Tag: photography

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News

U of M To Receive Warhol Photos

CREDIT: image: britanica.com

The University of Memphis is one of 183 universities selected to receive original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints by the late Pop artist Andy Warhol.

The photos and prints are being donated by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program in recognition of its 20th anniversary. More than 28,000 of these works, valued at $28 million, will go to university and college galleries. Each gallery will receive approximately 150 photos.

The photos are expected to arrive at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis in January.

The foundation’s goal for the donation to provide greater access to Warhol’s work.

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Music Music Features

R.I.P. Punk

For the last several years, Los Angeles-based photographer Theresa Kereakes has focused her lens on Memphis garage-rock icons such as Monsieur Jeffrey Evans, Jack Yarber, and Harlan T. Bobo, adding their images to her already vast musical pantheon.

Late last month, as part of a continental “tour” that includes stops in Atlanta, Toronto, Houston, and Oxford, Mississippi, Kereakes returned to Memphis — not to shoot more photos, but to begin installing an exhibit of her work, which goes on display at Goner Records Thursday, November 1st.

Titled “Punk Rock Day of the Dead,” there’s not a Memphis musician in the bunch. Instead, Kereakes — who showed past work here as part of 2005’s Gonerfest 2 — turns a critical eye on “live fast, die young” L.A. musicians such as Germs frontman Darby Crash, who died of a drug overdose in 1980; AIDS casualties such as Black Randy (who founded West Coast art-punk group Metrosquad) and Lance Loud; Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who died of a brain hemorrhage at 37; and former Cramps guitarist Bryan Gregory, who dropped dead of a heart attack four years before his 50th birthday.

“Out of all the people I have pictures of, the ones who really resonate are the dead guys,” admits Kereakes, who, during punk’s heyday, also captured legends like Johnny Thunders, who died under mysterious circumstances in New Orleans when he was just 38, and Stiv Bators, the cocksure Dead Boys vocalist who died in his sleep after being struck down by a Paris taxi.

“One time, Stiv painted ‘R.I.P. Sid Vicious’ on a billboard for the movie Heaven Can Wait,” she recalls. “He called me up and said, ‘You know, Sid’s died. You’ve got to come see this billboard on Sunset [Boulevard].’ I shot a picture of it, which was used as the lead picture for Creem magazine’s obituary of Sid.

“Later on, when Stiv was touring with Lords of the New Church for the last time, he’d become such a monster. He was doing every kind of speed imaginable, which turned him into the biggest jackass. I’d still drive him around and take him places, but I was angry at him. Then someone called me from Paris and said Stiv was dead. I said, ‘Put him on the phone — now,’ because he was someone who’d fake death two or three times a week. But they said that he was really dead.”

Today, Kereakes considers herself a survivor of a scene where “even the ones who weren’t drug addicts, alcoholics, or complete fuck-ups” are lucky to be alive.

“We’d drive all night to concerts. I remember doing a five-hour drive in the rain to San Francisco to see the Sex Pistols. I’ve lived fast and hard, and somebody’s been watching over me. It puts a lot of things in perspective,” she says.

“Back in the day, during the first punk rock gestalt, I think we had the right degree of narcissism. We knew we were special. We were gonna take over the world,” says Kereakes, whose ’70s-era portraits of the Cramps, Avengers vocalist Penelope Houston, and the Velvet Underground‘s John Cale appear in Punk 365, Holly George-Warren‘s coffee-table tome on the musical genre, published by Abrams this month as part of the 30th anniversary of a revolution that began with the October ’77 release of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.

“I couldn’t do this show in my hometown,” Kereakes declares of “Punk Rock Day of the Dead.” “In L.A., there’d be so many expectations. They knew all of these people already, and there’s so much information people would bring to the party — too much ‘I don’t like that guy.’

“Memphis is different,” she says. “It’s more fun, because people really like the music, and there’s no judgment about the musicians. I find this town so warm and welcoming. I’m a huge Oblivians fan and to be able to walk into a place and find people like Jack, Eric [Friedl, founder of the Goner Records label], and Jeff Evans, and document what they do seems so important.”

Surveying her work, which includes a portrait of an uncharacteristically fragile-looking Darby Crash holding an acoustic guitar and an action shot of Stiv Bators sharing the spotlight with Dee Dee Ramone, Kereakes says of her numerous friends who have crossed over from notoriety to immortality, “Unfortunately, dead, they’re worth a whole lot more.”

