ETHAN RUSSELL: CLASSIC ROCK'S CLASSIC PHOTOGRAPHER
Okay, so in case you're not up on the latest selection of interactive rock and roll photography books making headlines this week, "An American Story: It's Your History. Help Write It", the interactive photography compilation featuring the work of famed rock photographer Ethan Russell is now available for iPad, iPhone, Nook, and all Kindle devices. And in case you don't happen to have any of the aforementioned products with which to view the "iconic" images captured by Russell in his fifty-year plus career as a rock photographer, you can glimpse a sample of what awaits readers by visiting this
link. Before you do, though, I thought it might be interesting to revisit some of the rock and roll moments that served as the basis for the book's fascinating imagery. Because there are some incredible moments behind the photographs that make up this noteworthy collection by the only photographer to have shot album covers for the three bands that comprise what is, essentially, the holy trinity of classic rock and roll bands...namely, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who.
JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO, WEYBRIDGE, ENGLAND, 1968: "JOHN CALLED ME UP ONE DAY," RUSSELL SAYS, AND THE REST IS PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
Born in Mount Kisco, New York on November 26, 1945 and raised in Manhattan and San Franciso, Ethan Russell became interested in photography at an early age, but didn't pursue it professionally until he graduated from college and relocated to England. After settling into a flat "decorated with psychedelic posters" in London, he embarked briefly on a writing career whilst working part time as a photographer in a home for autistic children. In 1968, when he was 23, Russell was introduced to Mick Jagger, who, after seeing Russell's work, invited the "lanky Californian" to accompany the Rolling Stones on tour. From 1968 to 1972, Russell served as the main photographer for the band, a position which allowed him to capture images of the band members during some of their most intimate moments. Russell's photograph of Brian Jones, draped over a statue of Christopher Robin (one of the characters in A.A. Milne's "Winnie The Pooh" ) as he brandished a gun was published shortly before the musician's death in 1969, creating a minor maelstrom for Jones, who had already reaped his share of bad press for a number of other, equally ill-considered displays of bad taste, including the donning of a Nazi uniform in which he posed for photographs taken by his then girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. Even so, Russell's photographs of the Stones during that period in their career, some of which have never been published before now, are considered to be some of the most compelling images of the band ever committed to film. But the highlight of Russell's association with the Rolling Stones is probably the photograph which adorns the cover of their 1969 album, "Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. 2)", which the photographer dedicated to Brian Jones, who had been found dead in his pool earlier that year. Russell's photographs were also used on the cover of "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones In Concert", which was recorded during the Stones' 1969 tour.
RUSSELL DEDICATED THE COVER PHOTOGRAPH TO THE RECENTLY DECEASED BRIAN JONES
1969 was also the year that Russell met the Beatles for the first time. The band members were already familiar with his work through his association with the Stones, but it was the their road manager Neil Aspinsall who first approached the photographer, inviting him to Twickenham Studios where the band were recording tracks for "Let It Be", which would turn out to be their final album. Russell's individual photographic portraits of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, which adorn the album's cover, have become an important part of the band's mythology, seen by some as a symbol of the increasing personal and artistic distance between the four band members during the making of the album. Especially since, uuntil that time, the Beatles had always appeared as a unit on their album covers. Russell was present as well when the Beatles performed as a band for the final time on the roof of Apple studios, the only photographer allowed access to the band during that historic event. The resulting photographs capture heretofore unseen nuances of the occasion, most of which were never accessible to the public prior to the release of Russell's interactive book. Looking back on the experience for the benefit of his readers, Russell says that it's hard to believe that he was the sole chronicler of the Beatles' farewell performance. "If I had done it today," he says, "I'd have 15 assistants and 50 cameras. And it was me with no assistant and two cameras."
THE BEATLES FINAL PERFORMANCE ATOP THE ROOF OF APPLE STUDIOS IN 1969
Russell's relationship with The Who began when he traveled with the band when they went on tour in England in 1971. According to Russell, he was a passenger in a car driven by Who guitarist Pete Townsend, with whom he had been discussing ideas for the cover of the band's upcoming "Who's Next" album. As they drove past the English countryside ("at about 120 miles an hour", Russell recalls) he spotted "shapes" in a field and suggested that they stop to take some photographs for possible use on the album cover. "Everybody turns around and we walk out onto this slag," Russell recalls in his book. "I look up after a minute and Pete's pissed on it. I started taking picture. The others couldn't piss, so we filled old cans with water and dumped it on the thing. I took maybe 14 pictures. Today, I'd take about 400. It was nothing like today. No art directors. No stylists. No nothing. It was off to the record company in two days." The photograph of Pete Townsend and company pissing (and pretending to piss) on the unidentified stone structure became one of the most famous album covers in rock and roll, garnering praise not only from rock fans, but from the members of The Who as well. Pete Townsend has described Russell as "the civilised eye of an uncivilised art form---rock and roll." The positive reception Russell recieved for the photograph led to further work with the band in 1973, when his photographs were used on the cover of "Quadrophenia". In 1988, Russell's work was featured once again by the band, on the cover of the 1988 "Who's Better, Who's Best" compilation album.
