The Little Black & White Drawings on the Back of Record Albums Thread

This thread is devoted to the artwork relegated to the back covers of our favorite records. Exotica, Hawaiian, & Lounge LPs are famous for having showy, colorful photos (usually of pretty girls) on the front covers, and then a cheap, simple black & white drawing on the back to frame the song titles.

But it's these throwaway drawings that I find are often the most charming in their simplicity. They are modernist, impressionist masterpieces of 50s and 60s ad-art at its best. A lot of them remind me of the concept art that Disney artists did for their upcoming rides and movies. They're often paired with great, custom fonts.

Here are a few from my record collection. Please add your own and let's discuss theories as to why this particular type of art ended up on the backs of records and who did it.

:up: Webley Edwards - "Hawaii"

:up: Yma Sumac - "Fuego Del Ande"

:up: Rene Paulo - "Black Coral"

:up: Bobby Hackett - "Hawaii Swings"

:up: Hal Aloma - "Lure of The Islands"

:up: Webley Edwards - "The Hawaii Calls Show"

:up: Speedy West - "West of Hawaii"

Lush Jungles & Palms

:up: Haunani - "Trade Wind Islands"

:up: Alfred Apaka - "South Seas Island Magic" & "Aloha Serenades"

:up: Webley Edwards - "Fire Goddess"

Hula Girls:

:up: Ferrante & Teicher - "Pianos In Paradise"

:up: Hawaii Calls - "Exotic Instrumentals"

:up: Ahh. The Mystery-Bowl girl in her natural habitat.

:up: Webley Edwards - "Na Mele O Hawaii"

:up: Harry Kaapuni - "Aloha Hawaii"

:up: Harry Owens - "Polynesian Holiday"

Drums & Percussion:

:up: Elizabeth Waldo - "Maracatu"

:up: Martin Denny - "Silver Screen"

:up: Martin Denny - "Afro-Desia"

:up: Jack Costanzo - "Bongo Fever"

:up: Les Baxter - "Tamboo"

:up: "Drums of Bora Bora"

Masks & Tikis

:up: Martin Denny - "In Person at Duke Kahanamoku's"

:up: Les Baxter - "Ritual of the Savage"

:up: Webley Edwards - "Hawaii"

:up: Augie Goupil - "Tahitian Rhythms, Jungle Drums"

Other good themes to add to this thread might include; Cocktails, Space Exotica, Cowboys & Western, Guitars, Foreign Lands, etc.

Absolutely fantastic, Sabu! This might be "throwaway" art, but it has everything I love about tiki in it. With just a few minimilist brushstrokes, the people who drew these were able to completely capture the essence of something!

Nice Sabu! A very cool thread indeed!

Great idea! Thanks for sharing. I hope to see more.

SABU-the Official Tiki Central Muse™

Everyone has admired the backs of these albums
but the fronts would always be the side commanding display and attention...
plus there was words on them...

But some outstanding works lie there hidden in stacks

until SABU-the Official Tiki Central Muse™
decided to start a thread and get these gems in one collective area....

Hero Status!

Thanks Tim!

Indeed he is! And I was just looking at those fishes from Black Coral when I was searching for clip art for my CD booklet! I have always admired back cover art, and a little found its way into the BOT. I have never seen that amazing mystery girl back cover art from Hawaii Calls! Though I used the cover in Tiki Modern, I have a sales display copy of it, with a pop up Santa Claus and fold out stand in the back.
The master of clip art use is definitely Beachbum Berry, who must have made use of ALL Poly pop clip art out there (plus some amazing, matching original art by Kevin Kidney) in his three recipe books- but, just like in my case, he was looking for more clear line art, with less gray tones. So we went to find it in vintage books, (recipe books especially), insides of match covers, menus, and brochures- sometimes even backs of postcards:

Trader Vic's brochure

Old book -These two made it into my CD booklet

...BUT to include all these other sources here would blow this thread out of proportion, so back to LP Back Cover Art:

Here are two I used from the back of Milt Raskin's "KAPU" album:

Now these were obviously clipped from somewhere else and are simple line art. What Sabu is praising and asking about is more elaborate illustrative art, like this fantastic scene, from Yma Sumac's "Legend of the Jivaro":

The modern city exists right next to the head hunters in the jungle!:

I think that back in the day record companies had whole departments of graphic artists on staff that got paid to crank out this commercial art, it was throwaway stuff of which I doubt any originals were kept. Nowadays no one would wanna pay for such luxury --another good example for that loss of artistry are the elaborate matchbooks of the times.

