A strange gathering of musicians for a concert

When I photographed Buffy Sainte-Marie in San Francisco in 1970, it was one of the most unusual gathering of performers I can recall. I shot the concert for rock promoter Bill Graham. (More about my relationship with him here.)

In addition to Buffy, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and B.J. Thomas were on the ticket!

Berry, the father of rock & roll, was playing hard rock, with the only five chords he knew on his guitar, named Lucille.

Diddley was playing with his loud night-club rock style.

Buffy softly sang solo, occasionally playing her only instrument, a Native American one-string mouth hard.

And Thomas sang his gentle show-tune music.

To hear Chuck Berry  belting out "Roll Over Beethoven" while doing his famous "chicken walk," followed by B.J. Thomas singing "Rain Drops Keep Fallin' On My Head" with the barroom ballads by Diddley (check out this song) and the soft singing of Buffy Sainte-Marie (here's "Circle Game," which charted in 1970) was an interesting concept to say the least.

You can purchase this photograph at my online store.

Bob Dylan: "Friends call me Zimmy"

I photographed Bob Dylan for The Friends of Traditional Music at Centennial Hall in Tucson in the mid-'80s.

Dylan was in his Christian phase and performed with three black women who were gospel singers.

Born in 1941, he changed his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman to Bob Dylan in 1959 while living and performing folk music in the Dinkeytown district of Minneapolis at the Ten O'Clock Scholar coffeehouse. The name change was to honor the poet Dylan Thomas, who, he said, had affected the writing of his music. Thomas was a Welsh poet (writing exclusively in English) who made four tours of America between 1950 and 1953.

At first, Bob Dylan was into rock & roll, but changed to folk music because he said that rock might have great rhythms, driving pulses and catch-phrases, but it didn't reflect life in a realistic way like folk music.

He not only changed his name from Robert Allen Zimmerman to Bob Dylan reflecting how the poet Dylan Thomas affected the writing of his music, but he also changed his home. With Ramblin' Jack Elliott as a performing partner, Dylan left Dinkytown for New York City in 1969, hoping to meet his music idol Woody Guthrie.

As with most performers I've photographed, when you meet them they're working and aren't up for much chatter. I only talked to Dylan for a few seconds backstage during intermission. As he was walking offstage past me I simply said "Good show, Bob." His response was "Don't call me Bob. Friends call me Zimmy."

You can purchase a copy of Zimmy at my web store.

My opportunity to photograph THE photographer

The first time I met Ansel Adams (about 1968), I didn't even know who he was. 

At the end of Ocean Avenue in Carmel, California is a beautiful beach. I had just purchased a 200mm lens for my Hasselblad 120 camera and went down there to see if anything interesting was going on. 

Because there is an annual contest there I thought I might find someone building a sand castle that I might photograph. No sand castles were being constructed, but slightly off-shore I spotted a wine bottle stuck in the sand, with waves gently flowing over it. 

A perfect test, I thought, for this medium telephoto lens. Had my Hasselblad on a tripod and had taken a couple of shots when this older man came up to me and asked, "I was watching you and noticed that you were taking photographs of that wine bottle as the waves rolled in over it. 

"Do you think possibly a better photograph might be with the bottle just there by itself with no water crashing over it?"

I asked him if he lived around Carmel and if so, and if he gave me his address, I'd do a shot or two the way he suggested, and the next time was down I'd look him up and show him the photos and see which we thought was better. 

He wrote on a piece of paper: A. Adams, 1 Van Ess Way, Carmel Highlandsm and also wrote down his telephone number. So a few weeks later I was back in town, having lunch at The Tuck Box, and gave him a call. 

It was the best of concerts, it was the worst

Because I was in the Air Force, I was stationed in a building and not on a base (The United States Air Force Satellite Test Center in Sunnyvale, California), so there was no housing.

Airmen had to live in the nearby communities. I split rent with a folk singing group named "Larry, Judy & Tom Tom". My military service was more like a standard job, working 5 days a week from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Came home one afternoon and Larry Bishop asked if I would like to meet Peter, Paul & Mary that night. They were performing just south in San Jose.

"Sure, I said, but what do you mean 'meet' Peter, Paul & Mary instead of 'see' them perform or photograph them?"

"Mary Travers and I are were lovers from way back when I lived in Hawaii and even though eventually we split up, we've remained friends. She's invited me to come see them tonight and bring as many friends as I want."

I remember the exact date of the PP&M concert, June 5, 1968, well because towards the end of that concert Mary Travers brought their singing to a halt to announce that Sen. Robert Kennedy, then a presidential candidate, had just been shot in a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.

This photograph of Peter, Paul and Mary is from two negatives printed at the same time, one lying on top of the other.

One image is a front view clearly showing all three and the second I took onstage with my camera stuck between where the curtains joined, showing just a white outline of their bodies as if it was a white pen and ink drawing on a black background.

You can acquire a copy of this photo, in any of a variety of formats, at my store.