Neil Young in the Big Chair Topanga Canyon, 1969
w/ Danny Whitten
(Click photo to enlarge)
The above photo of Neil Young
from the Decade album appears also in the biography
Waging Heavy Peace, before Chapter 49: "Formal portrait, sitting in the Big Chair at home in Topanga Canyon, with Danny Whitten behind me, while recording Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, 1969." The photo was taken by Tom Wilkes.
This is one of the very few photos to exist of Danny Whitten, the guitarist in Neil Young's band Crazy Horse.
Danny Ray Whitten: 1943 - 1972
(see Remembering Danny Whitten: 1943 - 1972)
Back to the Decade album and Tom Wilkes. Tom Wilkes was the art director, album cover designer, and photographer for the Decade album, as well as, other Neil Young albums such as “Harvest”.
Uncropped Image for Neil Young's Decade
by Tom Wilkes
(Click photo to enlarge)
As we investigated back in 2017 on
The Images Behind The Album Cover of Neil Young's Decade, who is on the cover behind the guitar case? The long
time story has been that it was Neil's girlfriend
Carrie Snodgress, out
in the desert. However, upon closer look below, it does not appear to
be Carrie at all.
Alternate Image for Neil Young's Decade
by Tom Wilkes
Upon doing a little more research, from "
Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough:
"The packaging was great - wry notes on each song handwritten by Young
himself, and a cover photo obscure even by Young's standards - the
girlfriend of art director Tom Wilkes standing out in the desert,
balancing a well-traveled guitar case on her back."
From
Mr Music Head (Thanks Mother Nature on the Run!):
Tom Wilkes was an art director, album cover designer, and
photographer who blazed a graphic trail throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s,
creating high concept visual statements that have become iconic
cultural artifacts. A graduate of Art Center, he got his start
pinstriping hot rods and motorcycles in the 50s before opening his own
design studio in Long Beach and moving into record company work with an
album for The Coasters. His covers include “Flowers” and “Beggars’
Banquet” for the Stones, the stairwell albums for the Beatles, “All
Things Must Pass” and “Living In The Material World” for George
Harrison, “Harvest” and “Decade” for Neil Young, the whiteface album for
Ike & Tina Turner, and many, many more.
In 1967, as art director for the Monterey Pop Festival, Tom was given a
painting by The Beatles, a work that has since become known as “The Dead
Sea Scroll Of Rock And Roll.” In the late-70s, he became friends with
John and Toni Lilly who introduced him to the concept of dolphin
intelligence. After several profound encounters, Tom created Project
Interspeak and spent the rest of his life trying to mount a global
concert on behalf of the dolphin nation…with the Beatles’ artwork a
possible funding source.
He lived a highly adventurous life filled with wild times and beautiful
women, and is celebrated in the memory of those who knew him as one of
the great rebellious spirits, and artists, of his time.
Alternate Image for Neil Young's Decade
by Tom Wilkes
(Click photo to enlarge)
Album cover designed by Tom Wilkes
David Fricke, a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine said of Wilkes work that:
"He was able to capture a certain essence of what was on the record and the person who made it.
"You look at something like Neil Young's 'Harvest,'
the texture of the cover and that very simple, almost antique
lettering, and you get a feel of what Neil was trying to do in that
record, the honesty and the grit and the deep Americana of what that
record represents now."
Harvest Cover designed by Tom Wilkes
Tom Wilkes, a Grammy Award-winning art director and the album cover designer for Neil Young's Harvest, died in 2009 at age of 69.
Wilkes
design work included album covers for the Rolling Stones' "Beggars
Banquet," Eric Clapton's "Eric Clapton," Joe Cocker's "Mad Dogs &
Englishmen" and George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" and "All
things Must Pass." Wilkes photographed the cover photo of Janice
Joplin's 1971 "Pearl" album. Their photo session was the night Joplin
overdosed.
Tom Wilkes: 1939 - 2009
R.I.P. Tom. We've
always admired your work.
Labels: #CrazyHorse4HOF, danny whitten, decade album, neil young, photo, tom wilkes
>> Pre-Order on Amazon.com << 
Human Highway
Concert Review of the Moment
This Land is My Land
FREEDOM In A New Year
*Thanks Neil!*
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.thrasherswheat.org/gifs/free-speech.gif)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Neil Young
Pardon My Heart
"We're The Ones 
Thanks for Supporting Thrasher's Wheat!
This blog 
(... he didn't kill himself either...)
#AaronDidntKillHimself
Neil Young's Moon Songs
Civic Duty Is Not Terrorism
Orwell (and Grandpa) Was Right
What's So Funny About 
