[bomp] Ed Thrasher

[Marc Miller <marmilmjd66@xxxxxxxxx>]

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 19609s and 709s, 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 label9s roster included 
some of the era9s 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 
509s and early 609s. 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 19609s. 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. 3His covers were the best of 
their kind, for he defined the West Coast style of big-idea 
art direction,2 said Paula Scher, who designed albums in the 
19709s for Columbia Records.

Mr. Thrasher9s 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 Experience9s 3Are You Experienced,2 Van Morrison9s 
3Astral Weeks,2 the Grateful Dead9s 3Anthem of the Sun,2 the 
Doobie Brothers9 3Toulouse Street2 and even Tiny Tim9s 
purposely cheesy 3God Bless Tiny Tim.2 An expressively moody 
self-portrait of Joni Mitchell, appearing on the cover of her 
1969 album 3Clouds,2 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, 3Ol9 Blue Eyes Is Back,2 
which was also used in advertising Sinatra9s 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 Proffit9s 1974 album 3Come & Gone.2 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 
609s-era rock stars. He also founded Ed Thrasher and 
Associates, an advertising company, at which he created 
posters for films, including Prince9s 3Purple Rain2 (he also 
did the famous album cover) and 3Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.2

His 22-year marriage to Linda Gray ended in divorce; she went 
on to star as Sue Ellen Ewing on the television hit 3Dallas.2
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.

 		
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