Gary Burden: Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive

Gary Burden - November 12, 2012 Inventing David Geffen |  PBS | American Masters

As noted recently, a rather significant announcement, PBS American Masters Archive Releases 1,000+ Hours of Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interviews: Patti Smith, David Bowie, Neil Young & More. 

 

 

 

In December 2012, PBS | American Masters broadcast the documentary film "Inventing David Geffen. American Masters: Inventing David Geffen is "an unflinching portrait of Geffen, who narrates his unorthodox rise from working class Brooklyn boy to billionaire entertainment power broker in extensive interviews." 

Interviewees include Neil Young, Elliot Roberts, David Crosby, Henry Diltz, Gary Burden and many others.

David Geffen, Elliot Roberts, & Neil Young
Frame from  'Inventing David Geffen': American Masters

(See So What Makes Neil Young's Muse Tick?) 

 

Gary Burden, music album designer, was a long time collaborator and "friend for life" of Neil Young.  (See more on Gary Burden: 1933 - 2018.)

 

Gary Burden --- who is best known for designing some of rock’s most iconic album covers, including Young’s On the Beach and Joni Mitchell’s Blue -- has known and worked closely with Young for decades. In 2010, Neil Young won his first Grammy Award for best art direction on a boxed or special limited edition package by Gary Burden and Jenice Heo for the boxed set “Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972).” 

 

"Best Art Direction on a Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"
Jenice Heo, Gary Burden and Neil Young
Grammy Award Pre-telecast Ceremony, Los Angeles, Jan 31, 2010


From the unaired interview with Gary Burden on working with Geffen and his clients, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: (Ed. note, unedited raw transcript)

 

Gary Burden: Yeah, he [Geffen] was very much like someone on the outside who really wanted to be in on the inside.  

And  there were there were incidences of a dark manifestation of the people who thought of him in a certain way, you know, but for the most part, it was like sort of good natured, you know, the photograph of David with the rose in his mouth and his shirt is all wet and he's all wet.  

That illustrates how he he wanted to hang out all the time, not all the time, but he wanted to hang out with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and one day and he would come and he would sort of maybe pontificate or he would he would be very opinionated. And sometimes that would rattle people or would piss them off. And one time he was on like a rant of some kind. And he was at Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young House where they were recording and they picked him up and threw him and just threw him in and nobody said a word.

They just tossed him in the pool and he made something out of it. In the end, he came out. He had put the rose in his mouth, you know, so it all worked out.

Interviewer:  But that was sort of the spirit that was pretty good natured, you know, doing that. And he had you know, he he would come down on people and things as well, you know? I mean. He was on a path and he would remove obstacles or smooth the road.

Gary Burden: He describes it that he wanted every single one of these artists that believed him to become a star.

Full  Gary Burden: Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

Also, see Neil Young's Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

 Neil Young - November 29, 2011

'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS | American Masters

 

Also, see Elliot Roberts Uncut, Never-Before-Seen Interview | 'Inventing David Geffen' | PBS American Masters Archive.

 

Elliot Roberts - July 22, 2009 'Inventing David Geffen' |  PBS | American Masters 

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Gary Burden: 1933 - 2018

"Best Art Direction on a Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"
Jenice Heo, Gary Burden and Neil Young
Grammy Award Pre-telecast Ceremony, Los Angeles, Jan 31, 2010
Photo by Matt Sayles/Associated Press
Gary Burden, music album designer, long time collaborator and "friend for life" of Neil Young, has passed away. Gary was 84, according to a statement by Neil Young.

Gary Burden -— who is best known for designing some of rock’s most iconic album covers, including Young’s On the Beach and Joni Mitchell’s Blue -— has known and worked closely with Young for decades. In 2010, Neil Young won his first Grammy Award for best art direction on a boxed or special limited edition package by Gary Burden and Jenice Heo for the boxed set “Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972).”



From a statement by Neil Young:

"My friend for life, Gary was my art director, creating album covers with me for almost 50 years, beginning with After the Gold Rush and ending with Paradox and Roxy, my next two albums.

I still have some covers for unreleased albums that we made together. They are coming. We probably made 40 covers. I lost count. In the last twenty, thirty or so years, Gary has worked alongside his talented and beautiful wife, Jenice, at R. Twerk & Co, as we have continued on a life-time of making album covers, laughing, loving acoustic music and so many other things. My heart is heavy."

(See more on Full statement by Neil Young on death of Gary Burden.)

In an exclusive interview on Human Highway.org with Gary Burden of R.Twerk & Co., the artist, art director, and designer talks about his journey along the Human Highway.

Gary Burden
Apple Presentation
(Click photo to enlarge)
Here's an interesting snippet:

Q: Besides the archives, a favorite Neil album design of yours?

Gary Burden: My favorite album cover that I have made, ever, is Neil Young’s “On the Beach.” This cover is loaded with information! From the styles of clothing and objects to the Coors can to the headline of the newspaper of the day of the photo shoot.

