Gary Burden Pictured It All

If certain songs serve as the soundtrack of a life, then Gary Burden supplied the images. Gary’s art design and his small team of photographers (mainly Henry Diltz) created iconic album covers that speak for themselves as well as for the album. Conor Oberst summed up Burden’s approach to cover art: “Gary always wanted the album packaging to reflect the spirit of the music and the wishes of the artists as much as possible.”

His album covers are memorable works of art in rock history. Case in point: a close-up of Joni Mitchell’s face bathed in blue light captured the introspective mood of the music on Blue, one of the most lauded albums in history.

Before the Eagles wanted to shoot each other, Gary had the group wear guns jammed into holsters for the Old West-themed cover for Desperado. When record executives saw it, Glenn Frey laughingly remarked, “All they could think was, ‘They’ve made a cowboy record!? Where’s ‘Witchy Woman?!’ Where’s ‘Take It Easy?!’”

As Dilz and Burden were trying to shoot the cover for the Doors’ Morrison Hotel. Diltz noted, “We came inside the hotel and I told the guy at the desk, ‘We’re gonna take a couple pictures, we’ll just be a minute.’ He said, ‘Oh no, no! You can’t do that unless you have permission from the owner.’ At first, I was just going to have the Doors stand in front of the window outside but as I looked through the window, I could see the guy leave the desk, get in the elevator, and split. So I said, ‘Quick, run in there!’ Jim was in the middle, and then bang, bang. One roll of film and they were outta there.”

Sadly, a fire destroyed the interior of the Morrison Hotel on December 26, 2024, and the building is in danger of being torn down. That’s what happened to the ramshackle house where Diltz shot the cover for CSN’s debut album. Burden described the location: “There were weeds all round and an old chair and sofa outside. It was like Tobacco Road in West Hollywood.”

It was a perfect shot, except for the fact that the musicians were seated left to right as Nash, Stills, and Crosby. Burden said, “After they became CSN, we decided, ‘Okay, we’ll go back and reshoot it and you guys can sit in the proper order.’” But when the gang returned for another photo shoot, the neighborhood eyesore had been bulldozed to rubble.

Crosby was irritated for years because the album cover caused some fans to think he was “Nash.” The unintended mix-up didn’t affect the group’s relationship with Gary; they hired him to design CSNY’s Déjà Vu album.

Burden found success as an important rock designer because of Mama Cass. He had just left a full-time architect job. While working as a freelancer, Cass hired him to remodel her Laurel Canyon home. Burden recalled, “She said, ‘You should make our [the Mamas and Papas] new cover; you know how to design stuff.’” From this chance meeting, a 49-year career was off and running. He remembered that magic moment: “I blew off my three-piece suit and never looked back. That was kind of when I was born, the real me. Before that, I was living somebody else’s idea of who I should be.”

To Neil Young, Burden could do no wrong. Their partnership/friendship spanned 47 years and over forty album covers. When Gary passed away in 2018, Young, who was Burden’s best man at his wedding, posted a tribute: “Gary Burden was my friend for life. One of my favorite covers is On the Beach. Of course, that was the name of a movie, and I stole that for my record, but that doesn’t matter.”

Burden concurred: “On the Beach is perhaps my favorite album cover I have ever made. Everything about it’s happening was magical and dramatic from finding the perfect yellow Cadillac convertible in the junk yard to cut the fender off of to going into a discount men’s store to purchase the perfect, Everyman circa 1972 polyester outfit, where, while Neil was being fitted, we watched a young woman being rudely arrested for shoplifting.”

If a writer ever pens a biography of Gary Burden, an entertaining chapter should be devoted to the time he designed the cover for comedian Richard Pryor’s first album. “I was warned to be careful because Richard was kind of ‘out there.’ Henry and I went to his house, knocked on the door, and his wife answered. She said, ‘You go try to get him up. He won’t get out of bed.’ We had never met him before. We said, ‘Hey Richard, we’re here to take your picture.’ We were standing over him, looking down at him, and he said, ‘Just take it here in bed. This will be the cover – me sleeping.’ Eventually, Richard mentioned that he would like to do something kind of roots-y. This was before the television series. I thought ‘roots’ for Richard would be some kind of tribal thing, an African thing. So I got the idea to get authentic African artifacts and weapons, and things from a store called 49 Steps. I had some reservations about asking Richard to put in the authentic, brass nose ring. I asked him how he felt about it, and he went for it. Seeing how primitive he looked, the photos suggested to me the look of National Geographic, so I had my friend Rick Griffin do artwork that looks like their magazine border. As a result of the album cover, I got two letters: One was a letter from the National Geographic Society’s attorneys offering to sue me for defaming their publication. The second letter was a Grammy nomination for the best album cover.”