About
Robert L. Heimall
Surfing a “Left” in Maui 1977 on my surfboard custom shaped/made by “Ole” (a few miles North of Jac’s beach house)
Whether it was snapping cover photos, adding design elements or making creative decisions, Heimall met with artists such as Jim Morrison, Dickey Betts, Carly Simon, Harry Chapin and Jim Croce to catch listeners’ eyes in the record shop.
Raised in Livingston, NJ, Heimall took up oil painting in high school with an affinity for the impressionist work of Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso. He attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, where professors noted he could earn a living in commercial art, but would sacrifice the joys and creativity of fine art. He spent the next five years working at ad agencies in the winter and surfing in the summer until an employment agency placed him at Elektra Records. His portfolio as a graphic designer impressed the company and he worked up the ladder.
“After that, I didn’t go surfing as much any more,” he said. “I threw everything I had into a career, because I loved it.” Indeed, it was an enviable gig. He’d listen to a tape made at the end of recording sessions — before mixing, mastering and pressing — to interpret the music and make a graphic image for the album art.
"Literally, I struck it rich,” he said. The job also brought him to numerous performances across the nation— Muscle Shoals, Ala., Los Angeles, the Midwest — everywhere. He sometimes ran into Linda Eastman, a fellow photographer who later found fame on her own. “She used to say, ‘I’m going to marry one of these guys and make it big,’” Heimall recalled. “I said, ‘Sure, Linda,’ but then she went and married Paul McCartney.”
- By TOM HOWELL JR., New Jersey Herald
Raised in Livingston, NJ, Heimall took up oil painting in high school with an affinity for the impressionist work of Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso. He attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, where professors noted he could earn a living in commercial art, but would sacrifice the joys and creativity of fine art. He spent the next five years working at ad agencies in the winter and surfing in the summer until an employment agency placed him at Elektra Records. His portfolio as a graphic designer impressed the company and he worked up the ladder.
“After that, I didn’t go surfing as much any more,” he said. “I threw everything I had into a career, because I loved it.” Indeed, it was an enviable gig. He’d listen to a tape made at the end of recording sessions — before mixing, mastering and pressing — to interpret the music and make a graphic image for the album art.
"Literally, I struck it rich,” he said. The job also brought him to numerous performances across the nation— Muscle Shoals, Ala., Los Angeles, the Midwest — everywhere. He sometimes ran into Linda Eastman, a fellow photographer who later found fame on her own. “She used to say, ‘I’m going to marry one of these guys and make it big,’” Heimall recalled. “I said, ‘Sure, Linda,’ but then she went and married Paul McCartney.”
- By TOM HOWELL JR., New Jersey Herald