Ironically, I started this blog partially to talk about some of the cool people I am photographing, right at the time that I stopped photographing much of anything!

That changed last Wednesday when I heard and photographed a great new talent. A friend of mine is a booking agent, and he emailed me and suggested that I go to see a new, young Scottish singer playing her first show in North America. Here name is Imelda May. Looked her up on the web and found that she is somewhat of a sensation in the UK, so I called my friend and set up a quick photo shoot. Arrived at the club just as she started her sound check, and was completely blown away! Here was a woman from another continent, completely capturing the vibe of American roots music, backed by a great band of likeminded guys!

After sound check, I took her outside and photographed her for  about 10 minutes, and then had a nice conversation with her. Seemed that she had flown in from Londan the day before, checked into her hotel, and immediately went to check out two shrines of Chicago music history- The Chess Records Studio and Buddy Guy’s club Legends (although she didn’t go up to Buddy and have a conversation- she thought he looked preoccupied).

Her set that night was a perfect mix of originals and covers (Howlin’ Wolf and the Beatles) with remarkable stage presence. Someone to watch for in the future (she is coming back to the states in November)

This week I spent a few days on the road with Creed, and it brought back to me the idea that sometimes rock stars can be nice guys!! What a concept!!!

I remember a night sometime in the early eighties when both sides of that statement came together. One of my favorite venues in Chicago is the Park West Theater. I had gone there to see Adrian Belew, a great guitarist. After shooting some photos, I walked back to the lobby and had a short conversation with Bob, the guy at the door, and an old friend. He told me that the club had just received a call from the road manager for Men At Work, who had played the night before. Riding high on their ONE hit, they called the club and asked for a private section to be roped off for them and a security guard and waitress to be assigned to them. When they arrived, they made a big deal about their entourage, even though no one in the club had any idea who they were, they were fairly obnoxious throughout the evening, acting like the rock stars they thought they were. Shortly after they were seated, Bob asked me to watch the door for a few moments, while he went to the facilities. Right after he left, a taxi pulled up in front of the club, and out of the back door stepped a man who many people think is the greatest rock and roll singer on the planet. BY HIMSELF. Robert Plant walked into the club and saw me at the door. He gave me a puzzled look and I explained the situation. He asked me if it would be OK if he went in and sat at the bar and watched the end of the show. I said- Of course- go right in.

When Bob returned, he alerted the Park West crew, who when the show ended, invited Robert to spend a few hours drinking at the bar with them, totally ignoring the big rock stars in their private section.

Where are they now???

Last week, while watching the PBS History of Rock and Roll series, I was struck by a comment that Ringo Starr made when Sgt. Pepper came out. He said, “ If we would have tried to play that live we would need about 20 people on stage with us. So we stopped playing live.” The next day I picked up a book I had just purchased called “How the Beatles Destroyed Rock N Roll” by Elijah Wald. Made me start to think!!

During the week of an anniversary (I think the 20^th) of Sgt. Pepper, my friend and neighbor Don McLeese, the staff music critic for the Chicago Sun Times at the time, wrote a cover piece in the Sunday paper announcing:

1. Sgt. Pepper was not by any stretch of the imagination the greatest album ever recorded

2. It was not even the best album released the year it came out!

He got more hate mail in the weeks that followed than for any other piece he wrote!

This brings up two thoughts I have:

1. To be a real band, you have to be able to play your music live in front of an audience. Too many bands since Sgt. Pepper spend so much time creating elaborate soundscapes in the studio that they can’t ever play any semblance of them live in concert. Last night I listened to a large group of New York Jazz musicians play an hour and 45 minute set in the park in downtown Chicago that was simply astounding. No charts were used, and the musicians improvised much of what they did, in the framework of previously recorded songs. They also seemed to be having a lot of fun on stage (as was the audience)!!

