Randy Newman Live. 1971 official bootleg album by Reprise Records.
It was originally intended only for distribution to American radio stations as a promotional item. Newman had only issued two studio albums at the time so it was a case of profile raising. As the power of radio grew in the US during the early 1970s many promo live albums were produced just for the medium but often ended up being pirated and / or bootlegged, although this album was issued in 1971 a little ahead of the bootleg scene taking off there. Considering they taped three shows, at less than half an hour the LP seems a bit short but was designed to fit commercial radio formats and allow for DJ breaks and adverts. The promotional edition used the title design as the front, the back left blank in proper bootleg fashion. All the type was degraded, probably by repeatedly xeroxing the original art to give a blurred effect, similar to out of register printing. When it was decided to issue the album as a retail release, Reprise added a grainy black and white cover shot across the back, continuing the badly printed look of the front. In a couple of territories - notably Germany - Reprise panicked and swopped the photo to the front for fear of confusing potential customers. There is no design credit. I would imagine, given it was made for promotional use, the concept was developed in-house by the excellent design department at Warner Brothers, which had bought out Reprise in 1963. The large image here is the retail version,
Size: 3690px × 3659px
Photo credit: © Simon Robinson / Easy On The Eye / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1971, album, bootleg, design, live, newman, official, original, randy, records, reprise, sleeve, usa, vinyl