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Music Music Features

Listening to Ernest Withers

I have a print of an Ernest Withers photograph hanging on my office wall. It’s a portrait of Bilbo Brown, a sad-faced clown who worked with the circa-1940s entertainment troupe called the Brown Skin Follies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this image of a wearied and wary entertainer, his brown face further darkened with cork, serves as a perfect avatar for other misguided African-American talents ranging from Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, and Sam Cooke to Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, and T.I., both predicting and predicating their missteps by decades.

When Withers died at age 85 on October 15th, a huge portion of this city’s history died with him. Google the Brown Skin Follies and scant information is returned; had you queried Withers on the subject, you’d have gotten remarkable tales about long-forgotten clubs like the Flamingo Room and the Hippodrome, two venues that were part of what the photographer coined “a separate America,” where he could augment his policeman’s salary making “fifty, sixty dollars a night — maybe a hundred, being seen, making pictures” for a buck-and-a-half apiece.

I doubt anyone wandering down Beale Street with a daiquiri in their hand this weekend could give a damn about the history of that storied district, but Withers, who rented a space for his studio at 333 Beale for the last decade, would often pause to explain, “When people go to blues shows now there’s a combination of all people. But [in the old days] it was ninety-nine and forty-four hundredths percent African American people. It wasn’t a mixed crowd.

“The Hippodrome was at the east end of Beale, between the Hunt-Phelan home and the Martin Luther King Labor Center. It was originally a skating rink. When that declined, they turned it into a one-night-stand facility. At other places, black people had to go up through the back to see the big acts,” he said, referencing once-segregated venues like Ellis Auditorium and the Orpheum Theatre. “The acts were African-American, so why did the African-American people have to sit up in the gallery? So the Hippodrome was opened for blacks only. It held five or six thousand — and it was always a packed house.”

Withers also told me stories about the Flamingo Club, which was located on Hernando Street between Beale and Gayoso. “For a number of years,” he said, “the Flamingo Club was the legendary Hotel Men’s Improvement Club, a group of Negro men who were waiters or what-have-you, who worked in the hotels. The management sold it to Clifford Miller, who changed its name to the Flamingo Club. This is after the early days of corn whiskey, but before the liquor-by-the-drink period. The club sold set-ups and you brought in your own bottle. Or you could make a deal with a bootlegger — go outside and buy a bottle of whiskey from him.

“White people,” he explained, “used to come on Beale Street to the Palace Theatre on a special night for white attendance at the Midnight Ramble. At a given night at the Midnight Ramble, the black theater switched to whites only. They didn’t put signs up. It was just understood: no black people. And the same thing would happen for black people at North Hall.”

Despite segregation, Memphis’ music scene in those days was wide open, and Withers captured it all: B.B. King and band lined up in front of their tour bus; Howlin’ Wolf performing at a grocery store; Elvis Presley and Rufus Thomas backstage at a WDIA Goodwill Revue; Lionel Hampton onstage at the Hippodrome; the Finas Newborn Orchestra hamming it up at the Flamingo Room; the Teen Town Singers with a young Isaac Hayes; Ray Charles at North Hall; and hundreds more pictures that have become an indelible part of the American music psyche.

“Being backed by good players can strengthen your confidence,” says Jeff Hulett, drummer-turned-guitar slinger, who plays a free show with his group Jeffrey James and the Haul at the Blue Monkey Thursday, October 25th.

“At first, it was kinda nerve-wracking, but now that I’ve been doing it awhile, I’m pretty comfortable with it,” says the perennially good-natured Hulett, who formed the Haul two years ago after his other band, Snowglobe, went on hiatus.

“I picked up the guitar in 2000 or 2001 and learned a few chords from friends,” Hulett says. “We started playing at Kudzu’s, and eventually graduated to the Hi-Tone and the Buccaneer.”

For more on the Haul, who plan to record a follow-up to their 2006 debut Win the National Championship this winter, go to MySpace.com/JeffreyJamesAndTheHaul.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Importance of Having Been Ernest

Mourners of Ernest Withers filled the Pentecostal Temple Institutional Church of God in Christ downtown Saturday afternoon to celebrate the homegoing of the world-renowned photographer.

Withers, who died October 15th at the age 85, left a vast body of work that chronicled the Beale Street blues and the birth of rock-and-roll in 1950s Memphis, and the Civil Rights movement across America.

At the service, friends, family members, and public officials eulogized Withers with a celebratory tone.

