21 votes

"My dad painted the iconic cover for Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung,’ and it’s haunted him ever since"

Posted by boredop
Tags: rock.progressive, duplicate post, covers.album, artists, burton silverman, musicians, jethro tull, personal histories, albums, aqualung, author.robert silverman, source.the outline, long read
https://theoutline.com/post/4490/jethro-tull-aqualung-cover-artist-burton-silverman

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Title
The painter behind Jethro Tull's Aqualung cover is still haunted by its success
Word count
4771 words

4 comments

  1. [3]
    boredop
    Link
    This is an interesting read about the artist of an iconic album cover, who accepted the assignment with a handshake deal and expected it to be a throwaway job. Instead the album sold 7 million...

    This is an interesting read about the artist of an iconic album cover, who accepted the assignment with a handshake deal and expected it to be a throwaway job. Instead the album sold 7 million copies, becoming his most famous work by far, and the artist received a total of $1,500, with no hope of recovering any royalties or the original artwork. Kind of a sad story.

    12 votes
    1. [2]
      Necronomicommunist
      Link Parent
      It's a weird case and maybe a sign of changing times, but the notion of a handshake deal for the continued rights of an image seems almost alien to me. A handshake would work for a one off sale...

      It's a weird case and maybe a sign of changing times, but the notion of a handshake deal for the continued rights of an image seems almost alien to me.

      A handshake would work for a one off sale (just buying the paintings), but when you know an actively touring band will use it for promotional material and for their 4th album, a previous album having already risen to the number 1 in the UK... I can't help but think this was just a dumb deal to have made altogether. I feel kind of bad, but also can't feel that bad because of how obvious a blunder it seems to be.

      9 votes
      1. vord
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Gotta remember: This was the 1970s. The internet didn't exist. Dissemination of information was much slower. And at the end of the day, it's hard to resist the lure of a fast-talking salesman (in...

        Gotta remember: This was the 1970s. The internet didn't exist. Dissemination of information was much slower. And at the end of the day, it's hard to resist the lure of a fast-talking salesman (in this case the record exec)...especially since $1,500 circa 1970 something wasn't chump change. That was basically a whole year of rent. The closer equivalent these days is more like $15,000...which isn't that bad of a payoff for a one-off gig.

        In some ways, I think it's the current state of copyright that's sick, not what existed then. While I agree that assigning full copyright shouldn't be a thing (for this kind of work), I think we'd all be better off if Aqualung was public domain by now.

        11 votes
  2. DonQuixote
    Link
    I'll just take this space to recommend to everyone the novel Year Zero by Rob Reid. It's a satire on the mess that is US copyright law and by extension the US legal system in general.

    I'll just take this space to recommend to everyone the novel Year Zero by Rob Reid. It's a satire on the mess that is US copyright law and by extension the US legal system in general.

    1 vote