Henry Diltz
Steppenwolf
Members of rock band Canned Heat shared a house on Lookout Mountain Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles, right next door to Joni Mitchell’s place—until it burned down in 1969. Later that year the charred structure served as the setting for the cover of Steppenwolf’s At Your Birthday Party, shot by photographer Henry Diltz and designed by art director Gary Burden. “We just walked in there with a birthday cake, sat down and took...
Eagles
PHOTOGRAPHER HENRY DILTZ, ALBUM-COVER DESIGNER Gary Burden and the four members of a new band called the Eagles set out from Los Angeles at 2 a.m. on March 20, 1972, arriving three hours later at the area that is now Joshua Tree National Park. The whole crew climbed up what Diltz calls a “secret magic mountain,” reaching the top at daybreak. As the sun rose, they began snapping photos for the group’s upcoming self-titled debut album. “You...
Dan Fogelberg
PHOTOGRAPHER HENRY DILTZ SNAPPED THE COVER shot of Dan Fogelberg’s 1974 album Souvenirs in the living room of art designer Gary Burden’s Topanga Canyon, Calif., home. “Gary collected Indian artifacts, and among them was that eagle feather,” recalls Diltz. “Dan picked it up, and that looked so great it became the album cover. There was such an intensity to the way he was looking at the camera. It had an ancient quality to it.” The sepia...
Jimi Hendrix
HENRY DILTZ, THE OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE 1969 WOODSTOCK MUSIC & Art Fair, was sleeping behind the stage in his station wagon on the morning of Aug. 18 when he heard the music crank up. He roused himself and hustled to the stage to capture on film the festival’s final performer. By the time Jimi Hendrix went on, at 9 a.m., the once half-million-strong audience had dwindled to about 25,000. “There were these huge speakers,” Diltz says....
Nirvana
WHEN VETERAN ROCK PHOTOGRAPHER HENRY DILTZ TOOK HIS TEENAGE daughter to Nirvana’s concert at the Los Angeles Forum in December 1993, he hadn’t intended to shoot any pictures—but he secured a photo pass and took his cameras, just in case. “The first number, I see a bunch of my fellow photographers down at the front of the stage shooting like crazy,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I’m an idiot. I’ve got my cameras, I ought to be down there...
Jackson Browne
IN 1971, PHOTOGRAPHER HENRY DILTZ AND ART director Gary Burden were invited to the home of an unknown singer and songwriter named Jackson Browne to dream up the cover of his first album. “We went into his house, he gave us each a beer and started playing the piano,” Diltz recalls. “He started singing ‘Rock Me on the Water’ full voice, and I got the shivers. It was just awesome.” Diltz instinctively grabbed his camera and began snapping...
James Taylor
PHOTOGRAPHER HENRY DILTZ WAS ASKED TO TAKE black-and-white publicity shots of singer-songwriter James Taylor. After first setting up in Taylor’s living room, Diltz suggested they head to a farm near the Cahuenga Pass in Hollywood owned by his friends Cyrus and Renee Faryar. Once there, Diltz recalls, “James leaned on a big post, and it looked so good. But I knew it would look really good in color.” Diltz asked Taylor to stay where he was while...
America
Photographer Henry Diltz and designer Gary Burden enjoyed a long and fruitful working relationship with the folk-rock group America, a collaboration that produced the covers for several of their early-1970s albums. Diltz, Burden and America’s Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek spent the day of Dec. 29, 1974, roaming around San Francisco shooting photos for the cover of the following year’s Hearts album. (They had jettisoned the idea of...
The Doors
The Doors had neither a title nor a cover concept for their upcoming fifth album when they met with photographer Henry Diltz and graphic designer Gary Burden in December 1969. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek mentioned that he and his wife had seen a skid-row establishment in downtown Los Angeles called the Morrison Hotel—which they found amusing, as the group’s singer happened to be named Jim Morrison. Diltz, Burden and the band traveled to the location...
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Photographer Henry Diltz and the members of Crosby, Stills & Nash were driving around West Los Angeles looking for an interesting shoot locale when Graham Nash remembered recently noticing a funky old building on Palm Avenue. After finding the location—and no one around to ask for permission—the trio sat on a couch on the porch, singing, talking and laughing as Diltz snapped away. Two days later the group decided that a straight-faced shot...