Nutbush

A couple more homemade singles sleeves, which I always enjoy finding in boxes of old records. The former owner had clearly done this for many of their records, but these two caught my eye. The Tina Turner one is so basic; the title has been typed out on one of those sheets of label stickers, stuck onto the folded card sheet and then edged in black felt pen, with a vague attempt at making it into a 3D box.

On the second cover for a Duane Eddy reissue, the felt pen box has again been raided with a ruler helping add lines to the first letter of each word. The bang, into a red shaded ‘guitar’ and dense scribbled shadow. The release year is then added, and both sheets of card sellotaped up (the tape has dried up and fallen off over the intervening 50 years!) to form the covers.
Try doing that with a download…

Here are a few more home made covers from the site:

https://st33.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/for-war-office-use/

https://st33.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/make-do-and-mend/

https://st33.wordpress.com/2020/11/16/all-wrapped-up/

https://st33.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/do-it-yourself/

Chasanova

I was not familiar with this Blockheads spin-off album, but when I spotted it felt the sleeve had to be by Barney Bubbles, so took a flyer on it at a recent flea market (the dealer reckons it’s a good album so look forward to listening to it, and it features one of the Weymouth sisters!).  Chas Jankel had at the time of this release not long left the group. The sleeve lacked any design credit whatsoever and a trawl online couldn’t confirm my suspicions. 

I finally found the sleeve hidden away on the Barney Bubbles instagram feed (whoever looks after it seems to have quit updating his website, which is a shame – Instagram is no use whatsoever for researchers).  The cover dates from 1981 (though it looks more modern) and has the familiar BB trademarks (which is what drew me to it), all in a great pale colour scheme of grey, pink and black.  I particularly like the way the album title letters swop around, level and angled in alternate colours.

It is just a single sleeve (no inner bag either), with more imagery on the back (the squiggles remind me of when you test a new felt pen out for the first time!), and credits for all the musicians overlaying a photo of Chas (see above).  It was Chas’ second solo record (the first had a very minimal cover) but the only one done by Barney, though there was an accompanying single which he also did (below – again not credited) with a coat hanger forming part of the design. I got in touch with Chas and he said it was Ian Dury who recommended Barney for his sleeve to A&M who released this. Sadly it is also likely to be one of Barney’s last covers.

Amazingly in America they retitled the album, dropped Barney’s art and replaced it with their own cover (below) designed by Melanie Nissen. Maybe they were trying to make it more accessible visually for a relatively (over there) unknown musician.

Simon Robinson’s latest book The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve is out now published by Easy On The Eye Books

Voted in

No poll is ever going to give a definitive answer to everything, and art is very subjective. But this sleeve has just come out at number one is a large poll conducted by the organisers of the Worst Album Covers exhibition. Well over 600 visitors who attended the display at the Williamson Gallery in Birkenhead on Merseyside took the trouble to fill in a voting form, and while the cover has always figured in the top ten at previous exhibitions, this is the first time it has come top.

Which of course means we should try and work out what it is which drew the votes. And I think it is just the sheer absurdity of the concept, the work of Bob Muller, who also gets the design and photography credits as well. He did a lot of work for the label, this dates from 1977, but nothing else was a crazy as this! Exactly what the image has to do with the title we have no real idea, until somebody tracks Bob down.

We have added the full top ten worst sleeves as a gallery on this site and you can read more by chasing down a copy of the book The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve. The brail by the way is not part of the sleeve, it was formerly owned by a public library who added this dymo strip for their visually impaired borrowers.

In the meantime the exhibition is on at the Bailiffgate Gallery in Alnwick until April 21st and future dates can be found on the publisher’s website.

The Harmonicats

What a great sleeve, this really stood out at a flea market the other week, and for just a pound. Well less, as he let me have 6 vintage sleeves for a fiver! The harmonicas are cleverly grouped and then lit with red, yellow and blue to give the nice colourscape. This is helped by keeping the depth of field low so that it all blurs away into the background, looking almost like an American cityscape towards the distance. The blurring also allows the titling to stand out nicely. The Hi Fi must be hand drawn, I didn’t know what face the serif title was done in but a bit of searching showed it to be Latin CT (the typeface sellers claim it to be new!).

