photo: C Elliot
Since we know you’re all dying to find out what these rockers are really like, we thought we’d do some digging to find out. The following photographers also all have images in the exhibit… and some pretty cool stories, to boot.
David Sygall: Sygall began shooting Jimmy Hendrix when he was a student in New York City, and Hendrix was a nobody, opening up for The Monkees. “I was wandering around a hotel and I walked into a room with Jimmy Hendrix and this blonde girl, rolling around in his bed. He was so nice, he bought me a hamburger and gave me his boots.” That was the beginning of a long working relationship. Over the years, Sygall shot Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin and many other 60s icons. What were the musicians really like? “Jim Morrison was a really nasty guy,” he said. “He’d get drunk and just turn into this really nasty guy.”
Denyse Leventman: Leventman got her start in rock photography as the arts and entertainment editor of her college newspaper. The night that she photographed Paul Stanley of Kiss, Gene Simmons licked her camera lens. “The guy next to me looked over and said, ‘you’re not seriously going to wipe that off are you?’” Leventman said. “So, yeah, I was having to wipe saliva off my 380 millimeter lens. It was pretty cool.”
Mary Andrews: It wasn’t always rock and roll for Andrews. “I got my start with country musicians and I used to do rock on the side because I really like rock better than country,” Andrews said. “Way back in the old days, you could just go to a concert and carry your camera in and take pictures.” Times have changed, Andrews said, but that hasn’t stopped her. When she photographed Bob Dylan, she shot four-and-a-half rolls of film before his manager came out and threatened her.
Eric Kroll: In the early 1970s, Kroll was living in Manhattan and got a call to quickly head out and photograph the Rolling Stones, who were doing a promotion through the city on a flatbed truck. A while later, he accidentally angered a very young Madonna while taking her photo. “My deal was New York,” Kroll said. “I went down to a fundraiser and saw Madonna, and I didn’t know who she was, she had cornrows in her hair, and I asked her to pray and she got pissed off—but she did it, she put her hands together.”
Ronn Spencer: When Spencer was 18 he met Andy Warhol. It was the beginning of a career that would eventually land him as Warhol’s so-called assistant for a day. “I brought a bunch of photos that I had taken to Andy and he was going through all the photos that I took of him and he’s saying ‘wow,’ and, ‘oh great’—totally insincere, but he was being nice. All of these people keep sticking microphones in his face and asking him incredibly stupid questions, so he gets really disgusted with the whole thing and he turns to one of them and says ‘Ronn here knows more about me, why don’t you ask him?’” Spencer said. “So then someone starts asking me how long I’ve been his assistant and I said ‘15 years’ and just made up a bunch of stuff.”
Tucson Shot Rock & Roll is a pop-up gallery taking space temporarily
at 245 E. Congress St. #171, and features rock photos shot by local
Tucson photographers. Other photogs include:
Tim Fuller, who “worked” his way backstage at Woodstock in 1969, captured Jimi Hendrix’s iconic performance.
Steven Meckler, in the process of completing a Tucson musician’s
photography book, will exhibit photos of local mainstays David Slutes,
Bob Log III and Tom Walbank.
David Rose worked for Annie Leibovitz at one time, and has a great archive on Bruce Springsteen, who he shot for over 10 years.
C. Elliott and Mark Martinez have been prolific documentarians of
Tucson concerts at The Fox Tucson Theatre, The Rialto Theatre, and AVA.
They don’t miss a show.
Jeff Smith has some great shots of Tucson’s east side “hair bands” from back in the day.
Bob Lee captured Buddy Holly in the late 50s.
And Michael Hyatt showcases his great shots of X from the early 80s.
Tucson Shot Rock & Roll opens Oct. 8 during Second Saturdays with a public viewing 7pm-11pm and runs until Oct. 29. For more information, visit TucsonShotRock.com.
