Last week I spent the weekend photographing some amazing acrobats. One thing I can say about them is: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Eleven people on one bicycle. Five people on motorcycles driving inside a giant metal sphere. A young girl flying 20 feet over the stage, suspended by a silk ribbon.

I went to the seasons premier of the group, called Cirque Shanghai with Alex White,  a friend of mine who is the singer and guitar player in a two member rock band that is starting to achieve some nationwide success: http://www.whitemysteryband.com/

On the way home, we started talking about one of the most important aspects of being a star- Showbiz!! It seems that most bands today walk on stage, turn on some dark blue and green lights and stand around their instruments and play their songs. Most bands don’t do much on stage, and the bands that do stand out  tremendously. Alex explained that during the show, she climbs up on the PA,  runs around like crazy, and actually puts on a show. I have high hopes for her and her brother to have some real success. They know what Showbiz is.

In 1968 I was in high school when the Democratic convention took place here in Chicago. Over the next 2 or 3 years, the anti-war movement shaped my world view, and, I think in a way, made me the person that I am today. The eloquence of the people responding to the war and many other social issues helped me become a thinking (hopefully) and caring person and to always strive to learn.

So now we move forward to 2012, and the NATO summit in Chicago last weekend. Some observations:

The chant kept on going up that “The whole world is watching” but no one said anything. Seems to me that if the whole world is, in fact, watching, people should have something to show them! Seems that for the most part, the demonstrations were just a couple of thousand people milling about pointlessly through the streets of Chicago being photographed and videotaped by another couple of thousand people. They missed a great opportunity- each demonstrator could have had their own personal photographer! The police presence was so great that there was no room for an audience. So the audience became the television cameras, and nobody had anything to say. Until a group calling themselves Black Bloc decided to attack the police, nothing really happened. Then the Black Bloc people got arrested and the rest of the crowd continued to mill around for no reason. AND… if the Black Bloc people were so radical, why were they all wearing masks? Do they not have the courage of their convictions to show their faces?

There were two great small demonstrations that proved that some people in this movement have something to say and know how to say it. In the middle of the proceedings, the demonstrators gathered around a small stage near the NATO meetings and about 40 Iraq and Afghan war veterans stepped up to the microphone one at a time, denounced the war and the branch of the military that they served in. They each then ripped the medal of valor they had received off of their uniforms and tossed them over a fence behind them. This was the perfect statement for this place and time. Around the same time, a group of doctors and nurses marched to the Mayor’s house and demonstrated against the closing of mental health facilities in the Chicago area. Although this had nothing to do with NATO, they hijacked the process and spoke out intelligently about the problems.

So there were a few moments of clarity in the jumble that was NATO.

I will try to not get too depressing today, but three people that I have worked with passed away in the last two weeks.

About a month ago, I shot my third CD cover for Michael Burks, and Arkansas blues guitar player on Alligator. A nicer man you would never meet. He put up with anything we threw at him (including lighting about 50 sticks of incense in a bowl behind him to simulate a smoke machine). The last one was him standing in one position for about 2 hours playing guitar. He never complained! After our shoot, he left the next week for a European tour. When he returned from Europe, he collapsed and passed away from a heart attack.

Early last week word came from Japan that Donald “Duck” Dunn had passed away on tour. He was the backbone of Booker T and the MG’s for many years, played bass for the Blues Brothers Band in the 1980’s, and recently spent a lot of time touring with Neil Young. During one of those Neil tours, my friend Dan, the owner of Lakland Guitars brought him over to my house for a shoot. Most of the shoot was spent telling stories about people we all new (and he pretty much knew everyone) and a little time was spent on actual photography!

Later this last week brought the news of the passing of Donna Summer. I photographer her a few times, once in the early 1980’s, and once a few years ago. Her voice was amazing, and her stage presence was outstanding. I don’t think she ever got her due- she was always pegged as a disco singer, although I always thought of her as a great soul singer (in the same league as Chaka Kahn and others).

If more people thought of her that way, I think her career would have gone in a better direction

I have always been of the opinion that the only tangible product of my career is my intellectual property. I protect my ownership of such with all I have got. It seems that in the music world, especially in the hip hop world, the same thing is the case. This week there was an interesting article about a Chicago based hip hop duo called Flosstradamus, who created a new song “focusing on their own compositions” and licensed it to a label who released it as a 3 song EP for free on some of their websites. There plan always was to release free music, and then compile a set of those songs and sell the CD’s. They do not include anything with samples in the music for sale, and feel that if they give the songs away for free, they are not breaking copyright laws. BUT NO!!! Of course it is a violation of the law. It doesn’t matter if you make money off of the song, you are still stealing someone else’s copyrighted music. I think thaqt it was great that a Netherlands based electronic musician named Dutch Master sent a cease and desist order to the record company, who were surprised that they were made to take the song down, because, of course,  they weren’t making money from the song!!

