Album Covers

The first of many usages of this image. The picture was shot in black and white but the record company wanted some color in it so they “colorized” it.

During her first tour, “Ironic” was taking off and the record company decided to release a CD single to give away to her fans. I was tapped to take some photographs at the Chicago show. I sent her a bunch of images (all that I had taken) and she picked the silhouette images. She liked the pictures so much that one of them was used for a T shirt on her 25th anniversary tour!

In the mid 1970’s I met Bruce Iglauer, the owner of Alligator Records, the worlds biggest blues record label. We developed a lasting friendship and a long working relationship (to this day).

Here is a selection of some of the many covers I photographed for him over the years.

A guy from Aware dropped a very young John Mayer and his guitar off at my house one day and said “We need an album cover.”  So we shot a bunch of pictures, and talked a lot. He was a very curious guy- he wanted to look through my files and would still be there if I didn’t keep him on track. After shooting for the morning, we jumped in my car and went to lunch at a friend’s restaurant. I brought a camera and a tripod and shot some pictures there. Then we walked down the street to a place called “Smart Bar” where John jumped into a photo booth and took some pictures of himself. When we got back to my house he stuck the pictures on his face and said “Take a picture!” You never know what is going to work.

I met Juanes at a show in Chicago and about a year later his manager recommended that I photograph him at his taping of his MTV Unplugged concert in Miami. He is not called the Columbian Bruce Springsteen for nothing!

This was one of the craziest shoots I have ever done. The club (Metro) is across the street from Wrigley Field. We set up scaffolding on the sidewalk so that I could be even with the roof of the marquee. We started shooting right after the Cubs game across the street let out. So here I am standing on the scaffolding with drunks Cubs fans crashing into it at ground level as the band was laughing at me for trying to hold on for dear life! At the end of the shoot, the band walked back into the venue, and before I could pack up Rick Nielsen came back out and stood one of his guitars up for one last shot.

I have photographed Buddy Guy more times than any other artist (It never gets old). Whenever he needs an album cover (or book cover) he asks that I shoot it. He is a total professional. We work fast, and always get great stuff!

This was done for lengendary English producer Mike Vernon’s label Point Blank. Mike wanted a kind of country-ish look for the cover, so I drove around and found this bridge in the middle of Chicago.

In the early 2000’s Bruce started releasing recordings of some of his legendary live shows on the Nugs (short for Nuggets) label. This was one of them.

When William Lee Golden, legendary vocalist of the Oak Ridge Boys recorded a solo album, he flew me down to Nashville to stay at his house for 2 days and shoot pictures for the cover. The morning of the second day, we dragged a chair out of his dining room into the yard and I shot this picture.

There is a great interest in music from the 1970’2 and 1980’s. A label in Los Angeles is licensing and releasing a lot of music from that era and they are mining my archives for pictures of the artists. It is great to see my work being used in another century!

Shortly after Rodney passed, I got a call from MCA Records asking if I, by any chance had ever photographed Rodney Dangerfield. Of course, I said!

Lurrie Bell, son of legendary blues harmonica player Carey Bell, is a Chicago blues fixture. In this photograph he is playing Big Bill Broonzy’s guitar, borrowed from the Old Town School of Folk Music.

Another son of a legendary blues musician (Lonnie Brooks) Ronnie is one of the hardest working musicians in Chicago (who also tours worldwide). This was photographed for a Dutch record label.