John Kosh Interview (2023) - Legendary Album Cover Designer

In this episode of Vinyl Vibes, Jack is joined by John Kosh, a legendary album cover designer who has been in the field since in the 1960s.Kosh was the art director of Art & Artists magazine when he was discovered by John Lennon in 1968. Lennon was a fan of the magazine and wanted some of his music content to be featured in the magazine. It was through this that Kosh was hired by The Beatles to work as art director at their now famous Apple Records. It was here the Kosh would design the album covers to Beatle albums Abbey Road and Let It Be. He also would work on other Apple Record artists album and single designs such as Mary Hopkin’s Postcard, Billy Preston’s That’s The Way God Planned It, and John Lennon's War is Over campaign. In the 1970s Kosh would move to LA and his output would include designing The Eagles' Hotel California album cover, Linda Ronstadt's Simple Dreams album cover (which would win Kosh a Grammy in 1977), and the album cover to ELO's Out of The Blue. Today Kosh I still working and has designed over 400 album covers over the last 50 years. Currently Kosh is working on a book about America’s National Parks with photographer, Andy Katz which will be released at the end of 2023. There is also an upcoming documentary in the works on Kosh's time in design. Jack Zoomed Kosh to discuss his early beginnings, his early memories of what album covers looked like when he was a kid, his time as art director at Art & Artists magazine, how he came to meet John Lennon, what Apple Records was like to work at, the process in designing the Abbey Road Album cover, how he would have made the Everest idea (the original plan for the Abbey Road album cover) work, the Beatles 1969 rooftop performance of which Kosh was at, the Let it Be album cover, his work with the Eagles, how he made the album to Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt, the designing of ELO's logo and Out of the Blue album cover, and his upcoming book and documentary. “There was a horrendous deadline, the guys had been working in the studios and finishing it and polishing it and I think the photo session was on Wednesday and I had to deliver art on Friday...choose the pictures, slap it together and get it out, not realising that it would become the most parodied icon of all time" - Kosh on this episode of Vinyl Vibes talking about how The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover came to be Episode Hosted and Produced by Jack Hodgins