Comstock, a contoured variant of Standard Gothic, was used in yellow caps for the debut album by The Kingston Trio, released by Capitol Records.

According to Wikipedia,

The Kingston Trio was one of the most prominent groups of the era’s folk-pop boom, which they kick-started in 1958 with the release of the Trio's eponymous first album and its hit recording of “Tom Dooley”, which became a number one hit and sold over three million copies as a single. The Trio released nineteen albums that made Billboard’s Top 100, fourteen of which ranked in the top 10, and five of which hit the number 1 spot.

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Early Bird, or the Early Birds, was a country/skiffle band from Friesland, the Netherlands. Formed in 1963, the group was active until 1994. Between around 1969 and 1975, it went under the name Little Ben and His Drivers. The shown album with “country and westernsongs” was released in the Netherlands by Narcis Records as well as Iris Records, and in Germany by Coup Records. The typeface is Futura Display. Designed by Paul Renner and first cast in 1932, it was adopted for dry transfer lettering by Mecanorma around the time the album was released, and is shown in their 1970 catalog.

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Source: www.musicshopeurope.com Music Shop Europe. License: All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Chords, 1984

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Chords, later printing (as suggested by the higher price)

Scanner was designed by Alan Meeks and released as a Letraset original forty years ago, in 1983. Here it can be seen in early use for a series of booklets by Centerstream Publishing from 1984: the designer cleverly picked up on the typeface’s stripe pattern and built the whole cover around it, alluding both to staves and strings.

Source: www.alle-noten.de Notenversand Kurt Maas. License: All Rights Reserved.

Bass Guitar Chords

Source: www.sheetmusicplus.com Sheet Music Plus. License: All Rights Reserved.

5-String Banjo Chords

Mel Bay’s Ukulele Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1959

Around 1973, Mel Bay Publications revamped the look of their Chords In Picture and Diagram Form series once again. The cover design with Jolly Roger that was introduced just in 1970 apparently didn’t cut it anymore. The portrait of ol’ Mel Bay (1913–1997) framed by a psychedelic floral pattern had to go, and was replaced by silhouettes of instruments filled with multicolored stripes. The only graphic elements that could stay were the MB monogram and Mel Bay’s name in Filmotype Honey.

The new display typeface is Circue, used in all caps. This naïve face with cookie-cutter counters was shown as a VGC original in 1973, without credits. It’s not yet listed in their catalog from the year before. Castcraft copied it under the name Chapel. In 2019, Phil Bracco of Pink Broccoli made a digitization named Blackhole PB.

The subtitle and the avalanche of chords are set in Helvetica schmalhalbfett. This family member originated at Haas as Commercial-Grotesk halbfett and was later replaced by Matthew Carter’s Helvetica Compressed. It’s not included in Linotype’s digital Helvetica.

The address is added in caps from News Gothic on some covers and from Univers on others. Some of the back covers (not shown) feature ITC Bookman, which was released in 1975.

Mel Bay’s Banjo Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1973

Mel Bay’s Tenor Banjo Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1961. Judging from the new publisher logo and the higher price tag, this is a much later printing.

Mel Bay’s Mandolin Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1963

Mel Bay’s Ukulele Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1961

Mel Bay’s Baritone Uke Chords In Picture And Diagram Form, first published in 1961

Source: www.ebay.com ivyagogo (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Mel Bay’s Guitar Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1959

In the early 1970s, Mel Bay’s series of booklets with Chords In Photo Diagram Form was redesigned. While the front covers previously featured Orplid and various bold condensed sans serifs, they now used Jolly Roger Raised for the title, with Honey for Mel Bay’s name and Endowed Jones for the subtitle. The booklets are undated, or state the date of the original publication. Jolly Roger and Endowed Jones both originated at Alphabet Innovations in 1970 – the booklets in this design thus can’t be any older than that.

The back covers are largely identical to those of previous editions, and feature a range of period faces including Brush Script, Lydian, Cloister, Franklin Gothic, and Flash, with Futura for the address.

See the post about the 1960s editions for more information about Mel Bay Publications.

