One of the biggest names in music is also a legend when it comes to album covers
Bob Dylan It is a legend inside and offstage. And if the image is a complement to his music, the artist knew very well how to build a striking visual identity. Your ex-girlfriend Suze Rotolo Wrote in your memories book A FreeWheelin ‘Time (2008) that “a long time was spent in front of the mirror experimenting with a piece of crushed clothing after another until everything fits to look like Bob had just gotten up and thrown something. The image was everything.”
Thinking about it, the Rolling Stone evaluated all album covers of Bob Dylan and put them in a ranking. Here, we separated the first 10 places. See below:
10. Legal Street (1978)
Dylan photographed by Howard Alk In the streets of Santa Monica: Sleeves rolled, seeking action, visibly without his wedding ring.
9. Nashville Skyline (1969)
In 1969, Dylan smiling seemed a radical and sincere act. According to the photographer Elliott Landythis photo was not taken in Nashville, but in Woodstock, New York. Of the book of LandyWoodstock Vision: “’Do you think I should use this?’ He asked, starting to put his hat, smiling because he was kind of silly, and he was having fun visualizing himself in this traditional silly -looking hat. “’I don’t know,’ I said as I fired the shutter. It all happened so fast. If I had had any resistance to myself, I would have lost the photograph that became the cover of NASHVILLE SKYLINE. It is better to be open to life. ”
8. World Gone Wrong (1993)
Dylan he remembered Dave Stewart (from Eurythmics) at 4 am and asked him to organize a filming that day for his music “BLOOD IN MY EYES“. Stewart He agreed and a few hours later took him on a walk through London, filming it with an 8 mm camera. Dylan I was using a top hat and interacting happily with strangers. Stewart He judged the day surreal enough to demand more documentation, so he called his unclean friend, Colombian photographer Ana María Vélez Woodwhich only 48 hours earlier was in the Amazon jungle. In a coffee in Camden Town, she took the photo that became the cover of the World Gone Wrong: A makeshift photo that seemed to have been carefully staged to show a man from a past era whose candle had not yet burned until the wick.
7. The Basement Tapes (1975)
How to capture the anarchic spirit of these famous and often pirated (but not photographed) sessions? For its launch, eight years after they were recorded, Dylan And the band recruited the photographer Reid Miles Because they liked the album cover Underground of Thelonious Monk1968. This cover was taken in the basement of the Hollywood Ymca; The musicians were accompanied by people dressed as circus artists and characters from the songs, such as Quinn The ESKIMO. To add a QUê to the board Fellini, Dylan And the band also dressed, some wearing military uniforms. As the songs were thought of as we gave to other artists, the album and its cover have the playful spirit of a Halloween party. Sometimes music can be a fantasy in itself.
6. The Times They are a-changin ‘(1964)
A year before, Dylan and the photographer Barry Feinstein made a car trip together from Denver to New York, driving a rolls-royce that belonged to the entrepreneur of Dylan, Albert Grossman. (A photo of the feet of Dylan Leaving the Rolls-Royce window ended up on the cover of the 1970 album Delaney & Bonnie & Friends on Tour with Eric Clapton .) Then Dylan Trushed in Feinstein When the photographer took him to a friend’s roof apartment in New York’s city and photographed him on the balcony, looking for carved and intense. In your book Real moments, Feinstein wrote: “I didn’t have to take many pictures because I immediately knew it was a very unusual photo, an angle and a moment with Bob. “
5. Blonde on Blonde (1966)
This brown leather jacket makes the first of its three appearances on the albums Dylan: it will be seen again in John Wesley Harding and NASHVILLE SKYLINE. The jacket was not particularly hot, which was a problem on the cold winter day Dylan and the photographer JERRY SCHATZBERG They walked through the Meatpacking District of New York for this cover. Both were shaking with cold, and that’s why this photo is out of focus: Schatzberg I was having trouble holding the camera firmly. This blur, however, gave the photo a slightly enigmatic and hallucinogenic sensation. Schatzberg imagined that the Columbia Records I would never choose a photo out of focus, but Dylan insisted on that. “That was great,” he said Schatzberg. “Because usually what Bobby he wants, Bobby it achieves.”
4. Desire (1976)
By counting Ken Arcanhe took 13,750 photos of Dylan and your collaborators on the tour Rolling Thunder Revue. The photo used for the cover of Desire was taken on the first day of the tour, and shows Dylan With a fabulous look: gray felt hat, scarf, coat with skin collar. Of course, on the cover of your 1970 solo album, John Phillips He wore an incredibly similar outfit. But Dylan won the contest “Who used better?” because it seemed that I was about to explore the United States as a particularly dissolute member of the Lewis and Clark.
3. Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Dylan is sitting on the steps outside the apartment of Albert Grossman at Gramercy Park, with your friend Bob Neuworth convened by the photographer Daniel Kramer to fill the frame. “This was not the plan,” Kramer said to Rolling Stone. “It wasn’t even expected to make a picture like this.” Even with your hair like a cotton swab, Dylan It is the epitome of the cool here. He has a silk shirt over a Triumph Motorcycles T -shirt, his sunglasses in his hand, a confronting look that gets electric by itself. But it is Neuworth Those who make the photo with their camera borrowed: we are not just looking at the portrait of a singer – we are somehow witnessing a time when the photo is about to happen, as if we were on the edge of history.
Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
A treasure hunt within a whirlwind of conscience. Dylan poses with a cat (called Rolling Stone or Lord Growingdepending on who you ask) and Sally Grossman (wife of Albert). They are surrounded by cultural wreckage from the mid -60s: books, pamphlets, magazines with photos of Lyndon Johnson and Jean Harlowan antinuclear shelter, cufflinks (a gift from Joan Baez) and LPs of Robert Johnson, Ravi Shankar, Lotte Lenya, Eric von Schmidt and Impressions. The previous album of Dylan, Another Side of Bob DylanIt is intentionally placed in the background as far as possible from the camera. The photographer Daniel Kramer Created the fish eye lens effect with double exhibition, turning the camera so that the world would be blurred for everyone except Dylanwho looks at the lens, accepting that he is in the center of the universe. Kramer It took hours to take 10 photos: the cover is the only one in which Dylan, Grossman And the cat were looking at the camera at the same time.
1. The Freewheelin ‘Bob Dylan (1963)
Bob Dylan Walks a muddy street in Greenwich Village, gathered with his girlfriend SuzeRotoloBack in New York City after a season studying in Italy. The photographer Don Hunstein Captured this image, full of love, art and the infinite possibilities of youth. (Cameron Crowe it reenanced in a memorable way with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in the movie Vanilla Sky 2001.) According to Rotoloshe and Dylan They were extremely cold: “I was using some sweaters, the last one was his, a large and bulky knitting sweater,” she said. “So I always look at that picture as if I felt like an Italian sausage because I had so many layers of clothes, and he was freezing and I was freezing and had more clothes.” She and Dylan They learned young people how much there can be between image and reality – and how it was often worth making a memorable image anyway.
+++ Read more: Bob Dylan’s real involvement in his new movie a complete unknown
+++ Read more: Neil Young praises a complete stranger, Timothée Chalamet
+++ Read more: Bob Dylan insisted that a complete stranger had a ‘totally inaccurate’ scene
Source: Rollingstone
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
