Album covers w/musicians holding cartons of milk

[Larry Kart]

Von Freeman's "Do It Right Now"

I recall Dan Morgenstern objecting to the posed cover shot of Von as IIRC a ditch digger because Von's hands were covered in dirt and no genuine working man would hold an open milk carton he was drinking out of with dirt on his hands.

[Swinging Swede]

Image or it didn't happen!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It didn't happen.

But Larry's account of what Morgernstern said must be nineteenth hand.

no genuine working man would hold an open milk carton he was drinking out of with dirt on his hands

WHAT!?!?! I know Americans are unnecessarily fetishist about germs and stuff, and I admit to never having been a ditch digger, but I was a maintenance man in a laundry and there aren't many filthier places than them...

MG

[JSngry]

I've dug a ditch, swung a sickle, cut and threaded pipe, and preformed other tasks while working as a roustabout in the East Texas oil fields for three summers, and I've got three words - waterless hand cleaner. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Ask Dan Morgenstern about waterless hand cleaner.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

That's what I used to use - a quick wipe on my trousers.

MG

[JSngry]

We had a can of this goopy stuff (might have actually been called Goop) that you could buy at any industrial supply shop. Get a little dab outta the can, lave, and then wipe it all off with a rag.

All gang trucks had rags aplenty, and all gang tucks had a bigass can of waterless hand cleaner, because if you're out on some lease miles from nowhere getting into some sweaty nasty shit and luch time comes, hey, you gonna eat, and you gonna do so with clean hands.

Ask Dan Morgenstern if he ever waded into a stock pond to clean up a pipeline leak with hay, wade into the water, throw out the hay, mop it all over the pond with a rake, bring it to shore, keep on doing that over and over until you get all the oil off the water (all this done after the leak is located and fixed, btw, it's a full day's work by the time it's all done). I was one of the lucky ones who didn't come out with leaches, but I did have crude oil all over my non-wader-covered parts, but by god, when lunch time came, I had me some clean hands, thanks to waterless hand cleaner and rags.

[Larry Kart]

That's weird because I do recall that image and certainly recall Dan's remark, which was made to me and struck me as a bit odd. Was there perhaps another photo or photos connected to that album, maybe publicity material? Or am I blanking out entirely and it was a remark he made about some Chicago blues album of the time?

In any case, I think that the thrust of Dan's remark was that the image itself was designed to convey an earthy, down home, "working-class" feeling, but that a real working man, etc. Was he perhaps thinking (though I have that milk carton remark stuck in my brain) of the disconnect on Von's album cover between his undershirt and the building rubble (those things being the choice of some art director) and Von's nice shoes?

[Chuck Nessa]

Von's mother complained to me that he and George posed for pictures in their underwear.

[John Litweiler]

yes, the brand name was Goop.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Over here it was called Swarfega - a green jelly stuff that came in cans.

Nowadays, of course, it comes in stuff my wife would approve of

MG