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A Q&A with the rock photographer from Greensboro.

http://forsooth.smugmug.com

Once-In-a-Lifetime Opportunity

I make my living as a freelance industrial designer, but really what I'm into is music and photography. I have been asked to be one of the six official photographers for the biggest music event in Australia. The festival is the 10th annual Byron Bay Blues Festival, but it is really more like a world festival. Every genre of music imaginable will be there. There are five stages, and I'll be shooting for five days, 12-14 hour days. We are going to document the whole event, shooting the people on stage as well as people in the crowd. Exciting is not the word for it.

I also have a show of 40 of my photographs at The Artery Gallery. The owner, David Thomas, is a Scottish piper, and he did some framing for me for another show I was doing. I was just doing the framing for myself, but he was very enthusiastic because it's so specialized, the musical photographs. He was delighted by my stuff and said they needed to have an exhibition there.

Discovering New Lands

I immigrated to America from Newcastle, Britain, in 1980 because unemployment was bad in Britain at that time. There were people with PhDs driving buses, sweeping the streets and such like this. I wanted to work as a designer in America. The prospects here were much better. So I came here and at that time in Winston-Salem and Greensboro they used to have Citystage Street Scene; it was open-air stages, and there were some of the biggest names in music here. I took photos of John Lee Hooker back in 1981. Everyone you wanted to see in your whole life was here. It could not have been better.

A love for Music

My parents liked music, but I was the one who really started the rock music thing. I got a tape recorder when I was 14 years old. My pals used to come in three nights a week, and we would sing and record stuff, things like that. The live music thing has always been the main focus. It's where the excitement and the real stuff happen. Musicians used to be tripping in the house backward and forward. There were guitars all over the place. We got a reputation. We would be playing and singing in the road. People would come up from the bus stop walking past the house and say "That's the house with the guy who plays the loud music." I was 14.

My parents were wonderful, they gave me free reign. My mother used to sing around the house, but she was into opera, which was not my cup of tea.

In the Beginning

I started taking pictures in 1978. I used to attend live concerts in Newcastle. It was the place in Britain where bands used to kick off their world tours, because it's a tough audience. If they made it there, they are ready for their world tour. All of these bands would play right around the corner from where I attended school. I would go to two concerts a week, and I had started to have an interest in photography at that point. Getting a camera was partly a requirement of a course I took. I mostly taught myself.

The first picture at a concert I ever took was Joan Armatrading. She's a black singer, West Indian, but raised in England. It was great because you could get real access to the stage without much trouble. Everyone was taking photographs -- nowadays you can't get a photo at a rock concert because they don't allow cameras in for a start. I took photographs of her, and I was hooked. The music and photo combination, that was it for me.

What He Loves About His Job

Meeting the musicians and talking with them backstage. There are so many people that I have met. It's wonderful because it's people I have admired for years, and then you get to actually talk to them backstage. It's astonishing and bizarre.

His Heroes Have Always Been ...

I am really a rock guy, I think. Keith Richards was my hero really, still is. I think he inspired more people than anyone I know. He really pays homage to Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry is a guy who can rock the guitar. I would love to shoot Buddy Guy for a start, and Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello. There is a rumor that Diana Krall is going to be playing here, and she is married to Elvis Costello. Hopefully, I could shoot them together. Elvis Costello was one of the first artists to play Newcastle City Hall. I saw him in 1971, and he was great. Good material and great songs; he's one of the best songwriters out there.

Forever Young

I'm 70 years old. My wife describes me as a "child who's grown old," which is a line from a John Prine song. Well, I'm really only 18, just outside has changed. Nothing has changed inside. I'm still just as enthusiastic about music now as I was when I was 14.

 

As told to Erin Rainwater. Contact her at eringrey718@yahoo.com

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