A Minnesota boy: born in Worthington in 1930. We had a “Big” Tiny Little album in the console record player at home, and as a kid I found the name amusing, like “Huge” Small Microscopic. His name was Dudley Little; “Tiny” was his nickname, but at some point “Big” was appended, just to make his name as abstract as possible.

He was a piano player on the Welk show, and made over 45 albums of rinky-tinky happy-clappy music. We’ll get to that eventually. The point here: tracing the style of the album art.

“Make Room for Daddy” was a popular TV show of the day; perhaps the title caromed off that reference. This was his debut album, I believe, and gave us a few signifiers probably lost on modern audiences: the hat, the vest, the garters on his arms - they all harken back to the 1890s or at least the early part of the century. For 1957, this would be akin to someone today taking on the classic style of the 40s - hat, trenchcoat, cigarette. Far away but still within our ken - a golden time with virtues and pleasures the modern world had lost. Barrooms, beer, ladies in enormous dresses they’d lift to show some ankle. Spittoons, handlebar mustaches.

The good old days.

Ah, but how to get that point across and still seem modern? This would occupy the minds of the album designers for years to come.