Some Girls: The Facts About The Stones' Most Notorious Record Cover

An Interview with Sleeve Co-Creator Hubert Kretzschmar

A few weeks back The Rolling Stones re-released their seminal Some Girls album. As John Carucci reported here, the new edition comes as both a double disc and box set, and includes a slew of songs that were intended to be the original LP, but got cut due to time restraints. In fact, Stones guitarist Keith Richards said rushing to market was "the same as cutting off your baby's head."

But added tracks, as kickin' as they may be, aren't the only story behind the Some Girls re-release, which is wrapped in the very same sleeve that caused such a stir way back in '78 and remains a bone of contention between its co-creators, Peter Corriston and Hubert Kretszchmar. Now that the head's been put back on the baby, song-wise, perhaps it's time we put to bed the issue over who did what with the notorious sleeve.

First, who's idea was it to use the wigs and the cut-outs?

I had been working in the mid '70s with a collage technique that used fragments and bits and pieces of heads and combinations of different elements, while Peter had been working with dye cutting in print production and similar production-related technology previous to this. In this case, it was Peter who brought the the wig ads from Jet magazine, and we experimented with various combinations of content.

Did Corriston also suggest using famous faces?

We used material from various sources in this case. Publicity pictures from entertainment tabloids were one source. Publicity stills of movie stars, and Hollywood press material came from my end. As with many commercial projects, it is often a collaborative effort and sometimes one idea builds on another.

At what point did you come in on the project?

I had come to New York from Germany straight from art school and was showing my portfolio with illustrations to art directors and designers here in the city. When I met with Peter, he was working on creating a corporate identity for a new record label called Infinity Records, for which I ended up creating the logo and quite a lot of publicity-related artwork; and Peter had just gotten a call from Jagger in Paris for a packaging project called "Lies".

Did you do much tweaking of Corriston's original idea?

My knowledge of retouching and collage was for sure a valuable contribution to the look of the project. If you look at the early sketches for the cover you can get a rough idea of the concept, but using all the graphic elements together with the type created a way more effective piece of art. I think that we had a similar aesthetic that complemented each other's ideas and contributions.

So is it fair to say that you took Corriston's initial idea and ran with it?

In the case of this particular package, I think I managed to have all the elements push convention and gave them a certain twist. When you look at the evolution of an idea and its technical refinement, only in very few cases is it possible to say with certainty, "There was a fork in the road and so-and-so made a left turn and that led to such-and-such an outcome." In the case of Some Girls, I have revisited and reworked my own archive a few times and expanded on the original concept.

What kind of reception did the artwork get once the record was released?

It was very successful and had quite a impact for its bold graphic look. Aside from the objections of some of the females that ended up being taken off the cover. An interesting little tidbit: I have been told by one of Andy's assistants, that Warhol was quite in awe of the cover and artwork when it came out!

Who took the brunt of the blame for the controversial images?

I think the label and the band got equal blame. You must remember that at that point in time the boys were infamous for their public stunts. Jagger was having an affair with Margaret Trudeau, the prime minister's wife, and Keith had been arrested in Canada for drug possession. So some of the ladies felt that they did not want to be associated with them.

After the sleeve was recalled, who handled the subsequent re-imaging?

Placing color rectangles over the offending characters was supposed to have been a temporary solution. But there were quite a few females in the limelight that wanted to be "Some Girls" and on the cover -- Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon and Britt Eckland being among them. I prepared a version that was supposed to be used as a replacement inner sleeve, but that was not utilized after the album had chart-wise gone through the roof.

Did The Stones have much input with either the initial art or the re-issue?

On all covers that I worked on for the band, Mick Jagger had final approval, but gave us pretty much total freedom in the creation of the artwork.

Why weren't you credited on the album?

This is something that I file under "lessons learned" and can only explain with my relative youth and inexperience at the time: for not being insistent enough, and for assuming that there is such a thing as fair play in business when working with professionals.

Who did The Stones turn to when they needed art for the "Shattered" single?

"Shattered" was supposed to be released as a 45 single and I had a meeting with Mick that resulted in me creating artwork for it. I used a contact sheet of head shots of Mick that I'd taken and that he had marked up. In that case I was experimenting with Color Xerox, a process that was quite new and visually exiting for me at the time. The record was released in November '78 in quite a small run. I saw it listed as a very rare 45 sleeve in a catalog for vinyl singles recently.

