60 Years Ago Today: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan

Via The Ed Sullivan Show -- At 8 o’clock on February 9th 1964, America tuned in to CBS and The Ed Sullivan Show. But this night was different. 73 million people gathered in front their TV sets to see The Beatles’ first live performance on U.S. soil. The television rating was a record-setting 45.3, meaning that 45.3% of households with televisions were watching. That figure reflected a total of 23,240,000 American homes. The show garnered a 60 share, meaning 60% of the television’s turned on were tuned in to Ed Sullivan and The Beatles.

Ed opened the show by briefly mentioning a congratulatory telegram to The Beatles from Elvis and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker and then threw to advertisements for Aero Shave and Griffin Shoe Polish. After the brief commercial interruption, Ed began his memorable introduction:

“Now yesterday and today our theater’s been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agreed with me that this city never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves The Beatles. Now tonight, you’re gonna twice be entertained by them. Right now, and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles! Let’s bring them on.”

At last, John, Paul, George and Ringo came onto the stage, opening with “All My Loving” to ear-splitting screeches from teenaged girls in the audience. The Beatles followed that hit with Paul McCartney taking the spotlight to sing, “Till There Was You.” During the song, a camera cut to each member of the band and introduced him to the audience by displaying his first name on screen. When the camera cut to John Lennon, the caption below his name also read “SORRY GIRLS, HE’S MARRIED.” The Beatles then wrapped up the first set with “She Loves You,” and the show went to commercial. Upon return, magician Fred Kaps took the stage to perform a set of sleight-of-hand tricks.

Concerned that The Beatles’ shrieking fans would steal attention from the other acts that evening, Ed Sullivan admonished his audience, “If you don’t keep quiet, I’m going to send for a barber.”

As hard as Ed tried to protect them, the other acts that night suffered from the excitement surrounding The Beatles. Numbered among those performers were impressionist Frank Gorshin, acrobats Wells & the Four Fays, the comedy team of McCall & Brill and Broadway star Georgia Brown joined by the cast of “Oliver!”

The hour-long broadcast concluded with The Beatles singing two more of their hits, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to the delight of the fans in attendance and those watching at home.

The show was a huge television success. As hard as it is to imagine, over 40% of every man, woman and child living in America had watched The Beatles on Sullivan.

Related: Bill Eppridge: 1964 The Beatles and Their Cameras

 

Listening with his camera: The late photographer Don Hunstein captured a golden age of music

 

Via the Daily Hampshire Gazette

Portrait of the artist: Photographer Don Hunstein took many iconic shots of musicians from the late 1950s to the 1980s by putting them at ease. Image courtesy cdeVision

It’s arguably one of the most iconic album covers of all time, certainly in the folk and pop world: a young Bob Dylan, on the cusp of stardom, walks down a slushy street in Greenwich Village in New York City, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the cold, as his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, clings to his left arm.

That image, from the 1963 disc “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” came out of a session that Don Hunstein, a longtime director of photography for Columbia Records, had staged with Dylan in the singer’s nearby apartment, capturing the rising folk star as he played his acoustic guitar, sprawled in a beat-up armchair, and tried at one point to smoke and sing at the same time — another memorable shot

Those are just two of hundreds of impressive images that are now preserved on a website dedicated to Hunstein’s work, a site put together by Hunstein’s daughter, Tina Cornell, who lives in Florence with her family, and cdeVision, a Holyoke web studio specializing in advertising, website design and more.

Along with taking many shots of Dylan in his early career, Hunstein, who died in 2017, photographed a huge array of stars on Columbia’s roster from the late 1950s into the 1980s: Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Barbara Streisand, Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Billy Joel.

The photographer also shot hundreds of album covers, including Loretta Lynn’s memorable “Coal Miner’s Daughter” from 1970, as well as the records of classical musicians including pianist Glenn Gould.

Hunstein, born in 1928 in Missouri, grew up in St. Louis but settled in New York in the 1950s. He made his mark as a documentary photographer — his adopted home was a favorite subject — whose unobtrusive style, Cornell says, helped put his subjects at ease.

As one of his obituaries noted, “Don had the ability to listen with his camera. Instinctively he under stood that to capture artists at their best moments, patience, trust and humility were needed.”

Now Cornell and her mother, DeeAnne Hunstein, who also helped develop the website, are hoping to bring some more attention to Hunstein’s work, in turn highlighting an era when photography became an important tool for documenting the cultural history of music.

“My dad was humble to a fault, just very self-effacing,” Cornell said during a recent phone call. “He didn’t act like a fan [of musicians] or put himself out there like he was some kind of big shot … He saw this as a job, and he always said he was lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

“And yet he created all these great images,” she noted. “People liked him — they felt comfortable around him, he was good at making a joke, and that’s why he was able to do what he did.”

Case in point: Cornell says Johnny Cash could sometimes be testy with reporters and photographers, but her father and the gritty country singer hit it off, with Cash inviting Hunstein to visit him on his Texas ranch in the late 1950s.

Though Hunstein mostly took black and white photos, his website offers a couple especially atmospheric images of Cash in color. In one, wearing a checked shirt and a straw hat, he leans on a worn wooden fence rail and looks off moodily into the distance. In another, the singer, this time decked out in dark suit and white shirt, sits with his guitar on a huge woodpile, his nearby open guitar case revealing a bright purple interior.

