Backstory: Where It All Begins cover art
Greetings and welcome back to the Crossroads of Southern music, history, & culture.
I just learned that artist Ioannis has died at age 66. His obituary shares his remarkable list of accomplishments.
I had recently reached out to Ioannis to schedule an interview with him about creating the iconic cover for 1994’s Where It All Begins.
Ioannis was happy to talk to me. I told him I wanted to do a little more research before we scheduled. I wanted to be prepared and stay focused on our conversation.
It was not meant to be.
Instead, I’m resurrecting something from deep in the archives.
A March 2009 interview with Ioannis about the creation of the iconic mushroom that graced the cover of Where It All Begins.1
The story is ABBsolutely outstanding.
Mushroom magic in action.
Album Cover Hall of Fame: “In the words of the artist – Ioannis”
In the early spring of 1994, the small design firm that my brother and I had started was only a couple of years old, so designing the next cover for the Allman Brothers Band was the last thing on my mind at the time.
A friend of ours in the merchandising business had been contacted by the band’s manager Bert Holman and was asked to provide a design for tour shirts for their upcoming tour, so he called us for help. I sketched a couple of ideas and then packed up the car for the drive up to Massachusetts (from our office in Connecticut) to present them.
At the last minute, I decided to take one of my paintings along to show him how my fine art looked.
Bert turned out to be very down to earth type of guy and one with a great eye and appreciation for artwork. When I showed him my painting, he looked at it long and hard and said “forget the t-shirts for now—what do you think you could do with this?”
He then showed me a pencil drawing of a bunch of naked girls dancing around a mushroom.2 “Dickey Betts sent me this” he said, “and we have an album coming out and are in need of a record cover really bad. We are also really behind schedule, so can you put something together in a week?”
At this point, my head was spinning.
I was caught totally off guard as I had the whole sales pitch for the designs for the tour merch in my head.
“Do we have a title?” I asked.
“Epic is thinking, Greetings from Jupiter3 but I don’t think we are going with that,” he replied.
“I like the sketch, but not the naked girls,” I said, adding, “I guess the mushroom is cool.”
“Well, that is what I want—to take the mushroom icon to a new level” he replied.4
For the entire drive home, ideas started going through my head. I must admit I was never a huge ABB fan when I was a teenager because, growing up in Europe, I was more exposed to rock and roll from the U.K. However, once we moved to the U.S., it was impossible to avoid their music and, more importantly, I thought that it was great!
They were the forefathers of jam band music and, to me, they had more in common with Santana and the Grateful Dead and less with Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Southern rock movement.
When I got home I went through the whole ABB catalogue and noticed that—with the exception of Eat A Peach—there was hardly any illustrated cover art. I decided then that I would do a painting for the main cover image.
I first hired a friend of mine to shoot a picture of denim fabric that I’d use as the background texture and I then began to sketch the cover artwork. I realized that showing my client pencil sketches was not going to work—they were not going to get the gist of it from sketches—so I proceeded to paint a small 6x6 inch cover in inks and acrylics. I comp’d the whole piece together in two days and then, very nervously, drove it up to Bert’s house to show it to him.
“This is great” he said. “Let me show it to Dickey and I will get back to you.”
About a day or so later he called me with the verdict. “He loved it,” he said. “How quick can you get it to the label?”
“I will need at least a week or so to do the painting.”
“What painting?” he said. “I thought that WAS the artwork!” (in the years since, we still get a good laugh about that). And so, with my daughter crawling around in the studio, I started the painting.
Although the first two versions were, in my mind, horrible, things started to come together in the third one. I did some airbrushing (mostly for the sky), used enamel marbling on the rocks, and acrylics, pencils and dyes for the details.
I decided on a sunset view of the southern bayou with waterfalls and springs in the background and a huge (some would say) phallic psychedelic mushroom coming out of the water as the centerpiece—pure fantasy artwork.
When it was done, I packed it up in my car and, with my friend, took a ride on up to Boston again.
The band had rented an old warehouse and had set up to rehearse. Bert led me inside and propped the painting up against the wall.
As the band took a break, he brought in each member—one at a time—and showed them the art.
