Personally, I think the cover's dreadful. Offputting, even.
Q:Ian Anderson always said that he never
liked it, really. What do you think about it?
Well Anderson certainly has that right, but the album comes to life with that painting of mine. He so disliked it as to sell prints of the painting and autographed them to make a bit of lunch money I suspect..
Utter shite. Anderson was absolutely right to call him presumptuous.
The album's success is down to the music. Perhaps they should charge the artist for the exposure of his work. It certainly features up there on his credentials.
IA has worked hard for decades continuing to tour and so on .. and in such continued hard work he has every right to flog Tull stuff which was well-paid for originally.
And the artist *was* paid exceedingly well for it - before they could know of the success of the album. He was thrilled with the money at the time.
The huddled figure is a just an imaginative gamble with what I thought a homeless man with a malevolent stare might look like . I actually used my own facial grimaces to make the portrait ... Anderson was not my model for him , but the hair and the outlier look was a reference to his performance persona.
He was paid very well at the time .. in terms of no contracts or percentage rights, that's just how they did it at Chrysalis in those days. That wasn't the least of it - but not down to any attempts to rip people off, more they were amateurs learning as they go along.
