The Hippie Movement
The hippie cultural movement was an influential cultural movement that originated in the early 1960s and became a major international collective as it grew in popularity and size. The hippie movement has found historical precedents as far back as the Mazdakist movement in Persia, whose leader the Persian reformer Mazdak, advocated communal living, the sharing of resources, vegetarianism, and free love.
The hippie movement in the United States began as a youth movement. They were composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults between 15 and 25 years old. Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed over from the beat movement and became fixtures of the burgeoning hippie and anti-war movements. By 1965, hippies had become an established social group in the U.S., and the movement eventually expanded to other countries, extending as far as the United Kingdom and Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil. The hippie ethos influenced The Beatles and others in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of rock music, folk, blues, and psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts, fashion, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and album covers. In 1968, self-described hippies represented just under 0.2% of the U.S. population
The hippie movement was one of the dissenting groups of the 1960s counterculture. Hippies rejected the established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy, championed sexual liberation, were often vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs which they believed expanded one’s consciousness, and created intentional communities or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre, folk music, and psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests and their vision of the world and life. Hippies chose a gentle ideology that favored peace, love and personal freedom
The beat (beatnik) generation
Often seen as the precursor to the hippie movement of the 1960s, the Beat Generation was primarily a group of young writers who explored the strange cultural shifts in post-World War II America. The Beat Generation was one of America’s first counter-culture movements and embraced drug use, liberal sexuality and obscenity in their writings and works. Some of the most famous Beat writers were often the center of American controversy over literary censorship and obscenity. Although the Beat Generation was mostly a literary movement, it has been long studied as a movement that heavily influenced the musically charged hippie movement.
The Vietnam war
The Vietnam War was a near 20-year conflict of massive proportions which helped propel the hippie movement into mainstream American consciousness. In the mid-1960s, the United States Government started a huge military surge wherein large qualities of American troops were sent to Vietnam to destabilize and destroy the communist North Vietnamese government. Originally, the war was popular, but the seemingly never-ending conflict strained the American populace who were getting more and more frustrated with the tremendous loss of life and crazed politics of the war. After some time, large protests of students, veterans and hippies started to erupt everywhere (including internationally) and slowly twisted the average American’s view of the Vietnam conflict. The American hippie became famous for their influence in the widespread Vietnam protests and helped to define their role in the tumultuous 1960s.
Flower Children
The summer of 1967, or the ‘Summer of Love,’ has often been referred to as one of the most important widespread social and political gatherings in recent American history. During the famous summer, over 100,000 people convened and relocated to the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco. Although many people mostly remember the ‘Summer of Love’ taking place in San Francisco, hippies actually convened in most major cities in America, Canada and Europe. The San Francisco summer is often remembered best because it was the cultural center of the hippie movement where free love, drug use and communal living became the norm. This period of time also helped spawn the ubiquitous ‘flower children’ that became a major American symbol in the 1960s. Many historians have reclassified the ‘Summer of Love’ as a major social experiment wherein people from all over congregated to question the social spheres and practices in which they grew up.
1958–1967: The early hippies
Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters
One of the groups that have been labeled as the ‘first’ major hippie group was Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters. Kesey has often been seen as the major link between the late Beat Movement and the early hippies of the 1960s. Kesey and The Merry Pranksters were a large community of like-minded people in California and Oregon who took road trips and traveled in a brightly colored school bus while ingesting large amounts of LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide), which was legal until 1965. The group traveled the nation, housed famous parties, gave out large quantities of LSD and helped define the long hair and bizarre fashion that came to symbolize the American hippie.
One of the major events that established the Merry Pranksters in American society was the so-called ‘Acid Tests’ where large groups would drink Kool-Aid laced with LSD and attempt to experience a community-oriented trip. The group was also famous for its experiences with the Hells Angel Motorcycle Gang and The Grateful Dead.
With Cassady at the wheel of a school bus called Further, the Merry Pranksters traveled across the United States to celebrate the publication of Kesey’s novel Sometimes a Great Notion and to visit the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. The Merry Pranksters were known for using cannabis, amphetamine, and LSD, and during their journey they “turned on” many people to these drugs. The Merry Pranksters filmed and audio taped their bus trips, creating an immersive multimedia experience that would later be presented to the public in the form of festivals and concerts. The Grateful Dead wrote a song about the Merry Pranksters’ bus trips called “That’s It for the Other One.” In 1961, Vito Paulekas and his wife Szou established in Hollywood a clothing boutique which was credited with being one of the first to introduce “hippie” fashions.
The impact of hippies on society
“The generation living in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s wanted to break away from the picture perfect image of their parents. They wanted to become more, gasp, natural by growing their hair long and admiring the beauty of the world around them.” (Cordial [nd]). They started to grow their hair long since it was considered as beautiful and natural. At the first time, the image of a man with long hair was perceived as a sign of homosexuality, but then it had changed.
One young man responded after being questioned about his unkempt appearance: Growing hair does not mean that I am or am not a homosexual. It does mean that I am willing to stand up for my rights as a human being and that includes my right to be harmless to all people. It also indicates my unwillingness to get on the treadmill of killing for a vast machine-like government. If I am scorned and called dirty because I allow hair to grow on my face and my head, then so much the better, for by this I indicate the seriousness of my belief. I scorn the society that has created this monstrous robot-like conformity that feeds the war machine as Hitler found robots to feed his war machine.
