Bob Whitaker, the photographer who took the infamous Beatles butcher cover photographer has passed away after a lengthy illness, according to reports from friends in Liverpool, the Beatles' hometown. (Update: The Press Association reported the cause was cancer.) Whitaker, born in 1939, was in his early '70s.
According to a biography, Whitaker first met the Beatles and the Beatles and manager Brian Epstein during the group's 1964 Australian tour. He had accompanied a journalist friend to an interview with Brian Epstein. He snapped a picture of Epstein, which led to his first shots of the Beatles with Paul McCartney and George Harrison holding boomerangs presented to them by their Australian fans.
Whitaker photographed the infamous butcher cover in a picture session with the Beatles on March 25, 1966. The session was originally intended for photos to promote their single "Rain"/"Paperback Writer." The resulting images of the Beatles wearing white coats and holding dismembered doll parts, slabs of meat and false teeth, caused a furor. After an image was used on the cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday and Today" album, the album was quickly withdrawn and the picture replaced with a more sedate photo of the band.
In a 1991 interview with Goldmine magazine, Whitaker said the idea for the butcher cover photo was his. "It was mine. Absolutely. It was part of three pictures that should have gone into an icon. And it was a rough. If you could imagine, the background of that picture should have been all gold. Around the heads would have gone silver halos, jewelled. Then there are two other pictures that are in the book ("The Unseen Beatles"), but not in color."
John Lennon said the Beatles were very agreeable with the idea of the butcher cover portrait. "It was inspired by our boredom and resentment at having to do another photo session and another Beatles thing. We were sick to death of it. Bob was into Dali and making surreal pictures," he said in 1980.
Whitaker also photographed other members of Brian Epstein's NEMs stable and the cover of Cream's "Disraeli Gears" album. Whitaker's butcher cover photo was cited just this week in a survey by Paul Fraser Collectibles as one of the five best Beatle photos ever taken.
- Photos of John Lennon and Brian Epstein by Bob Whitaker (991.com)
- All about the Beatles butcher cover photo (eskimo.com)
- The story of the Beatles butcher cover (rarebeatles.com)
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