May 22, 1971 –
The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, with a working zipper on the cover, hits #1 in the US, on this date.
Andy Warhol designed the Sticky Fingers album cover. Before he started working on it, Mick Jagger send Warhol a note warning that a complicated design could cause nasty production delays, but nonetheless giving him total creative control. The artist responded with a cover that contained an actual working zipper, which of course was a production nightmare. The cover, however, was one of the most memorable ever made. It showed a man wearing very tight jeans behind that working zipper – many folks assumed this was Mick Jagger, but it was actually Joe Dallesandro, an actor and Warhol cohort.
Dallesandro appeared on the cover of the April 15, 1971 issue of Rolling Stone magazine; the album was released on April 23.
And so it goes
The Haus of Dcaligari 