Sabu, now you inspired me to find more such art --though there is very little left, your post 'covered' the best out there! :)
And I promise I will stick to LP art only.

Great idea Sabu!!! :)

You never cease to amaze me!!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Bigbro - That "Legend of the Jivaro" drawing is great!

I'm sure there's tons more of this out there. I tend to collect albums based on content and/or front-cover art only. So I'm sure I've bypassed many albums with good back-cover art at garage sales or donated them to the Goodwill when pruning my collection. I'm going to start going through garage-sale boxes twice now - once thru for the front covers, then turn the box around and go thru again for the back covers.

I've only got a few Surf albums, but I bet a big collection like bigtikidude's has a lot of this type of artwork on the backs.

Great thread idea, Sabu and those line drawings that you posted are amazing. I've always admired the art on the back of records produced in the late 50's and 60's, it always seemed just as engaging as the art that would grace the cover, but take a back burner to the song list or artist/recording information.

Though I don't know if they have any hawaiian/polynesian themed records, the Command record label has a series of loungy records that use line art for the cover. Even though the artistic style is a little more subdued and not as eye catching as vivid colors or photographs (of girls!) the simplicity I think stands on it's own.

Charles Magnante's Italian Accordian is the only image I have on this computer. I'll have to go through my other computer for more images:

The music is outstanding, by the way, if you're interested in italian lounge or parisian lounge.

WOW!
that Black and White Album Cover drawing
looks TOTALLY like it's in COLOR!
:)

this thread is gonna be good
and it's gonna be HUGE!

Great idea Sabu! The Speedy West record is one of my favorites, have to start looking for more B&W's.

Great thread Sabu. Here a few from my album collection.

Hilo Hattie live at the Tapa Room.

Webley Edwars presents Hawaii Calls with Al Kealoha Perry.

Billy Mure, Blue Hawaii.

Skins! bongo party with Les Baxter.

Hawaii Calls: Favorite Instrumentals.

Awesome thread, Sabu.

Just a few to add because you've got everything. :)

:up: Guston Guilbert - "The Beat of Tahiti"

:up: "Stars of Hawaii"

:up: "Hawaii Goes Percussion"

:up: The Surfers - "Tahiti"

I'll have to go through the Lounge section of my record collection next.

Okay. Just a few more.

Cocktails

:up: Jackie Gleason - "Music for Lovers Only"

:up: Art Van Damme Quintette - "Cocktail Capers"

:up: Red Nichols and the Five Pennies - "Dixieland Dinner Dance"

The second drawing was by Robert Guidi. He co-owned a design company called Tri-Arts, and he was the primary album cover designer for the Contemporary jazz label. Many of his drawings actually made it onto the front of the covers.

The last drawing was signed "Frank Page." My internet search was unsuccessful.

Located a few that that I haven't seen here yet, still have some more to go through. Interesting that most of these seem to be Capitol Records branded. Thanks Sabu, it's like discovering these albums all over again!

Polynesia-Capitol

Aloha!-Kapp

Yes, Liberace/South Pacific-Columbia

Fiji (Isa Lei)-Capitol
It also has a beautiful cover

R.S.V.P.-Liberty
All group members with the same pendent

Webley Edwards/Hawaiian Shores-Capitol

Aloha!

And here's some moa:

Perez Prado's Exotica Suite:

Sometimes the renderings are done by less professional artists:

Who is Martha L. Boltz you ask? Well, a member of the Boltz Family, of course!:

Somtimes the artists get a little too intellectual:

Now we are talking:

Sorry, I had to show the front cover for that one:

...because of this ingenious detail!:

This is cheating a little: Some CD re-issue companies like Scamp are cool enough to not only use the original cover unaltered, but also the back cover. This Robert Mitchum Calypso art work is one of my favorite back cover renderings of all time, a great example of the style of the genre:

I think it's time for Jeff Chenault to get into image posting here... :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-11-11 08:15 ]

Great thread, Sabu!