2. Sgt. Pepper spawned what we now know as Prog Rock, casing the New Musical Express to coin a term for the music- “Shoe gazers.” These are people with no stage presence whatsoever, because they are staring at their feet for the whole set, trying to concentrate on playing the intricate music they have created in the studio. When they do play live, they are usually incredibly boring to listen to, and even more boring to photograph! One of the first bands I went on the road with, early in my career was Genesis, right after Peter Gabriel left the band. Their light show was spectacular. One night on the bus, Phil Collins and I were talking about the lighting, which moved and changed colors with the beat of the music. He told me that the band had invested a great deal of money in developing the moving lights (now a standard in the industry). When I asked him why, he replied, “We are the most boring band on the planet, visually. We needed to do something to make our show interesting visually to the audience, or they would just stay home and listen to the records!”

Due to the fact that there is not much work this summer, I have a lot of free time on my hands. This has caused me to watch a lot more television and read a lot more books than usual.

I recently revisited a 10 part series that I taped from PBS in the middle 1990’s called the history of Rock and Roll. Each hour explores a segment of musical history, starting in the 1950’s till the middle 1990’s. The one that struck me the most was the segment on soul music in the 1960’s. As a student of race relations in America (my father helped start Ebony Magazine in the early 1950’s),  I couldn’t help but be amazed at the thought that a group of white guys in Alabama (Muscle Shoals) built up a scene that helped create some of the most beautiful and lasting soul music in America.

Rick Hall built Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, and put together a group of musicians that wrote and recorded some of the greatest music of the last 50 years. Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham and many others backed among others Wilson Pickett and Sam and Dave on some of the greatest soul and R&B songs of our time. Meanwhile, up north a short way, Stax Records was founded in an old movie theater in Memphis. The house band was Booker T and the MG’s who wrote with and backed among others the great Otis Redding.

My favorite story of the time was when a Jewish guy from New York City (Jerry Wexler) brought a young black woman (Aretha Franklin) to Muscle Shoals, Alabama in the 1960’s to record one of the greatest albums of all time (I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) with a group of young white southerners. This paved the way for Atlantic Records to quickly become one of the most important labels in the world

I wonder if that kind of vision can exist today. There are many people trying to copy what went on in that era (Amy Winehouse, for example).

On July 4^th of this year, I saw a show that opened with a set by Booker T. Jones. Leader of that great Stax house band of the 1960’s. He was backed by a group of young southerners that call themselves Drive By Truckers, led by a young guitar player by the name of  Patterson Hood. After their set, they were hanging around backstage, and Mavis Staples walked by. Patterson said, “Excuse me, Mavis, I don’t know if you remember me, but my father brought me to the studio to watch you record when I was seven years old.”  See, his father was David Hood, one of the original musicians from that Muscle Shoals and Stax group from the 1960’s. It gave me hope for the future!

It should also be noted that several very important people in the history of music passed away this week:

Jim Dickenson, noted Memphis producer and piano player (Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones) leaves a great legacy of American music. His legacy carries on through his sons Luther and Cody and their group North Mississippi All Stars.

Jim and the All Stars:

Les Paul, the man who invented the solid body guitar and the process of multi tracking in the recording studio after having a major recording career with his wife Mary Ford.

Two nicer people you will never meet.

This weekend is the 40^th Anniversary of Woodstock, and one can’t escape the memories. 400.000 people! Not enough food! Lots of mud! In the middle of all of that is a statistic that hardly seems to be mentioned, but is none toe less pretty amazing:

There were 32 acts that played over the three days. Although several of the artists have passed away, all but three of the artists are still, in one form or another, making relevant music, touring extensively, and three of the acts, (The Who, Santana and the Grateful Dead) are continually selling out major arenas and generating millions of dollars in revenue to this day. (See list below.)