“I love that mix of colors!” Cornell said.

hen there’s the near-silhouette of jazz great Thelonious Monk, hunched over a piano, a cigarette dangling from his mouth (there was a lot of smoking in Columbia’s studios in those days). And Cornell says one of her father’s favorite photos was an image he took of Duke Ellington, his “all-time hero,” as she puts it.

“My dad used to say he was really lucky to have this job, because he was such a huge music fan himself,” she said.

‘Don Hunstein did all this?!’

Bill Alatalo, a co-partner of cdeVision with Antonio Costa, says the company actually first designed a website for Hunstein’s work perhaps a dozen years ago after Cornell first approached them. It was a simpler affair, with far fewer images, Alatalo notes, in part because Cornell and her mother were busy at the time trying to help Hunstein, who struggled with Alzheimer’s disease for about a decade before his death.

Then Cornell got back in touch about a year ago, Alatalo said, and asked if cdeVision could develop a new site. “The old one kind of got lost in the shuffle, and at this point Tina had a lot more photos for us to work with,” he said. “Antonio and I were amazed — we were like, ‘Don Hunstein did all this?!’ ”

As a music lover and record collector himself, Alatalo says the Hunstein website “has just been a cool project to work on, to really give it some play and give people a better sense of what he did.” The website also dovetails with other music-related work cdeVision has done in recent years, Alatalo said, such as designing a new site for Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield.

For Cornell, who was born in 1968, her father’s website is a deeply personal project. She was inspired by his work as she got older, she says, and studied photography herself as well as drawing and painting. She came to the Valley about 20 years ago with a former partner, and the couple had plans then to create a pottery studio. Today she works as a jeweler and goldsmith and also is involved with a local chapter of an environmental group, Mothers Out Front.

She can remember going as a kid to her father’s studio at Columbia Records, then located in a building on 52th Street near 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and “playing with the props” while her dad was arranging shots of various artists.

“It wasn’t until I was older that I really developed an awareness of the full scope of his work,” she said.

Cornell and her mother have also established the new website as a means of protecting the provenance of Hunstein’s work. Some of his photos now crop up online, such as on people’s Instagram sites, and go uncredited, she noted, and she’s had to ask people to remove the pictures.

In addition, the Sony Corp. bought Columbia Records (and Columbia Pictures) in the late 1980s, acquiring all of Hunstein’s work for the record label, and Cornell and her mother have since worked with Sony to gain access to many of those images.

Ultimately, Cornell says, the website is designed to reacquaint people with her father’s work and his era as a photographer. He never took to computers or digital photography, she notes, instead working with contact sheets in his darkroom, giving his photos a distinctive style and pedigree that she believes is worth commemorating.

More are added to the website regularly, she says, and the site also has many images her father took of Puerto Rican communities in New York City in the early 1960s, part of a book project for an English publisher.

“My dad was just a huge part of my life,” she said. “This is my way of honoring that.”

DON HUNSTEIN 1928 - 2017

Don Hunstein: Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo, New York, 1963

Don Hunstein died at home on Saturday morning, March 18, aged 88, after a long illness .

New York Times Obituary: Don Hunstein, Who Photographed Great Musicians, Dies at 88

Lebrecht Music&Arts have put out an obituary.

“I have photographed the famous and the not so famous: business execs and athletes and especially musicians – jazz, classical and pop. The resulting pictures have appeared on over 200 LP and CD covers and on promotional flyers and press kits, in magazines and company reports and advertising.”

--Don Hunstein

Don Hunstein’s iconic photographs have become symbols of an era. In the history of music photography, Don’s work during his 30 years at Columbia records is unsurpassed in its scope and breadth. Through his subtle humor and quiet nature, he was able to record many great moments in music history. He photographed the famous and the not so famous. Hundreds of album covers and behind the scenes work. His photographs documented a rare time when musicians spent time on their art, rather than their publicity.

Don Hunstein grew up in St. Louis, MO and attended Washington University, graduating in 1950 with a degree in English. After college he enlisted in the US Air Force and was stationed in Fairford, England, and assigned a desk job. It was this assignment that allowed him to travel around Europe. He began photographing casually, taking pictures to send home to his family, and then with the help of a Leica M3 purchased in the PX, and inspired by a book of renowned street photographer Henri Cartier Bresson’s work, his hobby began to take him on a lifelong path. After a year in Fairford, Don was transferred to a base outside of London.  There he joined a local camera club and took evening classes at London’s Central School of Art and Design, becoming influenced by the artists and designers whom he met there.

He returned to the States in 1954, ending up in New York City, where he eventually landed an apprenticeship in a commercial photography studio. There he honed his photography skills by mastering large format cameras and lighting.  At the time, photography was, as Don put it: “ not a glamorous profession,” but he didn’t have a pull in any other vocational direction and it satisfied his creative side. As chance connections were made, he soon met and became mentored by Deborah Ishlon, who worked in the publicity department at Columbia Records. She offered him a job helping her run the photo library there and supplying prints to the press. As he began to take his own photos for the company, they recognized his talent, and he gradually worked his way into the position of Director of Photography for CBS Records

Don’s most notable role was as chief staff photographer for Columbia Records during its heyday in the realms of rock and roll, jazz and classical music. Fortunately for Don, this was a time when the company was under the direction of Goddard Lieberson, who thought it important to document in photographs the cultural history of the music of their time. So he had the opportunity to do far more than album covers and publicity shots, covering their recording sessions and even visiting them on their home turf.   Don had the ability to listen with his camera. Instinctively he understood that to capture artists at their best moments, patience, trust and humility were needed.  This ability to set both new comers and experienced stars at ease in his presence is evident in his photographs, which captured the intimate personal moments as well as the quintessential portraits.

