“He was being very kind,” Macmillan says with a laugh. Macmillan, who had been taking pictures since he was eight years old, was studying photography at London’s Royal College of Art and had agreed to assist with a black-and-white promo video Wyper was producing for Fleetwood Mac’s “Albatross.” Macmillan met Wyper at a pub, where the record exec asked to see some of the photographer’s pictures. He had met the label’s president, Olav Wyper, when Wyper worked at CBS Records. “I’m very happy just to do this for Sabbath, really,” he says.Īt the time of the Black Sabbath sleeve, Macmillan was still new to his job as the in-house album designer for Vertigo Records, a U.K. When Rolling Stone reached out to him, asking to discuss Black Sabbath for its anniversary, he changed his mind. In addition to the first four Black Sabbath LPs, he shot classic album covers for David Bowie and Rod Stewart, and videos for Kate Bush and Motörhead, among many other projects. But “Keef,” whose real name is Keith Macmillan, has never voluntarily agreed to an interview. All fans had to go on was a credit that said, “Album designed and photographed by Keef,” a name that would also appear on the next three Black Sabbath albums. Black Sabbath was the perfect example of music and cover art in complete synergy.įor a half-century, mystery has surrounded the Black Sabbath sleeve. Among other nasty visuals, the text describes severed bird wings, poppies that bleed, and “mute birds, tired of repeating yesterday’s terrors,” all leading up to a line about how “by the lake a young girl waits, unseeing she believes herself unseen, she smiles, faintly at the distant tolling bell, and the still falling rain.” The imagery was as evocative as it was provocative.Īnd then you played the music, hearing Tony Iommi’s crushing riffs and Ozzy Osbourne’s terrifying tableaus of horror. When listeners opened the gatefold sleeve, before even dropping the needle on the LP, they saw an inverted cross that contained not only the songs and credits, but also an unnerving poem. A witchy-looking woman stands alone in the woods in a haunted underworld, staring out at you, clutching something - her cloak? a cat? The cover of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut, which came out 50 years ago today, has become one of rock’s most iconic and captivating album sleeves.
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