When I got the album, I gave it a listen and moved on.”ĥ0 Years Ago, Black Sabbath Ushered in Heavy Metal With Their Classic Self-Titled Debut Albumīlack Sabbath themselves also favored Macmillan’s evocative final sleeve however, the inverted cross on the inside gatefold drew ire from both the band and the conservative press. I feel awful for saying it, because it’s probably not what people want to hear, but it isn’t particularly my kind of music. She added: “Black Sabbath is just not my kind of music. “But, yeah, I thought it was a very nice cover.” “When I saw the cover, I thought it was quite interesting, but I thought, ‘Well, that could be anybody,’ so it’s not like I got any kind of ego buzz out of it,” Livingstone said. However, she was impressed with the final cover art. Livingstone, who went on to pursue a career in modeling and acting, is not a Sabbath fan herself, preferring rock bands like The Rolling Stones, Cream, and The Beatles. Listen to The Opus – Ozzy Osbourne via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher “I’m sure I could remember if it was a cat.” “I think it might just be the way my hands are there,” Livingstone said, stating that she was merely keeping her hands warm. But Macmillan said he borrowed it from a friend and Livingstone was holding it in the shot. In addition to the smoke, Macmillan brought other props, including a taxidermy crow and a live black cat - supposedly what Livinstone is often speculated to be holding, though she doesn’t remember the cat. But it was just one of those very cold English mornings.” I remember Keith rushing around with dry ice, throwing that into the pond nearby, and that didn’t seem to be working very well, so he was using a smoke machine. “I had to get up at about 4 o’clock in the morning, or something as ridiculously early as that,” Livingstone said. Neither Macmillan or Livingstone remember the exact the date of the shoot, falling somewhere between the November 1969 recording sessions and its February 1970 release. Livingstone, whose identity remained a mystery until now, vividly recalled how “cold and dark” the setting was, as the shoot took place early in the morning. The undergrowth was quite thick and quite tangled, and it just had a kind of eerie feel to it.” “Then, it was quite a run-down and quite spooky place. “Nowadays it’s very much more modernized, beautified, and touristed,” he said of the location. He took the shot on Kodak infrared aerochrome film, designed for aerial photography, giving it a pinkish hue. For the location, Macmillan chose the Mapledurham Watermill, a 15th century structure in Oxfordshire. He then found his model, Louisa Livingstone, who was 18 or 19 years old at the time of the shoot. Influenced by surrealists such as René Magritte, Macmillan played the album off a quarter-inch master tape before conceiving the concept for the cover. Macmillan, who was a in-house album designer for Vertigo Records, was tasked with Sabbath’s debut. Now, both she and the designer are speaking about the cover for the first time.Īfter staying mute on the topic for years, artist Keith “Keef” Macmillan offered the history of the album cover in an interview with Rolling Stone, revealing the secrets of metal’s most mysterious sleeve. For many years, the identity of the mysterious woman who appears on the cover was not known. With its enigmatic cloaked figure standing against a stark wooded setting, the artwork would come to define the aesthetics of heavy metal: dark, ominous, and macabre. The post Mysterious Woman on Black Sabbath’s Debut Album Cover Has Been Found appeared first on Consequence of Sound.īlack Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut features one of the most iconic album covers of all time.
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