Two years after the release of Paul Desmond’s album Take Ten, its cover design was used on two other albums in Europe. Recordings for Bossa Antigua, the album that followed Take Ten, were made in the Summer of 1964, and the album was released in […]

George Avakian’s stunning production note on ‘Take Ten’
It has been more than a year since I last wrote on this blog, the last post being about my discovery of Andy Warhol’s involvement in the cover artwork design of Paul Desmond’s RCA jazz album Take Ten. So it’s about time to pick up […]

The bossa nova cover no one knew was a Warhol: Paul Desmond’s Take Ten
In September I travelled to Pittsburgh for events that were both deeply sad and joyful: the beautiful and touching memorial services for Matt Wrbican, the Warhol archivist who died in June at the age of 60, and the official launch of Matt’s new book A […]

Billy Squier: “I asked Warhol to do the cover for my new album, and he said: ‘OK’.”
Why should I just write about the how and why of Billy Squier’s Warhol portraits on the cover of his 1982 hit album Emotions In Motion, when we can hear it from the rocker himself. This is Billy Squier in an interview on “Rolling Stone […]

I’m Talking, with Marilyn Monroe’s Lips!
With a little help from our friends, we will eventually manage to track down every Warhol cover or pastiche ever produced, worldwide. Two years ago Kevin J. Kinney, a Warhol enthousiast from Milwaukee, Wisconsin – who prefers ‘old school’ crate digging at record fairs and […]

Melodic Magic and Strauss Waltzes: the purchase orders
The two EP’s on Camden records with a cover illustrated by Andy Warhol take me on a nostalgic trip, 13, 14 years back in time. Earlier I wrote a blogpost about how fortunate I was to discover the then unknown Strauss Waltzes EP (Camden CAE 158) […]

“The Huckleberry Finn of the avant-garde”
A few months ago on eBay a copy of Walter Steding and The Dragon People’s 12″ single The Joke was for sale, accompanied by an original press promo sheet. In an earlier post I wrote about Andy Warhol’s involvement in Steding’s music carreer as a manager. […]

Record art and Art records exhibitions
Exhibitions of record cover art are hot nowadays, and deservedly so. There are three shows I want to highlight in this post. (And one day I hope I can write about a show of my own Warhol cover collection). First one is called The Shape […]

Mozart, 4 Divertimenti: Warhol vs. S. Neil Fujita part 2
In my previous post I described how the link between designer S. Neil Fujita as art director for CBS records and Andy Warhol was established, by means of an invoice for an illustration for the Chopin: Nocturnes album. Another album with Warhol cover that we […]

Epic Records: Warhol and S. Neil Fujita
A few months ago I was contacted by Scott Lindberg (dcmnts) and Aaron Cohen (www.projectobjectstore.com), who are both lovers of graphic design and record cover art. Scott wrote he was doing research on the American graphic designer S. Neil Fujita, world famous for his colorful […]

M is for Matt!
Notice: hardly two weeks after writing the blog post below, the sad news came that Matt Wrbican on June 1st has lost his battle with cancer and passed away. Matt did not get to see his new book published, which is now scheduled for August […]

A nice Kiss from Kim Gordon
The Andy Warhol Museum has just released a double vinyl album Sound for Andy Warhol’s Kiss, a score written and performed by Kim Gordon, Bill Nace, Steve Gunn and John Truscinski. The music was recorded live in The Warhol theater on August 1 and 2, 2018. The package […]