Did Corriston play any part in that sleeve's creation?

Peter art directed and I created the illustration based on the aforementioned contact sheet that Mick had marked up. In most of our dealings with musicians, Peter usually handled negotiations and contractual details.

What about Jagger (or the other Stones) -- did they have much input?

Working on various covers for the Stones, Mick and Keith were the two individuals that had approval and at times were of quite different mindset about visuals. In most cases it was Jagger who approved art and signed off on it. I was in a few meetings where Charlie Watts was present, in which he killed quite a few of our concepts with loose remarks that he made.

What artwork will The Stones be using for the Some Girls re-issue?

I have not spoken with anyone at Universal in London, and can only assume that they are using material that they have in their archive. I have in my archive the original sketches and markups for the various presentations and meetings and a lot of the art that was not used and was consequently not published.

Have they consulted with either you or Corriston?

I have not had contact with Peter for quite a while professionally, but was asked to clear some of the images legally that I had created after the initial release.

Don't you have a veritable treasure trove of artwork from the original series?

I am in possession of the first sketches and quite a few of the various incarnations that the album cover went through. I have also created and reprinted some of the Hollywood fems versions that had originally been planned. I have a updated version that is a veritable altarpiece to pop art.

I still think that the concept has a lot of possible applications, besides it being appropriated by almost every young kid that puts his picture into the cutouts and all the other bands that use the cover's iconic status as a invitation to pay their homage to it.

In what other ways have you revisited the concept?

I did a "Some Girls Bar" as a conceptual work of art in Basel, Switzerland, together with a young architect named Christian Wassman a few years back. And I have designs for a three-dimensional structure and a deconstructed version that turns into a tunnel-like structure filled with the art. Then there are of course a bunch of ideas for interactive content for the digital set.

Do The Stones know about either your archives or you subsequent creations?

I have not had much contact with Jagger or Keith after Undercover was released in 1983, so I think it is safe to say that they are not aware of any of this.

What about Corriston?

I know that Peter has been trying to get a tablet application together for this, but I have not been asked by him to contribute anything.

Will you be showing some of the Some Girls art coincident with the album's re-issue?

If there is interest and opportunity, I might consider opening my vault -- what I call the "Area 51 of graphic art" -- and show some of the treats that have been slumbering there for the past thirty years.

Do you think you'll finally be credited?

I think I would have to hire a lawyer and do some legal arm wrestling to get them to add my name at this point.

This wasn't the only time you worked with Corriston or The Stones, was it?

I have worked with Peter on and off, for a good portion of the last thirty years, in addition to Some Girls there was Emotional Rescue, Tattoo You, Undercover, Jagger's She's The Boss, and a solo album for Keith Richards. But after 9/11 our paths diverged. Peter moved away from NYC to the countryside. He gets to listen to the bees and I am still here in Manhattan getting the buzz from the street, so to speak.

Were you credited on any of your other Stones' cover work?

My work on Emotional Rescue and my contribution as the photographer of the cover of Tattoo You in 1983 has also not been credited in print. I received credit on Undercover, for which I did all the art.

How do you feel about not receiving credit where due?

It is nice to get one's ego stroked by seeing one's name in print and receiving professional accolades. But creative people and artists are only tapping into a big stream of ideas that exist out there in space. We are just conduits of ideas, and as such, we make the ideas appear, so sometimes just being able to do the work is reward enough.

Will you be revisiting the Undercover series ala Some Girls?

I might turn my collection into a book or a catalog if I find the right publisher for it -- and if I feel the need to set the record straight.

What is your main objective vis-a-vis the Some Girls re-issue?

I've reached out to the label, but have received no response yet, so I can't say at this point if they'll take advantage of my input. It would be nice to launch something in tandem, or to start up the Some Girls Bar as sort of a franchise. I am keeping an open mind.

Bryan Ferry alights in Miami

London’s legendary crooner swoons into The Fillmore Gleason

by John Hood

(Full text of the 9/28/11 Miami Herald feature. Photo by Jeffrey Delannoy Taken 9/29/11.)

Every once in a true blue moon, a singer comes along that wows the world in ways that are both surprising and transcendent. They may capture the adoration of the excitable masses (Sinatra at The Paramount); they might seem to spring from another galaxy (Ziggy era Bowie); or they may appear to inherit a tradition that’s as old and as cherished as the wind (Tom Waits, any time). No matter the origin though, or the instance, each singer inevitably becomes the soundtrack of our lives.