One by one, everyone approved.
Last one up was Dickey. (Remember, it was based on his idea—well, sort of!)
He took one look at it, turned around and then hugged me, saying:
“This says to me Where It All Begins.”
After everyone had left, Bert leaned over to me and said, “It is a great piece, except that it doesn’t look anything like the comp we originally showed to Dickey!”
And he was right!
As I embellished and polished the real painting, I was not paying attention to the original 6” x 6” comp, so although the concept was the same, the artwork bore no resemblance to the sample image that Dickey and the others had originally reviewed. However, everyone liked the new painting so much that no one really had noticed the change.
Dickey was just over the moon with it. “I understand your spirit as an artist.”5
I then took about a week to do the layouts and package design and brought the whole package to Poughkeepsie where the band was launching its summer tour.
Backstage, I showed the artwork to everyone and got pats on the back all around, which is about the best you can hope for as a designer. Later on, I created t-shirt and poster designs for the tour (and even a single).
Thus began a relationship that has lasted to this day.
The artwork I did for this project more or less put my art career on a stable path as more commissions for artwork came as a result.
I had almost stopped painting—which was my first love—but this piece whetted my appetite and gave me the confidence to paint again. Now I was finally enjoying success as an art director….
In 2006 as a VIP guest of legendary drummer Butch Trucks I went to see the ABB at the Beacon Theater in NYC during their now-famous annual March run concert series. There, I ran into a whole bunch of old friends, most notably Kirk West, who is their road manager and general creative guru and historian.6
I had not sat through a performance in a while, and while leaning against a stack of sound equipment on the old stage just a few feet from Gregg Allman, I realized that I was watching an American rock legend kick it into high gear to a sold out crowd who were in the band’s grip within just a few minutes.
As the night wore on and the band continued to jam, I watched my artwork projected behind them under the rainbow hues of the stage lighting.
There was a moment in time where it all came together for me, just like when I used to fantasize as a kid about my art being part of the fabric of rock music.
I also humbly realized that, looking at the expressions at the sea of faces in the rows in front of me from my vantage point on the stage, my small contribution was being cemented into the Allman Brothers Band lore.
Bert Holman calls it “a great piece of artwork and a fan favorite.”
To this day, it is still reproduced on posters, t-shirts, prints, backdrops and animations used by the band—I have even seen the art bootlegged on t-shirts, patches, tattoos and bandanas!
Every time I display the original in an art exhibit, a small crowd gathers in front of the painting. I like the painting myself, but I am not sure if it’s the art itself or the fact that it is such a recognized part of the band’s iconography. In any case, the tons of complimentary emails I have received from fans over the years have really made it all worth while.7
More on Ioannis
These were in my research queue, along with a copy of Get the Led Out I’d only recently received.
🍄 Vivid Images: Ioannis and the Allman Brothers Band
🍄 Goldmine: Ioannis on creating album cover art for Allman Brothers, Styx, & others
🍄 Misplacedstraws.com: A Conversation With Cover Artist Ioannis
Lagniappe
I love this line—“I watched my artwork projected behind them under the rainbow hues of the stage lighting”—and sought out something that brings it to mind: the ABB’s 40th anniversary show, March 26, 2009 at the Beacon Theatre.8
MSG Preshow
I’ll be at Jack Doyle’s 240 35th St at 5pm Tuesday AND Wednesday. You’re welcome to join.
RSVP for Tuesday here
Until next time.
Album Cover Hall of Fame, Allman Brothers Band – Where It All Begins - with design/artwork by Ioannis
Wonder whatever happened to that sketch?
Holy shit what a terrible title!
They sure as hell accomplished THAT didn’t they?
This quote is from Vivid Images: Ioannis and the Allman Brothers Band.
The Tour Mystic.
Here’s that citation again: Album Cover Hall of Fame, Allman Brothers Band – Where It All Begins - with design/artwork by Ioannis
You may not see clear images of Ioannis’s Where It All Begins shroom in this video, but it’s my experience that when someone hips me to an Allman Brothers-related something, it’s worth the time. Ya tu sabes.