Corky McCoy

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Corky McCoy is an American illustrator from Los Angeles best known for drawing cartoons of urban Black life on Miles Davis album covers. Not much is known about his life before he met Davis. He was already working as an artist when they became friends and even shared an apartment on West 77th Street in New York City.

McCoy created the cover art for several Miles Davis albums: On the Corner (1972), In Concert: Live at Philharmonic Hall (1973), Big Fun (1974), and Water Babies (1976). The On the Corner cover was Davis’s idea because he wanted music that would connect with Black listeners. Columbia Records didn’t like the new artwork, but Davis insisted on using McCoy’s design.

Davis was blunt about merchandising Black music and wanted covers that would appeal to Black audiences. McCoy was initially hesitant, but Davis was excited about the art. McCoy’s On the Corner cover shows a lively, street-level scene of Black life with a funky, post-1960s style. For In Concert: Live at Philharmonic Hall, McCoy also created inside illustrations that satirized mainstream rock, including a spoof music label and a mock band on the drum kit. Some critics, like the 1974 Coda magazine, described McCoy’s artwork for these albums as tasteless.

In the 1980s, Davis tried to hire two European cartoonists for a project called Rubberband, but the project was never released. In 2007, Columbia released The Complete On the Corner Sessions, a six-CD box set that included new Corky McCoy illustrations.

McCoy also did cover art for the 1999 hip-hop group Ugly Duckling’s album Fresh Mode and its promotional singles. He contributed illustrations to comedian Tim Meadows’s 2000 book The Ladies Man: Sexin’ and Lovin’ Leon Phelps Style, co-written with Andrew Steele and Dennis McNicholas, which tied into the Tim Meadows film The Ladies Man and its 1970s street-funk vibe.