Don’s access to a broad range of musicians, in a wide variety of musical styles, was unparalleled in the photographic world. Over the course of his career at CBS, he shot hundreds of album covers and documented the recording of many of the great albums in music history.

We were tremendously fortunate to have known Don for many years, and send our condolences to DeeAnn and  his family

“Anything was fodder for the camera with Bill Eppridge”

©Bill Eppridge: Beatles Press Conference, 1964

Bill Eppridge shot 90 rolls of film while traveling with the Beatles in February 1964. Life Magazine published four photos

Ken Dixon: Gazing at history through a long lens
The Connecticut Post
February 13, 2016


Lets all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born …”
John Lennon, Paul McCartney

This column is about “The Beatles - 6 Days That Changed the World February 1964,” photographic evidence of the late Bill Eppridge’s crazy, fun week with the Fab Four and their fans in New York and Washington, with a couple of wacky train rides to boot.

But it’s also about music, memory, history and the role of photography, the scientific process that someone with an eye, interpersonal skills and degrees of luck can use to make artful journalism.

Dozens of photos from the 90 rolls of film Eppridge shot that week are beautifully hung on the walls in the Art Gallery in the Visual & Performing Arts Center at Western Connecticut State University’s Westside Campus. The hours are Monday through Thursday, noon to 4 p.m. and weekends from 1 to 4 p.m. It’s a tour de force that runs through March 13. He’s represented by the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe.

Grandmothers will remember being teens and tweens. Forty-somethings may contemplate the changes the Beatles wrought to music and culture. And millennials can discover a simple slice of 20th Century social phenomena without the chore of too much reading.

My favorite photo was captured outside The Plaza Hotel in New York. An amused black-clad chauffeur is trying to unload The Beatles’ baggage in a scrum of girls. One kid, with a huge smile, is hugging a guitar case as if it were Paul McCartney himself. If she was 14 then, she’s 66 now. Every time I look at the image it makes me laugh out loud.

Eppridge, a famous photographer for Life magazine and Sports Illustrated, died in Danbury about 2 1/2 years ago at 74. When President John F. Kennedy was murdered in November of 1963, Eppridge was with mountaineers in the Alps. He came off Mont Blanc, the tallest in Europe, where a local priest told him of the assassination. In just a few years, as the sassy ’60s unwound in violence and cynicism, he would get extremely close to another Kennedy murder.

On the morning the Beatles landed, Feb. 7, Eppridge got the assignment to meet them at the newly renamed JFK International Airport.

A welcome relief after the president’s murder less than three months earlier, the lads from Liverpool were met by thousands of teenagers. Eppridge called his editor and said he wanted to stay with the band for a few days.

“I liked these guys immediately,” Eppridge recalled in the 2013 book of photos about the week, published by Rizzoli. “Shortly after, Ringo Starr turned to me and said, ‘All right, Mr. Life Magazine, what can we do for you?’ ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘not one single thing. Just be you and I’ll turn invisible. I won’t ask you to do a thing.’”

In the winter of 1964, the United States needed The Beatles and their pop harmonies. On Sunday night, Feb. 9, they took “The Ed Sullivan Show” by storm.

Monday, Feb. 10, was a nasty, cold rainy day in Stamford. It was so horrible that the runny-nosed masses at Belltown School — usually confined to the playground in all weather until school started — were allowed inside, to line up on a stairwell, dripping wet, to await the 9 o’clock bell. All the fourth-grade chatter was about The Beatles appearance the night before and who might be a kid’s favorite.

Alas, we were a “Disney” family on Sunday nights, watching wholesome entertainment on another TV network, rather than the usual cavalcade of nightclub comics and crooners that Sullivan trotted out every week for CBS.

I knew nothing about the Beatles, was drastically behind the pop curve and never really caught up. Maybe that’s why I’m a contrarian newspaper reporter.

Of course, I eventually found the Beatles and their poppy tunes and startling harmonies. You can easily catch their Ed Sullivan appearances on the Internet. Those first 13 minutes, with “All My Loving.” “Till There was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” say almost all you need to know about the innocent, early ’60s.

“Anything was fodder for the camera with Bill,” recalled Adrienne Aurichio, Eppridge’s wife and collaborator, who held a gallery talk the other night at WestConn. Among his 900 assignments were Dr. Jonas Salk, who defeated polio, actress Mia Farrow, President Lyndon Johnson, Woodstock, Barbra Streisand and Vietnam.

In a way, the Beatles were a welcome respite as the remainder of the ’60s played out. By the fall of 1964, Eppridge was practically living with a couple of heroin addicts for Life’s stark, harrowing, graphic “Needle Park” report on drug users at 72nd Street and Broadway. Maybe in 50-plus years we haven’t really evolved too much, as the latest heroin epidemic plays out.

Eppridge is most famous for the iconic image of Robert F. Kennedy dying on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a bus boy by his side, after winning the California presidential primary in 1968. The murder occurred two months after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The ’60s were surely over.

Last week, RFK’s killer, Sirhan Sirhan, now 71, was denied parole for the 15th time.

