In 1980 Andy Warhol created a series of now iconic portrait paintings of Blondie’s frontwoman Deborah Harry, herself of course a living icon on her own artistic merit. The portraits were not made as a commission for a record cover. Debbie Harry bought one for […]
All posts tagged: music

Music and Flowers Matter: Johnny Griffin’s The Congregation on 45 rpm
There is an unwritten rule in the community of Warhol covers collectors: one can never ever have enough copies and versions of Johnny Griffin’s excellent Blue Note album The Congregation. So, here we go again! I seemed somehow to have missed the 2011 release of […]

Billie Holiday drawing part of ACT Art Collection
About a year ago I wrote a post about a jazz album by the Nils Landgren Funk Unit, on the German label ACT. The cover illustration was borrowed from a Warhol drawing I already mentioned a few years earlier, a cover design for an imaginary […]

Velvet Underground’s Scepter master tapes (and 100 bananas) at The Warhol
Last year November I received an email from Matt Gray, manager of archives at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, with truly fantastic news: “We recently identified the master tapes to The Velvet Underground & Nico album from a large donation from Warhol’s estate. Exciting to say […]

Elvis has never left the building
Now let’s throw some Elvises in the mix! The famous Silver Elvis paintings Andy Warhol has created in 1963 for Irving Blum’s Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, have proven to be immensely popular for appropiation, and they still are. Also on record covers. I know, […]

“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. […]

Mozart, 4 Divertimenti: Andy Warhol & 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: Andy Warhol & 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 […]

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 […]

Porgy and Bess: proof it’s a Warhol
Three albums in the RCA Victor Bluebird Classics series have been a topic of discussion among Warhol cover collectors for a long time. Especially the illustration of a village scene and playing children on Porgy And Bess had its doubters and non-believers. The discussion can now come […]

Four pencil drawings of Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin looks very regal on Warhol’s cover portrait for her album Aretha. A true Queen of Soul. I have never seen the original source picture that Warhol used for the portrait. It is probably a promotional picture delivered for this purpose by Arista records. Unlike […]

Glorious longbox suits Aretha well
When we talk about record cover art, of course in 99,99 % of the cases the very frameable 12″ LP format is meant. But once in a while also other formats deserve our attention. In Warhol’s long career as cover artist, starting as early as […]