ALBUMS

In the beginning… When Steve Brown first started venturing underground at 2850 5th Ave in San Diego, doing late night radio shows on KPRI, he played mostly music from his own personal collection. His traveling library was not extremely large but it had most of the new music that was just coming out and it grew quickly in those early months. He had all the San Francisco rock. He also had a lot of English rock records, sometimes with songs that were not on the American versions of the same album. Some of the English versions also had much better cover art than the American releases.

In addition to the rock, he also had some of the best blues records that could be found anywhere. In a word, his collection was eclectic and before long, became the library that we all played from. Most of those records did not exist before 1966 or 1967. Not only was 1967 home to the summer of love, it was also the beginning of an incredible music explosion that fueled the late ‘60s and early 70’s pop culture and a new kind of radio. Over the years, that library grew and became a reflection of those amazing times. The album cover art that follows includes many of those early records, music that became the soundtrack for the new KPRI.

1949

1951

1964

1965

1955

The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has a widely-recognized album cover which depicts several dozen celebrities. This entire album changed rock n' roll forever. By 1966 the Beatles knew that they had to do something about the rising competition, and the came up with a theatrical, story-telling production. From "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite," each song gave us a new musical experience.

The album cover was created by Jann Haworth and Peter Blake. They won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts in 1967 for their work on this cover. Another innovation was the inclusion of the album's lyrics that are printed on the back cover. "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite's" lyrics were lifted off an original 19th Century poster.

TOP ROW l to r

Sri Yukteswar Giri (Hindu guru)

Aleister Crowley (occultist)

Mae West (actress)

Lenny Bruce (comedian)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)

W. C. Fields (comedian/actor)

Carl Gustav Jung (psychiatrist)

Edgar Allan Poe (writer)

Fred Astaire (actor/dancer)

Richard Merkin (artist)

The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)

Huntz Hall (actor)

Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers)

Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter)

SECOND ROW l to r

Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)

Sir Robert Peel (19th century British Prime Minister)

Aldous Huxley (writer)

Dylan Thomas (poet)

Terry Southern (writer)

Dion Dimucci (singer/songwriter)

Tony Curtis (actor)

Wallace Berman (artist)

Tommy Handley (comedian)

Marilyn Monroe (actress)

William S. Burroughs (writer)

Sri Mahavatar Babaji

Stan Laurel (actor/comedian)

Richard Lindner (artist)

Oliver Hardy (actor/comedian)

Karl Marx (political philosopher)

H. G. Wells (writer)

Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

James Joyce (novelist)

Anonymous wax dummy

THIRD ROW l to r

Stuart Sutcliffe (a former Beatle)

Anonymous wax dummy

Max Miller (comedian)

A "Petty Girl" (by George Petty)

Marlon Brando (actor)

Tom Mix (actor)

Oscar Wilde (writer)

Tyrone Power (actor)

Larry Bell (artist)

David Livingstone (explorer)

Johnny Weissmuller actor)

Stephen Crane (writer) – barely visible between Issy Bonn's head and raised arm

Issy Bonn (comedian)

George Bernard Shaw (writer)

H. C. Westermann (sculptor)

Albert Stubbins (footballer)

Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (guru)

Lewis Carroll (writer)

T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)

FRONT ROW l to r

Wax model of Sonny Liston

A "Petty Girl" (by George Petty)

Wax model of George Harrison

Wax model of John Lennon

Shirley Temple behind the wax models of John and Ringo

Wax model of Ringo Starr

Wax model of Paul McCartney

Albert Einstein largely obscured

John holding a Wagner tuba

Ringo holding a trumpet

Paul with a cor anglais

George with a piccolo

Bette Davis (actress) – hair visible at George's shoulder

Bobby Breen (singer)

Marlene Dietrich (actress/singer)

Shirley Temple (actress)

An American legionnaire

Wax model of Diana Dors (actress)

PROPS ON THE COVER

Cloth grandmother-figure by Jann Haworth

Cloth doll by Haworth of Shirley Temple wearing a sweater that reads "Welcome The Rolling Stones Good Guys" – third and last appearance on the cover.

A ceramic Mexican craft known as a Tree of Life from Metepec

A 9-inch Sony television set, apparently owned by Paul McCartney. The receipt, bearing McCartney's signature, is owned by a curator of a museum dedicated to the Beatles in Japan.

A stone figure of a girl

Another stone figure

A statue brought over from John Lennon's house

A trophy

A doll of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi

A drum skin, designed by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave

A hookah (water pipe)

A velvet snake

A Fukusuke, Japanese china figure

A stone figure of Snow White

A garden gnome

A euphonium

A three-stringed flower guitar

EXCLUDED FROM THE COVER

Leo Gorcey – was modeled and originally included to the left of Huntz Hall, but was removed when a fee of $400 was requested for the use of the actor's likeness.

Mohandas Gandhi – was modeled and originally included to the right of Lewis Carroll, but was removed. According to McCartney, "Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed".

Jesus Christ – was requested by Lennon, but not modeled because the LP would be released only a few months after Lennon's Jesus statement.

Adolf Hitler – was modeled and visible in early photographs of the montage, positioned to the right of Larry Bell, but was eventually removed.

Timothy Carey – was modeled and originally included, but was completely obscured by George Harrison on the final version of the cover.

Pink Floyd “Back” Catalog poster

This classic picture commissioned by EMI in 1997, to cleverly advertise the release of the “back” catalogue of Pink Floyd was taken at a private indoor pool in Putney (London Borough of Wandsworth) by photographer Tony May in 1996. The models had the cover art of six Pink Floyd albums painted onto their backs by artist Phyllis Cohen,