Ken Dixon’s Capitol View appears Sundays in the Hearst Connecticut Newspapers. You may reach him in the Capitol at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. Find him at twitter.com/KenDixonCT. His Facebook address is kendixonct.hearst. Dixon’s Connecticut Blog-o-rama can be seen at blog.ctnews.com/dixon/

Steve Schapiro remembers David Bowie, his muse

David Bowie in his dressing room while filming "The Man Who Fell to Earth" in 1975.

(Steve Schapiro)

The Chicago Tribune
By Rick Kogan
January 14, 2016

World-renowned photographer Steve Schapiro, who moved to Chicago with his wife, Maura, in 2007, has in his lengthy career taken millions of photos, many of them collected in stunning books.

He is in his early 80s, and the list of his subjects is almost surreal in its breadth: Marlon Brando, Robert Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King Jr., Chevy Chase (Schapiro and his wife are the godparents of the actor's daughter), Jerry Garcia, Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Johnny Depp, Mae West, Satchel Paige, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Ringo Starr, Ike and Tina Turner (together), Buster Keaton, Richard Pryor, Sophia Loren … It goes on.

He also shot David Bowie. One of his photos was used for the cover of 2014's "Nothing Has Changed" and, in the wake of the artist's death, Schapiro remembered:

"It was 1974 when I first photographed David. From the moment he arrived, we seemed to hit it off. He was incredibly intelligent, calm, and filled with ideas.

"He talked a lot about Aleister Crowley, whose esoteric writings he was heavily into at the time. And when he heard that I had photographed Buster Keaton, one of his heroes, we talked about him and immediately became friends.

"Our first session started at four in the afternoon. David would come out in incredible costumes, each seemingly turning him into a different person. I would raise my camera to shoot and he would say, 'Wait just a minute, I have to fix something,' and 20 minutes later he would come out in a totally different outfit.

"We decided to do a close portrait on a dark green background because we felt it would make the worst possible color for a magazine cover. We laughed about it, but eventually it did become a cover for People magazine (in September of 1976).

David Bowie

A portrait of David Bowie, taken by Steve Schapiro.

"That session lasted from four in the afternoon to four in the morning, and the last photograph of David was on his bike, lit by the headlights of a car.

"Over these many years I would find photos of David in my files, photos that I had totally overlooked, unexpected and pleasant surprises. Working with an amazingly talented person can be collaborative, often unspoken. The photographs I took were David's ideas, brought from his imagination into the real world. I was merely the conduit from genius into the light of day."

Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune

Steve Schapiro's photographs of David Bowie are included in the exhibition "The Broke The Mold", on view through February 7, 2016.

A Rock and Roll Thanksgiving, 1969

Amalie R. Rothschild: Janis and Tina, Madison Square Garden, November 27, 1969

"This is possibly my favorite picture and certainly my best known photograph. I convinced one of the security guys to help me get a good position and I used my 300mm lens. It was Thanksgiving Day and Bill Graham, as usual, gave a dinner at the Fillmore East for the whole staff and “Fillmore Family.” Janis was in NY and all alone, so she joined us. We had tickets for the Rolling Stones concert later that evening at the Garden and we all went together. Ike and Tina Turner were the opening act and at some point Tina noticed Janis at the side of the stage and invited her up to sing a number with her. I think this is the only time they sang together and I wish I could remember what the song was." -- Amalie R. Rothschild

 Join us Friday, Nov 27 from 5 – 7 for the opening reception for “They Broke The Mold”, an extensive exhibition of classic photographs of ground-breaking and important singers and entertainers.

Related: Brian Hamill writes about The Rolling Stones

Photojournalist Brian Hamill on The Rolling Stones

Several photographs by Brian Hamill are included in the current exhibition "They Broke The Mold". In this article for the Huffington Post, Brian recalls the 1960s and the Rolling Stones.

Via The Huffington Post
November 20, 2015
by Brian Hamill

Let It Bleed, Bro: The Rolling Stones Take the Sixties By Storm

The sixties were -- mostly -- way cool.

 Lights and darks. Highs and lows. Cheers and tears. Always, excitement.
Despite the roller-coaster extremes of what was going on, those of us who partied hard in that decade will always remember it as the best of times. And the worst of times.

This generation is sick of hearing all that. I can dig it. But those of us who lived it have it carved in stone in our collective memories. A lot of shit went down. It wasn't just our long hair. We didn't need technological devices that the "Looking-Down" (at cell phones) generation of today depend upon to function. Technology is their new drug, adding layers of distance from face to face real-life, and creating anxiety with "social media" pressure.

We looked into each other's blood-shot eyes and spoke live.
We didn't need to look at a screen to know how to act.
We believed in a form of hip chaos.
We didn't worry about ending sentences with a preposition.
"Where the party at?"

My crew was: diddy- boppin', finger-poppin', jukin', jivin', dancin', table-hoppin', joint-sharin', bar-hoppin', club goin', fun-lovin' protest-marchin' motherfuckers.

 We didn't need no stinking cellphones!!

Let the music roll now.

Sinatra, Elvis, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, The Isley Brothers, and lots of Doo-Wop were in my music stash as the decade began.

In the fall of 1963, Marvin Gaye released a single, "Can I get a Witness". My man Marvin was totally cool. I listened to that 45-R.P.M. several times a day during my freshman year at college. I will listen to him until the day I throw a seven.

Two months later, on November 22nd, President JFK was assassinated by a crummy stooge. The nation was shocked and saddened. We all remember where we were when it happened.

