1964 Magazine Covers

Check out these classic magazine covers from way back in January 1964. Takes you back doesn't it?

The Top Magazine Cover - The Rolling Stone

On what would be the last day of his life, John Lennon posed for photographs with Yoko Ono in a session with photographer Annie Liebovitz. One of the pictures, a naked Lennon curled around and kissing a clothed Ono, became the cover for Rolling Stone magazine’s tribute to him. That iconic image published a month after his December 1980 death has been ranked the top magazine cover of the last 40 years by a panel of magazine editors, artists and designers. Others on the list include images from the Sept. 11 attacks, the Vietnam War and of Katiti Kironde II, the first black woman on the cover of a national women’s magazine, in the August 1968 Glamour.

The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winners of the competition on Monday during the American Magazine Conference in Puerto Rico. The competition was held as a way to mark the 40th anniversary of the group’s awards. “Both the choice of a cover and the execution of a cover are crucial for any magazine,” said Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek and ASME president. “Every editor wants their cover to stand out.” Coming in second was the shot of a very pregnant Demi Moore on the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair, followed by an April 1968 image from Esquire of boxer Muhammad Ali with arrows in his body. The Saul Steinberg drawing of New York’s West Side dwarfing the rest of the country, published in The New Yorker on March 29, 1976, came in fourth. Esquire’s May 1969 image of Pop Art maven Andy Warhol drowning in a can of tomato soup took the fifth spot.

This cover of Rolling Stone from Jan. 22, 1981 was the top pick of magazine editors who reviewed the best covers in the past four decades. This Annie Liebovitz shot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was photographed the day before Lennon was assassinated.