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Detail of Tomato Records brochure
Detail of Tomato Records brochure, n.d. Designed by Milton Glaser.
May 25, 2021

Kevin Eggers

I recently discovered that Kevin Eggers, music producer, entrepreneur, and longtime friend of Glaser's passed away last year, just a month before Glaser. Eggers first joined forces with Glaser in 1966, when he founded Poppy Records, which later became Utopia Records, and finally Tomato Records. Glaser created identity programs for all three labels and many beautiful album covers, which represent some of the most significant work of his career during one of his longest professional relationships.
Kevin Egger's Tomator Records card

Poppy’s letterhead featured Glaser’s now famous Poppy poster image on the back.
Poppy in cement block
Poppy Records letterhead
 
Informational brochures for Tomato were similarly surreal.
Man in turban with a giant tomato standing opposite man in top hat
 
Topless woman in flowing gown holding a tomator
Dog with tomato flying at his head

Glaser also designed Eggers’ 1971 wedding invitation, composed of an elegant double-sided geometric design. The wedding reception took place at Eggers’ home in Brooklyn Heights, where Townes Van Zandt composed “If You Needed Me” and “Pancho and Lefty.”
Front of Kevin Eggers' wedding announcement
Back of Kevin Eggers' wedding invitation

According to this list of his appearances, Van Zandt played the Eggers’ wedding for “more than an hour.” (Eggers produced almost all of Van Zandt’s studio albums and later became embroiled in a legal dispute regarding control of Van Zandt’s musical legacy.)

A promotional piece for Utopia Records, c. 1972, is a dense biographical portrait of all the involved personnel, including Eggers and Glaser.
Circular poster with Tomato Records personnel bios


Eggers had a storied career from beginning to end. An excerpt from his bio on this poster describes how he got his start:
Kevin left the ninth grade and Brooklyn for California. The tender age of fifteen found him lugging golf bags around the Bel-Air Country Club. He got interested in the agency business where he was soon involved booking musical acts into bowling alleys. This experience honed his ears so much that he returned to New York, winding up in the mailroom at the G.A.C. Booking Agency. This led to a position as Sid Bernstein’s assistant and an assignment to call Liverpool to track down a then unknown group called the Beatles… Kevin then became associate producer under Bernstein for the Beatles first New York appearance.
This article also appears in PRINT.