Jackie Greene is a singer-songwriter from Sacramento working in the same traditions as Dylan and the Dead. For the first issue of our second year in print, Sactown decided to make him a cover feature and show a little hometown love. I really wanted to give him his “ready for a closeup” moment. I was really into aping George Lois at the time so I found spark in his famous Nixon cover from 1968.

We had this one sketched out before we shot it (beautifully by the brilliant Max Whittaker) , and we simply tried out staging it all in-camera but it wasn’t quite giving us what we needed, regardless of how we configured hands or put people on stools or in crouched positions. Ultimately, we shot most of the hands separately and I composited them in in post.

The type treatment was a lot of fun to do as well. I mixed a couple typefaces and added swash and flourish to give my version of a luxe 70s album cover/t-shirt/band logo. Something to fit Greene’s sound and the rich musical tradition he fits in to.