Ike & Tina Turner – River Deep – Mountain High album art
The original 1966 U.K. pressing
River Deep – Mountain High is a 1966 album from Ike & Tina Turner, produced by Phil Spector. It was originally issued in 1966 in the U.K. on Philles Records. Due to the failure of the title single to perform up to expectations in the U.S., the planned release of the album was cancelled. It was not issued stateside until 1969, on A&M Records.
The front cover features the artist name and album title set in Bookman Swash Italic, with a number of swashes and alternates, while the text “An Historic Recording By Phil Spector” is set in Univers Extended.
Tina Turner died last week, aged 83.
Back cover of the original 1966 U.K. pressing, with artists’ names and album title in Permanent Headline and Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed for the line below. Tony Hall’s liner notes are set in Century Expanded or similar; the track listing is added in Vogue Extra Bold Condensed.
The front cover of the 1969 U.S. issue, with added A&M Records logo
The back cover of the 1969 U.S. reissue. The soft bold serif at the top left is a boldened version of Post Condensed. On some pressings, it also appears on the front cover. The photograph was taken by Dennis Hopper (yes, the Dennis Hopper). Liner notes and track listing are set in Trade Gothic.
10 Comments on “Ike & Tina Turner – River Deep – Mountain High album art”
Just for fun, I made a quick digital replica, though sadly haven’t found the nice curvy tilde/hyphen/dash:
That’s sweet! For those wondering: the font Rob used is Bookmania, Mark Simonson’s anthology and expansion of classic Bookman and the various pre-ITC Bookmans, including “Sixties Bookman”, a.k.a. Bookman Swash.
For what it’s worth, the wavy dash wasn’t included in Letraset’s version. Judging from the wider (widened?) proportions, it probably was a phototype version.
How are they able to combine a font mixed with the Bookman Italic (Regular) and the Bookman Swash Italic?
Hi Javi, I’m not sure if I understand correctly. Most fonts with swash glyphs also contain plain, unswashed glyphs. Look at the letter M on the Letraset sheet above and you’ll find that there are four different forms for this character: a plain one, one with a swash at the top left, one that additionally has a bottom left swash, and a fourth one where the left leg stretches out. In contemporary digital fonts, such alternate glyphs are provided via OpenType substitution features. In the olden days of physical type, phototype, or dry transfer lettering, you’d simply select and insert the form you want manually, but the same principle applies.
Like how did you do the Bookman Swash font digital?
You mean in the image that Rob posted in the first comment? That’s Bookmania, a digital font family designed by Mark Simonson. It references all kinds Bookmans, including the one that we list as Bookman Bold Swash, which Mark dubs “Sixties Bookman”. Make sure to check out the Bookmania specimen pdf. It has a great overview of the various Bookmans, with visual samples.
Yes the one that Rob posted, but how did he made that digital?
The album cover from 1966 uses a predigital version of Bookman Bold Swash Italic. Rob then used Bookmania – a digital font – to replicate the original typesetting.
Bookmania offers a large number of alternate glyphs. Rob looked through the available options and selected those forms that come closest to the album cover typography, including the different forms for H, N, R, T.
Yeah but how did he made that digital?
Who’s he, Rob or Mark?
Mark drew the glyphs in his font editor of choice, referencing specimens of pre-digital Bookmans. He details some of his process and references in the specimen pdf.
Rob used some application that allowed him to type text, assign color, and activate the required alternate glyphs via OpenType substitution features – or insert them via a glyph palette. One can do that in full-blown page layout applications like Adobe InDesign, or in something as basic as TextEdit. And in myriads of other OpenType-savvy applications.
I’m not sure what to tell you. Are you asking about OpenType features? The Bookmania Cookbook shows you how to use and access the hundreds of swash and alternate characters in Bookmania. Martin Wenzel and Christoph Koeberlin once wrote a general introduction to the topic for ILT. Another good resource is Tal Leming’s OpenType Cookbook. For software-specific info on how to implement such features, see the tutorial for Glyphs and FontLab 7.