Add to that short list one Bryan Ferry. Blue collar born and impeccably bespoke from get-go, Ferry alighted during what was arguably rock music’s most robust era, when bright ideas rained from starlit skies and the whole wild world learned a new way to listen. Like Sinatra and Bowie and Waits, Ferry’s coming was under one of those rare and true blue moons. And like all the very few singers whose song reaches our hearts, its glow also seemed to come from within, as if the orb had been swiped from the sky and put into the kind of service only mysteries can fathom. While Ferry’s arrival was without screaming teens or alien guise, the British crooner did clearly inherit the tradition of the wind. Better still, he topped it a with brand new spin.

That spin of course was Roxy Music. Formed in 1970 after Ferry’s audition to replace Greg Lake in King Crimson led to a kindred friendship with the band rather than a front man position, Roxy Music did away with rock’s parameters and helped to unleash the genre that would forever be known as “glam.” Their first single, 1972’s “Virginia Plain,” broke Britain’s Top 5 without breaking even a proverbial sweat. It also cemented the band’s pivotal place in the pop pantheon. But it was their initial eponymous LP -- which referenced everything from Humphrey Bogart to The Battle of Britain -- that would distinctly influence a most diverse array of music-makers themselves, among them Bowie (who covered “If There is Something” with Tin Machine), The Pixies’ Frank Black (who did likewise with “Re-Make/Re-Model”) and Ladytron (after the same-named song).

Roxy Music’s followup, For Your Pleasure, proved to be equally influential (Morrissey considers it “the one truly great British album”) and experimental (largely a result of Brian Eno’s “treatments”). The LP also marked the first time Ferry would make his girl-of-the-moment a cover star (in this case, French model/singer Amanda Lear, former muse of Salvador Dali). Later album covers would feature 1973 Playmate of the Year, Marilyn Cole (Stranded) and American model Jerry Hall (Siren), which narturally induced the press to make fodder of Ferry’s glamorous love life. Ferry, ever the gentleman, refused to take the bait. He refuses to speak about his exes to this day.

Coincident with Roxy Music’s sophomore effort was the release of Ferry’s first solo album, These Foolish Things, a collection of classic cover songs ranging from Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” to Leiber and Stoller’s “Baby I Don’t Care.” Subsequent solo LPs would follow a similar pattern, and help to forever associate Ferry with some of the most beautifully inspired interpretations ever rendered (most famously perhaps Roxy Music’s take on John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”). Of course Ferry is a songwriter as well as a troubadour, and even with Roxy Music still creating records, he had songs to spare. So Ferry inserted one of his own into 1974’s Another Time, Another Place (the title track itself). Three-and-a-half decades later his largely original Olympia would include the ethereal “Song to the Siren”.

Reached by telephone in Warsaw, where Ferry was wrapping up the European leg of another extensive world tour, he remembers clearly the first time he heard This Mortal Coil’s own cover of Tim Buckley’s classic track:

“I was home,” he said. “The guy who did the clip had it on his reel. I thought it was beautiful. I don’t think I heard Tim Buckley’s version till after mine was recorded though.”

Like Ferry’s earlier renditions, “Siren” is at once an unmistakable homage to a great song and a sort of possessing of its essence. As ever Ferry seems less concerned with re-invention (the wheel turns fine as it is), as he is with ownership; not in any mundane way of course, but in the way of a song’s soul.

The smart money might say that Ferry’s ability to claim the essence of another writer’s song is the reason his own songwriting so singularly stands out. That and perhaps the notion that the tribute gets something out of his system. Whatever the cause, whether it’s Roxy Music’s “More Than This” or Ferry’s own “Slave to Love,” any influences one might cite are sensate rather than traceable to any source. That doesn’t mean though that Ferry hasn’t picked up a trick or two over the decades of tribute, or that he’s afraid to play ‘em either. And if one closes the eyes and the true blue moon strikes just right Olympia’s touching “Tender is the Night” could easily be mistaken for something lost from the Great American Songbook. Even the lyrics hark back to a fabled then, and when “dark end of the street” gets singled out, Ferry is quick to mention that it nods back to singer James Carr’s same-named 1967 soul-stirrer.