Hippies also sought for pleasure and saw beauty in drug use, such as marijuana, weed or LSD. For them it was not an evil habit. What is more, it was the idea of expressing personal freedom and it was used to transcend consciousness. Hippies found drugs as a relaxing form of meditation that helped them focus on finding a level of higher awareness in the world. It was seen as recreational and a way to expand the mind as well as to show their emotions against the normal society and hopefully change their perspective. This activity had a great disapproval within American society. Most people “criticized hippie subculture for their loose morals and obsession with drugs.”
Another negative activity was hippies’ promiscuity. Sex was a major issue connected with the hippie subculture on the sixties and seventies. This group of people were not afraid of their sexuality and they believed that their bodies ought to be used in a beautiful manner such as sex. They were practicing sexual activities in open way. At first it was unacceptable by American society since sex was considered as taboo, but after hippie revolution the idea had changed and it was not so hidden as in previous years.
Despite the negative aspects of hippies’ behavior, there were also aspects which contributed to society in a positive way. These groups of people were more relaxed and open-minded than the rest of society. The most significant for them was ‘brotherhood among people of all races and ethnicity. Preaching a motto of love and kindness, hippies tried to spread their beliefs into society. By handing out flowers, singing songs, and making orations, these young people tried to make America hear its message of love.” Hippies were helping poor and starving people. They believed that people should share resources among each other to create equality and it was opposite to the government policies. As a consequence, the hippies felt unaccepted by the government and did not support all the actions their government took.
Social perception of hippies
Most people generated a great amount of hate towards hippies. The society even felt threatened by hippies’ non-conformist free lifestyle. The counterculture was not willing to submit themselves to common standards. Hippies created their unique fashion style, which was a sign of protest against the strict suit-based society Their hairstyle and untraditional style of clothing made people feel scared for some reason. Therefore, what is typical for human nature is the fact that when they fear something they hate it. However, humans did not understand the hippy philosophy clearly. They believed that hippies used their style to cover up their inadequacy and laziness and it leaded to inaccurate perception of the whole culture”
Another superstition about hippies that they all were addicted to drugs was provided by the media. The television broadcasted “extensive coverage of gatherings organized by Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, during which they encouraged and facilitated the open use of the hallucinogenic drug LSD.” Such drugs had not yet been declared illegal, when these events were staged. Moreover, no further events took place after LSD was banned. The fact that hippies actually did use and spread drugs cannot be denied as their movement was an open rebellion against the existing ideologies and habits. However, after years society would believe in its constant use and hippy’ lifestyle would be always connected with addictions. That image has been maintained by the entertainment and movie industry. In films related to this subculture hippies were frequently portrayed as drug users. As a consequence, it contributed to perceive all hippies as fictional characters based on stereotypical images.What is worth to mention is that not all hippies used drugs and not all of them got addicted to them. “Some hippies prize marijuana for its iconoclastic, illicit nature, as well as for its psycho pharmaceutical effects. Although some hippies did not use drugs, drug use is a trait often ascribed to hippies. Some hippies used drugs to express their disaffection with societal norms.”
In contrast, there was also a positive social perception of hippie subculture. Hippie fashion trends were easily absorbed by mainstream fashion. It was mainly popular within the young generation, commonly known as especially popular with young teenagers and young adults “Baby Boomer” generation. “Longer hair for men, beads, feathers, flowers, and bells were worn by many teenagers of the era even though they did not necessarily delve deep into the hippie culture or the hardcore hippie beliefs that were prominent from 1966 through 1967.” In fashion there had been changes such as replacing the necktie and other business apparel by more casual clothing standards. The movement even became popular in European countries or Australia. The movement influenced television, film, music, art and literature. For instance, the most benefits gained in the music industry. The highest profit had the rock music segment which increased in sales and has continued to this day.
The hippie lifestyle
In general, the hippies did not invent their own lifestyle. They adopted manners of earlier movements, such as German naturist movement of the early twentieth century. Hippies were known as young people who rebelled against commercial, straitlaced, consumer-oriented society by means of their drug use, free sexuality, long hair and communal living” (Perone 2005). This subculture was associated with Woodstock festivals where they were easily perceived by the way they looked like. They had long hair with beaded headbands. They were also characterized by wearing torn blue jeans and tie-dyed shirts and sandals.
They consider their lifestyle as a conventional one. Those young people rejected everything which was connected with materialism and preferred living in poverty than achieving a business career. “In those days of relative prosperity, it was quite easy to live with very little money” (Feinstein 2000). For instance, sharing a flat was superior than possessing their own one. ”There’s no denying that many hippies were involved in temporary sexual relationships and sexual experimentation unlike any generation before them” (Stone 1991). When it comes to the drugs hippies perceived it as a way of freedom and a type of rebellion. To better understand a hippie lifestyle one ought to focus on such aspects as: communities, physical appearance, sexual behavior and the manner of taking drugs.
