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Tom Wilkes, legendary poster and album cover designer (Monterey Pop, the Rolling Stones' original Beggars Banquet, Neil Young's Harvest, Janis Joplin' Pearl, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass et al), has died at his home in Pioneertown, California. I was fortunate enough to interview Tom on 25 October, 2003 – the following is a transcript of what he told me about the Monterey Pop festival and about Neil Young, Gram Parsons, A&M Records and more.--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

"I was always an artist. I put myself through college doing flame jobs--pinstriping on custom cars. And then from that I opened an ad agency in Long Beach when I was in my early twenties. And then I met David Wheeler, who was a drug dealer to the stars, and he brought me into LA and asked if I wanted to do album covers and I said yeah. So I started working with a guy named Guy Webster--Mamas and the Papas, Flowers for the Stones. And then I did the Monterey Pop Festival, and then I was really into it.

"The industry totally changed after Monterey. Monterey was basically a peaceful protest against the Vietnam war, against racism, all those things that were going on. But after Monterey everything opened up, it was really interesting. After I did Monterey Pop, I was offered a job by A&M Records. So I became the art director. They wanted to become hip, so they brought me in and tried to attract some major talent. It was all Boyce and Hart, Sergio Mendes, Herb Alpert, and now they were really trying to sign bands. They wanted to get into the mainstream of rock. They had a great studio, one of the best in town. I wasn't real thrilled about working with the artists they had, so I made a deal with them. I said, ‘If I can do any other album covers I want to do, I'll run your graphics department'. And they said fine. So Jerry Moss would come in the front door and I'd have the Rolling Stones and George Harrison and all these other album covers on the wall, and it would piss Jerry off.

"Chris Hillman lived down the street from me in Topanga Canyon. He was still with the Byrds at that time. After the Byrds we became real good friends and he came to me and wanted to get a deal. And he brought in this guy Gram Parsons. Gram and Chris and I all got together, and there was another guy named Michael Vosse who worked for me. He showed up at Monterey, and he knew a lot of music people, so I hired him as part of the editorial staff. He was a great liaison guy with the artists. And then there was Derek Taylor, who came to A&M after Monterey, right after I did.

"Chris had a lot of common sense. He was very quiet and unassuming, a nice human being. And yet he's chosen to work with a lot of crazy people. So he and Gram showed up and said, 'We want a deal on A&M.' And I asked them what they were doing, and I said I'd do what I could do. With Michael Vosse I went to see Gil Friesen, who was the VP, and said he had to sign this band. We said, 'This is country rock, it's something new.' But I said, 'You have to let them alone. Don't bother me about the promotions and album covers or anything, coz we're gonna do our own stuff.' And Jerry agreed. A lot of money later, he disagreed! Vosse was booking tours and they'd have their own plane…

"Gram struck me as a genuinely nice human being. There was no b*lls**t or ego trip at that time. Sneaky Pete and I, however, got into a lotta screaming arguments. He was always b**ching about the album covers. The Nudie suits were Gram's idea, and we got it approved. They each picked their own design and format, and then we shot the cover out at Pear Blossom, northeast of here near Palmdale.

"Bernie Leadon lived next door to me in Topanga and he sold his house to Neil Young. Topanga was much more funky and rustic than Laurel Canyon. Neil Young was very withdrawn and quiet. He never was outgoing, but he was really a good man. I have a daughter who was about the same age as Susan's little girl. We used to go to the Troubadour quite a bit. The kids would sit on the stage and listen to the music. Linda Ronstadt lived down the street, too, in Topanga.

"I did a lot of work with Emmylou Harris. I'd known Phil Kaufman [her road manager] forever. When Gram really started to go downhill, I didn't see that much of him. He was tooting a little bit when he was in the Burritos, but nothing like it was at the end. I hung out with Gram and Chris and we smoked a lot of grass, but there was very little coke at that point. Chris and Gram wrote 'Sin City' at my table in Topanga. Coke did a lot of damage to everybody. I've never known anyone that used it that was not changed by it. A lot of angry, crazy stuff came up."

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