmith’s personal collection going under the hammer in our Entertainment Memorabilia auction at Bonhams”.

In addition to the host of items from Mr. Goldsmith’s collection, several lots that devotees of album cover imagery will appreciate include:

a) a concept drawing of the art Ray Lowry was working on for one of the best-known album covers of all time, that being London Calling by The Clash. Photographer Pennie Smith’s slightly-blurred B&W photo of a frustrated Paul Simonon smashing his bass on a stage is burned into our collective minds, but it was designer/artist Ray Lowry’s layout and text (inspired by an early Elvis Presley record cover) that delivered the completed image to us. What’s more, Heaven 17 fans will also have the chance to bid on three of artist Ray Smith’s original cover paintings for the band’s Penthouse & Pavement, The Luxury Gap and How Men Are albums;

b) Beatles fans can bid to own one of three lots from the estate of the late photographer Iain Macmillan, including two art prints of his famous “The Beatles On Abbey Road” image (pre-auction estimates from $21-28,000) plus a mock-up and set of seven photo prints from the photo session for Paul McCartney’s 1993 Paul Is Live record during which the pair reprised the stroll over the crosswalk located in front of the Abbey Road/EMI studios.

c) Another item that should draw keen interest from both art and music memorabilia collectors is a print of Sir Peter Blake’s cover image for The Who’s 1981 release Face Dances that’s been signed by Sir Peter, four members of the band and eight of the artists whose works were included in Blake’s design (including Clive Barker!). The print was owned by Jim Callaghan, who provided security for the band while on tour from 1975-83 and who got the art (and the signatures) at the record’s launch party. With a pre-auction estimate of $1100 – $1700 – https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26708/lot/124/ – this should also go for a multiple of that. There are nearly 300 other items of note in the auction, so please go take a look, and here’s wishing Claire Tole-Moir and her team good luck in her efforts.

Album Cover Hall of Fame Special-Edition News Release – Holidays, 2019-2020

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

In wishing you all a peaceful, joyful and prosperous New Year 2020, I must also live up to my commitment to delivering you the latest and greatest album cover artist/art-related news, so while it’s not quite as robust as my typical news summary (an update will come in early January), here’s my little gift to you and any lover of album art you’d care to share it with:

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Summary – September/October, 2019

Album Cover Hall of Fame News Update and Summary – End of September/October, 2019

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Dear Readers – This month’s summary will be perhaps my most-truncated effort ever, and for that I must apologize. Sometimes Life really gets in the way of doing what you love, and when you’re caring for a relative with profound dementia, it can be a bit overwhelming, as it is today.

With that as my excuse for this month’s abbreviated summary, let’s take a look at my digest of what’s happening/happened lately in the world of album cover art and the people that make it:

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:

Featured Fan Portfolio – RISD Album Art show curator Robert Garzillo

Featured Fan Portfolio – Robert Garzillo, Curator of the “Jackets Required: 40 Years of Album Cover Design” exhibition on display at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Fleet Library from Jan. 7 through Mar. 27th, 2o15

(intro by Mike Goldstein, Curator/Editor, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com)

Earlier in February, I reported on a new show on display at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Fleet Library that I felt would be of great interest to fans of great design and, more specifically, great album cover design. As I described in my article, the show, titled “Jackets Required: 40 Years of Album Cover Design” was organized by librarian (and accomplished record collector) Robert Garzillo and includes 100 covers of records that were released during the years 1940 – 1980 featuring the work of many ACHOF “Early Influencers”, including Alex Steinweiss, Saul Bass, Jim Flora, Josef Albers, Andy Warhol and others. The covers represent music released in a number of different genres and give the viewer a good sense of how album art both reflected the designs of the times and also helped take record packaging in new directions.