Jimi Hendrix & Wilson Pickett, 5/5/1966. photo: William "PoPsie" Randolph, courtesy of Michael Randolph
You likely know the image: John Lennon, in a New York City sleeveless tee, arms folded, the former Beatle staring through signature round glasses with a mixture of confidence and vulnerability.
The question is, do you know who the photographer is?
If you don’t, that just gives further justification for photo historian Gail Buckland’s book, “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 – Present,” and its companion exhibit of the same name.
“For this show, it’s about the photographers. It’s not about the musicians,” says Buckland, who initially curated the now-traveling show for New York’s Brooklyn Museum.
Of course many of the subjects shot by the 100-plus photogs represented are huge — David Bowie, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Madonna. But few of the photographers have name-brand status. For every Annie Leibovitz and Richard Avedon, Buckland has included dozens of relative unknowns whose images capture, and mark, important moments in the history of rock music.
“What I realized is some of the most iconic photographs in the world were taken by men and women who were virtually anonymous. And I said, ‘If I don’t know who took the picture on “The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan” or hundreds of other album covers and posters my kids had in their dorm rooms, then who does?’”
Though she concedes she’s no expert on rock music, Buckland approached this project like she has her numerous others, including “Reality Recorded: Early Documentary Photography” and “Shots in the Dark: True Crime Pictures.” She looked through books, asked for referrals and, importantly, visited as many of the photographers she could. This allowed her to hand-select not just particular photos but specific prints, as well as to interview the artists for the extensive text that accompanies the images.
The results are as varied, Buckland notes, as the music itself. Much as rock can range from the three-chord club shows of the Ramones (picture below by Ian Dickson, 1977) to the nearly symphonic spectacles of U2, the photographic formats include Polaroids, gelatin silver prints, contact sheets, composites and more.
Buckland privileges the image above all else. “I wasn’t dazzled by who’s in the picture. I really was looking for great photography. And what I mean by ‘great photography’ is something that deserves to be on a museum wall, something that deserves to be contemplated and carefully looked at, and something that deserves to be part of the history of photography. In other words, photographs that really stand up to scrutiny.”
Many of these images have stood up to very personal kinds of scrutiny — a teen staring at a favorite Blondie record, a music fan refusing to toss select issues of Rolling Stone, a concertgoer dressing according to that Marilyn Manson poster on the wall. The sound is important, but so is the vision.
“Rock and roll is a bipartite revolution,” Buckland says. “The music alone couldn’t have changed everything. It had to do with the look, the body language, the stance. And that’s what photography conveys.”
What Buckland conveys, in addition to great, historic images, are the stories behind the pictures, including the relationships between subjects and photographers. For instance, the shooter behind that John Lennon image, is Bob Gruen, a friend of Lennon and Yoko Ono’s who took pictures both personal and public for the couple. He shot the iconic photo on the rooftop of a penthouse apartment in New York, Buckland writes, with Gruen having bought the t-shirt Lennon dons in Times Square. That image is “universal,” Buckland says.
“And it’s not just because it’s John Lennon. It’s not just because it’s the t-shirt. It’s something about the way he looks, it’s something about the way he’s standing that makes people understand something more about John Lennon, about photography and also the importance of this music of rebellion.”
Buckland nods to the honesty such photographs convey, an honesty that fails to dominate in the current era of musicians as brands, of pop stars traveling with coteries in strict control of their images.
“With this subject now, so much is packaged. An artist is packaged,” she says.
But before Britney sported a snake, before Bieber got that fateful haircut, the layers weren’t nearly as thick, if present at all. Sometimes it was just a couple of friends on a rooftop, playing around with a roll of film.
“Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 – Present” shows at Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Ave., Oct. 22-Jan. 15. Admission: $8, $6 seniors, $3 students. Photographer Lynn Goldsmith and exhibit curator Gail Buckland speak at the UA’s Center for Creative Photography at 1pm and 2 pm, respectively, on Oct. 22; the event is free. Visit TucsonMuseumofArt.org for details.