Last weekend in my hometown of Chicago, we experienced the biggest music festival of the year in America. 170 bands on 5 stages. From what I heard, a great time was had by all! My question for the week is thus:

Out of those 170 artists playing last week, will any still be making music in 40 years? 20 years? 10 years? I feel that this is a prime example explaining why the music business has completely shifted on it’s axis. Gone are the days of artist development, staying with an artist even if CD sales aren’t that great to start, and working with an artist to build a long and successful career. Seems that the system in the era we are in today is:

Sign as many bands as they can- throw them all out in the world and it back and see if any of them stick- and drop the rest of them! It also includes not cultivating or respecting the media, which can greatly help in breaking an artist. So we now see artists appear and a year later disappear into the where are they now files, to reappear 10 years later on “one hit wonders” compilations.

Oh well, times change and business models change!

DAY 1

Richie Havens Has about 60 dates booked into mid 2010

Country Joe McDonald Plays about 50 shows a year, down from 200 a year

John B. Sebastian Has 18 dates on his website through the end of 2009

Sweetwater Were playing with most of the original members as late as 1999

Incredible String Band A full reunion of the original three members took place in 1999. Since then, this line-up has been playing together regularly around the UK.

Bert Sommer Passed away July 23, 1990

Tim Hardin Passed away December 29, 1980

Ravi Shankar Has about 20 dates in 2009 on his website

Melanie Has about 20 dates in 2009 on her website

Arlo Guthrie Has about 20 dates in 2009 on his website

Joan Baez Has about 60 dates in 2009

DAY 2

Quill Disbanded in the Spring of 1970, going their separate ways, leaving a major asterisk in the history of the late ’60’s rock culture explosion.

Keef Hartley Band Band broke up in 1972. In 2007, Hartley released a ghost written autobiography, Halfbreed (A Rock and Roll Journey That Happened Against All The Odds)

Santana Tours extensively in arenas to this day

Canned Heat Plays an average of 100 shows a year with some original members

Grateful Dead Have grossed 26.4 million dollars this year

Mountain Leslie West is still touring and is releasing an instructional DVD this year. He was recently at my house giving me crap about my Costco buying habits!

Creedence Clearwater Band John Fogerty just released a new album this week with Bruce Springsteen guesting on an Everly Brothers song

Sly & The Family Stone Sly is still trying!

Janis Joplin Passed away October 4, 1970

The Who Still touring extensively

DAY 3

Jefferson Airplane Most members are still working and touring regularly

Joe Cocker Has about 20 dates in 2009 on his website

Country Joe & The Fish Plays about 50 shows a year, down from 200 a year

Ten Years After About 15 dates in 2009, with 3 original members

The Band Living members are still making great music and touring

Blood Sweat And Tears Still touring but with no original musicians

Johnny Winter Played a great set at the Chicago Blues Festival last year

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Still touring solo and as a group

Paul Butterfield Blues Band Passed away May 4, 1987.

Sha-Na-Na In the middle of a 40 show tour as we speak.

Jimi Hendrix Passed away September 18, 1970

As I get older it becomes increasingly distressing to read about people that I knew passing away. This week, I read about  two really cool people passing away.

In November of 1990, I was assigned by Time Magazine to do a portrait photo of John Hughes.  At that point, he had already written and directed a bunch of very successful films, including Sixteen Candles,The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off  and Planes, Trains & Automobiles. He was directing the film Curly Sue  in an empty floor of the Leo Burnett building in downtown Chicago. All the way downtown, I kept thinking- “Movie director- he is going to be very difficult.” I couldn’t have been more wrong! He was extremely gracious, stopping work on the film to give me the time I needed.
The photos were used in many places over the rest of his life, and every time I would see him around town, he would always comment on the fact that my photos kept him looking  young- even though he always looked exactly the same!

In 1977, a new band just signed to Capitol Records came to town. Fronted by lead singer Willy DeVille, Mink Deville should have been a major force in the music business. Willy was an amazing singer with a charismatic stage personality, and was one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet offstage. I would try to see them whenever they came to town, and Willy always had a good word and a great smile!

They will both be missed.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is considered by many to be the father of modern photojournalism. In 1957, Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post:
“Photography is not like painting,”. “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”
This is The Decisive Moment, as Cartier-Bresson defines it, ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.”

