This occasionally leads me to weird places and forgotten artists…
I really like the cover (and assorted) art Barney Bubbles did for several artists (e.g. Ian Dury) during the 70s and 80s.
Last month a google image search led me to an artist I’d completely forgotten about, the singing guitarist Howard Werth
Barney designed the album art of his 1979 solo record: ‘Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other’, as well as the sleeve of the ‘4 D Man’ single.
According to allmusic Six of One is ‘one of the most schizophrenic albums of the late '70s’ as it’s swinging between Rock & Roll and New Wave…
For me one song in particular stood out: ‘4 D Man’ as this was included in a compilation I bought many years ago…
Among the musicians helping out Howard were Steve Nieve and Billy Bremner who later covered ‘Meek Power’ from this album.
I discovered that Howard had been active before with his art rock band Audience with whom he recorded 4 albums during the early 70s for Blue Plate and Charisma Records.
Although well received no breakthrough appeared, therefore Howard decided to try it solo and recorded an album with The Moonbeams, 1975’s 'King Brilliant'.
At the same time he was approached by The Doors and asked to fill the space left by Jim Morrison. Howard spent some time rehearsing with them, but finally Ray Manzarek decided against The Doors reforming.
Howard worked for a while with Ray on various musical projects, including songs that would end up reworked on the earlier mentioned 'Six of One' and 'The Evolution Myth Explodes' (2003).
He reformed Audience in 2004 and did a much more successful tour which resulted in a live album: Alive&Kickin'&Screamin'&Shoutin'
A compilation album 'The Grapes of Werth' was announced in 2012 but never appeared. Sadly enough the record label which was supposed to release it, Luminous Music, no longer exist either.
As Howard is definitely an artist worth hearing imo this 20 track Jokonky compilation should be a decent introduction. Including here are some of his tracks
with Audience, solo albums, B-side, live, Blank & Jones remix, and his
final (up till now at least) recording with Blue Pulse.
Link: https://mega.nz/file/SRkgmRqS#WS55jQiTJmwaNGHCDf2B82AJNiE0gVJTd4dj5Ma7CzE
ReplyDeleteQuestion: As this post started with Barney Bubbles album art, please let us know some your favorite artists.
Wow Koen, what a great choice, both music and style! Barney Bubbles. I did not know I had so many of his cover designs in my collection. He did Your Generation and Space Ritual. And at least a dozen more.
ReplyDeleteNow, my favorite artist among the hundreds and thousands there have been. Kurt Schwiters comes to mind MC Escher, Peter Pontiac, Herman Brood, Peter Te Bos....
When I first got Liliput - Eisiger Wind I was blown away with everything, the cover, the songs, still amongst the best things ever.
Nice one, Richard.
DeleteThis is an Italian box-set that blew me away: https://www.discogs.com/release/4961326-Various-10-Corso-Como-North-South
Beautiful artwork. Great music too. You can't go wrong with Willem Breuker, Hector Zazou Tinariwen and Baobab
DeleteI've got a lot of favorite artists, but RON WOOD's stuff is great if you like The Stones & The Faces--because he does a lot of portraits of his friends.
ReplyDeleteHis self-portrait here is great: https://www.easyframe.co.uk/NewsArticle/art-of-ronnie-wood
- Stinky
Ron can paint for sure, thanks Stinky!
DeleteBy the way, there may be a Billy Zoom connection here... According to AllMusic: "As a point of interest, he (Howard) was in L.A. recording with the Doors, in keeping with Ray Manzarek's notion of re-forming the band -- which thankfully never happened -- and producing the very first singles by X (Manzarek later produced the band's debut album)." On Discogs I couldn't find anything that confirmed this statement...
Koen, this looks great! I must confess that when you first asked me and Stinky if we were familiar with Howard, I thought you meant this guy:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Marks#Music
Holy crap, what a character! I'd never heard of this Howard before despite being arrested by Dutch police in 1973...
DeleteWoW guys nice links from all three. I filmed Super Furry Animals for my old youtube channel when they played a record shop.
ReplyDeleteThanks Koen! I LOVE Howard Werth's song "Obsolete" that I discovered on one of the Dangerhouse Records compilations long ago but I haven't heard anything else by him so I'm looking forward to hearing what else he did.
ReplyDeleteOh shit! I didn't realize it was the same Howard Werth who made that Dangerhouse single. I read online that Howard produced the earliest X recordings (although he doesn't have a credit on their Dangerhouse single) and "worked extensively" with Captain Beefheart during his time in California. In the 90's, Howard also gigged as the "Lone Sharks" with The Big Figure, Gypie Mayo and Sparko from the Feelgoods. Quite a resume!
DeleteIDK if Koen's question about artists meant artists who've done record sleeves, but a few of my favorites in that area are Jon Langford (Mekons), Gary Panter, Neville Brody, and Alex McDowell (Rocking Russian). McDowell later got into production design for film: https://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/la-design-school
Hope you like his other songs too, Mr. Dave!
DeleteCorrect Jonder, I meant exactly that. Thanks for the McDowell link, interesting!
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