When I hit the bins at charity shops, I’m looking mostly for sentimental gold. My parents didn’t own many albums–so few, in fact, that I remember most of the titles in their stacks: Victory at Sea, Volume 2; Ahmad Jamal’s Happy Moods; a couple of Firestone Christmas albums; a few Irish Rovers records; some show tunes.

I didn’t listen to most of my folks’ albums, but I loved the visions of grown-up life depicted on their sleeves. One day I would take a Christmas ski vacation like Johnny Mathis, or I’d have a wife who would let me see her bra like the lady on the cover of More How To Strip For Your Husband. Today when I find these records for a buck I pick them up just for the sentimental value.

But there are a few albums from my parents’ stacks that I listened to, and On the Move was one of them. Dionne, Glen, and Burt seemed like the height of adult sophistication to me. Someday my bra-wearing wife and I would find the way to San Jose, we’d walk on by, we’d sit on the dock of the bay. I loved those songs, and I still do.

Yes, and I loved that album cover. Unlike, say, that sparkly Johnny Mathis Christmas photo sleeve, On the Move’s cover seemed artsy to preschooler me. Today it looks a bit amateurish, but the style is reminiscent of Milton Glaser, Peter Max, and Yellow Submarine’s Heinz Edelmann. I didn’t know that then, of course, but I suspect that I responded to the fact that the cover illustration looked more like my time than the rest of my parents’ dusty old records.

The back cover was the real prize, though. Look at those sweet rides! We were a station wagon family–my guess is that my folks brought this record home from the Chevy dealer along with our pea green Bel-Air wagon. What I wouldn’t have given for my dad to spring for that red Chevelle Super Sport pictured on this album cover.

So it was inevitable when I found this one at a charity shop that it was coming home with me. I paid a buck, and you will, too, if you find it in the wild. Online, unfortunately, is a different story. Few record collectors want this little oddity, but Chevy collectors do. I’ve seen it sell for two bucks if the front cover is pictured and as much as ten dollars if the back cover is featured. I imagine it looks pretty cool in the trunk of your ’70 Chevelle when you’re showing it off at a car show. Happy hunting.