The one thing that the writer of the article didn’t mention- and to me the most ironic part of the discussion- was this:

Flosstradamus, who were “focusing on their own compositions” used a sizable chunk of the melody from Dutch Master! Is this what they mean by their own compositions? WOW, maybe they should learn how to write some of their own songs from start to finish.

In May of 1985, I was photographing Madonna. The opening act was a bunch of kids jumping around on stage and rapping. They were called the Beastie Boys, and boy did they suck! I didn’t bother talking any pictures of them. When I went to my car after the show, they were sitting on the hood of the car next to mine. I asked them to pose for a few pictures and they immediately jumped on their car. I took a few photos and left.

A few years later, in March of 1987, I got a call from my friend Steve, a New York publicist. He asked me to do a shoot with the Beastie Boys. Budweiser had asked them not to use their beer on stage, as they thought the band was not an appropriate vehicle for their fine brew. So Steve wanted me to photograph them “auditioning” a new beer for the tour. I showed up at sound check, set up in the balcony, and waited for the guys. When they arrived, I asked them if they could possibly direct the spray away from my camera equipment. Bad move!! They proceeded to shake up and open about 50 beers, aiming most of them directly over my head. My lights and camera smelled like beer for about a year. Loads of fun!!!

By the time 1992 rolled along they were not a party band any more, but a serious politically motivated band when I did my last shoot with them.

They then stopped letting photographers shoot them (sounds like a broken record) and I never saw them again.

My last contact was a year ago. Someone from Oscilliscope Laboritories contacted me. They said that they were a documentary film production company, and their president had found a portrait that I had taken of William S. Burroughs many years in the past. He loved the photo and wanted to use it is the packaging for a documentary they were releasing. We agreed on terms, I sent them a scan, and a month later one of the most beautifully designed DVD packages I have ever seen arrived in the mail with my image spread across two pages in the center of the fold out package! The owner of that company was Adam from the Beastie Boys.

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys lost his battle with cancer this week.

Just got the latest edition of Departures Magazine (an Amex publication) with a full cover picture of Mick Jagger taken in his younger days. The article was about an exhibit of the early works of Terry O’Neill’s showing at Morrison Hotel Gallery. Some very interesting insights from Terry:

He talked about spending time with a new, unknown band called the Rolling Stones, photographing them around London as they tried to make it big. At one point they met up with the Beatles- they asked them if they had a song that they could record. The Beatles gave them a song they were working on called “I Wanna Be Your Man.” As Terry says, “That’s the way it was in the early days; Everyone was pals.” HA! I would like to see that happen today- wait till the lawyers and record company execs got involved!!!

He talks about going through all of his old stuff starting about 4 years ago and finding images of Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Liz Taylor, Bridgette Bardot and Faye Dunaway (who he married). Also JFK, Churchhill and the Queen,

Here is the quote that was most interesting to me:

“Intimate, candid shots of rock and roll and movie stars don’t exist any more. Everything is stage managed for publicity and marketing.”

Makes me think of a few things-

Last month, I was asked if I wanted to go to the White House with Buddy Guy for a performance he did with BB King, Jeff Beck and Mick Jagger (and others). I reserved a hotel room and a plane ticket- then I found out that only the official White House photographer would be allowed to shoot- so I canceled the trip. Probably should have gone, but it would have been tough to sit there and watch without shooting.

Early in her career, my friend Jack was asked by People Magazine to go to New Jersey and photograph a young singer with potential by the name if Whitney Houston. He went to her house and spent the day taking beautiful pictures of her and her family. There is a great photograph of her from that shoot on the back cover of a Life Magazine special issue on the newsstand now. I am pretty sure that that situation would never happen in this day of “control of the artists image.”

Their loss.

In a recent Sports Illustrated article talking about Tiger Woods and the greats that came before him, the author states: “It is about enduring. Enduring is about beating the old men when you are young. And the young men when you are old.”

Which brings me to the Rolling Stones- 50 years as a band. They climbed to the top when they were young, and continue to put on great shows now that they are old.

I went to a show this weekend. The band was called Cults. The road manager came out to talk to us, and I realized that it was the son of a friend of mine- I first met him when he was about 5!

We talked for a while, and I went upstairs to shoot the show. There were three other photographers in the pit. If you added up all of their ages, I am guessing the number would have been about my age. The band was dressed for the most part completely in black and they played in almost total darkness. All the other photographers were using entry level DSLR’s, and seemed to be having many problems.

I have never claimed to be a great photographer, but I feel that my age and experience makes me a great problem solver. As the show continued, I saw many moments that I could work with. Knowing that the camera I use is great under low light conditions, I shot a bunch of stuff, knowing that, even though it looked kind of dark on the screen in my camera, it would look great with a little tweaking.

I walked out of the show confident in my, and Photoshop’s abilities!