The Beatles exploded on the set too. NYC was like, WOW! The nation was like, WOW! We dug them to the hilt. In a small way they helped lessen the pain of our president's murder. On February 9, 1964 we all got to see them perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. Another WOW!

In my hood in Brooklyn, they helped turn dudes, me included, from hitters into hippies. Bob Dylan reinforced that vibe with great songs of protest like, "Blowin' in the Wind," and "The Times They Are a Changin". He was "our" poet. A definite WOW!

Another big event of 1964 was the first Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston fight on February 24th in Miami. We saw Ali (then Cassius Clay) put a ti-fi ass whuppin' on the Big Ugly Bear. My crowd was jubilant. We loved him. We still do. Ali is one of the truly great Americans and the most iconic person I have had the privilege to photograph.

In July, there was a riot in Harlem a few days after a cop shot and killed a 15-year-old black kid in the east 70's during a lame incident and a questionable confrontation. It was a long, hot summer afterward.

Then came the Rolling Stones.

Also in 1964, while working a summer gig as a copy-boy at the NY Post, my co-worker Fred Waitzkin (who is now a gifted, distinguished author) pulled my coat to The Rolling Stones. I had heard them on the radio, but I was still all over The Beatles and Dylan to pay them "no-never-mind". The next day after our Stones convo Fred brought in the Rolling Stones' recently released first album, "The Rolling Stones". The cover photograph provoked my interest.

They looked bad. The old school Brooklyn in me liked that look. Fred implored me to get a copy.

To this day, I am indebted to Fred's fabulous taste in music. The Stones did awesome rockin' covers of songs from America's wonderful, under-appreciated, black blues artists. The album still rocks my soul. The Stones most definitely mined the U.S.A. for much of their creative inspiration and to honor those legends like Muddy Waters whose material they covered.

In late October 1964, I took the subway to E 14th Street to cop a pair of kicks. It was an early Saturday afternoon and in those days, E 14th between 3rd and 4th Avenues had at least ten shoe stores to explore and I was a shoe freak. I was very down with the block as well, having trained as a teenage fighter there at the storied Gramercy Gym run by the legendary boxing guru Cus D'Amato who made Floyd Patterson, Jose Torres and Mike Tyson into world champions. From 1960-1962, I was taught the boxing skills and discipline of Cus's style by the brilliant boxing trainer Joey Fariello.
The Gramercy stable-mates often watched championship fights on closed-circuit TV next door at The Academy of Music. As I started eye-tapping the parade of shoes in each store window, I gazed up at the Academy marquee: The Rolling Stones -- 2:00 and 7 PM.

In those days I lived on very short dough, barely enough to buy the European shoes I dug. I walked in my worn shoes to the box-office and confirmed that the Stones were playing an afternoon gig. As I recall, a ticket was a pricey $6.00. (Stones freaks can check the internet). I decided to score the shoes.

As I started to descend the subway steps after my shoe purchase, with less than ten dollars left to my name, I heard Mick Jagger's voice in my head singing his cover of "I Just Want to Make Love to You". Later for Brooklyn. I ran back up the subway stairs and I took my impulsive young ass, and my new kicks into the Academy of Music to see The Rolling Stones.

The joint was half-empty.

Mick Jagger moved around the stage like an epileptic chicken but the dude was dazzling. He sang like a champ. The band played an energizing, unpolished yet mesmerizing combo of blues and rock. Jagger did not have James Brown's moves, but he displayed a certain uninhibited moving, stage-mastery that made one believe the man could actually dance. Put all those elements together with heartfelt, powerful songs and I knew I had just witnessed a sensational show. I can't remember what those 14th Street/European shoes looked like, but I'll never forget the Rolling Stones at The Academy of Music. Their future was stretched out in front of them.

It was a bright one.

My Stones jones began after watching that gig and it has lasted a lifetime.

On February 21st, 1965 Malcolm X got assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in NYC. He was only 39 years old. They arrested, tried, and convicted three people for his murder. Another sterling leader with vision was gone too soon. That following summer, I was trying on a pair of shoes in Bloom's in the Village on 6th Avenue next to the Waverly theater when a gorgeous girl with long blonde hair, and a long white dress holding a large bouquet of flowers came up to me, and handed me a beauty and said:"Flower Power", and hit me with a big, radiant smile. I smiled back, speechless. It was a serenity moment.

But it would not last for too long.

I was listening to a lot of Motown including Smokey, The Temps, Mary Wells, Marvin, Martha and the Vandellas. I was just layin' in the cut when I heard about the Watts riot in LA. It was a different kind of "Dancin' in the Streets".

During the summer of love in 1967, Hippie Hill in Prospect Park where we hung out attracted hundreds of people not only from other hoods, but from other states! It was a cool outdoor party day and night.

Lots of my friends, including me, had gotten drafted into the "green-machine" (US ARMY) in 1966. A chunk of them went to Vietnam including my kid bother Johnny and my best friend GR (George Ryan). Luckily, I didn't. I was still able to do the hippie scene traveling home from my Army base on many weekends minus my long hair. Most neighborhood 'Nam dudes came back to the world. Sadly, a few didn't. Several of those who returned had emotional guilt-ridden thoughts, vivid nightmares, and panic attacks that were later characterized as PTSD. It was disturbing to witness. Some still suffer from that serious illness. It is truly a drag. I got out of the "green-machine" in April, 1968. But a week before I was discharged, Martin Luther King was murdered by a racist creep. I remember my mother crying on the phone about Dr. King right after his murder.

