Bob Dylan turns 73 today! We celebrate the “song and dance man” with this image by Joe Alper, taken in 1962 at the Alper’s household in Schenectady with Dylan’s then fiancée Suze Rotolo (yes, the same one you can spot on Dylan’s Freewheelin’ Dylan album cover). This photograph was included in our 2013 Dylan Before Dylan exhibition.
Hear some of the great Italian music photographers talk about their life-long passion in “Passioni. Il suono fotogenico” on RadioTre, around 10.50am. Sat. Apri 19 and Sun. April 20: Guido Harari, Roberto Masotti, Mauro Balletti. Sat. April 26 and Sun. April 27: Cesare Monti (featured here one of his classic photographs of Fabrizio De André), Gianni Greguoli, Paolo Soriani.
Eric Clapton turns 69! We celebrate one of the greatest guitar players of all time with this classic photograph of Cream, taken somewhere in the US by the incredible Art Kane for Life magazine’s “New Rock” issue in 1968.
Guido Harari will be interviewed live tonight, from 9pm to midnight, by Red Ronnie on his “Barone Rosso” tv show. A great opportunity to hear the stories behind Guido’s photographs of Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, Jeff Buckley and many more. http://www.roxybar.tv/ricerca-programmi/
Kate Bush fans all over the world are in deep shock as the elusive artist just announced out of the blue that she will take to the stage again. 35 years since her 1979 “Tour Of Life”, Kate Bush will perform a series of 15 concerts at London’s Eventim Apollo, titled “Before The Dawn”. Tickets are expected to sell out in a second. Guido Harari has collaborated closely with Kate between 1982 and 1993, shooting her official press & promo sessions for albums like Hounds Of Love, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. He was also summoned by Kate on the set of her film The Line, The Cross & The Curve. Some of these photographs ended up on the cover of records like Rubberband Girl and Moments Of Pleasure, as well as in the booklet of the This Woman’s Work box set. Enjoy this image by Guido from 1985.
We’re deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Francesco Di Giacomo, unforgotten vocalist of Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, one of Italy’s leading prog bands from the Seventies. This photograph by Cesare Monti is culled from the shoot for the band’s historic debut album, known as “Salvadanaio” (“Money-safe”) for its money-safe shaped album cover. Like all of Cesare Monti’s images, it is available as a fine art signed/numbered print.
Happiest B-Day to Peter Gabriel! We celebrate with this incredible photograph by Guido Harari. It was taken in 1983 in Sanremo as Peter was special guesting with Shock The Monkey at the Sanremo Song Festival. He later used this and other images from the same shoot for his 1984 tour program and for the remastered edition of his 4 album. Other Peter Gabriel’s images by Guido have also been featured in the So 25th Anniversay box set and on the Live in Athens 1987 DVD cover.
Goodbye Pete Seeger! We remember the great folksinger and activist who passed away yesterday with this intimate photograph by Joe Alper. It was taken at the Seeger’s household in 1961. Alper and his wife Jackie, who worked as secretary to the famous ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, were very good friends of Seeger and the very heart of the folk scene of the late Fifties and early Sixties. Alper would shoot regularly at the legendary Caffe Lena in Sarasota Springs and at The Newport Folk and Jazz Festival. We showcased his beautiful work with Bob Dylan and the folk/blues/jazz greats in our Dylan Before Dylan show last year.
Goodbye Gary Grimshaw, one of our favorite poster artists from the Sixties. Grimshaw became famous for his rock concert posters mostly for Russ Gibb’s Grande Ballroom in Detroit, but was also a radical political activist with the John Sinclair’s White Panther Party (as their Minister of Art!) and the anti-war movement. Heavily inspired by the art of Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin, Grimshaw’s most popular images were used by MC5, The Who, The Doors, The Fugs, Cream, The Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Sun Ra.
Wall Of Sound Gallery commemorates the great singer-songwriter 15 years after his passing with Luca Greguoli‘s historic contact sheet, selected by Fabrizio in 1975 for the inner sleeve of his Volume 8 album. Luca shot the whole album package, but these contacts somehow achieved a life and a popularity of their own. Luca obtained this peculiar montage superimposing images from different negs as a sort of small diary of the album recording sessions. Volume 8 marked a new collaboration for Fabrizio with a very young Francesco De Gregori. This contact sheet, as well as several other extraordinary gems from that same shoot, are being made available now to collectors for the first time as signed/numbered fin art prints.
