It's a Beautiful Day (album)

The cover

The cover was designed by George Hunter and painted by Kent Hollister based on the cover of a housekeeping magazine from around 1900. The album cover is number 24 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 greatest album covers. The original art was about 12" × 12", more a paste up than artwork and was never turned over to San Francisco Sound. In the early 70s Katz had reproduced an 8' x 8' oil on canvas painting.

A 1972 reissue of the album in The Netherlands on CBS used a modern painting of a beach scene as the front and back cover because the original cover art of the first two It's A Beautiful Day albums became the sole property of San Francisco Records. IABD was formed by Matthew Katz and the group had a record contract with San Francisco Sound Records. Katz settled with CBS where in it was agreed that "In No Event Will CBS Duplicate The Cover Art or Duplicate The Same songs as included in those two albums. The same is true of the first two Moby Grape albums which are all part or the same court settlement. The only legal source for those IABD and Moby Grape albums are from San Francisco Sound. See Sfsound.com

While playing and rehearsing at a Seattle venue originally known as The Encore Ballroom. The band's manager Matthew Katz had aquired and renamed it "San Francisco Sound". In an ironic twist on the band's name, the song White Bird was inspired by Seattle's rainy winter weather.

A substantial part of the theme and arrangement of the song "Bombay Calling" was used by Deep Purple as the basis for their song "Child in Time".

In popular culture

The song "White Bird" is used in three episodes of the 1980s television series Knight Rider. It is the theme song for the relationship between main character Michael Knight and his one true love, and appears in the episodes "White Bird" in season 1, "Let It Be Me" in season 2 and " The Scent of Roses" in season 4. The song was also featured in the 2015 movie Focus with Will Smith.

Personnel

David LaFlamme – violin, flute, lead vocals

Linda LaFlamme – acoustic piano, electric piano, organ, celeste, harpsichord

Hal Wagenet – guitars

Mitchell Holman – bass, harmonica, backing vocals

Val Fuentes – drums, backing vocals

Pattie Santos – percussion, bells, backing vocals

Bruce Steinberg – harmonica