Splendid 70’s Album Covers (vol.1)

 I know there are quite a few vinyl fanatics out there who would choke me for this sentiment, but what I miss most about my album collection is the jacket/cover/sleeves. Many of them particularly in the seventies were works of art. They also contained liner notes of an actual reader-friendly font size, and often goodies like posters. Real posters, not the little tri-fold inserts in cd’s. 

 So from time to time, I’ll put up some of the classic covers (or simply my favorites.)  These three luscious covers also happen to contain three of the better recordings of the 1970’s. Santana’s Abraxas was released in January 1970. It was their second album, coming on the heels of a mesmerizing performance at Woodstock the previous summer.    

 Derek And The Dominoes’ Layla And   Other Assorted Love Songs (December 1970) was their only studio album and arguably some of Eric Clapton’s best work. The cover is a portion of a painting by Emile Theodore Frandson. Below is the unforgettable cover to Led Zeppelin’s 4th album Houses Of The Holy (their best album, fact not opinion). The children are a pair of twins superimposed several times over Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland. It was banned in Spain and parts of the southern U.S.

 Speaking of album inserts, perhaps the most well-known were a set of promo materials included in The Who’s Live At Leeds, one of which was a very real looking copy of a gig contract. On a recent episode of Antiques Road Show, an excited woman was nearly brought to tears upon finding that this contract was worth maybe $50 (as only the first 20,000 albums contained the copy). Apparently she thought that somehow an authentic precious document had slipped into the album? I had to laugh. My chortling lasted all of 3 seconds, until I remembered once owning this special album version (I’d found it used at the local “Wax Museum” in ‘75, all items intact), then carelessly losing all the great memorabilia.