Hippies felt an unusual sense of freedom. They wanted to be free from the rules and norms of society. It was emphasized in every single aspect of their lives, and due to that freedom became their most prominent value. Stone (1999) notices that through interpretation of nature and “witnessing the dance of energy that is the true nature of the universe” they willingly refused full access to the material world and its principles. This widely known state was called enlightenment. They sought it in drugs, however, they were aware that “drugs provide but a fleeting glimpse of the true nature of reality”. (Stone 1999). Hippies knew that in order to be free and change the world one had to change themselves at the beginning. They found the solution in meditation that gave them inner peace and allowed them to live in harmony with the world.
To be precise, the core of their culture should start with the word “hip” which carries a significant message. It states for a man who is accustomed to sensual experiences, joy of life, cheerfulness and love to all people regardless of race or world view.
The hippies were usually associated with the use of drugs. During the 60’s a large amount of new types of drugs appeared. In fact, the hippies undertook the largest, uncontrolled experiment with drug use in the history of mankind. In those days it wasn’t unusual to be handed a pill, and swallow it with the only instruction ‘You’ll dig it, it’s groovy.’” (Stone 1999). This situation emerged from the history of drug use. After World War II the pharmaceutical industry exploded with research into new drugs. They produced new types of drugs for almost every disease. In fact, thanks to that drugs like LSD 25, DMT, purple haze, MDMA, orange sunshine, synthetic mescaline and psilocybin appeared. Along with methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, even heroin, hippies tried whatever they could get their hands on. (Stone 1999)
During the 60’s the mostly popularized drugs were LSD and marijuana. The use of LSD had even a religious aspect. During the famous “Be-in” festival in San Francisco Timothy Leary proclaimed LSD as ‘new sacrament’ which combined with new era and religion leads to full enlightenment. Taking drugs in groups was a kind of ritual among the hippies. During festivals drugs were given to people for free. Musicians and poets were creating their works after using psychedelic substances. Taking drugs was considered as a part of being ‘free’ and ‘cool’. Another, even more popular than LSD, drug was marijuana. It’s popularity was caused by its low price. Smoking marijuana was associated with smoking the peace pipe. Marijuana was extremely relaxing and was increasing people’s sensitivity and creativity. Of course both LSD and marijuana were illegal in the US at that time. “Purple Haze, all in my brain, lately things don’t seem the same. Actin’ funny but I don’t know why. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky” ( Jimi Hendrix — “Purple Haze”).
Fashion in the 60’s
While there is a tendency to think of the Sixties as a whole unified decade, in terms of fashion it must, in fact, be viewed as two separate and quite distinct parts (if not more), with the early years clinging doggedly on to modifications of Fifties styles and the later years exploding into the wild fashion frenzy for which the decade is possibly best remembered. The 1960s was an important decade for fashion because it was the first time in history that clothing was geared towards the youth market; and featured a wide number of diversified trends. It was a decade that broke many fashion traditions, mirroring social movements during the period. Previously, fashion houses designed for the mature and elite members of society; however, during the enormous social and political revolution that transpired in the mid-Sixties, the power of the teenage and young adult market was too great to ignore. They led with new and radically innovative fashion styles, with little girl/woman androgynous looks for women that swept away the sophisticated sweater girls of the early sixties.
hippie fashion wasn’t always flares and tie dye shirts. As a matter of fact, the foundation of what hippies wore, particularly in the beginning, was similar to Beatnik or early Mod fashion. Color palettes were toned down, patterns were basic, and outfits were overall simple. Fashions in the early years of the decade reflected the elegance of the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. In addition to the pillbox hat, women wore suits, usually in pastel colors, with short boxy jackets, and over-sized buttons. Simple, geometric dresses, known as shifts, were also in style. For evening wear, full-skirted formal gowns were worn; these often had a low décolletage and had close-fitting waists. For casual wear, Capri trousers were the fashion for women and girls.
Pillbox hat
suits worn by women
While focusing on colors and tones, accessories were less of an importance during the sixties. People were dressing in psychedelic prints, highlighter colors, and mismatched patterns. The hippie movement later in the decade also exerted a strong influence on ladies’ clothing styles, including bell-bottom jeans, tie-dye, and batik fabrics, as well as paisley prints.
Psychedelic style
The use of drugs introduced an alternative perception. LSD created a heightened appreciation of color, texture, and line that informed fashion of the late 1960s. Colors bled into other colors and the geometric shapes of the early decade melted into amoeba patterns, vibrant swirls, and Indian paisley.
An essential component of the hippie style of the second half of the 1960s, psychedelic fashion often mixed with the tribal and folk costume clothing of the Haight-Ashbury scene. African patterns and clothing design, popularized after the Civil Rights Act, introduced tie-dyed fabrics and loose, comfortable dashikis.
A stereotype emerged: a young person in an Afro hairstyle wearing a tie-dyed shirt, peace symbol, and bell-bottomed jeans — the quintessential mass-marketed hippie, and a look that pops up every Halloween.
While psychedelia quickly lost steam due to over-saturation, the bohemian fashion trend of the hippies makes frequent comebacks that still influence fashion today. The long, hippie-style peasant skirt led to the maxi skirt, a short-lived ankle-length hemline that quickly died out but brokered an end to the dictation of hemlines by the fashion establishment.
Hair, makeup and jewelry of the 60s
The early ’60s saw bouffant hairdos that were less exaggerated than in the late ’50s. A soft, slightly pouffed bob or shoulder-length flip was teased out at the tips for volume. Even the Mods, with their sleek hairdos, kept a bit of lift in the geometric cut bobs like the one worn by Mary Quant.