Beyond song though, Ferry’s primary influence seems to be the visual arts, which is unsurprising for an erudite schooled under early British Pop Art pacesetter Richard Hamilton. Ferry takes a special interest in painters, from Marcel Duchamp (source of 1976’s The Bride Stripped Bare and subject of Hamilton’s 1960 “Green Box” monograph), to Robert Rauschenberg, who Ferry had been keen to see when his tour last took him through Edinburgh. “The show was fantastic,” he said. “A lot of late work; stuff I’d never seen before.”

Ferry’s especially keen on Modern British masters such as Augustus John, Walter Sickert, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell, whose much-respected 1903 portrait of Wyndham Lewis was among the 15-picture exhibition Ferry presented during the 2010 London International Art Fair. Held amid the spectacular confines of the Olympia Exhibition Center, the show reportedly presented but a portion the works Ferry began seriously collecting back in the ‘80s. Since then though, as Ferry told The Telegraph, he’s “run out of walls;” consequently some of his prized paintings have been picked up by London’s National Portrait Gallery.

The Olympia is also the titular source of Ferry’s latest album, as well as one of his favorite places (he says he particularly appreciates its Grand Hall). Close to his studio, the 19th century iron and glass masterwork serves as the core of colorful West London neighborhood. Ferry isn’t the only person to be drawn to the magic of the location; also nearby was Lucien Freud.

“Freud actually attended the London opening,” Ferry said. “He was a charming man. Since he lived in the neighborhood, our paths would often cross. His death was quite a loss.”

Did Ferry by chance ever sit for the infamous British portraitist?

“No,” he said with a laugh, “otherwise I’d have no life. Sitting for Freud was at least a full year commitment. In fact, I’m reading a book about it now. It’s astonishing.”

There’s another kind of Ferry show up at Le Bon Marche in Paris now, which is part of the So London exhibit.

“The show is in this really cool department store,” said Ferry. “It has all the old covers, and there’s the series with Kate Moss, which is on sale for charity, I believe. We’ll take it to Los Angeles after the tour’s over.”

Moss loosely re-created Manet’s Olympia for Ferry’s latest album, an idea suggested by Isaac Ferry, one of his four sons. The gentleman crooner and the supermodel must’ve got on well, for Ferry was choppered in to sing at her recent wedding to actor James Quince.

“Her first dance was [to] “If There Is Something” from the first Roxy Music album,” Ferry told London’s Mirror. “Kate knows her Roxy onions – I’m very flattered she likes what we do. You do “Avalon,” and “Love is the Drug,” and “Slave to Love” is always a winner.”

The wedding singer’s apparent non chalance however belied the fact that he was initially “afraid to sing” at the nuptials.

It’s unlikely though that Ferry will exhibit any fear whatsoever when he opens his North American tour at The Fillmore this Thursday. After all, he’s now four decades into playing the most fabled places on earth. That the run will now finally include Miami is a case of welcome happenstance.

“I’ve got a friend there,” he said. “I was in South Beach on holiday a few years back and noticed the theater and thought that would be a nice place to play. It was still called the Jackie Gleason then, I believe.”

Indeed it was. But whether it’s called the Fillmore or the Gleason or a combination of the two, it will always be known as the house that Jackie built. Come Thursday though, it will now also be known as the place that the great Bryan Ferry took the stage.

Bryan Ferry vs John Hood

June 13. That's the day I started lobbying to interview Bryan Ferry coincident with his September 29 at The Fillmore Gleason. My initial objective was a face-to-face for BlackBook when he hit the MIA. A wise flack though suggested that I'd do best to preface my request with a show preview interview. No easy feat when you're speaking about a legend like Bryan Ferry.

But I'm nothing if not ridiculously persistent, and after nearly three months of pushing and prodding and pleading, The Miami Herald's keen cool Connie Ogle relented. A mere four days later I was on the phone with Ferry from Warsaw, and a week and change after that my preview interview graced the cover of The Herald's Living Today.

The newspaper business being what it is, however, and me being somewhat verbose, the feature was heavily-edited. If you're interested, you can read it in its entirety here.

At the end of our chat, Ferry invited me to meet him in person while he was in Miami. Again though, things didn't proceed as smoothly as I'd have hoped. Thank Zeus though for ridiculous persistence -- not to mention, good friends -- because even after the face-to-face was canceled, I was able to reach out and set up the interview. That honored chat made it in BlackBook, and I suspect it will remain one of the utter highlights of my swingin' life.

