Here is Halfon’s description of how the album cover came about:

“George had in mind that, with this record, he wanted to be judged solely on the music, with no image of himself on the cover. His initial thought was a completely plain sleeve – his preferences were blue or white, with silver lettering. I’d been down that particular road with The Style Council, and the orange cover for The Cost of Loving, so I needed no further encouragement. Management on the other hand were not quite so convinced… explaining, in no uncertain terms, that no one would even stock this record with this cover. He could be quite convincing so it was, quite literally, back to the drawing board.

“I’d bought George a coffee table book for his birthday in June. It was an anthology of 20th Century photography, and we started flicking through it for some kind of inspiration, now that the blue cover had been nixed. Immediately, Weegee’s 1940 image of (what was estimated to be) over a million sunbathers jumped off the page. We both looked at each other and said, ‘That’s the cover.’ No typography on the front, just letting the image speak for itself. We were both fans of Peter Saville’s work and I think there was a little bit of that influence on this sleeve. Rolling Stone magazine in 1991 listed this as one of the LP covers of the year, which was pretty cool. Such a great LP; in my opinion it’s the definitive George Michael album.”

Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes, she always worked. One of her directors, Jacques Tourneur, said of her, “She only lives for two things, and both of them are work.” She made her debut on stage in the chorus as a Ziegfeld girl in 1923 at age 16, and within a few years was acting in plays. Her first lead role, which was in the hit Burlesque (1927), established her as a Broadway star. In 1929, she transitioned from the stage to the film industry, and began acting in talking pictures.

Stanwyck’s career truly took off with Frank Capra’s romantic drama Ladies of Leisure (1930). This marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with Capra, with whom she made several other notable films, including The Miracle Woman (1931), Forbidden (1932), the controversial The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), and Gambling Lady (1934).

After taking the last name of her stepfather, John Rogers, she was then known as Ginger Rogers. As a young girl, her mother placed her in many shows in Texas to cultivate her ability to perform. Ginger toured with a vaudeville troupe for a while, and in 1929, she finally got her shot at fame on Broadway when she performed in Top Speed. Just a year later, she appeared in her first motion picture Young Man of Manhattan.

She would later become associated with Fred Astaire and perform in several films with him, including Flying Down to Rio (their first film together, 1933), Top Hat (1934), Follow the Fleet (1939), and a few others.

In 1940, she won an Academy Award for her performance in the film Kitty Foyle. She went on to appear in many other films, and in 1965, she appeared in her last one Harlow. She then went on to do theatre work for many years and occasionally appeared on TV shows.

Rogers died on April 25, 1995, at the age of 83.

She grew up listening to a wide range of genres, including her father’s Spanish-language albums, country and western, top 40, blues, and gospel. She has stated that she doesn’t record any type of music she didn’t hear in her family’s living room by the time she was 10, highlighting the profound influence of her early musical environment.

In her early teens, around age 14, Linda began performing in local clubs and pizza parlors with her older brother Pete and sister Suzie. They formed a folk trio, sometimes billing themselves as “the Union City Ramblers” or “the Three Ronstadts,” and even recorded themselves as “the New Union Ramblers.” Their repertoire included folk, country, bluegrass, and Mexican music.

By 1964, at the age of 18, Ronstadt decided to pursue music professionally. She briefly attended the University of Arizona but left after a couple of months to move to Los Angeles. There, she teamed up with Tucson native Bob Kimmel and Kenny Edwards to form the folk-rock band The Stone Poneys in 1964. This marked the true beginning of her professional career, leading to their signing with Capitol Records in 1966 and their breakthrough hit “Different Drum” in 1967.

Below are some photographs of Ronstadt from the 1950s and early 1960s, as she wasn’t famous yet: