When I was eight years old, I convinced my mom to drive me to K-Mart, where I purchased my first vinyl LP with money I had saved up. The album was called Funny Bone Favorites, produced by Ronco Records. It featured a collection of goofy songs from the 1950s through the 1970s, like Alley Oop, Yakity Yak and Disco Duck. The cover illustration was a cartoon of a bone being tickled by a feather. It made me laugh at the silliness of it all. And yes, you can still find Funny Bone Favorites.

This album was the first step on a lifelong love affair with music, and the art that is associated with it. As my musical tastes evolved, I become aware of how album cover art tells a visual story that may complement the voice of the artist, or diverge wildly from the music contained within the vinyl grooves.

Two years after I bought my first album, I had an epiphany. This happened on an early February morning in 1980 on a school bus, when an older high school kid popped in an 8-track of AC/DC’s Back in Black album. I was blown away by the music, and when I went back to K-Mart to buy the album, I was struck by the absolute black of the album cover, devoid of any imagery or symbology.,

The cover simply featured an embossed outline of the band logo with a thin white outline, that I could feel with my fingers. This tactile connection to the album in my hands, and the mystery it presented, led me to immediately and innately recognize and understand how visual art and aural soundscapes can intertwine to create something even greater than the sum of its parts. 

This realization opened my fascination and heart with album covers, and compelled me to a career as a graphic artist, and an amateur musician as food for my soul.