A smooth sleekness gave way to long, straight hair, worn with or without bangs or in a center part. Wavy-haired and curly-haired young women had their hair straightened or ironed it flat at home.
Hippie style encouraged a natural look that included long, straight hair as well as long, curly or wavy hair. Those with very curly Afro-textured hair types were allowed to grow their hair in a natural fashion, often cut in a slightly rounded shape to form an Afro. Young men grew their hair long or allowed curls to grow naturally.
Makeup
Makeup ran the gamut, from the minimalist cosmetic style worn by Audrey Hepburn, to kohl-rimmed eyes of the Mods. While 50s makeup highlighted the lips, makeup of the ’60s paid special attention to the eyes, with large false eyelashes and the exaggerated eye makeup worn by Twiggy.
Hippies generally eschewed cosmetics, but enjoyed face painting for special events, displaying images of daisies, rainbows, and other natural themes on their cheeks or foreheads. Body painting turned the entire body into a canvas. Unlike the tattoos of today, body art of the ’60s washed off.
Jewelry
Jewelry went from the conservative, lady-like pearl (or faux pearl) necklaces of the ’50s toward a variety of styles. Mods preferred obvious costume jewelry made of chunky plastics in bright colors.
As the more bohemian look of the late 1960s went mainstream, an eclectic variety of jewelry included long beaded necklaces, stacked silver bangles, woven leather bracelets, large stone rings, beaded headbands, and hooped or intricate dangle earrings. Flowers were often worn instead of jewelry or worn in a wreath on top of the head. Daisies were the predominant flower choice.
Shoes
Young women of the early 1960s wore flat shoes and low-heeled pumps. Later, knee-high boots came into the mix, appearing in vinyl as well as leather. The tall, thin boots came in light shades and in colors. Later, wider, lower cut boots were called go-go boots and were often featured on popular dance shows on TV.
Young men wore low cut boots with Cuban heels, and zipped or elastic sides. Rockers and Americans who favored Western styles wore cowboy boots or motorcycle boots.
The hippies often went without shoes at all. Sandals came in Gladiator styles and flip-flops. Huaraches, a Mexican sandal with a woven leather top which had been popular for some years, was commonly worn by hippie types. Boots were popular as well as clogs and Doctor Scholl’s wooden soled sandals.
Influences and motifs
Asia. Like beatniks, hippies took heavy inspiration from the East — particularly its religion and iconography. Silhouettes went loose and flowy with tunics, kaftans, kimono shawls, and light crisp fabric clothes. Rich ethnic prints were popular for any article of clothing, and Eastern dyeing techniques were adapted to make the iconic hippie tie dye. Dharmic symbols, Buddha, and the Taoist yin-yang were used often in fabric prints, art, stencils, and jewelry. In 1968, The Beatles took a trip to India that would make the Asian influence even more popular, both with hippies and in mainstream fashion.
Psychedelia. Hippie culture was heavily immersed in psychedelic substances such as LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms). From the widespread use of these psychedelics came an appreciation for “trippy” art, which in turn popularized bright colors and kaleidoscopic, far-out patterns. Clothes were also lightened for both comfort and ease of functioning while high.
Mother Nature. Prairie dresses and flower power were key to making a statement in both anti-war and environmental protesting. Flowers, feathers, hemp rope, leather, linen, straw, and recycled fabrics gave even more earthy and natural aspects to wardrobes as hippies began living closer to nature. This eco movement came from both environmentalism and a psychedelic feeling of oneness with the world.
Militaria and Bikers. Many Vietnam veterans who returned home joined the hippie movement, introducing field jackets, vests, utility coveralls, and patches into hippie style. Bikers, a fellow counterculture group with a heavy veteran presence, also wore practical clothes and introduced rugged biker boots, leather goods, vests, and jackets. Military surplus stores were cheap, accessible, and the best source for clothes endorsed by both groups. The iconic hippie bell bottom jeans began as Navy bell-bottom trousers sold at surplus stores.
Western Clothes and Workwear. Chambray shirts, bolo ties, Henley's, mechanic’s trousers, and Western shirts were accessible, baggy, and durable. Westernwear with more Native American style such as fringe jackets and moccasins had even greater appeal for their ruggedness and unconventional appeal. Denim, both pants and jackets, became a staple of hippie clothing for men and women.
Contrarianism. When the Hell’s Angels were the meanest thing to ride the streets in 1964, hippies befriended and associated with them. When a man was arrested in 1968 for wearing an American flag patch, hippies across the nation began wearing the stars and stripes. Antique clothing was very out of style and could be found cheap, so it was worn often. Whatever the populace rejected, the hippies embraced. A surprising amount of savvy went into being the antithesis of society
Mainstream hippie fashion. By 1970, you could head to your favorite department store and find light blue flare jeans, a groovy paisley shirt, and maybe even a purple bandanna or printed shawl. Hippie-style clothes were the next big thing, and finding certain aspects of it grew much easier when they caught on with designers. In addition to adding some uniformity to the hippie look, it also sanitized hippie fashion into something far less chaotic to appeal to a wider buyer base.