I took a look at my collection last night and came up with eleven graphics not posted(whew!)

Here are my contributions to this thread, in alphabetical order and with pertinent label information (missing from some of the entries above...PLEASE include this info for us LP nerds! It helps keep track while digging for more examples - THANKS!))

Martin Denny/Hawaii/Liberty LST-7488

William Kealoha & His Orchestra/Hawaiian Luau/Roulette SR 25066

Luke Leilani & His Hawaiian Rhythm/Passport To Romance/Spinorama MK 3015

Living Strings/Play Music of Hawaii/RCA Camden CAS 661

Lani McIntire/Hawaiian Moonlight/Pickwick PC 3038

The Outriggers/Hawaiian Moods CAPTIVATION/W.B. 1314

Lani Royal with the Diamond Heaad Band/The Sound of Hawaii Percussive Pineapples/Kapp MS 7516

The Surfers/Tahiti/Hi Fi R417

Lawrence Welk/Blue Hawaii/Pickwick SPC-3212

On 2009-11-11 07:59, bigbrotiki wrote:

I think it's time for Jeff Chenault to get into image posting here... :D

Man, now I gotta start looking at the backs of all my albums!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Man, that Lawrence Welk one is such a crack up! I gotta use that for my shirt book!

BigBro-

I included it because I had the same reaction last night!

I guess there was no stock pic of Mr. Welk in a aloha shirt available?

One of those rare examples of pic-n-graphic I suppose.

Glad you got a kick out of that. Thanks for posting your response.

Now I wanna see an animation with him like that, in South Park-style! :lol:

This kind of topic is irresistible. Here's a handful of scans to add to the collection...

From Stanley Wilson's Pagan Love LP.

The Mauna Loa Islanders' Music of the Islands.

Ed Kenney's Hawaii. Note the photo credit for the tiki.

Jon Hall brings music from Hawaii.

The Versatile Martin Denny. This is just a crop of the same illustration on the front cover, but it's still very nice.

Tak Shindo's Accent on Bamboo.

Closeup from a K-POI record, I've always loved this logo.

The Ames Brothers' Destination Moon. Obviously not "tiki", but fun!

-Randy

Hello all!

Well its been something like six months since the last post on this thread which is surprising considering the amount of record collectors here on TC, isn't it?

Today, part of the weekend holiday, I went thrifting around town and lo and behold! - I found twenty+ poly-pop/exotica LPs. Not a bad haul, in fact quite a good haul considering I don't find these types of LPs too often anymore in my neck of the woods.

Four of the LPs from today's haul feature little black and white drawings on the back cover. While a few have not been posted here, I've discovered a couple covers repeat drawings with other covers already shown here. I find this interesting. Allow me to share my finds with you here...

Ray Kinney,Bill Akamuhou,Kalani Bright,Andy Cummings,Mel Peterson/Hukilau Hulas/GNP 35

Details of the "Hukilau Hulas" LP above

Andre Kostelanetz/Lure Of Paradise/Columbia CL 1335

Details of the "Lure Of Paradise" LP above

Harry Kaapuni and his Royal Polynesians/Blue Hawaiian Waters/Coronet CX-128

• Featuring the same graphic as uncle trav's post of the Billy Mure "Blue Hawaii" LP earlier
  

no artist listed/Hawaiian Moonbeams/Coronet CXS 162

• Featuring the same graphic as Tiki-Kate's post of the "Hawaii Goes Percussion" LP earlier
  
  -add this cool jazz-band combo graphic from the "Hawaiian Moonbeams" LP as well...
  

That's all for today. I hope this exercise has been entertaining! Cheers! G

Nice finds!

The Hukilau dance lesson is also in the CD version.....(which I just figured out thanks to your post!)

bump for a great thread,
that needs more attention

Jeff(btd)