BOOK REVIEW: Cover Versions: The Album Art of Steve Hardstaff

COMING OUT IN SEPTEMBER 2008

Cover Versions: The Album Art of Steve Hardstaff by Steve Hardstaff

Steve Hardstaff has worked with some of the most creative artists and groups in popular culture and music including Sir Pete Blake, Led Zeppelin, BoDiddley, Jamie Reid, Half Man Half Biscuit and Lee 'Sctratch' Perry.

Includes comments and quotes from musicians and artists who have worked with Hardstaff - Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Suggs (Madness), Ian McNabb (Icicle Works).

Examines the work of a highly influential designer (designed the first triplegate fold sleeve - The Strawbs Grave New World). Hardstaff's work spans the height of The Beatles' creativity to the present day i-pod generation.

'Time will certainly reveal the relevance and importance of what Steve Hardstaff has delivered over the years, with black singing ink, good old cut and paste and those ever present crackling discs that possess his soul and fire his imagination.' Mike Badger (founder The La's, Co-owner Viper Label).

'Steve Hardstaff's visual trademark are musical collages packed with exciting, stimulating images and above all humour.' Jimmy Carl Black (The Mothers Of Invention, The Magic Band, The Muffin Men).

Steve Hardstaff's work has always been about Liverpool: from ferrying images around for Peter Blake and Jan Haworth for the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to producing the award-winning sleeve for Half Man Half Biscuit's This Leaden Pall. Hardstaff's artwork, often signed under his nom-de-guerre 'Jacuzzi,' has been used by every record label to have graced the city in the last 40 years: posters for 'The Magical Mystery Tour', artist in residence at the legendary Eric's club, commissions from contemporary labels. Hardstaff established in Liverpool the first music-industry-focused design studio outside London and decades later his work continues to attract local, national and international interest.

This volume pulls together for the first time a unique collection of work from one of the pioneers of modern graphic design: from the world's first triple gatefold sleeve (The Strawbs Grave New World) to work for Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and Liverpool favourites Deaf School, The Icicle Works, Half Man Half Biscuit, Dead or Alive, China Crisis and others, from work that provoked cries of 'treason' from the tabloid press during the Falklands war to collaborations with infamous Sex Pistols designer Jamie Reid. Complementing a striking collection of images are comments and quotes from musicians and artists who have worked with Hardstaff - including Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Suggs (Madness), Ian McNabb (Icicle Works) and others - elucidating the creative processes that have positioned him as one of the great innovators of the graphic arts and a leading figure in music industry design. For further information or to order this book please click here: http://www.liverpool-unipress.co.uk/html/publication.asp?idProduct=3D385=5

LUP books are distributed in North America by University of Chicago Press. For further information or to order this book please click here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=3Dsynopsis&boo=kkey=3D334372