Rare, Precious Or Beautiful was a 1995 video documentary release about the art of rare rock & folk album cover sleeves between 1966 and 1976. It features an intro from John Peel, contributions from musicians Pete Brown and Roy Wood, and from Pat Moran, who designed album covers for Neon Records..
Links To Peel
Peel appears at the beginning of the documentary introducing some of his favourite cover album sleeves between 1966 and 1976. He comments that some of the albums most sought-after by collectors are rare mainly because they're not very good. Peel's choices of his favourite album sleeve covers on the programme are listed below:
- Spring: Spring (RCA, Neon, 1971)
- Kevin Ayers: Joy Of A Toy (Harvest, 1969)
- Battered Ornaments: Mantle-Piece (Harvest, 1969)
- Locomotive: We Are Everything You See (Parlophone, 1970)
- Tea & Symphony: An Asylum For The Musically Insane (Harvest, 1969)
- Erkin Koray: Electric Turk (Xotic Mind, 1995) (Peel didn't realise that the album was released in 1995 rather than the 60's or 70's. The Electric Turk album was a compilation of Erkin's music from the 60's and 70's)
The second half of the film shows a selection of album sleeves, most of them from EMI's "progressive" label Harvest, and (towards the end of the film) some from RCA's imprint Neon Records. The Harvest sleeves include many from LPs by artists Peel played or who did sessions for his shows - including Pink Floyd, Michael Chapman, Southern Comfort, Roy Harper, Love, Syd Barrett, Shirley and Dolly Collins, the Edgar Broughton Band. the Third Ear Band, the Pretty Things, Chris Spedding, Pete Brown and Piblokto!, Forest, the Climax Chicago Blues Band, Mark-Almond, East of Eden, the Move, Formerly Fat Harry, the Electric Light Orchestra, Be Bop Deluxe, the Sadistic Mika Band and Barclay James Harvest. Sleeves from the Neon label mostly feature lesser-known artists, but they include albums by Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath and Dando Shaft, both of whom were featured in session on Peel shows of the early 1970s.
Video
John Peel Shows us some of his Rare Records - Rare Precious Beautiful