Album Covers Featuring Vans & Campervans
Album cover vans...
I thought it was about time that I combined my love of music, with my passion for campervans, and light commercial vans in general. What better way to accomplish that, than taking a look at the various campervans and basic vans which have appeared on album covers over the years. As you might expect, it is the iconic VW marque which leads the way, appearing not only on 60s and 70s album covers, but is still very much in vogue with young musicians of the present. What follows are a sample of album covers which feature either a campervan or basic light commercial van....I'll add more as I discover them.
Bob Dylan---Freewheelin
So, what ranks as one of the most well known album covers featuring a van? For many it will be the 1963 album by Bob Dylan, 'Freewheelin', which has that famous picture of Bob and his then girlfriend, Suze Rotolo walking down the centre of the street (West 4th Street, New York), with the iconic splitscreen VW on one side. The photo was taken by Don Hunstein, sent by the record company one very cold February day in 1963 to take a number of shots of Bob. The van in the picture was owned by Jack Ubaldi, a New Yorker of Italian descent, who ran a butchers shop in that street. The VW had sign-writing along the sides advertising the shop, which can't be seen in the album cover shot. Jack sold that VW later in the year and replaced it with a newer model.
The Doc Thomas Group- The Italian Job
As many of you will know, I am a huge fan of the British 'Commer' van, having owned many campervan examples over the years. There were a large number of UK bands that used a Commer van for transporting their gear in the 1960s and 70s, which included The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and Gerry & the Pacemakers, to name a few.
Being a Herefordian by birth, I'm extremely proud that this farming and hop growing county in the UK has given the world such bands as 'Mott the Hoople', The Pretenders (minus Chrissie H of course!), and Albert Lee. Before Mott were formed, some of its members were involved with several local bands, one of these being 'The Doc Thomas Band', featuring guitarist Mick Ralphs (later of Bad Company). Doc Thomas enjoyed moderate success, without a major hit, but became quite well known in Italy during the mid-60s, when they made an album, and appeared on TV over there. Their lead singer, Stan Tippins would later join Mott as a roadie and backing singer. Doc's bass player, Pete Overend Watts would also later join Mott the Hoople.
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This album featured an early Commer van, with the band seen perched on the front of it. Despite numerous attempts, I have been unable to discover the origins of the Commer, who owned it, and if it was indeed their van for touring with their gear.
Various Artists, compilation album- Merseybeat
One of the most prolific types of Album over the years has to be those compilation vinyls containing a myriad of tracks by various artists. I know in the UK we had those awful compilations in the 70s of all the hits from a particular year, but not sung by the original singer/band. Most were dreadful, some were simply awful, and the odd one or two were not that bad. One compilation album of modern times stands out to me, simply for it's album cover picture, and more so because it featured yet another Commer van. Perhaps by accident, or maybe someone had done their homework, because the album only featured hits of the Merseybeat sounds of the 60s, and of course the Commer van was a favourite with Liverpool bands back then. The album cover picture is not great from an artistic point of view, but I'm not complaining when someone goes to the trouble of getting a Commer van some much needed publicity!
Johnny and the Hurricanes- Red River Rock
The next one is not strictly an album, but an EP, released by Johnny and the Hurricanes, for their huge 60s hit, 'Red River Rock'. There were various versions of the sleeve cover, depending on which country you were in, but the majority of them featured the whole band with a VW splitty van
Dodgy- Homegrown
British indie band 'Dodgy', released an album in 1994 which featured another VW T2 Westy on the cover, the album reaching number 28 in the charts. Some promotional copies of the album even included free cannabis seeds!
"Brits in Beatlesque '60s retro mode, in consciously jolly celebration of good weather, freedom and smoking naughty things" was one line written about this music trio back in the day.
Jake Owen- American Love
American country music artist Jake Owen released this album in 2016 through RCA (Nashville). The album topped a couple of country charts and sold over 53,000 copies. The album cover featured a very nice VW splitty with side doors open, Jake sitting in the van, and the splitty sporting a rather cool full length roof-rack.
Bob Marley- Babylon Bus
'Babylob Bus' is an album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, released in 1978, and recorded at a live concert in Paris, as part of the 'Kaya' tour that year. This was a bit of a novelty album as it featured a America-style RV with cut-out front windows, which revealed the inner sleeve.
The rear of this fabulous album cover features Ronnie's vehicles which he used for the 'Passing Show' UK tour of the time, which although a disaster in terms of publicity and attendance, has now passed into UK music folklore. The Ariel photo of the rear cover, has the tour vehicles parked around the rear of the yard, and features Ronnie's GUY converted bus/motorhome (red with white roof), plus an assortment of vintage caravans, a Lond-Rover, 2CV car and a truck.
* There is a separate blog which tells the story of Ronnie's GUY bus/motorhome, and many pictures after my visit to the bus in Shropshire in late 2020.
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