Source: www.ebay.com the_train_celler (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Mel Bay’s Tenor Banjo Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1961

Source: www.ebay.com the_train_celler (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ebay.com out_of_the_dark_finds (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Mel Bay’s Mandolin Chords In Picture and Diagram Form, first published in 1963

Source: www.abebooks.com CorgiPack. License: All Rights Reserved.

5 String or Plectrum Banjo Chords, first published in 1961

Source: www.abebooks.com Champ & Mabel Collectibles. License: All Rights Reserved.

Mel Bay’s Ukulele Chords, first published in 1961

Source: www.ebay.com travelingoldbag1 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

5 String or Plectrum Banjo Chords, first published in 1961; this printing from 1973

Source: www.ebay.com travelingoldbag1 (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Tenor Banjo Chords in Photo-Diagram Form. The informal script for “Mel Bay” is unidentified.

Mel Bay’s series of music education books with “chords in photo-diagram form”, or “picture & diagram form”, was first published in the 1950s, see an issue dated 1959. The series design shown here was introduced around 1961.

The publisher’s name is presented in Hans Bohn’s Orplid with its round-top forms for A and M. Various bold sans serifs of narrow proportion were employed for the main title, including Condensed Title Gothic No. 11 (tenor banjo), Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed (mandolin), and Futura Condensed (baritone uke). The subtitle is added in Venus Extended, and the publisher’s address in Futura Bold.

From Wikipedia:

After the war, Bay was asked to write instructional material on the guitar for GIs wishing to learn music under the GI Bill. When he approached the three major music publishers in New York City, they turned him down, saying there was no future in the guitar. In 1947, he formed Mel Bay Publications and wrote the first book, The Orchestral Chord System for Guitar. This book is still in print under the title Rhythm Guitar Chord System. His Modern Guitar Method was written shortly after in 1948. After the success of Elvis Presley in the early 1950s, the guitar became more popular, helping to ensure the success of the company. For years Bay traveled from town to town, talking to guitar teachers and players, and showing them his publications. He claimed to have known every guitar teacher in America on a first-name basis.

Mel Bay’s books are still in print and – in a different design – available from Mel Bay Publications.

Mandolin Chords in Photo Diagram Form, 1963. The price is here shown in Orplid as well, with grey fill. The S in “Chords” appears to be from Condensed Title Gothic No. 11, with the rest of the line in Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed, see mismatched font. The informal script for “Mel Bay” is unidentified – Laramie, Honey, and Harmony are similar.

Ukulele Chords in Photo Diagram Form. “Jones Music” on the sticker is in Hauser Script.

Baritone Uke Chords In Photo-Diagram Form, 1961

The back covers feature a range of period faces. This one has Brush Script, Lydian, Cloister, and Flash. “Fun with the Baritone Uke” pairs Franklin Gothic with an unidentified bold casual sans with flared stems.

This album was first released by Pye Golden Guinea Records in the UK in 1963 and by Somerset in the US in 1964 as Flaming Bluegrass Banjos, The personnel of the recording is a bit of a mystery, see this discussion on Banjo Hangout. Shown here is the cover of an undated re-release by Alshire, a budget record label founded in Burbank, California, in 1964. Alshire bundled it as a “Deluxe 2 Record Set” together with Country + Bluegrass = Wild Oats from 1971.

The uncredited designer combined three typefaces from Filmotype’s “Novelty” range: Quaker (an inline version of Cameo), Quilt (a French Clarendon with split shade), and Queen (a shaded variant of Arbor). The band name and the titles are set in what looks like Monotype Clarendon Condensed – this design is listed as CLA51 in an early-1970s Filmomaster catalog.

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Philadelphian in use for a dixieland album by Lawrence Welk (1903–1992), released by Coral Records in 1957 or 1958. The roman with mid-stem spurs and contour was designed by Herman Ihlenburg and patented by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in 1867. The version used here with enlarged initials and a two-color fill is probably the adaptation by Photo-Lettering, initially shown under the name Mr. Currier & Mr. Ives. In 2020, Michael Hagemann of FontMesa made a digital revival.