My final “gift” to the viewer/consumer was printing the tacky floral designs inside the sleeve.

That one blew the mind of the record company. Not in a good way!

(Complete interview on Human Highway.org with Gary Burden.)

"On The Beach" -- the final link of Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy -- is considered by many fans to be one of his best and their most favorite of all Neil Young album covers and artwork. Designed by Gary Burden, photographed by Bob Seideman, and graphic lettering by Rick Griffin, the cover is quite enigmatic with a Cadillac car fin jutting from the sand like a crashed rocket being buried by time. A shoeless Neil stares out into the ocean near a forlorn potted palm. A jaunty yellow beach umbrella matches Neil's jacket. The yellow theme is even continued with a Coors beer can on the table. Inside the album, things become even more crpytic with the album's liner notes.

10 Gary Burden Album Cover Designs: (Thanks !)

1. Neil Young - On The Beach
2. Neil Young - Time Fades Away
3. David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name
4. The Eagles - One Of These NIghts
5. Neil Young - Mirror Ball
6. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
7. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu
8. Neil Young - Dreamin' Man
9. The International Harvesters - A Treasure
10. Crosby, Stills, Nash - Crosby, Stills, Nash

Collage via Joni @malibuheaven15h

From Gary Burden's website -- which has a wealth of details on the making of NYA -- here are a few snippets:

"It may have been 20 years in the making but it was one of the most enjoyable and collaborative projects I've ever worked on.

I have been working with Neil on album covers since his release of After the Gold Rush in 1970. I would listen in on Neil's recording sessions, I mean really listen to the music, and most of the time the music will tell me what the design wants to be. I'd present my ideas to Neil, and he'd give me his own ideas and feedback, and we would incorporate both into the album design.

Neil is a prolific writer and a has great vision. It's nice to collaborate with someone that doesn't do design, they see beyond the boundaries we put on ourselves and push us further. Neil doesn't understand the concept of "we can't do that," and his ideas almost always end up being right.

Neil had the idea for the Archives 20 years ago, back in 1989. At first, the Archive was going to be all of his work up until 1989, but as we worked with our archivist and gathered more and more material, we realized we would have to break it down into periods. We just had too rich a volume of visual material and music. When we started to think about how to present it, we quickly realized there just wasn't the kind of technology back then to fully implement Neil's vision.

We waited for CD's to come out, and then we realized that they wouldn't be what we needed. When DVD's were first introduced, we thought for sure we hit the jackpot, but even that wasn't enough. When Blu-Ray was launched we knew we had what we needed technologically to tell this story."

There are many other fascinating insights into the designing of NYA on Gary Burden's website including details on the box graphic art, the poster, the stash box, and book. Also, see YouTube video of Gary & photographer Henry Diltz discussing their work together.

In addition to recognizing Burden, his wife Jenice Heo created the box top art.


Neil Face With Hand
by Jenice Heo

Interview: Gary Burden (Album Cover Artist) on World Cafe: Sense of Place - LA

Lots of Neil comments @ ~19:00.

Travel Through Laurel Canyon With Album Cover Artist Gary Burden

Check out this video of an unusual interview today with Art Director and album cover artist Gary Burden as he takes us up and down laurel canyon and discusses his experience living there in the 60s and 70s. After meeting Mama Cass Elliot in the mid-sixties (she hired him to design her kitchen) he began to design album covers - first for The Mamas and Papas then Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, Steppenwolf and many many Neil Young albums. If you are of a certain age you own his work. We drive thru Laurel Canyon where he and everybody else in the music scene, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Frank Zappa all lived very near each other, many on Lookout Mountain. An insider’s look at Laurel Canyon.

More on Laurel Canyon in the 1960's is the definitive analysis of what was happening there and making it very CLEAR ... Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream by David McGowan.

Gary Burden: 1933 - 2018

"He was a great man and a true artist. Rest in peace my old friend."
-- Statement by Neil Young.

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Interview with Gary Burden of R.Twerk & Co.

Gary Burden
Apple Presentation
(Click photo to enlarge)
In an exclusive interview on Human Highway.org with Gary Burden of R.Twerk & Co., the artist, art director, and designer talks about his journey along the Human Highway.

There are many interesting items in the interview so definitely read in full. Here's an interesting snippet:

Q: Besides the archives, a favorite Neil album design of yours?

Gary Burden: My favorite album cover that I have made, ever, is Neil Young’s “On the Beach.” This cover is loaded with information! From the styles of clothing and objects to the Coors can to the headline of the newspaper of the day of the photo shoot.

My final “gift” to the viewer/consumer was printing the tacky floral designs inside the sleeve.

That one blew the mind of the record company. Not in a good way!

Complete interview on Human Highway.org with Gary Burden.

Thanks Shar!

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