Last month, President Obama delighted the audience at a fundraiser by singing the beginning of Al Green's 1972 hit Let's Stay Together. A video of Obama's brief performance went viral on YouTube and sales for Green's version of the song on digital retailers like iTunes and Amazon.com increased by almost 500 percent.
The song appears on the album by the same name. The title track became Green's signature song and his only number one pop chart single. The cover featured a photograph of Green wearing a suede and leather jacket and leaning against a wall.
While the photographer is not credited, the design is credited to Jools DeVere. DeVere has along list of package design credits for artists such as The Zombies, The Everly Brothers, Three Dog Night, and Elvis Costello over a span of almost 50 years.
The cover is noteworthy for being an early use of urban graffiti-style typography. I do not know of many other examples from the early 1970s that feature dripping paint on a wall. Of course, The Rolling Stones 1968 album Beggars Banquet is famous for featuring bathroom graffiti.
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