Honoring Tom Wilkes, Album Designer
Tom Wilkes died last week. Pictured above in a wonderful 1967 portrait, Wilkes was not a guitar player, nor a drummer, nor a singer. He was a designer.
Q: Why should you care who Tom Wilkes, a designer, was?
A: Because Tom Wilkes created some of the most iconic record album covers ever produced, artwork that you may, in fact, own.
As London's Independent newspaper put it, "Anyone owning a copy of such epochal albums as Eric Clapton's eponymous debut, Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen, The Gilded Palace Of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, The Concert For Bangla Desh, Pearl by Janis Joplin, Neil Young's Harvest, the Rolling Stones' collection Flowers, and The Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 compilations is familiar with the distinctive, eye-catching work of the graphic designer, illustrator and photographer Tom Wilkes....
Wilkes recently completed a memoir, Tommy Geeked The Chicken. He was diagnosed with a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig's disease – 10 years ago and died of a heart attack at his home in the Californian desert he loved and had often immortalised on album covers."
For a selection of Wilkes' record album work, visit his website: www.wilkesworks.com
And grab one of these records - you must have one of them on your shelf, right? - and put it on your turntable, turn up the volume, and think of Tom Wilkes. I think he probably would have liked that.
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