How the 'Blue & Lonesome' Cover Channeled Classic Chicago Blues Album Art

The cover of Blue & Lonesome (2016) is a deliberate throwback to the gritty, no-frills album sleeves of postwar Chicago blues. Instead of a glossy band portrait, the Stones are shown crowded around a small table in a dimly lit studio, looking more like a club after-hours than a rock supergroup. The monochrome photo, with its high contrast and slight grain, mirrors the covers of classic Chess Records LPs—think Muddy Waters’ Folk Singer or Howlin’ Wolf’s Moanin’ in the Moonlight—where the music was the only flash.

The photograph was taken by Andrew Cotterill, an English photographer who had shot the band before. He captured them during the recording sessions at British Grove Studios in London, using natural light and a handheld camera to keep the mood loose. The result feels like a candid moment, not a formal shoot, which fits the album’s raw, one-take approach to covering blues standards.

Cotterill’s image also nods to the era when blues albums often featured the artist in a relaxed, informal setting—sitting on a stoop, leaning against a brick wall, or gathered around a microphone. By mimicking that visual language, the Stones signaled that Blue & Lonesome wasn’t a nostalgia trip but a return to the live-room immediacy of the music that first inspired them.