Townes Van Zandt – Our Mother the Mountain album art
From Wikipedia:
Our Mother the Mountain is the second studio album by country singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt, released in 1969. It is considered to be one of his greatest recordings and features some of his best known works, including “Be Here To Love Me”, “Snake Mountain Blues” and “Our Mother The Mountain”. […] The artwork for Our Mother the Mountain was designed by Milton Glaser and the album cover features an arresting shot of Van Zandt taken by Allen Vogel.
The heavy geometric sans used for the title looks a lot like Futura Extra Bold (Intertype, 1952). In fact, it’s the earlier Airport Black, issued by Baltotype c.1943. Differences include the smaller counters (see for example the O), the lower crossbar in A, and the lighter middle bar in E, see this 1959 specimen. Photo-Lettering carried an adaptation of Airport Black for phototypesetting.
For the logo of Poppy Records, Glaser used his own Baby Teeth.
1 Comment on “Townes Van Zandt – Our Mother the Mountain album art”
Merci, Stéphane!
In 2007, Fat Possum reissued this album. The cover for their vinyl release apparently uses a scan: it features Airport Black, just like the 1969 original. For the labels and the CD version, however, they redid the typography. Since there’s no digital version of Airport Black, they substituted it with Futura Extra Bold (and regular Futura for Van Zandt’s name):