#94 - Led Zeppelin III (1970)

If you were a teenage boy in the 1970s, and Led Zeppelin wasn’t your favorite band, there was definitely something wrong with you. Incredible stuff. And pretty great covers too. We’ll definitely be seeing more of them here in this blog, but I thought I’d actually start us out with something a little less obvious.

John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant

The group wasn’t really too creative with their first few albums titles – Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III … The first two album covers also weren’t all that interesting either – just plays on the zeppelin theme (though I might be revisiting one of those).

The third album, though, was definitely different. It was designed by a graphic artist named Zacron (real name Richard Drew).  

Interestingly, he went to art school with Jimmy Page at one school and Eric Clapton at another.

The original for this cover is at MoMA, and was actually something called a volvelle. 

When the disc was rotated, different pictures would appear in the little circles, typically expressing some kind of theme (e.g., pix of the band members). Needless to say, this die-cut design was rather expensive to produce, and was eventually ditched.

This was the artist’s only album credit. Indeed, except for this album, he really didn’t leave much of a footprint. Here’s the only other decent piece of his I could find out there on the Interwebs: 

The album itself was something of a departure for the group, emphasizing a lot more folk and acoustic than classic rock. It’s generally considered one of their less successful efforts.

Great, iconic album covers invariably invite parodies. Here’s three:

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#95 - Santana: Abraxas (1970)

This makes a lot of best album cover lists. I can definitely see why, though it really isn’t a personal favorite. Maybe it’s just a little too busy.

The cover was designed by Mati Klarwein:

With friends (that's Mati on the right)

It started out as a painting that Santana just happened to come across in a magazine. Klarwein also did the famous cover of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew:

And that would have definitely made it here except for the fact that Miles is strictly jazz.

More cool stuff from Mati:

 

The scene in Abraxas is actually an annunciation (where an angel tells Mary she is with child). Here’s a little more traditional version of one of those (this one courtesy of some Italian guy named Leonardo da something or other):

The album is not one of Santana’s more popular ones, though it does include “Oye Come Va” and “Black Magic Woman.” Those are both covers by the way. 

All in all, Santana was one of the best guitarists ever, and also gets some major cred for introducing some Latin and jazz influences into good ol’ rock and roll.

The man, the legend, the fedora

Santana had some other pretty cool covers as well:

Interestingly, Abraxas was also a sci-fi movie, one of the worst ones of all time (with an IMDb rating of 2/7!):

The album has only one parody that I could find (love the title):

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#96 - Aqualung: Jethro Tull (1971)

Whenever people share stories about their first concert, I can always get a laugh by confiding that mine was Jethro Tull. That said, they were actually a pretty cool band way back when. Of course, I can’t remember another song of theirs other than “Aqualung.”

And that song is the story of a particularly unappealing tramp. “Sitting on a park bench / Eying up little girls with bad intent / Snot is running down his nose / Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.”

The title of the song actually relates to the old man’s “rattling last breaths / With deep-sea diver sounds.” Who would’ve known.

The cover was done by Burton Silverman, a fairly classical portraitist. 

It’s a water color based on an actual photo taken by one of the group member’s wives. By the way, Silverman actually had three other album credits, all for classical stuff. 

Here's some more representative work of his.

 

Just in case your memory’s a little foggy, the band were prog rockers led by a flutist, Ian Anderson. 

Any resemblance between him and the 

guy on the cover is purely intentional

The band was actually named after an 18th Century agronomist, the inventor of the seed drill. 

Why their manager gave them that name is probably a mystery for the ages.

I think we can give the band credit for a couple of other decent album covers:

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#97 - Are We Not Men?: Devo (1978)

Ah, Devo. I loved these guys.

You’ve got to assume that these former art school majors came up with some pretty great album covers. Surprisingly, this is the only one that really passed muster for me.  The rest are just kinda weird. Good weird, but mostly just weird nonetheless.

Okay, you get the picture. Like I say, art school majors.

The album in question was designed by one Joe Heiner. Couldn’t find much on him, though it does look like he’s got 10 credits on discog.com.

 

The golfer started out as real golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez (who actually appears on the single “Be Stiff”). After some hesitation by the record company (Warner), though, front man Mark Mothersbaugh subbed a composite of all the US presidents from JFK through Ford.

This was Devo’s first album. No real hits, I’m afraid. The music video for “Jocko Homo” may be one of the weirdest ever however.

Devo then

Devo now (Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh,
Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Casale, Jim Mothersbaugh)

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