judge by the cover

by Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com)

this has my personal vote for the greatest record cover ever in the the history of mankind without exception forever award. it is absolutely flawless and without peer. the music it sells comes from the era of ‘detective’ movies and television shows in the late 50’s/early 60’s and this is mediocre middle-brow big band trombonist si zenter’s take on the style. si zenter released dozens of similar mainstream records full of no-big-deal music, but he also worked with martin denny and les baxter. so, he actually wasn’t completely worthless and really had his moments. the listen may not be worth it, but THAT COVER! OMG!!

AC:awesome record COVER. i repeat, the music is not worth the effort. like most of martin denny;s records, we buy them for the covers, not the music (and martin denny still has fans. name one si zenter fan...)

this amazing cover was created by garrett-howard studios. these are the same guys who did all of the martin denny classics (exotica, hypnotica, primativa, etc.) as well as the ventures covers as well as most record covers that were released on liberty records. but, they eventually worked with literally every major label in america before long. in fact, you can’t collect old records without owning covers that these guys did. for instance, they were deeply connected into the hollywood movie celebrity scene and worked extensively with the rat pack. they designed a lot of their record covers and almost all of their affiliated record projects as (nancy sinatra, lee hazelwood, dino, desi & billy, billy strange, soundtracks, etc.) they have probably designed and photographed more record covers than any body in history.

this particular cover is credited to “pate/francis”, who seem to be the in-house graphic designers at garret-howard studios. in the early 1960’s, they were joined by art director leo monahan (today a renowned paper sculptor/illustrator) and changed the name to “Studio 5″. that’s the name you see on the back of all those amazing old surfer record covers, rockabilly record covers, classic early rock records, and early british invasion covers and patsy cline records and on and on (oh, and elvis records, too). throughout the history of the LP, garrett-howard and studio 5 were THE industry stalwarts. they designed records up until very recently as well. these are the guys who literally defined the LP cover in american music history. they’re utterly ubiquitous and profoundly influential.

so, who were these guys? murray garrett was a paparazzi photographer back in the 30’s and 40’s (long before the term was ever coined.) his amazing and wonderful photos of all the hollywood stars at play became the PR standard for the gossip rags. in fact, he was so respected by even the stars themselves, that they buddied up and drank with him. this naturally led to session work and murray garrett’s photography came to literally DEFINE the look of professional hollywood. i imagine a huge huge percentage of every famous movie star publicity photograph of the 40’s through the 60’s were his work.

gene howard, on the other hand, was a big band singer. he worked extensively with many bands, but found lasting fame with the gene krupa orchestra and led to his work with stan kenton. he eventually drifted in publicity work and that lead to a business partnership with murray garrett (they were introduced by frank sinatra). through their connections and personal histories, they were PART of the show biz world and simply became ‘shills’, doing publicity for the studios and for the stars themselves. it was the perfect connection to step into creating covers for this new-fangled recording format called the “LP.”

the history of garrett-howard/studio 5 has never been well documented (or even remotely recognized, much less preserved in any way). seems to me that this amazing extensive and historically influential and monumentally important design group really deserves a little more attention in academic circles. when it came to record covers, there were no other equals. it was either THESE GUYS do your cover, or it was NOT a record cover. all the other record cover ‘artists’ we all learn about in our textbooks are “also-rans” and copycats and small-time competition to G-H/S5.

can you imagine what the out-take photo files must look lie? where are these guys’ archives kept? (i wanna know!!) and when is a decent history of this crack design mothership going to ever get written? (hint hint)

ps – some debate on whose legs those are. everybody’s first guess is mary tyler moore, because she was THE leg model during this period (for instance, she was the chesterfield kings dancing cigarette box on television commercials.) but, these guys were based in hollywood and not NYC (where MTM was living during this period, i believe). she eventually moved to hollywood to be in the dick van dyke show. so, she may have still posed for a shot like this during the change-ov

ADDENDUM:

AC:what i mean is that i don’t give a rat’s ass abut si zenter. i’m fascinated by garret-howard/studio 5. they defined “surf music graphics”. they did all those old surf records. even the beach boys. and that is something! and it’s just a tiny part of what they accomplished – almost by accident. they invented so many style genres that they may be the single greatest pop culture innovators of all time. and nobody knows who they are. but, you’d rather talk about a c-level trombone player. ok. whatever…like i used to constantly tell my clients, ‘ a great record cover won’t necessarily sell a bad record. but a bad cover can kill a great record.”…i believe geoff spencer used this record cover as the inspiration for the signage at the restaurant called ‘cyclops’ in belltown (seattle). it would make sense. among other things, geoff spencer was an avid A#1 collector/junker/craphound. he MUST have owned a copy of this record cover….