Henry Diltz photographs

Luke

Legend
Location
Milwaukee, WI USA
Name
Luke
My lack of knowledge regarding great photographers is a bit embarrassing.

Even more so when the photos are so well known and I have been physically handling them EVERY DAY of my life for the last 20 years.

I was watching TV this morning and saw a piece on Henry Diltz. I can't find the video anywhere (maybe they wait until the show is over to put it out on the internet), but some of the photos are here...... Iconic rock star photos by Henry Diltz
 
Quite a lineup - everything from the most out there stuff (Zappa and the Mothers) to the most commercial (David Cassidy!), so I guess he was happy to take most any paying work. But what classic stuff. I don't think there were more than 5-6 of those 36 photos that I didn't instantly recall having seen many times before, and I'd probably seen those too, somewhere along the line... But who the hell was Judee Sill? The only artist in that group I'd never heard of...

-Ray
 
Check out her two albums..... self-titled and "Heart Food". My employee Terry is HEAVY into folk and he rates them VERY highly. She was part of that whole singer-songwriter group of musicians in southern California. She was an early David Geffen discovery. Her end was quite tragic.
 
Thanks Luke - she's playing on the Sonos as I type this. According to Wikipedia, she had a lot more tragic than just her end. Sounds like a real sad and largely messed up life from a pretty early age...

-Ray
 
´He took one roll of film, no lights: "I never knew how to use lights. God's light, that's all I knew, you know?"

The Cass Elliot's Picnic: amazing story (and photo).

Thanks Luke, and I would love to watch the video, so if you know where to find it..
 
I would love to watch the video, so if you know where to find it..

It's up on the network's website now........ Capturing an era of rock nobility on film

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I'd love to wade through his archive of 400,000 slides (!)
 
Henry is a friend of many years. I met him through the music business rather than photography. He may be the nicest man on the planet. He is a West Point grad and played in a group called the Modern Folk Quartet (harmonica and banjo) for several years. His success in photography was almost accidental. He is such a good guy that the musicians of the time enjoyed being with him and were comfortable with him and his camera. He was never a gear head. Many of his early pictures were with old Nikons and Vivitar lenses and flash units. He later went to smaller digital point and shot cameras. Besides promoting his old work he's been volunteering his time and talent to do photo work for up and coming bands who need pictures.
 
^ Fascinating!

And thanks for posting, Luke. I was ignorant too. I just this morning read a story about music from the canyon, and Joni was talking about that shot on Cass's lawn with Eric Clapton (and the infant), how Eric was staring at her hands as she played, and Crosby had satisfied, smug look on his face -- he knew he'd found something incredible.
 
I'm loving this thread - photography aside, it's inspiring a couple of journeys into the back catalogs of some of these artists. Joni, most specifically, who I was insanely into for a long time, but have lost touch with for the last decade or more. Interesting to see Clapton so enthralled by her guitar playing of all things. I think she was such an overwhelmingly great songwriter and such a fine singer of her own unique songs that she never got full credit for her guitar playing and general musicianship. But from some of the really orchestral fingerpicking of her early stuff to the wild tunings and incredible rhythm playing she did later in her career, she's been as remarkable a guitarist as anything else. I remember reading an old interview with some early Brit guitar god - I'm thinking it was Page but I can't swear it wasn't Clapton or even Beck, who was basically singing her praises so strongly, and above and beyond anyone else except the old blues guys he'd been appropriated material from since day 1. Such a complete and complicated and beautiful artist for so many years and who caught the popular muse for a little while early in the process. During this re-connection (again, thanks Luke!), I ran across a very recent article in New York Magazine that includes an interview and a slide show of recent photographs of her at her current age of 71. Still incredibly beautiful but in that slightly frightening way that always added to her whole mystique...

Joni Mitchell, the Original Folk-Goddess Muse, in the Season Seemingly Inspired by Her

-Ray
 
Thanks for the link, Luke. I still have all my Zappa records (pre -79) in a box somewhere, but can't remember having seen that shot #1 with the Mothers anywhere before. George Duke isn't on the shot, I miss him a darn lot.
 
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