Music and Concert Posters

About Vintage Music and Concert Posters

For jazz fans, a poster of Chet Baker almost seems to come with its own soundtrack. Posters of blues artists conjure the smoky, booze-soaked dives where John Lee Hooker and other practitioners of that great American musical genre held court. Vintage country-western posters advertising Buck Owens suggest the sweetly intermingled scents of cold beer and fresh hay. And for fans of 1960s rock music, well, a concert poster from Cream’s first U.S. tour may be the only way for them to remember they were there.

Some vintage music and concert posters are easier to find than others. Trying to build a collection of original, mid-20th-century jazz posters of Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, and Miles Davis would probably be a frustrating, and expensive, pursuit. An artist named Dennis Loren makes beautiful "restoration lithographs" of jazz posters from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, but if a high-quality reprint is unacceptable to you, consider a vintage movie poster with the artist’s name in the credits—Count Basie gets prominent billing on the movie poster for Top Man; Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are both listed on the poster for Cabin in the Sky...

In the world of country music, Hatch Show Print of Nashville is the oldest print shop in the United States (it has been around since 1879). Hatch made, and continues to make, posters for all the Grand Ole Opry stars, from Bill Monroe to Roy Acuff to Patsy Cline.

Symphony buffs need not feel left out of the world of vintage music posters. Since 1972, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival has been publishing handsome, high-quality posters designed around paintings by Georgia O’Keefe, Dan Namingha, and other southwest artists.

But without a doubt, the most accessible and collected type of vintage concert poster is the 1960s rock poster. In London, Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, working as Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, produced psychedelic updates of Art Nouveau posters for Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, and The Who.

In Boston, the owners of a club called Boston Tea Party tended to take a clean, graphic approach to publicize concerts by everyone from local heroes J. Geils Band to New York’s Velvet Underground. Tea Party posters were frequently composed of little more than a block or two of solid color juxtaposed with formal-looking type.

Detroit had the Grande Ballroom, whose resident poster artist was Gary Grimshaw. His posters for locals like MC5 and visitors such as The Fugs tilted more toward the psychedelic style, often incorporating altered photographs into his design.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Dahlgren made posters for a club called the Kaleidoscope, whose posters were always circular. Across town, John Van Hamersveld produced beautiful, trippy images for Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and other bands playing L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium.

But the city that’s best known for vintage rock posters is San Francisco. A combination of multiple music venues and lots of talented artists was the catalyst for the vibrant scene. Over at the Avalon Ballroom, Chet Helms hired Wes Wilson, followed by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley, to make posters for shows featuring The Blues Project, Captain Beefheart, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead.

That first year, 1966, Kelley and Mouse created an image for the Grateful Dead that would visually define the band. Known among collectors as FD026, it was based on an illustration the artists found in a 19th-century copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Sometimes called Skeleton & Roses, a version of this poster would be used as an album cover for the band in 1971. Today it is one of the most enduring and collectible images in psychedelic rock.

Over at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium, artist Wes Wilson created posters that helped define the psychedelic lettering style of the day. In 1966, several of Wilson’s posters also featured photographs by Herb Greene. One of the best of these, BG025, revolved around a terrific portrait of a pre-Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick, a smile teasing the corners of her lips as she looks tantalizingly to her right and out of the camera’s range.

With a resume that bridged the Avalon and the Fillmore, Wilson was a respected figure on the local rock-poster scene. Indeed, when the Beatles came to town in August of 1966 to play what would be their last live performance, Wilson was hired to make the poster for that show.

Another influential San Francisco artist was Rick Griffin, whose February 1968 "Flying Eyeball" poster (BG105) for Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall, and Albert King is an icon of the art form.

Victor Moscoso rounds out the so-called Big Five (Wilson, Kelley, Mouse, and Griffin being the other four). Moscoso produced numerous posters for the Avalon and a smaller club called the Matrix. For Moscoso fans, the Holy Grail is to collect all 27 posters in the artist’s hyper-vivid Neon Rose series.

Other San Francisco poster artists of note include Lee Conklin, whose black-and-white drawing of a lion for a show at the Fillmore West became a celebrated album cover for Carlos Santana. Another important Fillmore alum is David Singer, who created 67 Fillmore posters, including the venue’s final one to mark its historic closing week.

