Asalto Navideño: Vol. I & II album art
From the Records.christmas website, as reviewed by Johan Palme in 2015:
Sometimes, the world of Christmas records can seem pretty isolated from the rest of music. There are precious few Christmas records that have had a significant, lasting influence outside their own narrow field. I suppose Phil Spector’s Christmas album is one of them, and the original White Christmas, but if you want real impact, it’s hard to overlook how important Willie Colón’s Asalto Navideño has been for salsa. One of the biggest-selling albums of Fania’s golden era, it launched major hits like “Canto A Borinquen”, “Traigo La Salsa” and especiually “La Murga”, one of the most played and sampled salsa tracks of all time
The first volume was released in 1971, followed by Vol.II in 1973. Even well over half a century later, the album cover designs are *not my favorites*. This is entirely down to me, lacking a gene for bland Christmas humor.
The cover of the first volume was designed by Izzy Sanabria, who chose Johnson’s swirly letters for the cover, which mostly revolves around a curious image shot by Len Bauman. It features Santa Claus and a Christmas elf (enacted by Willie Colón and Hector Lavoe, respectively) doing something awkward with a present that doesn’t fit in a bag or stocking. The photography is printed in black and white with a hard filter, and colored in red and blue.
The follow-up album (Vol. II, 1973) lacks the names of photographer and designer in the credentials list. Again, Fania Records chose to stage and photograph a comic scene for the cover. This time, both Lavoe and Colón are dressed in elf suits. Lavoe has arrested a (unknown?) gas station employee, with the help of the gun-wielding Willie Colón. The duo is assisted by singer Yomo Toro, dressed as a cheery Santa Claus sans mustache. Information is set in Pump.
The two albums were complied in a single release on compact disc in 2006, in a design by Sanabria pairing a previously unused photo from the 1973 shoot with ITC Serif Gothic and what looks like custom lettering.
2 Comments on “Asalto Navideño: Vol. I & II album art”
The blackletter used for the 2006 compilation is customized – with extra swirls and a hyper-extended stem in the ñ – but it’s a font. Dieter Steffmann’s Progressive Text is a compilation itself: it brings together capitals, lowercase letters, and numerals from three different sources. Funnily enough, its capitals are taken from a typeface that combines two different sources itself, namely Solotype’s Progressive Text.
A type medley for a compilation album, a conceptual match!