Queen’s 1977 album News of the World was inspired by this cover from the October 1953 edition of Astounding Science Fiction magazine (later called Analog) to illustrate the story The Gulf Between by Tom Godwin:

The robot killing the man was likened to a child injuring a bug and looking up at his parents saying “what have I done?” The caption for the image was “Please… fix it, Daddy?”  The artist of the original piece, Frank Kelly Freas, painted the album cover based on his original work.  It features Freddie Mercury and Brian May dead in the robot’s giant hand, while Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon plummet to the ground. It’s definitely one of Queen’s most identifiable album covers, which also contained the hits “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions.”

Freas painted another version of it for inner cover. The inner cover version depicted the robot breaking through an auditorium rooftop and reaching for the people in the panicked crowd. This painting was also used in the artwork to promote Queen’s tour.

Artist Frank Kelly Freas was involved in the science fiction field from 1950, until his death in 2005. He painted everything from pieces for NASA, to book covers, to magazine covers, to buxom beauties as nose art on fighter planes to Mad Magazine, and even the covers for the GURPS books for Lensman and Planet Krishna. He won numerous awards, and was often hailed of “The Dean of Science Fiction Artists.” You can check out his awards, browse his art, and even buy pieces of his work at his website, which is chock full of information including a brief documentary by his wife Laura.  Check out his book “The Art of Science Fiction”.

(27 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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“An Evening with Anita O’Day” Columbia Records (England)  This album started in 1954 (in the US on Norman Granz’ Norgran Records) and was completed by 1955, but not issued until 1956.   An Evening With Anita O’Day began its life as Songs By Anita O’Day, a ten-inch record released in 1954 for Norman Granz’ Norgran label and later expanded to its present form. The music is comprised of three small group sessions that took place in Los Angeles in the spring of 1954 and the summer of 1955. These are studio recordings, leaving the listener to assume that the titular “evening” refers to the time of day in which the listener will want to experience these songs, which feel like they must have been recorded by candlelight.  Stellar guitar work by Tal Farlow and Barney Kessel

I had an evening with Anita O’Day.  She’s been one of my favorite singers for as long as I can remember.  It was in the Winter of 1984.  I had just moved to New York City after college.  I saw that she was appearing at a club in Teaneck, NJ – just over the George Washington Bridge.   Easy.  Or so I thought.  Having no money and no car, I tried to walk it from my room on the Upper West Side.  It was a snowy night and I ended up willing myself there with a combination of hiking, hitching, bus and subway.  Finally inside that warm, intimate  jazz room, with Anita sitting on a stool in the spotlight and singing on a low, small stage, the world outside melted away.  It was magical.  After the first set, I had the gumption to offer her a drink and she took a seat and we talked about her music, her band, her schedule.  Meeting your idols can go either way, but she was very nice – sensing, I’m sure, my excitement and appreciation.  I stayed for the late show before trudging out through the snow in the early morning feeling that the world was a little smaller and the future filled with wonders.

Postscript:

(33 votes, average: 4.42 out of 5)

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STABLE MATES.  Savoy Records   (1960)   One side of the album includes Yusef Lateef’s first recordings as a leader doing three of his exotic/hardbop compositions recorded with Curtis Fuller, Louis Hayes, and Hugh Lawson.   The other side features arrangements of original tunes by AK Salim – featuring an octet that includes Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Johnny Coles, and Johnny Griffin.  Oddly, the record doesn’t refer to the most excellent Jazz standard “Stablemates” by Benny Golson (recorded just a couple years earlier), but just to the fact that Lateef and Salim were both in the Savoy “stable” of artists.

(On a personal note, I recently started playing chess again as an adult for the first time since I was a teenager captivated with the televised Bobby Fisher – Boris Spassky world championships.  Now I’m playing multiple games a day on line with a friend in London.  I never stopped listening to Jazz however.)

(20 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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Meet Stephanie – new to our Chicks Dig Records page!

(18 votes, average: 4.72 out of 5)

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A fake cardboard record inside this cool cover from “Air Express” Records.  A promotional item from Air Express (a precurser to FedX?).  Includes sales puns like “An unbroken record for fastest way shipping since 1927” and “In tune with the kind of delivery consignees expect” and “Harmonizing speed in the air with speed on the ground”  You get the idea.  But I really dig the cover!  As a frequent shipper of records myself, I could use some soothing music.

(23 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Children “Here We Are”

(23 votes, average: 3.83 out of 5)

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The Devil’s Pad  A Modern Dance designed for intermediate students by Jacquelyn Ebeier.  CAM Records (1958)  A cool gatefold cover with a 12-page step-by-step dance routine.

(30 votes, average: 3.90 out of 5)

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Relax with Bent Fabric.  A Danish Metronome EP  featuring Bent Fabricius-Bjerre (Bent Fabric) / Newell Jenkins conducting the Angelicum Orchestra of Milan playing:  Pepe / Merci, cherie / Mexican Strip // Battalia

(28 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5)

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Les Chakachas  “Un Marziano Sulla Terra”  (“Visit to a Small Planet”)  RCA Italiana (Italy)  Jerry Lewis is Kreton, a childish alien who, against his teacher’s will leaves his planet to visit the Earth.  From 1960, this is the film version of Gore Vidal’s stage hit.  Later re-made as TV’s Mork and Mindy.

(24 votes, average: 3.17 out of 5)

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Eric Smith  Fona Records (Danish)  (1959)  I was the always the guy leaning on the stereo (distracted by the records!).

(23 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)

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