Another strong, peaceful leader was gone.

Six weeks after that I was in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in LA with my camera when Bobby Kennedy got assassinated on June 5th, 1968 by a young fanatic with two first names. I had just walked right past this bum before he pulled out the gun. It was the worst night of my young life. I spent the next month after that horrible night hanging out in Laguna Beach listening to music, drinking beer, smoking weed, looking at beautiful surfer girls, just trying to cool out and maintain.
On July 18th, 1969 Teddy Kennedy had an alcohol-influenced car accident but did the wrong thing right after at Chappaquiddick. A special young woman died.

On August 9th, 1969 the jailhouse punk Charles Manson manipulated some of his stupid, idolatry-prone, and acid-laced minions to go from the Spahn ranch in the desert to LA to murder "rich people" and ended up slaughtering a cluster of decent, nice people including an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman named Sharon Tate. That swine Manson had the nerve to use a Beatle song (Helter Skelter) to swindle the minds of his fucked-up followers. That whole deal wigged me out. The whole nation shuttered behind it.

Yeah, the sixties had its casualties. It wasn't all a cool party.

A few days later I landed in Woodstock -- the festival -- not the actual town. I needed the "peace and serenity" and, of course, the wonderful music, but equally important the four hundred thousand people who shared the fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime event with me, including GR and about twenty other people from my Brooklyn neighborhood.

We just had a ball -- that's all.

At around the same time, Richard Nixon was slithering around the White House already adding names to his "enemies list," the dirty tricks were in action, and the "Peace with Honor" jive was getting swallowed by the Silent Majority while the real "silent majority" were the dead Americans in Vietnam.

The "Summer of Love" was a fading memory.

On November 15th, 1969 I found myself in front of the White House with a group of friends and a couple of my brothers at the Moratorium March on Washington where we further protested the Vietnam War. It was like the Woodstock of protest marches among another half million people demanding that Nixon should end the war. It fell on deaf ears.

There were three New York miracles in 1969.

First, the Amazin' Mets won the World Series. Then Joe Namath's white kicks danced the Jets to a Super-Bowl triumph.

The third miracle happened forty-six years ago today. On Thanksgiving night, November 27th, 1969, The Rolling Stones held their first Madison Square Garden Concert. The Stones had moved from the half-full Academy of Music just five years earlier to a sold-out arena holding twenty thousand people. I photographed that astounding show from the lip of the stage. It was a ringside seat to history. I was in the right place at the right time. I was lucky. The Stones kicked out the jams with a wild, foot-stomping, "Jumpin' Jack Flash". The audience went crazy! The Stones were in superlative form.

Jagger bounced on stage wearing an Uncle Sam hat, and that man's hat was where he was at! He had on a black outfit with an eye-catching design on his chest (a Leo sign, an Omega sign, take your pick, freaks). The dramatic lights illuminated the silver studs up the seams of his skinny pants. He sported a studded black choker and a crimson colored scarf around his long neck. He looked as bad as he wanted to be! He was dancing' and prancin' and singing his young ass off! That night, at 27 years old, Jagger owned legitimate self-confidence, youthful soul, and the non-stop vitality of a star for the rock and roll ages. He was like a human tornado, spinning back and forth across the stage belting out that great bluesy voice that has always distinguished him from other white singers. But Jagger had big help from the magic and the music of the great rock and roll band with him -- Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and newcomer Mick Taylor. They took rock music to another level, the same way Ali did wonders for boxing -- excuse me, they were the Rolling Stones. They were not just an appendage to Jagger's lead singer deal; the four dudes with him were all immensely talented.
Ladies and gentleman, the Rolling Stones, turned the joint out!

They owned the Garden. They opened the noses of a multitude of women in the audience. Some dudes too.

Their sound system was more sophisticated and the lighting was cooler and the set list was a combo of terrific songs from the Beggars Banquet album and new ones from the soon-to-be-released Let It Bleed album, including the opera-like "Midnight Rambler" with two fabulous Chuck Berry songs ("Carol" and "Little Queenie") and their own classic, "Satisfaction", thrown into the superb mix. But they still had that unpolished raw energy from the Academy of Music that will be forever young and fun and bad ass. Some critics have said that the political turmoil that went down during the decade motivated the new darker, Let It Bleed lyrics. They were certainly more provocative and edgy. Whatever the inspiration, the evolving Jagger/Richards writing team displayed more creative, complex, and profound songs. That night in the Garden, the Stones reached a pinnacle in Rock and Roll history with this thrilling, mind-blowing concert. Period.

They OUTWOWED all previous live performances by anyone I had ever seen before or since. They turned my head!

As a matter of fact, it was a gas.














All Photographs ©Brian Hamill

"Sinatra: The Photographs"

 

Sid Avery: Frank Sinatra at a Capitol Records recording session in 1958

There is a great article today in The Guardian about the forthcoming book "Sinatra: The Photographs":

"An impromptu gig with Nat King Cole, goofing around with the Rat Pack, chatting with George Harrison … the new book Sinatra: The Photographs captures the Chairman’s heydey as an entertainer, with rarely seen shots from the 1940s to the early 70s on set and in the studio."

Several photographs from the new book will be featured in the exhibition "The Broke The Mold: Photographs of ground-breaking entertainers" at Monroe Gallery November 27 - January 30, 2016. Copies of the new book are also available.

