Few designers in history are as popular in the last 40 years as Ralph Steadman. You can’t even think of the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson without Steadman’s dark and often surreal illustrations helping Thompson’s stories come to life. Not eager to settle into the book industry, he designed many album covers, too. Here’s a look at 21 of his best.
Edgar Allan Poe uses his words economically in the “Tell-Tale Heart” – it is one of his shortest stories—to provide a study of paranoia and mental deterioration. Iggy knows this feeling well.
TRUE! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed –not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily –how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
Robert Crumb’s work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture. Crumb has illustrated many album covers, including most prominently Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company and the compilation album The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead.
Between 1974 and 1984, Crumb drew at least 17 album covers for Yazoo Records/Blue Goose Records, including those of the Cheap Suit Serenaders. He also created the revised logo and record label designs of Blue Goose Records that were used from 1974 onward.
In 1992 and 1993, Robert Crumb was involved in a project by Dutch formation The Beau Hunks and provided the cover art for both their albums The Beau Hunks play the original Laurel & Hardy music 1 and 2. He also illustrated the albums’ booklets.
In 2009, Crumb drew the artwork for a 10-CD anthology of French traditional music compiled by Guillaume Veillet for Frémeaux & Associés. The following year, he created three artworks for Christopher King’s Aimer Et Perdre: To Love And To Lose Songs, 1917–1934 and, in 2011, he once again played mandolin on an Eden and John’s East River String Band album (Be Kind to a Man When He’s Down) for which he also created the album cover artwork.
These are 7 of his best:
During a period of disagreement with their business managers, Robert Hunter, lyricist for The Grateful Dead wrote an open letter to the band members, intended as sarcasm:
The Ten Commandments of Rock & Roll
1. Suck up to the top cats
2. Do not express independent opinions.
3. Do not work for common interests, only factional interests.
4. If there’s nothing to complain about, dig up some old gripe.
5. Do not respect property or persons other than band property and personnel.
6. Make devastating judgments about persons and situations without adequate information.
7. Discourage and confound personal, technical, and/or creative projects.
8. Single out absent persons for intense criticism.
9. Remember that anything you don’t understand is trying to fuck with you.
10 Destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise as an expression of unity.
“I want to die with my boots on, hopefully still in this band. It would be the greatest irony in the world after this band was so legendary for personnel changes, if this lineup lasted for the rest of our lives, and we all died as old men playing together. “Yeah, back in the oughts, this band went through five bass players and five third guitar players, and all of a sudden this lineup stayed together for 30 years.” [Laughs] It could happen, it’s such a good place we’re in now. None of us are 22 and stupid any more, which I don’t mean as a slur against any particular stupid 22 year-old, because I think we were all stupid at 22. We’ve lived through that, and come out the other side. Hell, Jason Isbell is well up in his 30s now, and Lord knows he’s not stupid, he’s got his shit together about better than anybody I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t be prouder of what he’s doing, and how well he’s doing it, from a personal and a professional and artistic level. Surviving’s cool.”
Via Billboard
“The Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles, but there’s not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away. Why not? If you’re the Beatles in the Sixties, you just get carried away – you forget what it is you wanted to do. You’re starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties – ‘Oh, if you can make a load of shit, so can we.'”
— Keith Richards, Esquire Magazine
Adele has announced that she will play a special one-night-only concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Nov. 17, three days prior to the release of 25, sure to be a #1 album on Billboard for the next, oh, year or so.
Ticket information won’t be available until next week, but fans can pre-register for information here.
Round Hill Music has entered into a worldwide administration agreement with Slaight Music. Slaight Music was founded in 2011 with a mandate to support the Canadian music community through a variety of initiatives, and to develop Canadian talent via strategic partnerships with industry peers. Together, we will be working with their artists from across the country and across the musical spectrum.
“Slaight is synonymous with great music in Canada. We’re proud to have Gary and Slaight Music as our partners,” says Josh Gruss, Round Hill Music CEO.
Slaight Music is a true music incubator, an organization committed to fostering the ideal conditions for maximum creativity, carefully aligning promising talent with key players and influencers on the Canadian musical scene while also being invested in the technology sphere, helping Canadian music entrepreneurs develop the next generation of digital platforms and services.
Gary Slaight, President & CEO of Slaight Music and Slaight Communications, shared, “We at Slaight Music, including all of our artists and partners here in Canada, are very excited to be teaming up with Josh, Neil, and the talented professionals at Round Hill Music. Our primary mission is to develop Canadian songwriters and artists for the global marketplace, and we’re confident that our partnership with Round Hill Music will play a significant role in accomplishing that goal.”
Slaight Music has worked closely with over twenty Canadian musicians and bands to further their career development and help put their music in front of as many new fans as possible. Round Hill Music is thrilled to be working with Slaight’s roster of talent, including rising pop band Ascot Royals, as well as Slaight’s It’s Your Shot songwriting and artist development winner Jillea, who releases her first single, “Shattered”, this fall.
Bob Wood is eighty years old, but he doesn’t let his age stop him from not just being an amazing guitar player, but crossing fingers, he just might make the Billboard viral charts as this video is over 1 million views.
Whether your team wins or loses, this is what the press conference sounds like after the game. Every time.
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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