Kelly Steward — Tales and Tributes of the Deserving and Not So

Kelly Steward and I have worked together on two previous E.P. releases, 2008’s “Long Long Road” and 2011’s “Out From Within”. The forthcoming release of 2019’s “Tales and Tributes of the Deserving and Not So” in the early Fall is a long-time coming piece of sweat and blood for her. For one, it’s her first full-length album after self-releasing her first recording, “home-made” in 2000. Three E.P.s and 19 years later, proud she asked me to return to where we left off in 2012 to continue her life’s work. She, like me, creates under the demands of terrible time-constraints, domestic and financial responsibilities, jobs. Jobs. I advised her in the spring of 2019 to entrust the services of a photographer that could capture what I was seeking to try and do for her first full-length release. I needed to see a semi-1970s Laurel Canyon vibe, and that’s all I could foresee after a few early listens to her pre-mastered tracks. I couldn’t get album cover images of Carol King, Emmylou, Joan Baez, Carly Simon and a few more outta my head. I ran it by her to ensure I wasn’t going down the wrong road. Fortunate to have her creative direction support and she hired Jasmine Rose, a northern Illinois area photographer that she passed along my ideas to. Jasmine knocked photos of Kelly out of the park. There were so many ambient-relative portraits for me to choose from that I had to limit my approach. In the end, I got distracted and started meshing two photographs together out of curiosity. Aside of typography, I made a point to avoid digital effects on Jasmine’s photos. She caught a 70’s vibe I was looking for— abut then the messing around got the best of me. I took the best parts of two portraits of Kelly and mashed up what became the cover Kelly chose. I’ll include a few below to show the process, but I knew when it happened that this was the one. Can’t wait for y’all to hear the record!