Music of the 60’s
The peculiarity of Britain’s beat boom in which would-be pop stars such as the Beatles turned arty while would-be blues musicians such as the Rolling Stones turned pop had a dramatic effect in the United States, not only on consumers but also on musicians, on the generation who had grown up on rock and roll but grown out of it and into more serious sounds, such as urban folk. The Beatles’ success suggested that it was possible to enjoy the commercial, mass-cultural power of rock and roll while remaining an artist. The immediate consequence was folk rock. Folk musicians, led by Bob Dylan, went electric, amplified their instruments, and sharpened their beat. Dylan in particular showed that a pop song could be both a means of social commentary (protest) and a form of self-expression (poetry) (Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1962) became a civil rights anthem.) On both the East and West coasts, bohemia started to take an interest in youth music again. In San Francisco, for example, folk and blues musicians, artists, and poets came together in loose collectives (most prominently the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane) to make acid rock as an unfolding psychedelic experience, and rock became the musical soundtrack for a new youth culture, the hippies.
The hippie movement of the late 1960s in the United States tied up with Vietnam War service and anti-Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, and sexual liberation fed back into the British rock scene. British beat groups also defined their music as art, not commerce, and felt themselves to be constrained by technology rather than markets. The Beatles made the move from pop to rock on their 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, symbolically identifying with the new hippie era, while bands such as Pink Floyd and Cream set new standards of musical skill and technical imagination. This was the setting in which Hendrix became the rock musician’s rock musician. He was a model not just in his virtuosity and inventiveness as a musician but also in his stardom and his commercial charisma. By the end of the 1960s the great paradox of rock had become apparent: rock musicians’ commitment to artistic integrity their disdain for chart popularity was bringing them unprecedented wealth. Sales of rock albums and concert tickets reached levels never before seen in popular music. And, as the new musical ideology was being articulated in magazines such as Rolling Stone, so it was being commercially packaged by emergent record companies such as Warner Brothers in the United States and Island in Britain. Rock fed both off and into hippie rebellion (as celebrated by the Woodstock festival of 1969), and it fed both off and into a buoyant new music business (also celebrated by Woodstock). This music and audience were now where the money lay; the Woodstock musicians seemed to have tapped into an insatiable demand, whether for “progressive” rock and formal experiment, heavy metal and a bass-driven blast of high-volume blues, or singer-songwriters and sensitive self-exploration.
While many white musicians were heading backwards, African-Americans based in New Orleans continued to develop the sound of R&B. Funk began to increase in popularity. James Brown was at the forefront releasing hits such as “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (1965) and “I Got You (I Feel Good)”. Funk would go on to be influenced by psychedelia giving rise to influential bands Funkadelic and Parliament, and would eventually inform disco.
In Britain, The Beatles created their own musical style with a blend of clear melodies and complex rhythms, informed by R&B. Their 1963 single “From Me to You” began an unbroken run of UK number one hits that dominated the decade, lasting until 1967.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the group’s chief lyricists. Their compositions included “Please Please Me” and “Hey Jude.” George Harrison’s songwriting capabilities really started to shine through around the time of The White Album (1968), perhaps reaching full potential with “Something” (1969). The Beatles stopped performing as a band in 1969 but their influence reigns eternal.
While The Beatles reigned the chart and went on to achieve international success, R&B was also informing a new British subculture known as mods. The mods celebrated jazz and soul, followed British bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, and created new bands such as The Who and Small Faces.
The US meanwhile had given birth to the anti-Beatles in The Velvet Underground. Perhaps the very first art-band, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison et al produced music that drew influence from modernist composers (Cornelius Cardew), literature (Venus in Furs), poetry and pop music. While The Beatles were singing “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and “When I’m Sixty-Four” (Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967) The Velvet Underground were singing about the dark underbelly of New York sub-culture in songs such as “Heroin” and “Venus in Furs” (The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1967).
The result was sometimes unsettling but always interesting. Their involvement with Andy Warhol, although fraught, propelled their career and led to them becoming debatably the most influential band to have existed — after The Beatles that is.
Drugs also had an influence on music. Psychedelics and downers, such as marijuana and LSD, influenced psychedelia. This music was characterised by its dreamy, sometimes laid back and sometimes erratic sound. It was amplified, made use of emerging technology in guitar pedals and sound effects.
Lyrically, the songs would be about love, oneness, freedom, sexual liberation, literature, or sometimes would just be nonsensical. Bands like The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, The Soft Parade, Jimmi Hendrix, Donovan, Pink Floyd and Captain Beefheart all varied in style but all embraced psychedelia into their sound.
Albums and its inception
Tony Bennett said of the marvelous album covers of the 50s that, when you bought a record, “you felt like you were taking home your very own work of art.” Indeed, artwork can be as much a part of the identity of a record as the sound. Billions of music fans over the past century have taken pleasure from looking again and again at old album covers.
The name “album” comes from a pre-war era when it literally referred to the album that contained the 78rpm shellac disc, held in a drab heavy paper sleeve with only a title embossed on the front and spine. Sometimes the discs were contained in a leather book, similar to a photographic album.
