Power Pop

Two current exhibits display lively photos of veteran rock’n’roll icons

There is a point while perusing Taking Aim:

Unforgettable Rock’n’Roll Photographs, selected by Graham Nash, at Rochester’s George Eastman House, that you realize there are too many photos of, well, Graham Nash. And Neil Young. And Bob Dylan. And nary a photo of some pretty important rock’n’rollers, chief among them Eric Clapton, Green Day and Patti Smith.

Still, the photos, taken by the 40 greatest music photographers led by likely the best ever, Annie Liebovitz, provide a snapshot, if you will, of the icons of classic rock, with a few rappers and punk artists thrown in. While you’re strolling, you can dial using your cell phone to get further explanation from Nash about each photo and why he selected it, and listen to the soundtrack of tunes from the musicians featured in the show.

Nash, a longtime musician with The Hollies; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, is himself a photographer, so he comes by his curatorial skills honestly. He used his eye to choose some incredible photos of rock’n’rollers, most of them in black and white. And, during an interview from his home in Hawaii, he explained what is included, and what is missing.

“I saw hundreds of thousands of images,” he said, “I checked a hundred books. I realized that I couldn’t see them all; it’s impossible to see them all. Having said that I knew I would leave something out, and so it came down to my choice. I wasn’t trying to assemble a collection of everybody’s favorites. I was establishing a collection of my favorites. I never saw a fantastic image of Eric {Clapton} that made me want to go, ‘Ah, fuck; I want to put that in.’ But what you do see is fabulous.”

Indeed. Let’s begin our tour of the fabulous at a logical point, the 1950s. Three photos of Johnny Cash (in my view more rock’n’roll than Little Richard)—one a profiled silhouette, one of him telling the warden of San Quentin how he felt (think the one-fingered salute) and the last a serene shot with June Carter resting against his chest—are good places to start. Then there’s Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley & His Comets, Elvis (naturally), a cool shot of Ray Charles on the saxophone (!), John Lee Hooker’s hand and a haunting shot of Buddy Holly on a bus in Rochester in late 1958, with snow on the ground.

“Obviously, I was a big Buddy Holly fan; I was in The Hollies, for God’s sake! But not only is the photo of Buddy, not only is it a great intimate moment in his life, not only is it two weeks before his death,” Nash explained. “But look at him: He was a bloody nerd, for God’s sake.” A nerd who, if he hadn’t died in 1959, might very well have been the greatest rock innovator of all time; his death left a void that The Beatles eventually filled.

Moving into the 1960s, we get Dylan: Dylan’s hands, Dylan kicking a tire in New York City, Dylan with Joan Baez, Dylan signing a Dylan poster, Dylan by a fence, Dylan in the commissary. Ugh; you get the point. Nash explained why there isso much Dylan: “Bob Dylan, in my opinion, is one of our greatest poets and singers and writers. The images I chose of Bob were brilliant images.”

Well, OK, but surely there was a Michael Jackson photo somewhere out there that could have been included instead of another Bob. Or, perhaps, REM?

The three Beatles pics, plus the iconic Liebovitz photo of John Lennon seemingly crawling up Yoko Ono’s flank that became a Rolling Stone cover, are scattered throughout the exhibit’s two rooms. One doesn’t even show their faces: It’s their “Beatle boots” against the carpet in the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Fla., moments before their February 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. “The feet of The Beatles?” Nash wonders. “Why the feet of The Beatles? Lynn Goldsmith was this 16-year-old with a camera and there was this incredible rush around The Beatles and she just stuck a camera through someone’s legs and took that picture.”

Across the room from that shot hang two photos of Janis Joplin. When asked why he placed those side by side, Nash didn’t hesitate. “They are both sides of a penny. In one of them she’s incredibly alluring, with the low-cut evening gown and obviously passionately into the song she’s singing. In the other one she is a complete basket case holding a bottle of Southern Comfort. The juxtaposition was quite telling as far as I’m concerned because she was always waiting for someone to invite her to the prom. She was never popular and she ran into rock’n’roll the moment she realized she had a voice and it made her popular. It made her available for people to ask her to the dance.”

Above all, it’s that power of rock music that transformed a nerd like Buddy Holly into an incredibly influential musician; turned a dumb but pretty boy from Tupelo, Miss., into the King of Rock’n’Roll; gave a loner from Aberdeen, Wash., a chance at a life he never really wanted, and who killed himself (perhaps) once he attained it; and made a funny looking, wiry guy one half of the Glimmer Twins.

“You cannot shut people up”: This 1993 photograph of Ice-T by Mark Seliger shows the rebellious nature of rock and hip-hop. Graham Nash, who selected the photo for the Eastman House exhibit, explains his decision: “You can bind and chain and gag a man and call it a fair trial. You cannot put gaffer’s tape around the mouth of musicians.”

