How I Designed Burton Cumming's "Above the Ground" Album Cover - Ernie's Corner

Award-winning creative designer, Ernie Cefalu has been sharing about the unique and distinct album covers that he has designed. Ernie Cefalu shares stories about so many exciting times working and designing some of the most creative album covers - this time he talks about Lou Reed. Here is the video portion of our chat that adds so many interesting additions to his time with one of rock and roll's most hard working and exciting duos.

You can listen to "The Block Party" and "Ernie's Corner" in Bel Air, Maryland on 91.1 FM (WHFC) and we reach out to you on the net at www.whfc911.org. You can also hear us on Q101.3 (WQMR) in Rocky Mount, VA at 8 p.m.. Meet you on the air Saturday.

---
Ernie Cefalu (born 1945) is a contemporary artist and Senior Creative Director, currently working out of Los Angeles, CA. He is known for designing art for music albums.

Cefalu attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) and graduated in 1969 with honors. Soon after, Cefalu started his career on Madison Avenue at Carolini Advertising, where his first assignment was to create the campaign and graphics for the International Paper Company's 1970 national sales meeting. His solution took the form of an elaborate, award-winning off-Broadway musical production, Dolls Alive. In the early part of 1970 Cefalu became an Art Director at Norman Levit Advertising where he created the Jesus Christ Superstar album and Angels in an agency shootout with the Decca Records account as the prize

At the end of 1970, Cefalu joined forces with Craig Braun, Inc. in New York, and worked on The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album as well as Grand Funk Railroad's E Pluribus Funk. Eight months later, in mid-1971, he opened a satellite office in California for Braun, the head Creative Director. There, he was the creative force behind a string of famous album covers for Alice Cooper's School's Out, and Cheech & Chong's Big Bambu. He is also credited with being one of the people to design The Rolling Stones[3] "Lips and Tongue" logo.

Cefalu opened his own agency, Pacific Eye & Ear, in January 1972. Over the next 15 years, he created another 194 album covers for rock artists such as The Doors, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, The Bee Gees, The Guess Who, Black Sabbath, Jefferson Airplane, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Burton Cummings, Grand Funk Railroad, Iron Butterfly, and Black Oak Arkansas. Cefalu's collaborations with then emerging illustrators such as Drew Struzan, Bill Garland, Joe Petagno, Carl Ramsey, Ingrid Haenke and Joe Garnet led Pacific Eye & Ear's quest to become one of the top album design companies in the country.

In 1985, Cefalu formed David Hale Associates and broadened his client roster beyond the music industry to include the food companies Nestle and Kraft. Over the next decade and a half, his work helped more than 20 brands in five divisions post double-digit sales growth. In 1990 he was retained by Panavision Motion Picture Cameras, NGK Spark Plugs and Rockwell International.