The first pioneers
The first signs of change came in the 30s, from pioneering designers such as Alex Steinweiss, whose illustrated covers for singers such as Paul Robeson, or the classical records of Beethoven led to huge increases in sales. However, it was the advent of the long-playing 33⅓rpm record that changed everything. The heavy paper used for 78s damaged the delicate grooves on LPs, and record companies started using a folded-over board format sleeve. The format was ripe for artistic experimentation and ultimately led to covers such as The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers something unimaginable in more conservative times.
A landmark artwork that first attracted mass attention in America was the Capitol Records design for Nat King Cole’s The King Cole Trio album — a lively abstract image featuring a double bass, a guitar, and a piano keyboard under a gold crown. The four 78rpm records housed inside made history, topping the first Billboard Best Selling Popular Record Albums chart, on 24 March 1945. The King Cole Trio spent most of the rest of the year on the bestseller list, with many of its singles reaching №1.
There was no turning back. Nat King Cole showed that cover design was going to be a massive cultural influence; it was one of the few mediums which reached millions of people in the golden age of radio and before television had become king. Moreover, the music sales industry had a global impact, because it provided designers with a way to express their creativity and originality to the whole world. A host of renowned artists, including Andy Warhol, Roger Dean and Burt Goldblatt, kick-started amazing careers by designing album covers.
Capitol Records have a proud history of album art, utilizing talented individuals such as painter Thomas B Allen and costume designer Donfeld (Donald Lee Feld), whose first job, after graduating from college, was as a designer and art director at the company. Donfeld was the man behind the cover of Aaron Copland’s Billy The Kid album, and he went on to design the iconic Wonder Woman costume.
Jazz era designs
Many of the greatest covers of all time are associated with the post-war jazz and bebop era. Jim Flora, who had trained at the Chicago Art Academy, worked in advertising before transforming RCA Victor’s art department in the 50s. “I was hired because I was the jazzman,” he said. Flora paid tribute to Steinweiss’ genius and his role as the man “who invented the record jacket… we called the old sleeves ‘the tombstone’ and we got rid of them as soon as possible.”
Flora’s distinctive drawing style was a light-hearted blend of caricature and surrealism, with humorous juxtapositions of physically exaggerated characters, some with Picasso-skewed eyes. His celebrated portrayals included Louis Armstrong and Shorty Rogers. Flora came up with monthly masterpieces, including the album covers for Bix + Tram and Kid Ory And His Creole Jazz Band. He used pigmentation to make Benny Goodman, Charlie Ventura, and Gene Krupa look like bedspread patterns.
As a jazz fan, Flora adored working closely with the musicians. He went to a recording session to sketch Duke Ellington, recalling: “Duke was always a very affable, wonderful man. He would come over, check on me, and say, ‘Oh that wasn’t a very good profile. I’ll give you a full face.’” Asked about his magnificent work, Flora said simply: “All I wanted to make was a piece of excitement.”
Groundbreaking photographers
Art was closely intertwined with jazz in this era, something that pleased not only designers and customers but the musicians themselves, as Tony Bennett noted. Records were little cultural artifacts. Hawaii-born graphic designer S Neil Fujita worked at Columbia Records from 1954 to 1960 and designed covers for Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, and Miles Davis, among others. He brought modern art, including his own paintings, into the equation, for example in his cool design for Dave Brubeck’s Time Out album, which showed the influence of Picasso and Paul Klee.
It wasn’t only designers who played a part in this era; photographers became a key component of the process. Many of the best-known Impulse! covers were designed by art director Robert Flynn and photographed by a small group that included Pete Turner (who shot many great covers for Verve and was a pioneer of colour photography), Ted Russell, and Joe Alper (a man who went on to take some iconic Bob Dylan images).
One of the most renowned photographers was Charles Stewart, responsible for cover shots on more than 2,000 albums, including his wonderful portraits of Armstrong, Count Basie, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. He was introduced to the record industry by his college friend Herman Leonard and never looked back. Leonard himself is one of the most respected jazz photographers of all time, to the extent that Quincy Jones remarked that “when people think of jazz, their mental picture is likely one of Herman’s.”
Bold typography
Sometimes it was just bold use of typography as in Reid Miles’s design for Jackie McLean’s It’s Time that produced a simple yet eye-catching triumph. Miles said that in the 50s typography was “in a renaissance period.” Sometimes companies chose an iconic symbol or look that would define their output as Impulse! did with their trademark black, orange, and white livery and striking logo.
This post-Second World War era was when the edgy modernism of bebop began to guide the innovative output of Blue Note. The label had some remarkably talented designers working for them, including Paul Bacon, whose many great covers included Thelonious Monk’s Genius Of Modern Music and Dizzy Gillespie’s Horn Of Plenty. Bacon went on to create the iconic first-edition design for Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22.
As well as gifted designers, Blue Note co-owner Francis Wolff’s own powerful photographs of musicians (playing music and relaxing off stage) also helped forge the label’s instantly recognizable identity. His photograph for John Coltrane’s Blue Train, showing the saxophonist looking anxious and lost in thought, is like a journey into a genius’ psyche. The practice of using powerful photographs of the musicians has survived, and can be seen in the simple yet arresting photograph of Norah Jones on the 2002 album Come Away with Me.