Afrocentric spiritualist Ekpe Abioto, dressed in ceremonial boubou, tapped a Congo drum and whistled through panpipes as he led the Withers family into church and down the aisle of the expansive, blue-carpeted sanctuary.

From the pulpit, Abioto delivered the libation, assuring the crowd that “death is only a fulfillment of life.” He asked that both the oldest and youngest people in the room — a COGIC minister in his 90s and a two-month-old baby — identify themselves and be recognized.

Trumpeter Mickey Gregory, a former Stax Records session player and Beale Street club entertainer, represented Withers’ ties to the music industry, performing the popular Thomas A. Dorsey gospel composition “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”

Memphis mayor Willie Herenton called Withers a “giant and a genius,” expressing his gratitude to God “that I, Willie Herenton, had the privilege of kneeling at [Withers’] feet.

“They don’t put just anybody’s obituary in The New York Times,” he reminded the audience.

The Reverend Samuel Kyles also eulogized Withers: “It is said that a drop of water can knock holes in stone, not by violence, but by oft-falling.” Like that drop of water on the stone, Withers’ “camera knocked holes in the stones of ignorance one click at a time.”

Beale Street developer John Elkington promised “there will always be a Withers gallery on Beale.” He said he once asked Withers if he’d been afraid photographing civil rights-era riots and episodes of police brutality.

“No,” Withers told Elkington. “I was too busy working.”

Finally, family members evoked tender and personal memories of Withers playing on the floor and watching cartoons with his grandchildren. “He saw the world through our eyes,” Withers’ granddaughter, Esi Sawyer, recalled.

Those gathered, and the photographer’s many admirers, would agree that we’re better for having seen the world through his.

A procession down Beale Street, past the last of Withers’ six offices located on the strip over the years, and interment at Elmwood Cemetery followed. Dorothy, Withers’ wife of 65 years, four of their eight children, and numerous grandchildren survive him.

Categories
News

Ernest Withers Goes Home: “He Saw the World Through Our Eyes”

CREDIT: p.l.

Mourners of Ernest Withers filled the Pentecostal Temple Institutional Church of God in Christ downtown Saturday afternoon to celebrate the home-going of the world-renowned photographer who died Monday at age 85.

A celebratory tone prevailed among the many friends, family members, and public officials who spoke at the funeral. Eulogists represented the many facets of Withers’ life.

Afro-centric spiritualist Ekpe Abioto assured the crowd that “death is a fulfillment of life.� Trumpeter Mickey Gregory, a former Stax Records session player and Beale Street club entertainer represented Withers’ rhythm and blues associates, though he performed the popular gospel composition “Take My Hand Precious Lord.�

Mayor Willie Herenton called Withers a “giant and a genius,� expressing his gratitude to God “that I Willie Herenton had the privilege of kneeling at [Withers’] feet.

“They don’t put just anybody’s obituary in the New York Times,� he reminded the audience.

Reverend Samuel “Billy� Kyles, said that like the drop of water that knocks holes in stone by oft-falling, Withers “camera knocked holes in the stones of ignorance one click at a time.�

Beale Street developer John Elkington promised “there will always be a Withers gallery on Beale.� He added that he once asked Withers if he’d been afraid photographing civil rights era riots and episodes of police brutality.

“No,� Withers told Elkington. “I was too busy working.�

Finally, a family member evoked tender personal memories of Withers playing on the floor and watching cartoons with his grandchildren. “He saw the world through our eyes,� Withers’ granddaughter Esi Sawyer recalled.

Those gathered would agree that we’re better for having seen the world through his.

A procession down Beale Street and interment at Elmwood Cemetery followed.

###

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Ernest Withers

Ernest Withers, who died this week at age 85, was a giant of American photography. Like a real-life Zelig, Withers seemingly was everywhere — documenting the most pivotal moments of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Negro baseball leagues, jazz and blues greats, scenes of Beale Street in its pre-tourist heyday, weddings, funerals, and parties. Withers captured African-American life in the South like no other.

He photographed Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, B.B. King, and Aretha Franklin, to name just a very few of his notable subjects. Withers was in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, documenting the bus strike in the wake of Rosa Parks’ arrest. He rode buses with Martin Luther King Jr. His famous “I AM A MAN” photos of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike are in American history books, as well they should be.

Withers was a modest, soft-spoken man who tended to his large and loving family to the same noble degree that he did to his photography. And like many Memphis icons, he was probably taken somewhat for granted. But Withers never stopped working. In recent years, he could be seen moving through the crowd at social events, charging revelers a modest fee for instant photos of themselves. It’s likely that many of those who bought a picture had no idea they’d just purchased a piece by one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers.

