I travelled back and forth to NY over and over again, for each gig, and then arrived sometime in the late afternoon, just in time for the soundcheck. Now, however, I had a backstage pass and could go wherever I wanted: in the audience, backstage or even, at Bob’s own request, on stage to take pictures. Then you only saw a speck of light in the distance, in which you could suspect Bob Dylan.
I had first seen him at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965 – I was truant from school before – and the last time was at Earls Court in London (June 1978). It was an absurd dream for a Bob Dylan fan. When we were done, we agreed that I would go on tour to take some pictures and finish the corner drawing. I’ve never seen an artist at work before.’ He wanted to add some blood to the hand on the sketch, so I took my pastel and drew some blood smoothly over the hand. We sat down, talked a bit and it clicked. It seems like an absurd addition, but it proves that Bob Dylan doesn’t take it for granted that everyone knows who he is. He gave me a tour and explained that the band was rehearsing here and that he was the singer. It quickly became clear to me why the dog was overweight, when I noticed how Bob regularly went into the fridge to get some treats for him. In the classroom there was a refrigerator, a small, much too fat dog – a Basset dog, I think – and a blackboard. He stood on the lookout in a small back room, to see what kind of person was coming. As I walked up the stairs from the front desk, I saw him. I took a taxi to Santa Monica, where he had a rehearsal room with office.
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The next day I arrived in LA, with a box full of pastels and paper. I’ll take the plane and come and discuss the final version with you. “How did you do that? It’s exactly what I wanted. He called me again, completely over the moon. I asked: Rich from heaven? “No, not from heaven. The image was the hand of God/Christ reaching down to the hands of men. That was a vision, a kind of whole apparently, including all the songs from the record.
Wexler had just finished the record and Bob was looking in vain for an artist who could visualize his dream, a vision he had experienced, for the cover.ĭylan told me that he had seen my work and knew that I had the technical expertise, but that he needed someone who understood him. “A few minutes later, Bob Dylan was on the line. Wright gave me permission to display his story here and also to use the images. In 2016, he bought the original design of the cover and asked Wright to explain how it was created. Eckstrom is the owner of forever young records in Texas, and prides himself on owning the largest collection of Dylan material. What follows is based on the story as Tony Wright noted it for David Eckstrom in January 2016. Wexler asks him about his religious beliefs and states that he can expect a phone call from someone. Wright has met the producer a few times and the man knows his job. In the last days of February 1980, Wright is barely in New York for a few months, when he unexpectedly receives a call from Jerry Wexler. I was in the middle of New York, but I wasn’t exactly ‘in’ New York.” “On a stormy day, the clouds passed under my window. The job includes an apartment on the 47th floor of a building on 57th Street, with a “view like a God of Central Park and New York,” as he puts it. His first major cover is one for Traffic (The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys), followed by Bob Marley (Natty Dread) and numerous reggae records, such as Police and Thieves (Junior Murvin), Super Ape (Lee Perry) and War Ina Babylon (Max Romeo).Īt the end of 1979 Wright was allowed to move to New York to become head of the American branch of the record company. In addition, Blackwell offers the young man a job: design record covers for Island Records. The shoes on the poster are called Bumpers and that naturally becomes the name of the album. Blackwell pays Wright £200 for the rights, and buys all available copies of the poster. The screen print is the work of a 19-year-old: Tony Wright. He sees a poster on which the same pair of sports shoes is depicted nine times, each time in a different colour. While visiting a poster shop in London’s Kings Road, Chris Blackwell of Island Records finds a solution. Of course, the cover should not cost too much. For the record company, it’s an interesting way to introduce the listener to a large number of their artists. Because the whole thing is offered at a low price, the compilations prove to be very popular – especially with teenagers on a budget. At the end of the sixties, British record labels experimented with samplers: double albums with an eclectic selection of songs by artists from their range.
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