The Aquarian Age – Hair album art
One of the more striking uses of Pousse Cafe, and an early one to boot. Robert Montgomery’s all-caps typeface for Photo-Lettering appeared on the cover of the first and only album release by the Aquarian Age from 1969, with their interpretation of the Hair score.
From Sal Forlenza’s liner notes:
“Hair” broke the sound and sight barriers and triggered a wave of assent and dissent that produced overnight success. The “Now” generation had scored its first victory in their fight for freedom of expression. Out of this highly volatile, revolutionary environment came some of the most explosive music of this electrified era. Shocking, free-wheeling, tender, gutteral and most important of all … definitive!
The Aquarian Age, ten talented people from Texas, decided that the score of “Hair“ was the perfect vehicle for their first album. This was their generation that the actors were talking about; this was their philosophy being expressed in the hard hitting lyrics of the score, and this was the place to begin their recording careers; in the future, not in the past.
The four-color setting of album title and band name is contrasted with Bob Venosa’s black-and-white illustration of a ginormous mass of hair, flowing from a cornucopia held by a naked man. The back cover shows the typeface without color fills. Here it blends with the parallel lines of the long-haired head shown in profile – a hippie version of the portraits by Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha.