For the last 20 years, Buddy Guy has done a series of shows during the month of January at his home club in Chicago. The shows are all great, but the best part of the night for me is sitting in his office with him for an hour or so before each show and listening to his stories. Tow years ago, I had the occasion to introduce him to the great writer David Ritz, who, in the course of a five minute conversation and a 90 minute show concluded that it was time for Buddy to get his stories down on paper. Two years later (next month) the opportunity arises for everyone to hear those stories that I have listened to for all those years, with the publication of Buddy’s autobiography, as told to David Ritz. Titled “When I Left Home,” it is an entertaining and deep look at the life of a man who grew up on a farm in Louisiana, taught himself how to play a guitar, overcame poverty and racism and ended up playing at the White House, entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Music Hall of fame, recording about 50 albums, and becoming known as one for the greatest guitar players walking the earth in the modern world of music. I am very proud to be a small part of the evolution of this project (I got to shoot the cover) and hope that many people get to read about the man behind those great songs.

During that same time period, I got to watch a Chicago man conquer many demons, and come out the other side with an amazing CD that has been released this week. His name is Lurrie Bell, the man behind the new CD “The Devil Ain’t Got No Music.” Lurrie was born into a musical family- his father was the great Muddy Waters Harmonica player Carey Bell. Lurrie started playing guitar at the age of six, and played with many of Chicago’s blues greats in his teens and twenties. He had a lot of problems as he grew up. I once saw him homeless and begging for spare change at the Chicago Blues Fest. Then with help from many Chicago people, he got control of his demons, and a few years later, he was performing on the main stage at the same blues fest and regularly recording, culminating in his latest release, which appeared in my mail box this weekend. I am very proud of the cover, with beautiful design by Al Brandtner. We rented a giant painted backdrop, which his producer picked up on the way. Of course, they gave him the wrong one, and he had to exchange it. While he was gone, Lurrie and I had a very deep conversation about suspenders- why would anyone want to wear them. We shot some great pictures, and the results appeared this weekend. My hope is that a lot of people will buy it, and help Lurrie continue on a great journey.

Went out to shoot a show Friday night. This was a band that I had photographed last year. Nice people named Neon Indian. Alan, the main guy, is a keyboard player who stands stage center with his keyboards right up to the front of the stage.

Before the show, most of the photographers that walked into the pit did what every band I have talked to about this hates. They walked in, plopped their camera bags on the stage, and proceeded to unpack all their stuff. THE STAGE BELONGS TO THE BAND- PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOULD TREAT IT THAT WAY. During the first three songs, there was a feeding frenzy to get to the middle area to photograph the singer. Two guys in particular spent most of their time holding their cameras over their heads and leaning way forward, sticking their cameras right in the singers face (and also standing right in front of me to do it). Alan, the singer would have been totally within his rights to slap their cameras away, but he is too nice a guy. During that time they also completely ignored the audience behind them screaming at them to get down so that they could see. I guess taking crappy pictures is more important than anything else these days!

In 1989, I went out on tour with the Rolling Stones. On the first night of the tour, I renewed my acquaintance with Vernon Reid, the amazing guitar player of Living Colour. At that point I found out that he had taken up photography. I suggested that we go out on some photo excursions on days of from the tour. A week later, I awoke to the phone ringing in my room in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Vernon- “Meet me in the lobby, let’s shoot some pictures,” he said. So I grabbed a camera and some film, and headed out the door. I ran into  him in the hall and we stepped into the elevator. As we approached the first floor, we heard a lot of noise in the lobby. As the doors opened, we stepped into a party of blue haired southern ladies. I was dressed as a bum, per my usual style. Vernon was wearing a full length dashiki (black and white pattern) and his dreads were piled on top of his head, some of them dyed red, green and yellow. As we stepped out of the elevator, all sound in the room stopped. About 100 women stared at him as jf he was an alien from a movie. Not a breath was taken until we were out the front door, when talking inside resumed. Vernon just shrugged at me and we kept on walking.

I was reminded of this when I read all the coverage of  Trayvon Martin’s death in Florida this week.. The most chilling of all the stories was in the April2 issue of Time. It is written by Toure’, an author and music journalist. It is titled “How to Stay Alive While Being Black.” The article is written in eight parts, sort of rules to living in a white world. The first one starts with- “It’s unlikely but possible that you could get killed today. Black maleness is a potentially fatal condition.”

It goes on to describe ways to protect yourself. They all seem very logical and pragmatic, but taken as a group, they paint a chilling picture of the racial divide in America today.

I have had several black people tell me, simply as a fact, that black and white can never be equal, because every day, when I get up and look in the mirror, I see a white person, and every time that he looks in the mirror, he sees what, as Toure’ says in this article, what a lot of people in America sees- “a thug- even if their only evidence is skin color.”

When my father got out of the Army after WW2, he helped start Ebony Magazine. He was the only white staff person, and after 2 years, it was agreed that he should quit, so that a black magazine could have a black chief photographer. I am guessing that he is rolling over in his grave today thinking about the nonsense that passes for equality in America today.