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Allee Willis Kitsch O’ The Day – R.I.P. Alex Steinweiss

Allee Willis Submitted by Allee Willis
July 21st, 2011
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Alex Steinweiss passed away last Sunday. Even if you don’t know his name there’s no way you don’t know his work. Steinweiss literally invented the album cover. Before the 1930′s, records came in brown paper sleeves. At 23, he was hired by Columbia Records and suggested that the music be accompanied by poster art. Thus began the singlemost prolific and influential record jacket design career the world has ever known. Not only did Steinweiss give life to the record industry but he made the burgeoning Atomic Age visible to the public, creating the first wave of freeform design that designers still ride today.

Everything Steinweiss did burst with color. You could hear the music without listening to it just by looking at one of his covers. He was as great at what he did as it gets. His style is still imitated, though I’ve never seen anyone nail it like Steinweiss, who makes even the most successful designer of modern graphics look like a copycat.

And those aren’t even his most famous covers. But it gives you an idea of the rhythmic and lyrical style that still influences modern design today. This was the first time this shit was being done. Just look at the Google image search page for an overview crash course.

I was lucky enough to have a piece of art in an album cover show at the Robert Berman Gallery in LA a few years ago that featured hundreds of Steinweiss’ LPs. It was a tribute show to him with a wide variety of artists designing their own album covers.
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One of my favorite Steinweiss covers was Porgy and Bess. When I was (co)writing The Color purple musical, I listened to that soundtrack a lot. MP3s of course but that record cover was still in my head as I saw it so much as a kid. I hadn’t been a musical theater aficionado before I got the Color Purple gig. To bone up, I started listening to every theater soundtrack I could get my hands on, especially studying Black musicals. Hearing Porgy and Bess again was what put the genre over the top for me and made me excited about writing a musical myself.
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Here’s Steinweiss’ cover:
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And here’s my Color Purple-tinged take on Steinweiss for the gallery show:
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My piece not only interpreted my musical but commented on the fact that both Porgy and Purple were two of the very, very few all Black musicals on Broadway ever, and that one of those was (co)written by me. That’s a lot to stuff into a piece which was at times torturous to design. I could feel the incredible artistic journey I took making it once I stood back and saw it hanging on the wall. Especially with hundreds of actual Steinweisses, not to mention the man himself, only feet away.
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I got to meet Steinweiss too, which was a THRILL. I know we took photos together but I can’t find them for the life of me. So I’ll settle for being thankful for the life of Alex Steinweiss. His artistic influence on me was MASSIVE. Without him, all there was was the record. With Steinweiss, came story and concept and full expression of the artist and art form, without which I would die. R.I. P. Mr. Steinweiss.
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Categories: Allee Posts, Allee Related, Art, Artists, Certifikitsch Winners, Classique d' Camembert, IconoKitschoclasts, LPs & Singles, Music, Paintings, Poster, R.I.P., Songwriting, The Color Purple, Theater


Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch

8 Responses to “Allee Willis Kitsch O’ The Day – R.I.P. Alex Steinweiss”

  1. windupkitty windupkitty says:
    July 21, 2011 at 10:57 am

    oh wow, an incredible post for an incredible man…i read about his passing on the NYT the other morning…

  2. Lisa Rios Lisa Rios says:
    July 21, 2011 at 11:56 am

    Thanks. Nice memorial for a very talented artist. Not only are they evocative of the music contained with in the covers, they are also very evocative of an era. I miss the 12″ artwork. CDs never cut it and downloads are totally devoid of artwork. I miss yesterday.

  3. Douglas Wood Douglas Wood says:
    July 21, 2011 at 10:04 pm

    Great post– never knew the man behind this gorgeous work.

  4. BRBill BRBill says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:03 am

    Excellent!! This is the definition of cool with the factor waaay off the chart. Full size real lp album art is the best. One of my friends here in town played with the Sun Ra Arkestra for a few years in the 1970s. He’s also an artist and i got him to do artwork on some of my Sun Ra lps that came in white covers. Sun Ra was famous for being one of the first musicians to put out his own records on the El Saturn label, one of the first independent labels. Many of them were released in white covers only, often decorated by band members on trips to gigs.

  5. k2dtw k2dtw says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:45 am

    FABULOUS post… I had know idea… Thank you!!!

  6. Michael Ely Michael Ely says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    I really enjoyed reading this. God, I miss album covers and the records themselves! Part of the excitement of buying an album was to look over the artwork, and there is nothing like the sound of putting a needle to vinyl. I agree with Lisa – I miss yesterday too!

    • k2dtw k2dtw says:
      July 22, 2011 at 4:29 pm

      Ditto!!!..
      Michael… Is any of your Western/Cowboy China from Shenango China??.. I just saw they had a big fire…you can find articles and youtube all over Google…
      In the olden days you could get a guided tour of the Ohio Valley China Factories.. ..Signed your friend.. Debbie Downer…smile

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