WHO'S NEXT: THE STAINS WERE MOSTLY WATER, BUT THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS GOLD
Of course, Russell's career as rock and roll's premier photographer wasn't confined to shooting album covers for The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Who. He shot three album covers for country rock star Linda Ronstadt, one of which, for her 1976 album "Hasten Down The Wind" features the singer on the beach outside her house in Malibu with a horse and rider sillohuetted in the background. "She was self-conscious about her new level of wealth," Russell recalls. "Still, she earned it. She could sing like an angel, or the girl you were dying to date." As he prepared to take the photograph that would eventually be used for the cover of "Hasten Down The Wind", Russell says, Ronstadt got nervous and said "Don't shoot. You'll scare the horse." Luckily for Linda Ronstadt fans, it was too late. Russell had already taken the shot.
THE ALBUM COVER FOR "HASTEN DOWN THE WIND" CAUGHT RONSTADT ON THE FAST TRACK
Another rock star whose image was captured by Russell's ready camera was Jim Morrison, the controversial and unapologetically eccentric lead singer for The Doors. Russell says that he "didn't really get" Morrison's energy at the time, finding some of his interactions with the media "a little petulant", but admits that he has more appreciation for him now. "Jim Morrison didn’t leap off the page for me when I saw him at London’s Roundhouse in 1968," Russell says. "...for whatever reason that night, I didn’t get it." Looking back now, though, the photographer thinks that it might have been that "Morrison was a "little out of step with the 60s...he took the longer view...if your words live after you, I think it's fair to say that you have succeeded in life." Words...
and photographs. And when it comes to photographs, Russell's portfolio boasts more than a few candidates for pop culture longevity.
JIM MORRISON: RUSSELL SAYS HE DIDN'T REALLY "GET HIS ENERGY" AT THE TIME
One of Russell's most famous photographs, in which a surly-looking Keith Richards is shown standing beside a poster emblazoned with the words "Patience Please. A Drug-Free America Comes First" as he and the rest of the band waited to be allowed into the United States after having been detained in Canada due to concerns about the Stones' drug use, has been touted by some as the defining image of the Stones guitarist. But it is another, less well-known known image of Richards that the photographer himself believes captures the true essence of the man behind "Satisfaction" and "Gimme Shelter."
"PATIENCE PLEASE": THE PHOTOGRAPH MANY CONSIDER THE BEST IN ROCK AND ROLL
The "Patience Please" photograph shows an image of Keith "in wolf's clothing--or sheep's clothing. really", Russell says. Instead, it is a photograph he took of Richards in 1969 that he considers to be the best he ever took of the Rolling Stone. "...Keith Richards is this picture right here," he says. "That's Keith Richards. We're in the basement room at Stephen Stills' house. You're just so close to Keith. Everything about the picture works for me. It's the intimacy and the fact he's so engaged with the music and that tiny Fender amp, and a drink at 11:00 in the morning."
"REALLY KEITH": KEITH RICHARDS AT STEPHEN STILLS' HOUSE IN 1969
"An American Story. It's Your History. Help Write It" contains over 250 previously unpublished photographs of rock and roll's elite, as well as concert footage, a recording of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech, and Bruce Springsteen's "Point Blank." In keeping with the book's title, readers are invited to visit Russell's blog to add their own stories and experiences and comments. But for those who love rock and roll, the book is more than just an opportunity to look at previously unseen photographs and reminisce about the artists whose "iconic" images have been captured by Russell over the years. In her foreword to the book, Roseanne Cash, daughter of Johnny Cash, whose photographs are also featured, sums up the importance of "American Story" with the following lines: "
An ambitious, startling, game-changing book about (Ethan’s) life and our times. It is a work writ breathtakingly large, assembled with an enormous heart and an intellect to equal it; meticulous, personal and universal. It is a venture utterly new but so evolved it feels like it has always existed.”
ETHAN RUSSELL AND ROSEANNE CASH: ONE MORE IMAGE IN THE EVER EVOLVING "AMERICAN STORY" THAT IS THE HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL
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