Ed Thrasher, 74, Album Designer, Dies

by Steven Heller
New York Times
August 24, 2006

Obituaries

Ed Thrasher, an art director and photographer who designed defining album covers for Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys, and helped shape the enduring image of rock and pop in the 1960's and 70's, died on Aug. 5 at his home in Big Bear Lake, Calif. He was 74.

The cause was cancer, said his son, Jeff.

When Mr. Thrasher became art director at Warner Brothers Records in Los Angeles in 1964, the label's roster included some of the era's most exciting artists. Album design at the time was being radically transformed as the so-called big idea approach took over from the bland packaging of the late 50's and early 60's. The new style came to reflect the music of acts like Cream, Van Morrison, the Yardbirds and Country Joe and the Fish, which dominated progressive FM radio in the 1960's. It was no longer enough to show a staid studio photograph of a recording artist; the new generation wanted more inventive, quirky pictorial representations and decorative logos, signs that would brand them as part of the youth culture.

So bold and emblematic were many of these LP covers, on their generous 12-by-12-inch canvases, that fans identified as much with the art as with the music. Many remain quite memorable; and some of the most remembered were conceived or photographed by Mr. Thrasher.

"His covers were the best of their kind, for he defined the West Coast style of big-idea art direction," said Paula Scher, who designed albums in the 1970's for Columbia Records.

Mr. Thrasher's work proved integral to the success of many of these albums and helped define the look of rock. His overall art direction included commissioning photographers, typographers and illustrators for albums including the Jimi Hendrix Experience's ARE YOU EXPERIENCED, Van Morrison's ASTRAL WEEKS, the Grateful Dead's ANTHEM OF THE SUN, the Doobie Brothers' TOULOUSE STREET, and even Tiny Tim's purposely cheesy GOD BLESS TINY TIM. An expressively moody self-portrait of Joni Mitchell, appearing on the cover of her 1969 album CLOUDS, also started a small trend for musicians to create the art for their own records.

In 1973, when Sinatra emerged from retirement with his comeback album, Mr. Thrasher shot candid photographs for the cover. He also devised the title, OL' BLUE EYES IS BACK, which was also used in advertising Sinatra's return to the concert circuit. Besides directing album covers, Mr. Thrasher produced many of Warner Brothers ads and posters from 1964 to 1979.

Edward Lee Thrasher Jr. was born in 1932 in Glendale, Calif. His father was a Los Angeles city councilman from 1931 to 1943. After serving in the Navy during the Korean war, the younger Mr. Thrasher attended Los Angeles Trade Tech College to study art and illustration. In 1957 he took a job as an assistant in the Capitol Records art department, rising to become art director and photographer. He moved to Warner Brothers as head art director and also worked with the architect A. Quincy Jones in designing the Warner Brothers Records building at 3300 Warner Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Mr. Thrasher received more than a dozen Grammy Award nominations for album design; with Christopher Whorf as co-art director, he won the Grammy for best package design for Mason Proffit's 1974 album COME & GONE.

After leaving Warner Brothers Records, he pursued a successful photography career and amassed a well-used stock of portraits of Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton and dozens of 60's-era rock stars. He also founded Ed Thrasher and Associates, an advertising company, at which he created posters for films, including Prince's "Purple Rain" (he also did the famous album cover) and "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome."

His 22-year marriage to Linda Gray ended in divorce; she went on to star as Sue Ellen Ewing on the television hit "Dallas."

He is survived by two children from that marriage, his son, Roger, and his daughter, Kehly Gray Sloane, both of Los Angeles; a sister, Marilyn Ball, and two grandchildren.