Great good thanks must be given to Miami PR heavy Woody Graber (who did the initial connecting), editors Connie Ogle and Megan Conway (from, respectively, The Herald and BlackBook), ace lensman Jeffrey Delannoy (who, as usual, got some killer shots), and the ever delightful Breanna Murphy and Nicole Soden (who accompanied Jeffrey and me to the show), as well as producers Arthur Baker and Johnson Somerset (who opened the door to the face-to-face) and Olympia tour visualist Isaac Ferry (who made that face-to-face possible, and who also posted the BlackBook piece on Ferry's site). Thanks too goes to Tony and Brandon and Sigi and James and the entire Fillmore family for putting on yet another remarkable show.

Most of all, I thank Bryan Ferry, for making my night, my month and my year. You Sir, are a true and unequivocal gentleman.

9/11: Reading, Watching, Remembering

To mark the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, I thought it good to chart the books that best represent the day (and the times), be it the before, during or aftermath. So here is my humble Top 10 of 9/11.

While I'm at it, have a look at this mash-up I stumbled upon at The Atlantic. It's a reverently-fitting remembrance to the Towers that once were.

Twin Tower Cameos from Dan Meth on Vimeo.

OrganicArma Gets the Call for Dixon

The call reportedly came a couple weeks back, and it was as welcome as it was unexpected. Inbal Lankry, Electric Pickle’s Gal-on-the-Go, was on the the line with a proposal: Instead of playing September 28 as planned, would organicArma like to open for Dixon on the 8th?

It took organicArma all of half a second to say “Yes!” There was the small matter of oA already being booked to play the Heartbeats Fest on September 3, and that would mean holding back any official announcements till after Labor Weekend. But if Electric Pickle was cool with it, organicArma was cool with it too. In fact, considering oA considers Dixon the kinda DJ who wakes the world and Electric Pickle the kinda hotspot for which the world awakes, they weren’t just cool about it -- they were thrilled.

Not only is Electric Pickle’s prescient pairing of organicArma with Dixon a stroke of booking genius, it’s the kinda engagement the band says they’ve long had envisioned for themselves. It also makes perfect sense. Miami is a city fueled by beat, which is why the world’s best beat-makers can’t keep away. Billing a beat-driven outfit like organicArma with a world class DJ like Dixon is the equivalent of adding one and one and coming up with something singular. Think kismet with a kick, the kinda fate you can dance to. Then come out to Electric Pickle on Thursday the 8th and lose your mind.

Behold the Hurricane

NPR's ever-consistent Song of the Day comes through again, this time with "Behold the Hurricane" from The Horrible Crowes, a side-project of The Gaslight Anthem's ever-excellent Brian Fallon.

This stirring song goes out to all my pals in New York on the eve of Irene. May you each stay safe and sound.

Natalia Kills vs John Hood: Two Takes on One Kickass Chick

Last week ace lensman Jeffrey Delannoy and I had the great good pleasure of colliding with the with-it chick known as Natalia Kills over at The Catalina. This time the chat -- and the smashing snaps -- were done at the behest of BlackBook. There was a last time though too, in my case anyway, and that was done for NBC Miami.

As you might suspect, Kills was killer up close and personal. Then again, she seems to be killer everywhere she goes, in everything she does, whether she's teaming with Far East Movement or LMFAO or flying solo. Check out the below clip to see what I mean. And do keep a keen eye on this lethally-named young lady, because one day soon she'll blow so sky high you may not be able to see her.

Stealing Hope: Robert Stacy McCain is a Thief & a Hypocrite (Among Other Ugly Things)

Till today I was blissfully unaware of a bombastic conservative blogger named Robert Stacy McCain (and his "sidekick" Smitty). Then Vanity Fair's James Wolcott pointed out Stacy (as he is known to his, er, followers) made a good point vis-a-vis Sarah Palin's maybe candidacy. Of course 24 hours later Wolcott took it all back, but not before mine eyes had seen the immoral glory of this blowhard.

What I wanna know is why the hateful Stacy has stolen Shepard Fairey's Hope poster image to use as his own. Doesn't President Obama represent everything he despises?

Me thinks the thief needs a new image.