CHICK COREA AND THE SMURFS

Artist: Chick Corea
Album: Friends
Label: Polydor

Catalog: PD-1-6061
Year: 1978
Art Designer: Chick Corea
Photography: Stanley Gainsforth
Grade: **** stars

 

C'mon, how can you not love a cover that features the Smurfs.  Corea himself came up with the cover concept.   I'm guessing that having spent a great deal of time touring Europe, he became aware of the Smurfs franchise several years before they became popular in the US.   Interestingly Corea doesn't seem to have bothered getting legal rights to use the Pierre Culliford's characters for the cover.   That my explain why Polydor subsequently created an alternate cover for European releases of the album.   Perhaps comfortable they wouldn't get sued in the States, Polydor didn't bother re-packaging the US release.







For anyone curious, here's what the alternative cover looked like.