Frustratingly no design credits are given whatsoever, but the album dates from 1959. This particular edition is the first Canadian pressing (with a nice “Keep Canadians Working” logo on the back!), other versions are rather spoilt with Hi Fi and Stereo overprints. The Harmonicats kicked off in 1950 and just about all their sleeves of the decade are interesting or of the time.

art on your sleeve

I was over at the Williamson Gallery in Birkenhead giving an illustrated talk on the Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve last month, along with sleeve collector Steve Goldman. Andrew Dineley who issues the excellent Art On Your Sleeve podcast episodes (devoted to record art), collared us to chat about the exhibition and the book. The podcast last around half an hour, so put it on your listening list!

The page about the episode (22) with the audio link at the bottom is here.

Or you can steam in to Soundcloud direct to get the audio here.

Melanie

I doubt I would be able to keep up if I tried to post sleeves by all the musicians I like who seem to have passed away in recent months,  but I found myself checking out covers by Melanie recently after reading of her death at 76.  I’m not a massive folky but even so her material filtered through even these cloth ears during the early 1970s. Being so striking looking as well also made an impression!  It’s no wonder then that her label (Buddah) made sure she appeared on most of her own album covers. Yet surprisingly for her 1968 debut, they went with a painted portrait instead (well at least in the UK and America, some European releases dropped it in favour of – you guessed it – a photograph).  And what a remarkably vibrant piece of work it was as well, and one which hasn’t really dated.  It’s hard to know who was responsible for the decision to commission this and I hadn’t heard of the artist, who signed themselves simply Mozelle. But a bit of digging led me to the work of Mozelle Thompson, who is credited with well over 100 sleeves from the early 1950s up to his premature death in 1969.  Primarily a painter and commercial illustrator, Mozelle’s work is not particularly well documented beyond a few web articles, themselves inspired by an exhibition back in 2014.  This must be one of his last covers. I shall do some more researching.

In the meantime, here are the front and back covers of the original American vinyl gatefold (in the UK it was reduced to a single cover, with a different back). I also love the hand painted name and the sixties typeface used for the title, yet snaked round part of the image.

One more to add to the wants list.

Don’t forget the latest book from Easy On The Eye now in stock. 300 of the strangest vinyl covers of all time from the collection of Steve Goldman, with text from ST33’s Simon Robinson and a brilliant foreword from comedian and vinyl collector Stewart Lee.

Haas covers

I have been checking out covers by Stephen Haas for this charming series of 10″ mini albums issued on Vox in the early 1950s. Check out the gallery on the site.

Buy your records at Smiths

Interesting early advertising sleeve here from the stationary and newsagents shop W H Smiths advertising Broadcast Records. As Broadcast were only operational from 1927 to 1933/4 this sleeve must date from around that time. Thanks to 78 researchers however we know Broadcast records went to a 9” size in 1931, which this disc is, narrowing the date even more precisely. So, for 1/3d (7p) this jazz cover of Sonny Boy would have been bought from Smiths at their Strand House shop or one of their other London outlets.

Quite a few shops and labels got together to promote record labels on their 78 sleeves, though it is difficult to know how this sort of advertising was arranged; perhaps the shops got the sleeves printed free in return for a plug? Note too the little copyright payment stamp stuck to the label to show royalties had been paid.

The idea of promoting labels on shopping bags went out of fashion post-World War Two but then later in the 1980s some of the bigger chains started giving out special plastic shop bags advertising some of the bigger album launches. As for Smiths, I certainly recall shopping for records there in the 70s and early 80s but they were usually more expensive than dedicated record shops and tended to focus on the chart end of the market.

Blue moonlight

A really excellent commercial illustration decorates this Glenn Miller album from the Sixties. Assembled from vintage recordings, RCA probably wanted to avoid what was by this time the rather outdated photo of Miller in his military uniform which most sleeves went with. Instead the couple reinforced the dance music which was Miller’s forte. Frustratingly the artist did sign the work but the signature is impossible to read and I can find not references on the web. The album was issued by RCA in America, where the illustration bled off the edge. This is the British version from 1967 and has a white border. If anyone does know who painted this please let me know.

There are some more painted cover illustrations on the site.

Bizarre Vinyl book

This amazing book from Easy On The Eye is now in stock. 300 of the strangest vinyl covers of all time from the collection of Steve Goldman, with text from ST33’s Simon Robinson and a brilliant foreword from comedian and vinyl collector Stewart Lee. Ideal Christmas gift for all vinyl lovers! Our regular posts continue below…