Rainbow – Difficult To Cure(1981)

Biography
Rainbow (also known as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow or Blackmore’s Rainbow) are a British rock band led by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, active from 1975 to 1984, from 1993 to 1997, and from 2015 to the present. They were originally established with Ronnie James Dio’s American rock band Elf, but after their first album, Blackmore fired the backing members and continued with Dio until 1979. Three British musicians joined in 1979—singer Graham Bonnet, keyboardist Don Airey and then-former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover—and this line-up gave the band their commercial breakthrough with the single “Since You Been Gone”. Over the years Rainbow went through many line-up changes with no two studio albums featuring the same line-up. Other lead singers Joe Lynn Turner and Doogie White would follow, and the project consisted of numerous backing musicians. A pioneer to power metal, the band’s early work primarily featured mystical lyrics with a neoclassical metal style, but went in a more streamlined, commercial direction following Dio’s departure from the group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_(rock_band)

Album & Cover
Difficult to Cure is the fifth studio album by the British hard rock band, Rainbow, and was released in 1981. The album marked the further commercialization of the band’s sound, with Ritchie Blackmore once describing at the time his appreciation of the band Foreigner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difficult_to_Cure

Storm Thorgerson says the idea came from a medical term such as difficult to cure which gave rise to the ‘surgeons’ performing an operation on a patient, the masks are used to hide the identities which could be the band members. In fact the band were in the USA and the photograph consisted of, the lead ‘surgeon’ was a friend of PO’s George Galatzin, and the backup ‘surgeons’ were Peter Christopherson, Storm Thorgerson, John Blake, an assistant George and his friend. The nurse on the back cover was a friend called Jill Furmanovsky, a photographer in her own right.

Richard Manning explains the making of this cover:This is a hand tinted black and white print.The green areas were masked with transpaseal and with a mixed Photo Dye a base colour was washed in. Dried with the hair dryer and then touches of darker green and yellow were airbrushed in. Satisfied with the colour the flesh areas were masked and this time with a Sable brush and a Photo Dye mix was carefully washed in. Then the waist ties and gloves were washed in with yellow Dye and the masks had some touches of light violet dye touched in with the Sable brush. Finally some watery yellow and violet dye was sprayed on the background before masking the front man, and some watery Permanent White Gouache was sprayed over the people behind, once masked, to bring the front man forward. The same hand tinting process was applied to the back cover also. http://www.richardmanning.co.uk/hipgnosis-album-cover-art/rainbow-difficult-to-cure-1981/34

Cover Location: Hipgnosis Studio, London, UK.
Who Did What: Photography – A. Powell, Cover Design- Hipgnosis.
Label: Polydor ‎– PD-1-6316(US), Polydor POLD 5036(UK),
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell

Credits
Bass, Producer – Roger Glover
Drums – Bob Rondinelli
Engineer – Flemming Rasmussen
Engineer [Assistant] – Clay Hutchinson, Thomas Brekling
Guitar – Ritchie Blackmore
Keyboards – Don Airey
Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals – Joe Lynn Turner
Mastered By – Greg Colby