“Everything went photographic”
According to Flora, 1956 was the year “everything went photographic,” and it was during that year that a landmark photograph was taken for Ella And Louis. The pair were so famous by then that they did not even have their names on the album cover, just the gorgeous image taken by Vogue photographer Phil Stern, known for his iconic studies of Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe. The image-cementing photograph of rock stars would later play a major part in some of the great 60s and 70s album covers.
David Stone Martin sometimes drew his covers with a crow quill pen, something he did for the iconic Verve album Charlie Parker With Strings. Martin, whose work has been on show at the Smithsonian and the Museum Of Modern Art, did so many great album portraits for the Jazz At The Philharmonic albums in his distinctive solid black-ink lines (including likenesses of Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie). He developed a serious and sensual image of jazz.
When Norman Granz started his Jazz imprint at Mercury Records, it was to Martin that he turned for many of the designs that graced Clef, Norgran, and, later, Verve’s records. His prodigious output is awe-inspiring: it has been estimated that there are around 400 albums for Granz bearing Martin’s signature, including the Parker series and those for Billie Holiday. Other cutting-edge record labels, such as Prestige and Riverside, also featured his superb covers, such as Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet.
When the new 12” format came along it was Reid Miles, a 28-year-old designer who had worked for Esquire magazine, who came to prominence. His debut for Blue Note, as co-designer with John Hermansader, was a cover for a 10” album by the Hank Mobley Quartet in late 1955. But the first album to carry the sole name Reid K Miles was far from modern a Sidney Bechet release a few months later.
Reid, who also took photographs for covers, was paid only around $50 per creation, and often did it all as extra weekend work and occasionally farmed out work to a young Andy Warhol. Over a decade he created some of Blue Note’s most brilliant designs, including output from Kenny Burrell and numerous gems for the Blue Note 1500 Series. Miles, who would later create covers for Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond, went on to make celebrated television commercials.
John DeVries would have been celebrated if he did nothing other than the one stunning illustration of Billie Holiday for a Commodore Record in 1959. DeVries had a real affinity for the music he was representing visually. Before moving into the album world, he designed a famous flyer for a 1942 Fats Waller concert and was also a noted song composer. Along with Joe Bushkin a member of the Tommy Dorsey band DeVries co-wrote the hit “Oh! Look at Me Now,” a song that helped launch the career of a young Frank Sinatra.
DeVries produced designs for some of New York’s legendary jazz clubs along 52nd Street, most notably The Famous Door. In the 70s, he designed the interior of the final incarnation of Eddie Condon’s on West 54th Street. He encapsulates why so many jazz album covers were special: the people making them had a sense of integrity to the music and dedication to the performers. DeVries moved with the times, too. He was working on illustrations up to his death in 1992 aged 76 including covers for CDs by Clark Terry and Teddy Wilson.
“The rock n roll revolution”
It wasn’t just jazz that was undergoing an album revolution in the 50s. At the start of the decade, most rock music was sold as cash cow 45rpm singles; albums were primarily used to collect hits together in one package. The marketing was usually tied to cinema releases, and the imagery for many albums especially soundtrack ones came from film posters, such as Jailhouse Rock. Sometimes the albums were just stunning photographs with lettering, such as William V “Red” Robertson’s picture of Presley for the RCA album of 1956. There was also a plethora of what has been called “Technicolor retouched grins”, with covers featuring full-size pictures of the faces of young crooners such as Frankie Avalon.
There were innovative people at work in the popular music industry in that decade. At Capitol Records, Ken Veeder, who was head of the photographic department for more than 20 years, designed a number of impressive covers, including Gene Vincent’s 1956 album Bluejean Bop!. Other designers blended black-and-white and color images, as in Decca’s Little Richard LP. Some used striking images, as in the lone wolf illustration for Howlin’ Wolf’s 1958 Chess album Moanin’ In The Moonlight. Topical concerns also sometimes featured, as in the mushroom cloud photograph on the cover of The Atomic Mr. Basie.
Breaking the mold
In the 60s it became fashionable for bands to commission covers from artists and art school friends. The Beatles famously worked with Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton; The Rolling Stones with Warhol and Robert Frank. Young designers who were interested in the music began developing the imagery that is still associated with rock’n’roll. In London, rock music intermingled with the worlds of fashion and fine art.
The Beatles’ Revolver album of 1966, featuring the work of Klaus Voorman, was a stepping stone — and With The Beatles was another memorable cover — but nothing quite matched the impact of the Blake/Jann Howarth cover for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That cover truly broke the mold, not least for being an album where music and visuals began to meld as one creative entity.
One musician who has taken a keener interest than most when it comes to album covers is John Mayall, who left a career as a graphic artist to form The Bluesbreakers. “I always excelled in art and went to junior art school,” Mayall said. “I still use my artistic experiences to design album covers, posters, and things that are related to my musical career. They now run hand in hand, really. Of more than 50 or so albums I’ve recorded, I designed at least a third of the covers.” One of his most famous was Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, which became known as “The Beano Album” because Clapton, who later admitted he was in an “uncooperative mood” during the photo-shoot, started reading a comic. Mayall decided to use that shot.