He will be missed, like few others. His legacy will live on in the photos he created.

And if there are any biographers out there looking for a subject whose life could fill several volumes, we’ve got your man.

Another Mock Issue

In their zeal to oppose the reelection effort of 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, certain of his adversaries went out of their way to mischaracterize Cohen’s vote for hate-crimes legislation. The congressman was verbally flagellated as a would-be muzzler of ministers who might want to oppose homosexuality from their pulpits.

Fortunately, counsels have arisen within the African-American religious community to rebut the accusations against the bill and against Cohen. But now another campaign has been launched against the congressman — this time for his refusal to support a congressional resolution affirming that the Ottoman Turks committed genocide against an Armenian minority in the years following World War I.

We do not dispute the allegation concerning events that are now almost a century old. Nor do we contend that the lobbying effort on behalf of this resolution, led locally by one Dany Beylerian, an ethnic Armenian, is anything but sincere.

But, like Cohen, we find the resolution to be ill-timed. Why aim a provocative accusation at an American ally, Turkey, when that government, considerably evolved from its Ottoman past, is not known to be planning any such malice?

And why should a congressman from Memphis vote so as to insult a currently unoffending nation that is the 2008 Memphis in May honoree? Yes, Cohen, as a white Southener, sponsored a resolution apologizing for slavery. In the same way, it is up to the Turks themselves to acknowledge their darker history.

Categories
Book Features Books

Photo Finish

CREDIT: From Roadwork

In the spring of 1962, Tom Wright was in his late teens and an American studying photography at Ealing Art School in London. He was also already a heavy drinker and pot smoker, but he had two things going for him: talent and an impressive R&B record collection. Then he met Pete Townshend. Townshend was at Ealing too, and Wright turned Townshend, guitarist at the time for a band called the Detours, onto both the blues and to pot.

In the fall of ’62, however, English authorities busted Wright for marijuana possession. They ordered him out of England, but his albums fell into good hands — Townshend’s hands. Townshend, for his part, went on to found the Who. Wright fled to France and … and … well, you name it, Wright did it. But you don’t have to name it. Wright, in Roadwork, a memoir and collection of over 200 of his black-and-white photos, does it for you:

“From the late ’70s until the early ’90s, I was a walking garage sale, moving from one place to another. I wound up doing odd jobs, and if I wasn’t asleep, I was drinking. Not just drinking, but revenge drinking: passing out, not wanting to wake up.”

But he did wake up, and he was armed.

“For two decades,” according to Wright, “I wore my camera like a gun in a belt. I’d wake up with it around my neck — I didn’t want to miss anything … . To me, a new roll of film was like a fresh clip of silver bullets.”

So Wright began to shoot his friends, onstage and off: the Who, the Blues Magoos, the Faces, the James Gang, the Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, and the Eagles. But Wright wasn’t always on the road. He once managed Detroit’s ground zero of hard rock, the Grande, which meant he got to hang out with (and photograph) the MC5. He also once married and fathered a son by a woman he hardly knew, which meant the marriage didn’t last. And he once established an art school in a derelict building in downtown Austin, but he took off from it too.

Where Wright ended up (in the mid-’80s and in his mid-40s) was Divine,Texas, where he lived alone inside an abandoned bank building — abandoned except for his boxes, trunks, and footlockers full of photos: an estimated half-million photos, including early publicity shots of the Who (in a field outside Jackson, Mississippi); of Joe Walsh atop a motorcycle (for the James Gang’s Rides Again); of Rod Stewart (blotto) after a show; of Ron Wood enjoying a joint; and of Don Henley looking as you always pictured him: a real sourpuss. Count in, in Roadwork, an assortment of groupie shots and roadie shots, and you have a portrait of an era, but it isn’t all rock in Roadwork, and it isn’t all fun and games. There’s fine-art photography here too. And there’s some personal coming-to-terms:

“If someone had told me back in ’62 that I’d be living alone, smoking cigars, and watching my hair fall out when I was forty, I probably would’ve blown my brains out,” Wright writes of his days in Divine. But Wright didn’t blow his brains out. He simply survived a heart attack and rehab. And as for his prints, negatives, slides, writings, and tapes: The University of Texas has done its duty. It’s keeping Wright’s work in safekeeping.