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Interviews & Articles

An Interview With Poster Designer David Lance Goines

I don’t collect posters. I don’t collect anything. I started making posters one at a time by hand in high… [more]

An Interview With Ticket Stub Collector Mark Scalise

Mark Scalise grew up in Southern California before moving to Boston a few years ago. He's been going to B… [more]

Guest Column: Collecting Vintage Magic Posters

What are vintage magic posters? Posters of magicians printed by the stone lithography method qualify as v… [more]

An Interview With Beatles Record and Memorabilia Collector Jesse Barron

About 12 years ago a coworker told me that they saw a picture sleeve on eBay from The Beatles selling for 500… [more]

An Interview With Vintage Movie Poster Collector Sam Sarowitz

Our first book was called "The Independent Movie Poster Book" and that was published by Harry Abrams. The foc… [more]

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Best of the Web (“Hall of Fame”)

Fillmore and Avalon Collection

Fillmore and Avalon Collection

Wish you'd visited San Francisco in the late 1960s? Get a quick hit with this comprehensive collection of psychadel… [read review or visit site]

London Transport Museum Posters

London Transport Museum Posters

A must-see collection of 5,000 vivid, colorful British posters from the early 1900s onward. Browse by artist (over … [read review or visit site]

Circusmuseum.nl

Circusmuseum.nl

Step right up and check out almost 8,000 beautiful circus posters, photos and prints. Assembled by longtime Dutch c… [read review or visit site]

Dylanstubs.com

Dylanstubs.com

Hey babe, check out this database of over 2,900 Bob Dylan ticket stubs and concert posters, assembled with the help… [read review or visit site]

MagicGallery.com

MagicGallery.com

This collection of hundreds of posters, cards and portaits from the 'golden age of magic' (1890-1930) is organized … [read review or visit site]

USSR Posters

USSR Posters

Ben Perry's Flickr photoset showcasing almost 1500 Soviet propaganda, advertising, theatre and movie posters from 1… [read review or visit site]

New York Public Library

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library's impressive Digital Gallery offers free access to over 500,000 historical images inclu… [read review or visit site]

The American Memory Project

The American Memory Project

This amazing Library of Congress site includes about a hundred photo and document collections (see complete list) o… [read review or visit site]


Got a site to suggest? Let us know.




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Recent News: Music and Concert Posters

Source: Google News

Conscious Alliance hosts benefit at New Earth
Red and Black, November 20th

the rest will be for us to plan and host other events to raise more money," Brunam said. "For example, a donation of 10 cans will buy a concert poster."...Read more

Moscow: Antifascist activist murdered
Bay Area Indymedia, November 18th

After all, on the concert poster the group was in anti-fascist t-shirts – not a big thing in Spain, but something for which a musician may have to pay with...Read more

GUITAR CENTER REVOLUTIONIZES THE HOLIDAY WISH LIST WITH ONE-OF-A-KIND POSTER ...
Hip Hop Press (press release), November 12th

they truly want this holiday season and share their passion by creating and presenting their holiday must-haves in the style of an iconic music poster...Read more

Signs Of Music Fandom: Shrinking Or Growing?
NPR, November 12th

and I have a recently framed Mike King Flaming Lips print (not a concert poster, though), so I think I have actually collected far more than I have shed...Read more

Wolfmother Giveaway
Blast, November 9th

By Megan Vick Hey all Wolfmother fans. We have another awesome giveaway for you. You could win the latest Wolfmother album – “Cosmic Egg”,...Read more

Event to serve up arts, craft brews
RVANews, November 5th

Screens N Suds,” taking place at the Capital Ale House Downtown Music Hall, will showcase concert poster art and fine-brewed beers to benefit the Multiple...Read more

Re-Rolling History
San Diego Reader, November 4th

San Francisco music archive Wolfgang's Vault has a Randy Tuten–designed, 14” X 22” Rolling Stones concert poster for November 10, 1969, at the San Diego...Read more

Review: Expanded version of Rolling Stones' 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out' is a gas ...
Examiner.com, November 2nd

Lester Bangs' original (and incredibly overanalytical) review of the album from Rolling Stone, plus a mini-reproduction of the original concert poster...Read more

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