Classic Album Cover Outtakes (Photos)

• 1. Bob Dylan, Freewheelin’

  © Don Hunstein
  © Don Hunstein
  Captured in 1963 on the corner of 4th and Jones in Greenwich Village, Freewheelin’ featured the iconic album cover that inspired a generation of young men to “hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the girl do the clinging.” Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo stepped out of their apartment and into an icy February morning. “It was very casual, completely unplanned and it was freezing outside,” Rotolo said. “Bob just took this thin, suede jacket that wasn’t good for a New York cold winter day…he was freezing and I was freezing and I had more clothes on. It was very cold that day.”

• 2. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours

  © Herbert Worthington
  © Herbert Worthington
  Rumours [ rue-murz ] n. : 1. A hazy, rambunctious, and sleepless period of time for Mactles. Luckily, Stevie and Mick were getting along just fine. Photographed by Herbert Worthington in 1976, it’s good to know the balls survived these photos too.

• 3. David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

  © Brian Ward
  © Brian Ward
  Only 17 photos were taken for Ziggy Stardust (possibly because it was cold and Bowie had the flu). Shot entirely in black and white film on a rainy night in 1972, the final chosen photos for the album were colorized adding a British, vaudeville, pop-art aesthetic to the space man’s concept album. Brian Ward would go on to find work in the 1980’s as Gary Numan’s photographer.

• 4. Tom Waits, Small Change

  © Joel Brodsky /Corbis
  © Joel Brodsky /Corbis
  In his “beatnik-glory-meets-Hollywood-noir period” (i.e. from 1973-1980), Tom Waits was sharing the bill with a Burlesque show on the Lower East-Side of Manhattan, probably at the Copacabana. Photographed here taking a break between sets, he sits in the dressing room with a dancer from the show, Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

• 5. The Doors, Morrison Hotel

  © Henry Diltz/Corbis
  © Henry Diltz/Corbis
  In December 1969, The Doors and photographer Henry Diltz were denied permission to use the inside of the Morrison Hotel as a backdrop for the band’s 1970 album cover. Instead, the band sat in the window of the hotel, and while no one was looking, Diltz snapped photos from outside. After shooting the Morrison Hotel images, the band stopped at a dive bar in Downtown L.A’s skid row. The album’s side one became Hard Rock Café, named after the bar. The image on the back of Morrison Hotel is from the pit-stop. A year after its release, the band received a call from someone in London asking permission to use the name Hard Rock Café for a new restaurant opening.

• 6. The Patti Smith Group, Easter

  © Lynn Goldsmith / Corbis
  © Lynn Goldsmith / Corbis
  Religious allusions are part of what established Patti Smith as an artist and the most commercially successful album released with her band was no exception. Nick Tosches of Creem described it as, “an album of Christian obsessions, especially those of death and resurrection”. Photographed here in 1978, only months before soul mate Robert Mapplethorpe took his famous photograph of Patti cutting her long black hair into a sharp and jagged Keith Richards style.

• 7. Crosby, Stills and Nash

  © Henry Diltz/Corbis
  © Henry Diltz/Corbis
  Before they had named their new band, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash spent the day taking photographs for the group’s debut album with their friend, photographer Henry Diltz. They came upon an abandoned house in Santa Monica where they sat on the porch’s couch and posed. A few days later when they had settled on Crosby, Stills, & Nash, they went back to the house for a re-shoot to sit in proper order, only to find the house had been reduced to a pile of timber.

• 8. Van Morrison, Astral Weeks

  © Joel Brodsky/Corbis
  © Joel Brodsky/Corbis
  Since its initial release in 1969, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks has repeatedly been named one of the greatest albums of all time. The most alluring aspect of the timeless album being the mystery that surrounds it. Photographed by the legendary Joel Brodsky, the outtakes of the famous cover only add to the enigma encompassing Morrison.

• 9. America, Hideaway

  
  Henry Diltz/Corbiss
  The cover for the group’s sixth studio album was photographed by Henry Diltz, and recorded in the mountains of Colorado in winter of 1976. The albums fifth track Watership Down, was in fact written by Gerry Beckley for the film adaptation of the novel by the same name. But, it was Art Garfunkel’s Bright Eyes which was chosen as the final theme song for the 1978 film.

• 10. Emmylou Harris, Gliding Bird

  © Joel Brodsky/Corbis
  © Joel Brodsky/Corbis
  Released in 1970 two years before she met Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris’ first album Gliding Bird, was later disowned by Harris as it preceded her brand of country harmony and unique style. She regards 1975’s Pieces of the Sky as her first “official” album. The record consists of four original songs by Harris, which not until 1985’s The Ballad of Sally Rose would another album contain more than two of her own compositions. Emmylou is still as beautiful today as she is in these photographs.

For More Album Cover Outtakes: Classic Album Cover Outtakes Volume 2 (Photos) Photographs That Weren’t On The Album Cover