Turntable Talk #27 – Art Rock

Here is the June edition of Dave Ruch’s Turntable Talk (the 27th installment for those keeping count)! Every month Dave, who hosts his blog A Sound Day, offers up a topic for our group of music loving bloggers for us to write about. This time around, he calls it “Art Rock” with the following instructions about the visuals of music:

This time around, either pick an album cover (liner notes or inserts too if you choose) that you think were outstanding,  or else write about whether the packaging – the pictures, album covers and so on were important to you and whether you find that lacking in this day and age.  Or if you ever bought an album just from the cover…

Things were obviously different when I was was growing up. I loved going into the record store down the road and flipping through albums. I can’t tell you how many covers caught my eye and made me look at the content. Album cover art was such an important part of purchasing music and the introduction to new artists.

Album cover art is a serious thing, obviously, as a quick search led me to to three books that I really need to check out (1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs, The Greatests Album Covers of All Time by Grant Scott, Barry Miles and Johnny Morgan, and finally, The Art of the Album Cover by Richard Evans.)

On the cover of Evans’ book, there are a few of the great covers I considered for this piece. There are so many iconic covers that I could choose. I am one of the last writers for this month’s topic, so I would imagine that classics like Whipped Cream by Herb Alpert, Never Mind by Nirvana, or The Beatles Abbey Road (or their many others) have been chosen and already featured.

Dave offered up suggestions of how we might want to approach the topic and his last one got me thinking. He stated “if you ever bought an album just from the cover.” I was buying albums long before 1983, but never because of the cover. I had either heard a song on the radio and wanted the album or they didn’t have the 45, so I just bought the album. There was one album that did catch my eye and played a hand in my purchasing the album.

I firmly believe that Linda Ronstadt was one of the most beautiful voices in music. She was known primarily for pop/rock music and considered by many to be the leading female vocalist of rock. Her music was good enough to buy an album, but at the same time, her album covers were flat out sexy!

For example, Living in the USA has her in a hallway wearing roller skates and short shorts. Silk Purse has her on the ground in jean shorts sitting next to pigs with a cute smirk on her face. Simple Dreams shows her sitting in front of a vanity in a silk robe looking off to the side. Hasten Down the Wind has her standing on the beach staring off on a chilly evening. She was simply stunning even on the most simple covers.

I remember walking into my local record store and stopping at the display that featured that weeks new album releases. One of them grabbed my attention right away because there was a beautiful woman dressed in a 1940’s period gown lying atop of a purple sea of silk. Her eyes bore into me with a sultry and seductive look. Her shoe being kicked off only boosted the sexiness of it to me.

“What in the world?” I remember thinking. It was then that I noticed that the album was with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. This just didn’t make sense to me. I flipped the album over and looked at the track list. These were songs from the Great American Songbook! I purchased the album without hearing anything from it! I could only imagine her amazing voice singing these songs! I had to have it.

Looking back now, I have to think that this album was a pretty big deal.  It wasn’t a big deal because it was a Linda Ronstadt album. What made this album a big deal was that it was one of the first times that a genuine rock and roll star tackled the “Great American Songbook.” In one review on the album I read:

By the early 80s, the usual crooners, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra etc., weren’t the biggest things with the youngsters. Yes, they were indeed respected and probably loved even, especially Frank, but they weren’t really selling many units to younger baby boomers. So when What’s New was released it really opened the eyes to a generation that wasn’t all that familiar with the works of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin (except during the Holidays) but this album changed that. Yes, they were known to a point, but not like they should have been.

The album was almost never recorded. According to Wiki: Both her record company and manager, Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon), were very reluctant to produce this album with Ronstadt, but eventually her determination won them over and the albums exposed a whole new generation to the sounds of the pre-swing and swing eras. Linda later remarked that she did her part in rescuing these songs which she called “little jewels of artistic expression” from “spending the rest of their lives riding up and down on the elevators.”

Nelson Riddle’s arrangements are simply beautiful and blend together with Linda’s vocals with perfection. Her voice is smooth and powerful at the same time. I can still remember dropping the needle on the vinyl with my headphones on. The opening strings of “What’s New” leading to her opening lyric gave me goosebumps. It still does. This amazing album blew me away as a 13 year old kid, and today each listen gets better and better.

The album was released in September of 1983 and stayed on the main Billboard Album chart for 81 weeks! I could have easily been a number one album, but it peaked at number 3, and stayed there for 5 weeks. The albums that prevented it from hitting number 1? Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance (Female).

The success of the album led to two more collaborations with Nelson Riddle. Lush Life was released in 1984 and For Sentimental Reasons was released in 1986. The later two didn’t do as well as the first album, which is a shame, because they were just as good (or better) than the first one. In 1986, there was a 2-CD collection which contained all the songs from the three albums entitled ‘Round Midnight. It remains one of my favorite collections.

Linda Ronstadt took a bold leap by recording an album of standards. The success of this album, in my opinion, paved the way for other singers to do the same. Gloria Estefan, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Art Garfunkel, Michael Bolton, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Cyndi Lauper, and Sheena Easton have all recorded some pretty amazing covers from the Great American Songbook. Pick up a Michael Buble’ album and you will find that it is probably 70% standards and 30% originals. Those songs will live on forever because they are just that good!

When I sit with the Linda Ronstadt/Nelson Riddle albums and close my eyes, I picture Linda as one of the many female singers of the 1940’s. Maybe it is a concert performance, or maybe it is a song stuck in the middle of an old radio show. Maybe it is a feature on Armed Forces Radio boosting the morale of the soldiers fighting in the war. Whatever it happens to be, it is magical!

I feel sorry for kids today who purchase music online or in a budget rack at Walmart. They will never know the excitement of an album cover that is so good you instinctively buy it and hurry home to give it a listen. I am glad to have had that experience many times!

Thanks to Dave at A Sound Day for another great topic. Thanks to the other bloggers who I am sure posted some fantastic pieces, too. Thanks to you for reading! I look forward to next month’s topic, Dave. Thanks again for allowing me to take part!