Album cover photographer Joel Brodsky dies

STAMFORD, Conn., March 19 (UPI) -- Joel Brodsky whose album cover photography helped define music's visual image in the '60s and '70s, died in his Stamford, Conn., home of a heart attack. He was 67.

Brodsky used a now-obsolete format -- the 12 3/8-inch square of the album cover -- as his canvas for pictures that ranged from moody portraits to stylized illustrations of ideas, The Washington Post said.

His portfolio of about 400 album covers includes musicians such as B.B. King, Carly Simon, Barry Manilow, Kiss, Iggy Pop and Gladys Knight and the Pips.

His best-known picture shows a bare-chested Jim Morrison of the Doors, with his arms outstretched on the cover of the 1985 "The Best of the Doors" album. The black-and-white image captures the qualities that made Morrison an important musical figure of his time.

Brodsky described the session in a 1981 interview, saying Morrison was "totally plastered ... so drunk he was stumbling into the lights."

Brodsky left rock-and-roll to concentrate on commercial work. Until he retired in 2001, he globe-trotted to shoot advertising campaigns for DuPont, Revlon and Avon.

Brodsky, who died March 1, is survived by his wife, three daughters, a sister and three grandchildren.