These Classic Rock Album Covers Were Inspired By Mushrooms

A Generation Who Started A Movement 

What’s your favorite classic rock song inspired by mushrooms?

Classic rock is a feel-good genre of music. When you play a song by the Grateful Dead, it’s natural to want to kick back and relax. When a Cream song plays on the radio, a smile always appears. 

Vincent Berry wrote this track for our film–now our official National Mushroom Month music video!

Some of the greatest rock music was inspired by mushrooms.

Many of these bands were living and working in the 1960s, in a music scene highly influenced by psilocybin. So, it makes sense that mushrooms made widespread appearances on the album covers of many classic rock groups from the time.

Here are just a few of the many classic rock albums that feature mushrooms or psilocybin-inspired patterns as part of their cover art. And don’t forget the Fantastic Fungi Reimagine album!

The Sacred Mushroom

Bombeats reminded us of this psychedelic band: “Rewinding back to 1969 and here are Sacred Mushroom with their only self-titled album Sacred Mushroom. Though they never found mainstream fame, man they can sure rip! There isn’t much mentioned about them online and this is the only album they made but it’s devilishly good! Those psychedelic and bluesy sounds to wind down to. Definitely one for the vault!”

Allman Brothers’ “Where It All Begins”

Not only does the band logo include a mushroom, but the album art for their record “Where It All Begins” features a gorgeous illustration with a glowing red mushroom front and center. The original logo was designed in the 1970s, whereas the album cover was designed in the 1990s. Against a glistening dark blue pool, a large red-capped mushroom obscures the sun and glitters in the water. Several smaller red mushrooms adorn the shores of the tiny lagoon, giving the cove a Peter Pan-like appearance. Seussical trees arch over the lagoon on the sides of the album.

 

Grateful Dead’s “Aoxomoxoa”

An ode to death and fertility, the album art on the cover of Aoxomoxoa shows a skull, trees, the Sun, and mushrooms, of course. The art reflects the experimental nature of the album, which reviewers noted for its loving and lifelike mood. The Grateful Dead is well-known for speaking openly about taking psychedelic mushrooms, and the Aoxomoxoa album art is partially their nod to the influence of nature and plant intelligence on their music.

Cream’s “Disraeli Gears”

This psychedelic album cover features the group members and trippy flowers and other natural ornamentals, all in a brilliant neon color palette of pinks, oranges, and yellows. They did not produce only psychedelic music, but they occasionally took LSD and were inspired by the psychedelic vibes of magic psilocybin mushrooms.

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