Starting this Saturday, “Surrealistic Pillow”—and over 40 other album covers—will be on display at a new BRIDGE Gallery show called “Cover Stories,” a selection of LPs whose cover photography resonates just as much as the tunes inside. Thirteen of the album covers, like Miles Davis’s “Round About Midnight” and Pat Metheny’s “As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls,” will be accompanied by prints of the original photographs.

Get Starting Point

A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.

The new exhibition, on display through June 6, is a collaboration between Cranna and longtime pal Bob Mulvey, whom Cranna grew up with in the 1960s. As two teens who were “addicted to music,” they often hitchhiked to record stores together and pored over each other’s hauls.

Curating “Cover Stories” sent the friends crate digging once again, parsing through record shops and eBay listings, and in some cases calling collectors and photographer’s estates. Cranna even drove to New Jersey to borrow a print of the photograph used for the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” a find he says is scarce as “hen’s teeth.”

Some “Cover Stories” entries add a new dimension to iconic images from music history, such as an original print of the photo used for the Ramones’ debut album, shot by Roberta Bayley (a photographer Cranna describes as “the queen of the downtown punk scene”). The uncropped image, which shows the band on a New York sidewalk flanked by a few extra inches of graffiti and debris, perhaps captures the band’s scrappy ethos better than the actual LP cover.

Other selections preserve controversies that were quickly pulled from the mainstream, like a “butcher” edition of the Beatles’ 1966 album “Yesterday and Today,” which depicts the Fab Four in butcher’s smocks surrounded by dismembered baby dolls and slabs of raw meat. The cover was pulled by a horrified Capitol Records, which replaced the image with a wholesome portrait of the band cozied up to a steamer trunk. The original edition of Moby Grape’s debut album, also on display, faced a similar fate when Columbia Records realized a member of the San Francisco band was flashing a middle finger on the cover; future editions airbrushed the gesture out of the portrait.

A copy of the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers,” zipper still intact on the cover’s pair of jeans, fits right in with the show’s collection of rock controversies. Andy Warhol captured the suggestive image for the Stones’ 1971 album, making “Sticky Fingers” the biggest pairing of household names in the show.

“When you look at the wall of all these albums, it’s amazing the number of [notable] photographers who shot album covers,” Cranna says.

Photojournalist W. Eugene Smith shot Thelonious Monk’s 1965 album, “Monk.,” for instance, and Elliott Erwitt snapped the cover of Fairground Attraction’s “The First of a Million Kisses.”

Among the 49 selections, keep an eye out for Cranna’s “little Alfred Hitchcock moment” – a cover portrait he took for Berklee a cappella group Vox One.

“It might be my favorite show,” Cranna says. “This satisfies a lot of pieces of me.”

GIG GUIDE

There are ample chances to catch Boston music veterans this week, as Tanya Donelly (of Belly, the Breeders, Throwing Muses) and Chris Brokaw (of Come, Codeine) team up to perform medieval music at First Church at Cambridge Congregational (Friday) and Lowell’s Merrimack Repertoire Theatre (Saturday). Boston-born singer-songwriter Joe Pernice (of the Pernice Brothers, Chappaquiddick Skyline, Scud Mountain Boys) also camps out at Passim Tuesday and Wednesday with material from “Sunny, I Was Wrong,” his new collection of Americana-flecked rock.

After signing copies of her new album “MAITREYA CORSO” at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square on Friday afternoon, Maya Hawke heads to Crystal Ballroom that same evening. Hawke’s latest release marks her fourth LP, although her filmography — which includes roles in “Fear Street Part One: 1994,” “Inside Out 2,″ and the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things,” among other projects — easily outnumbers her discography.

Protoje pictured here in Paris in 2026, performs at Brighton Music Hall Friday.ELLIOTT VERDIER/NYT

Also on Friday, Jamaican singer Protoje stages a “reggae invasion” at Brighton Music Hall to promote his new album, “The Art of Acceptance,” which features appearances from two of Bob Marley’s sons, Damian and Stephen.

The Paradise Rock Club hosts quite the spectrum of rock this week, starting Friday with a joint tour from Kentucky garage punks White Reaper and Albany hardcore group Drug Church. Indian folk metal band Bloodywood take over on Monday with material from the cheekily-titled 2025 album, “Nu Delhi,” followed by a Tuesday appearance from sardonic English post-punks Dry Cleaning, on tour supporting their January LP, “Secret Love.”

Some notable pop imports, both Monday: bratty electro-pop from Swedish provocateur Cobrah at Royale, and swoonsome dream–pop delivered by New Zealand group Yumi Zouma at the Sinclair.

Leader Bank Pavilion launches its 2026 season Tuesday with The Kid LAROI, the Aussie singer and rapper who topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2021 with his Justin Bieber collab, “STAY.” Other hip-hop picks this week include glitchy English emcee fakemink at Roadrunner Tuesday, and Pakistani artist Hasan Raheem at the Sinclair Wednesday.

The biggest clash of genres arrives courtesy of the Messthetics with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, who head to City Winery together Tuesday. The D.C. group, which includes Fugazi members Brendan Canty and Joe Lally, have upped their usual jazz-punk chaos with “Deface The Currency,” their second collaborative album with Lewis.

NOW SPINNING

Violet Grohl, “Cool Buzz.” Dave isn’t the only member of the Grohl family with new tunes. Just days after the arrival of Foo Fighters’ new album, “Your Favorite Toy,” Grohl’s daughter Violet dropped the single “Cool Buzz,” a commentary on “punk guys who preach progressive politics, but then in their own musical spaces won’t let women have a chance,” she says. She’s (rightfully) got a chip on her shoulder, but Grohl’s also a chip off the ol’ block; “Cool Buzz” nails a sneering ’90s alt-rock sound that many modern rock acts can only grasp for.

Violet Grohl has released the new single “Cool Buzz.”Bella Newman

BONUS TRACK

As Willie Nelson turns 93 this week, Greg Klyma returns to the Burren for a birthday toast to the country icon. The Buffalo-born artist – who cites Nelson as his first-ever concert, at age 13 – continues his annual tribute to Nelson on Friday. Braids optional.

Victoria Wasylak can be reached at victoria.wasylak@globe.com. Follow her on Bluesky at VickiWasylak.bsky.social.