Last week, I quoted Andy Warhol, who decided that a good photograph need only be in focus and be of a famous person.  I like Cartier-Bresson’s idea better!!

When I started in photojournalism, the photographer was given the freedom to wait for that decisive moment, and if he or she was skilled  enough- to capture that moment on film. This took skill and concentration, because one never knew when that moment might happen. It also took a certain knowledge of the subject (certain people jumped off of things regularly, certain people played weird instruments at times) and the ability to wait for those moments and capture them. For example:

There are many rules of rock and roll, and one of them is- When someone on stage climbs up on something, there are really only two ways for that person to get down, and only one of those two ways looks cool! He or she can either crawl back down (not cool) or he or she can jump (hopefully gracefully) to the stage (hopefully very cool).

Eddie Van Halen               Fall Out Boy                  Pete Townshend

Today, all of the above is pretty much impossible. If one were allowed to only shoot the first three songs, or in the case of Beyonce, the first 90 seconds (up from 60 seconds last year) finding any kind of decisive moment is impossible. This has reduced the modern music photographer to nothing more than a living copy stand, only capable of capturing a Warhol like in focus photo. Although I rarely go to concerts any more, when I do, I see photographers running around trying to shoot as many photos as they can in the short time allotted, hoping to go home and edit the take down to a few good ones. More than likely, that decisive moment will be taking place about the time they are arriving home to start the editing process.

In the good old days, a photographer was given pretty much total freedom to get his/her best angles. The only restrictions were:
Don’t disturb the show.
Don’t get in the way of the audience’s view.

This created the ability to search for angles that brought out the best in the photo. Such as:
-If the singer stayed close to the microphone, a side angle separated his face from the microphone
-If the band was dressed in black, isolating someone in front of a set piece on stage or a light separated the person from the background.

In a photo pit or aisle in front of the stage, this was easy to accomplish as you could move around and find that angle.
But- the rules have changed! Many artists are now requesting that photographers shoot from the sound board, or the back of the arena. This is problematic for a number of reasons:
1. To get a fairly decent (but still not very good) photograph, one has to invest about $5000 in a 400MM or longer lens. This will still only get at best a full length or ¾ length photograph.
2. Depending on the luck of the draw, odds are you will be instructed to shoot from a position where the microphone will be directly in front of the face of the singer, unless he or she turns to the side. This makes for an unusable shot in most cases.
3. Because you are now shooting from a straight-on position rather than a position shooting up at the performer, the performer will look much smaller than he or she actually looks. Seeing as many performers are not that tall to start with, they now look short and insignificant
4. When shooting from the front photo pit at a 45 degree angle up at the performer, the lights at the back of the stage come into the photograph. This provides a three dimensionality to the photograph, as the light give the background context. When shooting from the soundboard, straight on at the performer, the actual lights do not come into play in the photo, so the performer looks flat and two dimensional.

Maybe this is what the publicists are going for- short, insignificant, two dimensional depictions of their artists!

Finally, a quote from Andy Warhol:
“My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person.”

Maybe that is all people are looking for in the 21st century. Maybe taking a good, or dare I say great photograph is a thing of the past.

