WASHINGTON – Joel Brodsky, a photographer whose memorable album cover pictures of Jim Morrison, Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin and dozens of other performers helped define the visual image of popular music in the 1960s and ’70s, died of a heart attack March 1 at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 67.
Brodsky was an artist of a now-obsolete format, using the 12C\,-inch square of the album cover as his canvas for pictures that varied from moody portraits to surreal atmospheric scenes to stylized illustrations of ideas. He photographed about 400 album covers for a diverse cast of musicians that included B.B. King, Carly Simon, Barry Manilow, KISS, Iggy Pop, and Gladys Knight and the Pips.
His best-known picture, made at his New York studio in late 1966, shows a bare-chested Morrison of the Doors, with his arms outstretched. Featured on the cover of the 1985 “The Best of the Doors” album, the black-and-white image depicts the messianic, sensitive and dangerous qualities that made Morrison such an important musical figure of his time.
He projected an edgy charisma that Brodsky was able to capture on film.
“You know, Morrison never really looked that way again, and those pictures have become a big part of the Doors’ legend,” Brodsky said. “I think I got him at his peak.”
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