But first, it was Wright’s duty to get it right — not the least of which: introduce Pete Townshend to his library of the blues. Townshend returned the favor and, according to Wright, turned him into rock’s go-to “photo guy.” Back in the ’60s, the times were right for it. Wright and Townshend were right for it:

“Both of our lives were changed drastically by meeting each other — and therein lays a microcosm of the era. Nitro was splashed on glycerin all those years ago, and people’s lives and new dreams were exploding all over the place … all over the world. As a witness to that rock renaissance, that rock revolution, I was a sort of custodian of cultural and social history. And it was my duty to get it all down.”

Wright did and in Roadwork does.

Roadwork: Rock & Roll Turned Inside Out

By Tom Wright, with Susan VanHecke

Hal Leonard Books, 303 pp., $29.95

Categories
News News Feature

King for a Day

What inspired you to photograph this world?

Feinberg: Years before I was a full-time photographer, I got a glimpse into this world on an earlier trip to Memphis. I remember leaving town to head back to New York City about the same time a whole bunch of people with sideburns were making their way into town. This was the beginning of Elvis Week, when fans from all over the world make the annual pilgrimage to Graceland in the days leading up to August 16th, the day Elvis forever “left the building.” I knew instantly that I had to document this scene. A few years later, I

Students, businessmen, actors, waiters, mechanics, attorneys: King for a Day features photos of dozens of Elvis tribute artists from all walks of life. According to photographer Erin Feinberg, ‘Elvis Presley is their religion.’

returned, not really knowing fully what to expect. I have to say that I have rarely been welcomed so openly by a group of strangers. Through photographs, I wanted to convey the enduring parts of Elvis Presley’s legacy.

Who are the subjects in the book? What are they like?

They are everyone. They come from all walks of life, from across the globe, with a variety of outfits, songs to sing, and stories to share with whoever will listen. They are students, businessmen, actors, waiters, mechanics, attorneys … you name it. Some dress up like the King on their days off, and others are full-time performers. Some are more successful at emulating him than others, but they all have one thing in common: a love of Elvis and his music. Elvis Presley is their religion.

How did you choose the impersonators featured in Your book?

When I first went down to Memphis, I had no idea that I would be photographing over 100 impersonators. I really didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that I wanted to explore the subculture. All of these impersonators (or “tribute artists,” as many like to be called)

intrigued me for different reasons. Most of the people I ended up photographing were competing in the annual “Images of the King” contest. And there were a few that I just met on the street. All the photographs were taken in Memphis during Elvis Week of 2005 and 2006. I set up a studio at the Holiday Inn where “Images of the King” is held.

What do you think Elvis would have thought of King For a Day?

I think he would have gotten a kick out of it. I think he would have been flattered, and he surely would have had a few laughs too. Actually, at the beginning of the book, there is a letter that Elvis wrote to an impersonator expressing his sincere appreciation.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall

The Big Picture

“Can photographers be plagiarists?” That’s the question art journalist David Segal asks this week at Slate.com. “The line between ‘inspired by’ and ‘copied from’ is fuzzy,” he says, juxtaposing two dissimilar photographs of the backs of women’s heads by Memphis’ most acclaimed cameraman, William Eggleston, and rising art star Christian Patterson, who spent the last several years working and shooting with Eggleston.

Eggleston’s image is set in a Hopper-esque diner circa 1964, and the subject’s vertical hairdo calls to mind the noirish films of David Lynch. Patterson’s alleged copy is set in a colorless metal-and-tile Laundromat circa 2005, and the subject’s crazy curlers call to mind the films of John Waters. Is Segal trying to start a feud between teacher and student by suggesting Eggleston somehow owns the backs of women’s heads?

Headlines

Memphis felt like Hooterville this week thanks to headlines in The Commercial Appeal such as “Cold Out Yonder” and “Nature Center Showcases Critters.” Maybe when things warm up the newspaper will devote coverage to the region’s many fine “cement ponds.”

Hard Left

BallerStatus.com, an online source for hip-hop news, recently interviewed Three 6 Mafia, and the Oscar-winning rappers were candid when asked about the difficulties of adjusting to life on the West Coast.

“Juicy J: Bills don’t stop coming out there man. It’s all good if you work hard at what you do. … We can write all kinds of music and we shouldn’t have no problem keeping them bills paid, right?

DJ Paul: There’s a lot of drinking and partying going on in L.A., so that’s what we do. That’s what I do.”

Thank goodness DJP and JJ have parties and booze to keep their minds off all that crushing debt.