It was the 1985 and Sammy Hagar had replaced David Lee Roth as the singer in Van Halen. Their tour started in the Midwest, and the hype was starting. I was assigned to photograph them at the second date of the tour, in suburban Chicago, for Rolling Stone Magazine. A friend of mine flew in to photograph the opening date in southern Wisconsin. He called me at about 9PM the night of the first show to tell me that he had refused to shoot, as the contract was pretty horrible. This was ironic because Van Halen never had a contract, and neither did Sammy Hagar!
The next evening, I arrived at the venue and was presented with a 4 page contract, that basically said that I could shoot the show (no flash), and sell one photo to Rolling Stone. I then had to turn all the photos over to the band’s management, who could then use them in any way they wanted with no compensation to me whatsoever (They also didn’t even have to give me a photo credit!).
I walked into the venue and asked to see the road manager. When he arrived, I handed him back the photo pass and the unsigned contract. I told him that I couldn’t sign it, and would call Rolling Stone the next day and ask them to cancel the story. I turned around and walked out to my car, put my equipment in the trunk, and was about to start the engine when he came running out, telling me that the band’s manager wanted to see me.
I walked back inside and was escorted back to the production office, where I sat down across the desk form the band’s manager. He asked me why I wouldn’t sign the contract and I told him (pretty obvious reasons). He told me to scratch out all the points I objected to, one by one, and initial them. He then read what I had done (Pretty much scratching out the whole contract) and got to the last item- the no flash provision. Now- I am not a fan of flash photography, but most of the metal magazines would only accept flash images, so I always tried to shoot a couple of rolls with a flash to satisfy them. He remarked that the band hated flash photography. I responded with “I have photographed Van Halen many times, and Sammy Hagar many times and always used a flash at times during the show, and no one ever questioned it.” I then added, “Why don’t we ask Eddie what he thinks?”
So we walked down to Eddie Van Halen’s practice room, and the manager asked Eddie what he thought of flash photography during the performance. Eddie’s reply was, “I don’t pay attention to that stuff when I am on stage- they can do whatever they want.”
The manager walked out of the room, ripped up the contract into little pieces, and said, “You win, do whatever you want.”
I ended up shooting three shows on that tour, including a shoot with the band for the cover of Guitar Player, and in the ultimate irony, the band ended up asking me if they could use some of my photos for a tour end ad in Billboard!

Earlier in the year, Morrissey went on tour. Here are a few excerpts from his contracts to photographers (“Company”  is Suffering Artists (c/o Spectacle Entertainment Group) —Morrissey’s management company):

2. The Photographer hereby transfers and assigns to Company with full title guarantee the entire copyright and all extensions and renewals throughout the world (including by way of present assignment of future rights) and all rights of a similar nature in the Photographs.
3. Company hereby grants the Photographer a non-exclusive licence to publish and authorise others to publish the Photographs in [outlet] (“the Publication”) during the period of [twelve (12) months] from the date of this Agreement (“the Exploitation Period”).
4. The Photographer shall not permit the Photographs to be used for any purpose whatsoever other than during the Exploitation Period in the Publication without Company’s prior written consent and shall promptly following the photo shoot deliver to Company the negatives of the Photographs.
5. Company shall not exploit the Photographs other than by way of the licence to the Photographer hereunder without Photographer’s consent.
6. Company shall have the right to approve each of the Photographs prior to its first publication in any media.
7. Company shall be entitled to assign transfer sub-license mortgage charge or otherwise dispose of its rights hereunder to any person or entity without reference to Photographer provided that Company shall remain primarily liable to Photographer for its obligations hereunder subject always to clause 5 above.

So……… I bring my $20,000 worth of equipment and my years of knowledge to the venue, sign the contract, shoot three songs (with very bad light, I might add (a friend asked me to take her to the show, although I didn’t shoot). Light got much better after the three songs were done). I then can license photos to one magazine only for the next year, and I then have to turn over all the images to the manager, who now owns then and can not only use them any way he pleases, but can sell rights to the photos at any time without me seeing a dime! And to top it off, management has to approve photos before they appear in print! Think that is going to happen with any speed? There go any deadlines! I did see about 4 photographers at the show, and wanted to ask them why they signed this horrible contract, but they were too far away!

On a similar note, here is an excerpt from an article in yesterday’s (7/11/09) paper:

STOCKHOLM: Four major Swedish newspapers have threatened to boycott a Britney Spears concert because of restrictions imposed on their photographers. Spears is scheduled to perform on Monday. Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet say they won’t send photographers unless Spears scraps certain conditions on how the images can be used. The contract bars the papers from reselling the pictures and from publishing them after 30 days. Dagens Nyheter photo editor Roger Turesson said Friday “the next step would be to tell critics they can’t write anything critical.”

More about contracts next week and then we will go off to another subject!