AP News, March 31st, 2007
Joel Brodsky, whose photography was featured on hundreds of music album covers, has died at age 67, his daughter said.
Brodsky died March 1 in Stamford of a heart attack, his daughter, Jill Holt, said Saturday. He had moved to Connecticut about five years ago from New York City.
One of Brodsky's best-known works was the black-and-white image of a shirtless, unsmiling Jim Morrison on "The Best of the Doors." It was immortalized in posters and other memorabilia, and was praised for capturing Morrison's intensity and sexuality.
Brodsky even had the image etched into the prosthesis he used after losing part of a leg to diabetes several years ago, Holt said.
Some of Brodsky's other notable images included the cover of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" and the 1974 self-titled debut for the rock band Kiss. In all, he did photography for more than 400 album covers, largely for rock, blues and soul performers.
Brodsky worked in a camera store after graduating from Syracuse University in 1960 and opened his own studio in New York a few years later.
In 1966, he shot the Jim Morrison photos that established his reputation. Holt said her father's favorite image was his photograph of Booker T & the MG's walking across McLemore Avenue in Memphis, Tenn., in a scene reminiscent of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" cover.
Brodsky retired in 2001 after years of commercial photography work for several companies.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie, of Stamford; Holt and two other daughters, and one sister and three grandchildren.
