John Kosh | |
---|---|
Birth name | John Kosh |
Also known as | Kosh |
Born | London, England |
Occupation | Art Director / Album Cover Designer / Graphic Artist / Documentary Producer |
Years active | 1965–present |
Website | www |
John Kosh, known simply as Kosh, is an English art director, album cover designer, graphic artist, and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House. He was the creative director of Apple Corps for The Beatles and was art director and album cover designer for Abbey Road and Let It Be , as well as other Apple artists. [1]
As art director of Art & Artists Magazine , he met the Beatles towards the end of the 1960s and was hired as Creative Director for Apple Records, where he was responsible for design, promotion and publicity. [2] During this period he designed albums for a clientele that covered numerous British rock bands including the Rolling Stones. In 1969 Kosh handled the "War Is Over (if you want it)” campaign for John Lennon and Yoko Ono and created the Abbey Road , Let It Be and Who's Next album covers. During this period Kosh became well known in the London avant-garde art scene for designing and producing exhibitions, posters and books.
In 1973 after garnering several awards with the London Design & Art Directors Association he was elected to the British D&AD Jury before moving to Los Angeles. Once in L.A. he continued designing for various famous artists including: Jon Lord, Kim Carnes, Bonnie Raitt,Rod Stewart, Donovan, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Dylan, the Eagles, The Moody Blues, Dan Fogelberg, Carole King, Randy Newman, Pointer Sisters, T.Rex, Richard Pryor, Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt, Electric Light Orchestra, Bob Seger, Spinal Tap, W.A.S.P. James Taylor, Marvin Gaye, and Ike and Tina Turner. Kosh has garnered seven Grammy nominations and won three for his work with Linda Ronstadt. He is the only Art Director to have worked with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who.
He served as faculty member of Otis/Parsons Institute of Art and on the Board of Governors of the National Recording Academy. From approximately 1988 to 1993, Kosh was partner in the Los Angeles design studio Kosh Brooks Design, with fellow Art Director Larry Brooks. Kosh's client roster has included Capitol Records, Columbia-TriStar, Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Classics, Fox Television, The Gurin Company, CNN, MCA, MGM, the NFL (he designed the Super Bowl XXI logo), Sony Records and Warner Bros. Records. In 2009, the British Post Office (Royal Mail) issued commemorative stamps recognising the Beatles and their album covers. Two of them were Kosh's: Abbey Road and Let It Be.
John Kosh currently lives and works in Los Angeles with partner, wardrobe stylist and writer, Genevieve Schorr. He has one son, John Kosh Jr. (born in London ) in 1971.
A display of his more prominent graphics was exhibited at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Kosh is a seven-time Grammy nominee, and has won three of the awards:
In 1995 Kosh and actor Susan Shearer formed Ten Worlds Entertainment. They directed the opening and closing sequences for the Emmy winning documentaries "When The Lion Roars—The MGM Story" and "In Search of Dr. Seuss" for Turner along with the 1992 through 1998 Billboard Awards telecasts for Fox TV. As production designers on the Showtime six-hour documentary, "Sex and the Silver Screen" with Raquel Welch, Kosh and Shearer recreated the look, lighting and film techniques of the 1960s back through the 1920s and teens. Ten Worlds was responsible for the title, set and production design for the CBS special "60 Years of Life Magazine" hosted by Candice Bergen. Ten Worlds also produced the elegant show logos and graphics for a series of TCM documentaries on glamorous film stars such as Louise Brooks, Rita Hayworth and Clara Bow. They designed the Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary Show, "Glorious Technicolor", hosted by Angela Lansbury, for TNT and the New Year's special, "Life Remembers for CBS". Ten Worlds achieved critical acclaim for their work on "The Last Days of Kennedy and King" for TBS and the ten-hour documentary "100 Years −100 Movies" for the America Film Institute and CBS. The Ten Worlds team designed "California Connected", a dynamic, weekly news program for PBS stations throughout California and "The Barrymores", a 90-minute special for A&E along with "Masters of Production" for PBS, chronicling the great Hollywood movie production designers.
In 2005, Kosh led Ten Worlds Entertainment into its evolution – becoming Ten Worlds Productions, Inc. Under its new name, it produced and directed a pilot for The History Channel, "Declassified: The Rise and Fall of the Wall", which sheds new light on the Berlin Wall. This pilot soon became a 13-part documentary series. The subjects of these documentaries focus on such figures as John Lennon, Fidel Castro, the Tet Offensive, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Stalin and World War I.
"Paul is dead" is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike. The rumour began circulating in 1966, gaining broad popularity in September 1969 following reports on American college campuses.
Linda Maria Ronstadt is an American singer who has performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin music.
Klaus Otto Wilhelm Voormann is a German artist, musician, and record producer.
"Come Together" is a song by the British rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on the band's 1969 album Abbey Road. It was also a double A-side single in the United Kingdom with "Something", reaching No. 4 in the UK charts.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album Abbey Road. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song is about a student named Maxwell Edison who commits murders with a hammer, with the dark lyrics disguised by an upbeat sound. McCartney described the song as symbolic of the downfalls of life, being "my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does".
"Two of Us" is a 1969 song written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was recorded by the Beatles on 31 January 1969.
"Cold Turkey" is a song written by English singer-songwriter John Lennon, released as a single in 1969 by the Plastic Ono Band on Apple Records, catalogue Apples 1001 in the United Kingdom, Apple 1813 in the United States. It is the second solo single issued by Lennon and it peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 14 on the UK Singles Chart. The song's first appearance on an album was Live Peace in Toronto 1969 where the song had been performed live on 13 September 1969 with Lennon reading the lyrics off a clip-board.
Sentimental Journey is the debut solo album by the English rock musician Ringo Starr. It was released by Apple Records in March 1970 as the Beatles were breaking up. The album is a collection of pre-rock 'n' roll standards that Starr recalled from his childhood in Liverpool. As a departure from the experimental quality that had characterised solo LPs by George Harrison and John Lennon since 1968, it was the first studio album by an individual Beatle to embrace a popular music form.
Tittenhurst Park is a Grade II listed early Georgian country house in Sunningdale near Ascot, Berkshire. It was famously the home of musicians John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1969 until 1971, and then the home of Ringo Starr and family from 1973 until 1988. Starr sold the property to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates, in 1989.
Peter E. "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow was an American country-rock musician and animator. He was a member of the band the Flying Burrito Brothers, and worked extensively as a session musician, playing pedal steel guitar for Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, The Byrds, Leonard Cohen, Joe Cocker, Rita Coolidge, Eagles, The Everly Brothers, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, The Steve Miller Band, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Spencer Davis, Little Richard, Linda Ronstadt, Jimmie Spheeris and many others. He is a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.
Ron Larson is an art director, album cover designer and graphic artist. He has won two Grammys for his designs. He has worked closely with John Kosh and also done many various projects for Disney. He was also responsible for helping with the design of the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope logo as well as designing the logo for The Empire Strikes Back. He rendered the logo for Spinal Tap LP Break Like the Wind and the movie poster for Prince's Under The Cherry Moon. Besides working in both the movie industry and recording industry he was also involved in the art used on video game covers. Larson also helped design the logo used by United Artists Films. He currently teaches graphic design classes for undergraduate students at California State University, Fullerton.
Iain Stewart Macmillan was the Scottish photographer famous for taking the cover photograph for the Beatles' album Abbey Road in 1969. He grew up in Scotland, then moved to London to become a professional photographer. He used a photo of Yoko Ono in a book that he published in 1966, and Ono invited him to photograph her exhibit at Indica Gallery. She introduced him to John Lennon, and Lennon invited him to photograph the cover for Abbey Road. He worked with Lennon and Ono for several years, staying for a while at their home in New York.
Get Closer is the eleventh studio album by singer Linda Ronstadt, released in 1982.
Simple Dreams is the eighth studio album by the American singer Linda Ronstadt, released in 1977 by Asylum Records. It includes several of her best-known songs, including her cover of the Rolling Stones song "Tumbling Dice" and her version of the Roy Orbison song "Blue Bayou", which earned her a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. The album also contains covers of the Buddy Holly song "It's So Easy!" and the Warren Zevon songs "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" and "Carmelita".
Lush Life is an album by American singer Linda Ronstadt, released in November 1984 on Asylum Records as the second in a trilogy of jazz albums with bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle. All three album covers were designed by John Kosh.
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The Beatles Tapes from the David Wigg Interviews is an audio album of interviews with each of the four members of the Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. British journalist David Wigg interviewed the individual Beatles at various points from December 1968 or January 1969 to December 1973, and excerpts from some of these recordings constitute the album's spoken words. Although he was a columnist for the London newspaper The Evening News, most of the interviews were recorded for the BBC Radio 1 series Scene and Heard. Interspersed among the interview excerpts are instrumental performances of Beatles songs played by other musicians. The Beatles tried to prevent the album's publication, but it was released in the United Kingdom on 30 July 1976 under the Polydor label and in the United States in 1978. Both George and Ringo did attempt to sue the Recording label, however, both of them lost the case because the interviews were done on public radio on the BBC.
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