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Detail

Ronald Clyne was a versatile user and early adopter of typefaces, always on the hunt for the next interesting one to put to work in his cover designs for Folkways Records. For this 1967 album of traditional Christmas carols by folk singer Pete Seeger (1919–2014), he went with Basilea. Designed by Markus J. Low, it won the First Prize in VGC’s National Type Face Design Competition of 1965 and was released in 1967. The accompanying sans is Folio Light. (On the CD release, it was replaced by ITC Avant Garde Gothic.) Photography by John Vachon.

[More info on Discogs]

The credits on the back are set in Trade Gothic Extended (or similar) and Futura. The roman used for the track list is unidentified.

Variant with the photo printed in a reddish brown (FTS-32311)

The Black Cat poster (March 1896). Forms part (No. 6) of the Artist poster filing series (Library of Congress).

A 23×15 cm color poster for The Black Cat (March, 1896), illustrated by Nelly Littlehale Murphy (1867–1941). Forms part of the Artist poster filing series (Library of Congress).

The title “The Black Cat” may be lettering rather than a typeface, but its skeleton is strongly reminiscent of – and probably based on – Columbia Old Style (from around 1893).

The book titles on the lower left (Eleanor Stevens’ Will, etc.) seem to be set in one of the commercial copies of William Morris’ custom typeface for the Kelmscott Press – known as the Golden Type (1890), based on Nicolas Jenson’s Roman from 1470 – possibly Jenson Old Style by Joseph W. Phinney (1848–1934). In terms of digital fonts, P22 Morris Golden (2002) by Richard Kegler, and Phinney Jenson (2007) by Tom Wallace seem to be the closest matches.

The names (“Isabel Scott Stone” etc.) appear to be set in Cushing, later also known as Cushing No. 2. Mac McGrew writes that this face was “cut about 1897 by ATF” – if the ID is correct, Cushing was around at least a year earlier, and this poster would present an early use of it. In 2020, Font Bureau released Custer, which is a digital interpretation by David Berlow, reviving the name that Barnhart Brothers & Spindler had used for their copy of Cushing.

The other text elements are probably lettering, not type. “March 1896.” is in a thin and wide style with spur serifs. Some details like the high center in M and the sloping stem in a are a bit similar to Della Robbia, designed by Thomas Maitland Cleland based on 15th-century Florentine inscriptional capitals and released around 1902 (and hence after this poster was printed). The last line with the sender information (“The Shortstory Publishing Co.”) is rendered in a monolinear slab serif. Small differences in the repeating letters (see especially the spine of S) suggest that it’s hand drawn.

Cover for Merry Christmas!, a 1963 album by The New Christy Minstrels. The large-ensemble folk music group was founded by Randy Sparks (b. 1933) in 1961 and is still active to this day. The title is set caps from Times New Roman. Most of the other type is Inserat-Grotesk – a typeface that would also appear on several subsequent albums by the group.

Photography by Frank Bez.

[More info on Discogs]

Cover for an album by country music artist Roy Clark (1933–2018), released in 1974 on Dot Records. Art direction by Bill Levy, with photography by Albert Watson.

The display typeface is one that I haven’t seen in use before. It is Stan Staneon, drawn by Tony Stan for Photo-Lettering sometime before 1971.

At first glance, it looks as if ITC Neon had a condensed cousin. ITC Neon originated around the same time, in 1970, and was devised by two other NYC-based designers who, like Stan, were closely associated with ITC, Ronné Bonder and Tom Carnase. While ITC Neon as well as Letraset’s Piccadilly (1973) elaborate on the basic letterforms of existing typefaces – Rudolf Koch’s Prisma (1930) and Morris F. Benton’s Broadway (1927), respectively – Staneon appears to be a fully original design. The all-caps face came in a number of styles including Shadowbox and Encased variants that help to emulate the look of physical neon signs with greater precision.

Unlike ITC Neon, which was licensed to all kinds of manufacturers of phototypesetting equipment as well as other delivery formats including Letraset’s rub-down type, Staneon remained exclusive to Photo-Lettering’s service in New York City and never saw wide dissemination.

Style range of Stan Staneon, as shown in Photo-Lettering’s One Line Manual of Styles, 1971.

Back cover. Track list, credits, and liner notes are set in Optima.