Stage presence: Elton John performing “Crocodile Rock” at the Sundown Theatre, Edmonton, North London, 1973, as photographed by Barrie Wentzell.

And speaking of Mick Jagger, both photos of him here prove that point. One is Mick, pre-show, warming up like some sort of circus tumbler; the other, shot by fashion photographer Richard Avedon and one of the few color photos here, has Mick in a beach scene wearing the most minuscule pair of silver shorts you can imagine, his junk tucked to one side. (My 21-year-old daughter shuddered at the image.)

“I’ve known Mick since 1962,” Nash said, “and he—ugly is not the word—but he was not an attractive man, not a good handsome man, not some strapping guy. But you count off the song, and watch out. It’s that transformation that is apparent in a lot of us, that transformation from ugly duckling into swan that applies to a lot of us.”

Still, in the case of Sid Vicious, self-carved torso laced in blood, he would never become a swan, and that’s just the way he wanted it. “As much as we in the 1960s were against the establishment, and the pigs—the police—and Nixon and the war, the punks were against everything,” Nash said. “And that’s how you end up with Sid Vicious with blood all over his chest and murdering his girlfriend.”

The show doesn’t really benefit from the full-of-himself photo of Henry Rollins—such a poser! Where’s Eddie Vedder to knock that asshole off his self-selected pedestal? Which raises another point: It’s lacking in more current rockers, Pearl Jam included. Still, there is a telling portrait of Nirvana in 1990, before Dave Grohl joined the group, loner Kurt Cobain splayed across the drum kit.

There is a reason the show seems sparse in rockers after 1980, Nash said: access. “Photos of early alternative rock are not as prevalent now because of lack of access,” Nash explained. “People’s egos get in the way. Today photographers are allowed to shoot only the first three songs before the artists are all sweaty. In the early days you could go up to the guys on stage, stand there and take shots. There was much wider access.”

Now, take the image here of Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie tuning up inside their motel room. “That’s access,” Nash declares. “I love that image. She’s in her knickers in some motel somewhere. It’s not a very attractive image, but it’s a very telling image. I knew people would remember it.”

While you should venture to Rochester to see this exhibit—if you need more incentive, Nash will be speaking on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2 p.m. Details will be announced at www.eastmanhouse.org.

In the meantime, get yourself to Colgate University’s Picker Art Gallery before Dec. 17 for a smaller yet just as impressive display of photographer Barrie Wentzell’s images. Here you’ll see Eric Clapton, as well as the one point of intersection for the Eastman House exhibit and Colgate’s. He captured Elton John in 1973, when he could still be considered a rock’n’roller, performing “Crocodile Rock” in North London, England.

No Sex, No Drugs, Just Rock’n’Roll chronicles the greatest acts from the socalled golden age of rock in a more intimate setting than the show in Rochester. While a good deal of the Eastman House photos are portraits, most of the Wentzell photos capture the exuberance of the live rock’n’roll experience.

Especially notable is “The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park, 1969.” For a band that came to be known for bouncing, running and somersaulting around the stage, it’s interesting to study the confined area the band occupies. Fans stand on stage, inches away from their rock heroes, something unheard of today—sort of like Nash’s explanation of the differences in access between now and then.

A 1970 photo of a lucid Syd Barrett—before he fried his brain and became a hermit, eventually dying in 2006—offers an unusual look at the original front man of Pink Floyd, while a portrait of David Gilmour shows us what was to be.

The Colgate exhibit is quite small but dense; probably the only really big name missing is Marvin Gaye. Given the chance, however, it would be worth your while to venture to Hamilton first to get a taste of what is to come in Rochester.

No Sex, No Drugs, Just Rock’n’Roll continues at Colgate University’s Picker Art Gallery, located in the Dana Art Center on the Hamilton campus. Through Friday, Dec. 10, the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 12; from Dec. 11 to 17, call for an appointment: 228-7634. Admission is free.

The George Eastman House, 900 East Ave., Rochester, displays Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock’n’Roll Photographs through Jan. 30. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; until 8 p.m. on Thursdays; and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $6 for students and $4 for children ages 5 to 12. An accompanying exhibition, All Shook Up: Hollywood and the Evolution of Rock’n’Roll, is on view through Jan. 16. It offers several screens of motion-picture images culled from the Eastman House collection. For more information, call (585) 271-3361.

The queen of soul: Aretha Franklin, 1968, photographed by Lee Friedlander, is an artist who personifies the intersection of rock with rhythm’n’blues. Many consider hers the greatest female voice of all time.