Ken Regan Releases ALL ACCESS Photography Book



Monday, August 1, 2011
BWW News Desk


Ken Regan was there when the Beatles touched down on U.S. soil for the first time in 1964. He caught candid snapshots of their arrival at JFK International Airport in New York City, photographed their backstage downtime at the Ed Sullivan Show and spent a day clowning around with the Fab Four in Central Park.

This is what you call access-the type of proximity and intimacy with artists that have made Regan's images sought-after windows to the most historically significant moments in the last 40 years of rock and roll.

And with his exceptional new book, All Access: The Rock and Roll Photography of Ken Regan, Regan grants you, a little taste of that backstage wonderment.

He palled around with the Stones in 1975 in Montauk. He took Dylan's favorite picture of himself. He hit the gym with Madonna in 1985. He's ridden shotgun with Run DMC in Hollis, Queens.
"I was able to catch many legendary rock pioneers at ease," Regan writes. And as readers will note, it is Regan's "interest in doing more than just photo ops and concert shoots" that delivers some of the most remarkable cultural documents of the past half-century.

All Access is a collection of photographs, but more than that, it is a compilation of memories, stories from the front lines of several revolutions: the rock revolution; Pete Seeger's peace movement and Woodstock ("a photographer's paradise"); and the birth of hip hop.

"As a photojournalist, there were thousands of assignments that I covered over the last four decades," say Regan. "I am forever grateful."
But don't take Ken's word for it.

"You have to know the moment before it happens. To sense it, to feel it," Keith Richards writes in the book's preface. "Whatever this intuitive sense, is what my longtime friend has. Many times I've been onstage only to see Ken's beady left eye drilling through me with that wry grin under his camera and know he's got the shot he was after."

The Stones are generous in their praise of Regan. And Regan is generous with his experience. In the book, he gives readers never-before-heard insider accounts of dozens of events and over 40 artists, for example:

- Woodstock on stage and off
- When Bob Dylan met a young fan named Bruce Springsteen- On and off the road with The Rolling Stones throughout the 70's and the 80's
- Hanging out with his "Big Brother" Bill Graham, who introduced him to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Stones and Bob Dylan
- The Concert for Bangladesh
- Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash in quiet moments at home with their families
- Backstage at Live Aid and Amnesty International

Regan gives the fly-on-the-wall account that only he can give: Just like his photographs, his writing is direct, honest and unclouded by obsequious fandom.

"When you look at the breadth of Ken's work, the first thought is, 'He could not have possibly shot all these'," James Taylor writes in the afterword. "Looking at Ken's remarkable catalog of images, I am reminded of a time when we did not know more about our favorite musicians than we wanted to know. Perhaps that's why we stuck with them  longer."

It certainly gives us reasons--hundreds of them, in both vivid color and intimate black-and-white--to stick with Ken Regan.

About the Author(s):
Ken Regan is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared on more than 200 magazine covers, including Time, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, People, Newsweek, Life, and Entertainment Weekly. He visually documented such extraordinary concerts as The Band's Last Waltz and George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. His previous photography book, Knockout: The Art of Boxing, earned an Independent Book Publishers Gold Medal Award. Regan lives in New York and Massachusetts.

Jim Jerome has coauthored a number of best-selling memoirs, collaborating with leading figures in popular music, film, television, cable news, and business. He has also profiled hundreds of rock, pop, country music, film, and television artists for People, Us, InStyle, and AARP magazines. He lives in New York.


Read more: http://books.broadwayworld.com/article/Ken-Regan-Releases-ALL-ACCESS-Photography-Book-20110801#ixzz1TtSLoSUc

"THE MAN WHO SHOT THE SEVENTIES"

Mick Rock Exposed: The Faces of Rock 'n' Roll


Mick Rock's photo career began with him sneaking his camera into rock shows; it ignited when he started shooting a practically unknown David Bowie in 1972 and then went on to document the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. Since then Mick's become a legend himself, shooting a who's who of rock, punk, and pop icons and capturing the images of stars right as they became part of the pop firmament. Exposed collects 200 of his best photos across nearly 40 years, including unforgettable images of Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Blondie, Queen, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Killers, Lady Gaga, U2, and many more. Featuring a revealing introduction, narrative captions, and an illuminating foreword by playwright Tom Stoppard, Exposed is a gorgeous visual celebration for music fans.

Michael David Rock was born in west London and earned a scholarship to Cambridge where he studied modern languages, graduating in the late sixties. It was the expressive seduction of subversive poets of yore rather than finite imagery that encouraged Rock to explore his own creative expression. "I discovered the lives and works of the great Bohemian poets, like Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Nerval. They were my heroes".


"London in the late sixties and early seventies was a hotbed of creative interchange. The prevalent hippie philosophy united all manner of artists, musicians, film makers, models, designers, actors, writers, and photographers into a unique and fertile community. My timing was excellent. Curiosity and circumstance drew me into the flame of rock ‘n’ roll." -- Mick Rock

Rock became intensely interested in the artists and performers at the cutting edge of their time who were not afraid to cross the line. This was the atmosphere in which Mick Rock began his collaborations with the artists of the new decade. The first band Rock photographed was the Pretty Things in 1969; soon he was photographing the likes of Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen, Roxy Music and Iggy Pop, emerging artists who would rapidly become international stars. “They were all special people to me. They weren’t “stars” when I first met them. To me, they were free spirited visionaries. I was in the right place at the right time, you can't plan that. That's just something you can't prescribe in life.”