Colin Fulcher (better known by his legally adopted name Barney Bubbles) cut his teeth on the satirical magazine OZ, and, later, his designs for Hawkwind, Brinsley Schwarz, and Nick Lowe were hugely influential. He was a genuine original and adroit at blending imaginative typography with art. His cover for The Damned’s 1977 album Music For Pleasure features a pastiche of Kandinsky paintings that spells out the band’s name. Lush, witty artwork was a feature of his work for Elvis Costello And The Attractions. Bubbles also worked with Ian Dury (who had studied graphic design and been an art school teacher himself), creating the Bauhaus-influenced logo for Dury’s group The Blockheads.
Coulthart, who created three Hawkwind covers, said: “Barney Bubbles and a handful of others turned vinyl packaging into a real art form. The windows of record shops were like a street-level art gallery, constantly delivering new surprises. Barney was at the forefront throughout, even if we didn’t always know it a true Pop Artist.” Esteemed designer Peter Saville calls him “the missing link between pop and culture.”
The Rolling Stones broke ground with their covers in the 60s. The band were never short of self-belief, which shows in the bullish poses for Nicholas Wright’s photograph for their debut album, which contained no mention of the band’s name on the cover. For the follow-up, 1965’s The Rolling Stones №2, they used a cover shot taken by the celebrated David Bailey, with Mick Jagger stuck at the back of the group. Bailey said: “With The Rolling Stones I had a connection. And I liked the idea that they dressed like people on the street.”
The stark, in-your-face approach, continued with Out of Our Heads (1965) shot by Gered Mankowitz because Bailey was unavailable and did not really change until a couple of years later with the 3D artwork for Their Satanic Majesties Request, when psychedelic poses and quirky costumes were all the rage in the year of Sgt Pepper. A 50th-anniversary deluxe box set reissue brings that original artwork back to life.
By the end of the 60s, graphic designers such as Wes Wilson, Alton Kelley, and painter Stanley “Mouse” Miller were key members of the San Francisco psychedelic music scene. The West Coast scene was having its own creative flowering, and Grateful Dead albums began to reflect the artworks they were housed in. Mouse, who had made his name in hot-rod art and painting T-shirts at custom car shows, played a key role. Miller was responsible for the “skull and roses” logo that became the Grateful Dead’s enduring hallmark. Miller, a born iconoclast, copied a block print image on a poem he found in the San Francisco Public Library. “I thought, ‘Here’s something that might work for the Grateful Dead,’” he recalled.
Mouse designed many of the fantastic albums and posters that so appeal to the legions of Deadhead fans, and his work adorns many classic albums, including Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Art and imagery were powerful tools for the Grateful Dead, and Mickey Hart even had custom-painted drum kits.
The 60s was also an era when album covers were becoming more defiant and raunchier. The cover for The Velvet Underground And Nico featured a bright yellow banana print from Warhol, contrasted against a clean white background. Original pressings featured the banana as a sticker, complete with instructions to “peel slowly and see.” If you did this, a suggestive flesh-colored banana was revealed. But creating the artwork was too time-consuming and expensive each sticker had to be hand placed so the sticker ideas were abandoned for later pressings. On the cover of The Rolling Stones’ 1971 album, Sticky Fingers, there is simply a photograph of a man’s crotch albeit covered by jeans. (Again, first pressings were interactive: the jeans’ zipper could be drawn to reveal underwear.)
Album art as concept
Album art as a concept was the new thing, and British designers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell were at the forefront with the firm Hipgnosis. Some of their designs have become symbols of music in the 20th Century, such as the giant inflatable pig over London’s Battersea Power Station which graced the cover for Pink Floyd’s Animals (1977); or the disturbing image of blonde-haired, nude children climbing the Giant’s Causeway for Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy (1973). Thorgerson said they wanted to encapsulate in art what bands were trying to say in their music: “Pictures of a band, like The Beatles, what do they tell you? They tell you what they look like, but nothing about what’s in their hearts, or in their music,” he said. “If you were trying to present an emotion, or a feeling, or an idea, or a theme, or an obsession, or a perversion, or a preoccupation, when would it have four guys in it?”
Hipgnosis used photography to powerful effect and seemed to have a constant stream of ideas. They became especially known for their association with Pink Floyd especially their cover for The Dark Side Of the Moon. Dave Gilmour called them his “artistic advisors” and Powell said his relationship with Torgersen worked because “I had a vision to build a company, he had the intelligence to create an art-house and that’s exactly what Hipgnosis became.”
They suited an era when prog rock musicians were keen on overblown and fantastical album covers. With their ability to mix sex, surrealism, and suburban alienation, Hipgnosis became key artistic inspirations in that era. So did artist, publisher, and designer Roger Dean. Quickly coming to Yes what Hipgnosis were to Pink Floyd, Dean provided artwork for the band for nearly five decades, including for their 2014 live set Like It Is.
Renowned for the dreamy scenes he created for Yes, and also for bands such as Asia, Budgie, Uriah Heep, and Gentle Giant, Dean called his work “otherworldly scenes” but insisted, “I don’t really think of myself as a fantasy artist but as a landscape painter.” Some of the landscapes were ambitious and imaginative. His cover for Steve Howe’s first solo album, Beginnings (1975), for example, was partly based on the landscape seating he designed for Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in 1968.
In the same way that Dean became synonymous with Yes, Hugh Syme’s name and art is closely associated with prog legends Rush. He designed the artwork for their third album, Caress Of Steel, and went on to create the band’s iconic “Starman” emblem.