He was soon traveling back and forth between London and New York, on tour with emerging artists such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop and capturing the music scene in all its decadent glory. Rock was instrumental in creating many key rock 'n' roll images of the time, such as Lou Reed's Transformer, Iggy Pop's Raw Power and Queen's Queen II, leading to his being called “The Man Who Shot The Seventies”.

In 1977, Rock moved permanently to New York, and quickly immersed himself in the burgeoning underground new wave scene, capturing the nihilistic spirit of the music of the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads. As rock and roll has evolved, Rock has continued to capture the essence of the fresh and new. Mick Rock has been instrumental in creating many key visual images of the last three decades. His photographs have been called as significant as Andy Warhol’s paintings in constructing the images we hold in our minds of the larger-than-life figures of our popular culture. Rock’s accomplishments extend beyond photography and include art direction, music video production and three Grammy nominations.

In recent years, Rock also has published several books, including A Photographic Record. Recently released is his retrospective of the Glam Rock scene titled Blood & Glitter; a retrospective of Syd Barrett photographs titled Psychedelic Renegades; Moonage Daydream, a co-collaboration with David Bowie of the Ziggy Stardust era; and Killer Queen, with a foreword written by Queen guitarist Brian May.

“Many years ago, I noted in my diary: ‘I am not in the business of documenting or revealing personalities. I am in the business of freezing shadows and bottling auras.’ I still like the sound of that” -- Mick Rock

Mick Rock's photographs have helped define the image of rock 'n' roll, and have been featured on numerous album covers and in solo exhibitions around the world. Monroe Gallery is pleased to represent Mick Rock's iconic photography, and was instrumental in his re-emergence in the late 1990's - organizing his first gallery exhibition in New York in 1997.

FINAL WEEK FOR "BILL EPPRIDGE: AN AMERICAN TREASURE"

Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure continues through September 26. This first-ever retrospective for the acclaimed photojournalist has been a major event since its opening on July 2. As a fitting conclusion to the exhibit, we have gathered here some articles about the exhibit and Bill Eppridge.

Review: The Magazine - Bill Eppridge's work was as epic as the times themselves

Review: The Albuquerque Journal - An Eye on the Times

Documentary film: The Eye of The Storm  tells the story of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy through the eyes of five photojournalists, four of whom were in the room when he was shot.

Documentary film: Neshoba: The Price of Freedom revisits civil rights tragedy that Bill Eppridge covered

The historic master vintage print of Robert F. Kennedy shot included in Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure

Opening reception for Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure attended by Governor Bill Richardson

Bill Eppridge in High Museum exhibit Road To Freedom - Photographs from the Civil Rights Movement
(Travelled to Skirball Center and Bronx Museum of Art)

Bill Eppridge in Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera at Tate Modern and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Bill Eppridge in Folkwang Museum exhibit A Star is Born - Photography and Rock Since Elvis

Bill Eppridge at Woodstock

Bill Eppridge Receives the Prestigious Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism

THE ART OF SOUND

The Santa Fe Reporter
February 3, 2010

"Per usual with the Monroe Gallery of Photography, an exquisite collection of historic photographs rarely seen in a gallery setting is presented for Santa Fe's adoring public. "The Art of Sound" features photographs of famous musicians from all kinds of significant photographers. From iconic images of the Beatles to Chubby Checker to Bob Dylan, there's a photo for every genre in this unique retrospective."

Opening Reception
Friday, February 5, 5 - 7 PM
Exhibition continues through April 11.
Open Daily

MONROE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

112 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM 87501
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THE ART OF SOUND: Photographs of musicians and music

Eddie Adams: Louis Armstrong, Opening Night, Las Vegas, 1970

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce "The Art of Sound", an extensive survey of more than 50 classic photographs portraying iconic personalities from the field of music as captured by renowned photographers. All genres of music are represented, including opera, pop, jazz, classical, and rock. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Friday, February 5, from 5 to 7 PM. "The Art of Sound" will continue through April 11.

Musicians have been the subject of photographs since the invention of photography in the 19th century. Over time, the genre developed rapidly once the technical evolution of the medium allowed photographers to photographs musicians "in concert." Eventually, an entire industry was created in response to the record companies' need for constant material for publicity and album promotion.

Photographs in this exhibition include formal portraits either taken in a studio or staged in an environment of the photographer's choosing, but the majority were taken in performance: auditoriums, nightclubs, and symphony halls, and wherever musicians are just "hanging out". In these photographs the essential personality of the musician is revealed, and an image of the past becomes visual history.

We listen to music with our ears, but we experience it with our eyes, too. Photographers in the exhibition have captured the energy, passion, style, and sex appeal of these great musicians.

View the exhibition online here.

In addition to the photographs featured in the exhibition, Monroe Gallery has a wide selection of available photographs of numerous other musicians and performers. Please contact the gallery for further information.

Leigh Weiner: Judy in White, 1963

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Violinist Nathan Milstein, pianist Vladimir Horowitz & cellist Gregor Piatigorsky after a concert, Berlin, Germany, 1931

Ken Regan:  Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen Meeting For First Time, Backstage, New Haven, Ct, 1975

Mick Rock: David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, London, 1972

Amalie R. Rothschild: Janis and Tina, Madison Square Garden, November 27, 1969

The complete exhibition is online here.