WEBVTT - Joel Bernstein 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:13.119 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back the Bob Left Sets podcast. My 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.640 guest today is a photographer, Goel Burnstein. Joel, how did 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:18.320 you get started? 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.160 Probably when my parents gave me a little brownie Hawkeye 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.319 camera like a kid as a kid and started and 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:31.680 being interesting and it interested in it. I started playing 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.400 ukulele at five or six, and then guitar, so I 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.320 actually was really into music before I picked up a camera, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.840 and that informed I. Don't I guess how I my subjects. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:45.839 I was like. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.880 The first pictures that I developed and printed by myself 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.720 for the then unknown young Joni Mitchell in a coffeehouse 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.080 where she was doing three sets a night for about 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:58.240 Let's load on. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.120 Let's load up. How'd you pick up the ukulele at 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:01.800 age five? 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.520 Well, I just was. I went to. Here's what I 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.160 realized later, unbeknownst to me, I was part of the 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.120 second American folk music revival that started in nineteen fifty 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:19.959 seven with the Kingston Trio having a number one hit 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.360 with the folk song Hanging Down Your Head Tom Dooley, 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:27.679 and that started the American folk music craze that you know, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.240 took off from nineteen seven, went, you know, all the 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:38.160 way till Bob Noe went electric basically till nineteen sixty five. Okay, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.360 so I was part of that growing up, and I 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.080 just had I had lessons, guitar lessons. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.440 Wait a little bit, So it's nineteen fifty seven, you're 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.320 a student of the game. How do you become aware 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.840 of the folk revival? 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:59.080 Oh? Not until well, at the time, we had what 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.120 were called wing ding, which were home little parties that 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.640 were about bringing your guitar or you're ukulele in and 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.680 people would sit in a circle and you'd have like 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.359 hot cider or snacks, and you would play people what 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.799 you just learned, and they would pass the guitar around 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:19.640 in a circle, or if you brought your own guitar. 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.119 And that's something I did when I was like five 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:24.200 or six. You know. 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.800 Okay, no one likes to talk about age, but what 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:27.639 year were you born? 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.600 Nineteen fifty two. I'm eleven months older than you, Bob. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.920 I was just going to say that we have a 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.880 lot in I remember listening to Rough and Ready records 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.480 at age five. I remember, you know, wing Bang Wuil 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:46.600 Walla bing Bang. But for me, I found out about 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.560 most of these folk songs at summer camp. But sure 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.679 in terms of five, that's very early. What was going on. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.080 I mean it was early. 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:01.600 I was just interested in it. I don't let's see, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.520 it was not that uncommon. Honestly. When I started, I 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.519 was in like a group class with five or six 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.880 kids learning to play ukulele, and at some point the 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.119 guitar teacher telling us to close our eyes and tell 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.800 us what chord he was playing on the guitar, and 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.720 I was the only kid who could do it, which 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.800 really surprised me, Like it was obvious to me, like, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.720 of course, that's a g chord because I can hear 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.280 the high notes up at the top or whatever. I 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:30.720 had clues, audio clues in my head, so I got 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:35.480 into that started me off on. Then when hearing things 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.000 on the radio, I wanted to know what chords they were, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.280 so I would sit with Beatle records. You'll remember that 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.560 some of the early records had the vocals on one 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.160 side and the band on the other side. So if 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.000 you had a friend who had a whose parents had 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.040 a stereo, you could move the balance control and just 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.720 hear the vocals so you could learn the harmonies, or 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:00.720 you could just hear the guitar part on the other 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.080 side and figure out the guitar chords. So I started 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:05.240 doing that when I was really young. 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:11.040 Okay, you started with ukulele, nice Jewish boy. Didn't your 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.520 parents say you had to take piano lessons? No? 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.000 They I think they probably tried, actually to get me 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.440 to play piano at some point. It wasn't for me. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:26.920 I folks, learning folk guitar was really easy to me, 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:33.480 and I gosh, I think I played on a local 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.320 TV station. I played Puff the Magic Dragon when I 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.320 was maybe six or seven something like that, as I remember. 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.919 But I never wanted to be a performer any. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.760 Okay, but you were pretty good at it. You had 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.960 a natural ability. Yeah, yes, okay, So the folk revival happens. Ultimately, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.919 there's a TV show Who Nanny Long you know, into this. 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.240 But when Bob Dylan's first album comes out Joan Baiez 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.720 before that, phil Oaks. Is that stuff you're aware of? 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.760 Yes, but I like only peripherally because I'm learning actual 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.800 folk songs and unbeknown I actually was given Let's say, 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.560 my guitar teacher said, could you send one of your students? 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.719 Were doing a thing at the y MHA of what 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.360 is a folk song, so we'd like you, you know, 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.960 just pick a student to be there. So I went 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.039 and I wasn't thinking about it too much. I was 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:35.159 going to play a song, and I played Blowing in 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:40.640 the Wind for this panel of adults. And it turns 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.359 out that the lead person was a major figure in 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.799 the folk music scene I know now named doctor Kenneth Goldstein, 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.159 who gently, you know, let me know that that actually 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:57.720 wasn't a folk song and explained to me the difference 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.640 between you know, I I didn't distinguish at the time. 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.240 Now I'm very deeply into the distinguishing one from the other, 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.800 the singer songwriters. But that's how I got into the 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.800 from folk music, and you know, learning those guitar chords 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.360 and then figuring out how to play them, that's how. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.160 I okay, how did you segue from ukulele to guitar? 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.960 So the guitar is just two more strings. The chords 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.279 are the first four strings are the same on a 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.280 guitar as the four strings of a ukulele. So if 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.719 you learn the ukulele and then you learn to play 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.239 a guitar, you only have two more strings to learn. 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:38.600 So I think that's something that was kind of common 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.240 at the time, And there's a picture of me asleep 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.080 my mom took with my ukulele resting by my head 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.480 at like I've played it till I've fallen asleep in 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.760 my bed at nine years old. So it's kind of 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:55.360 a funny thing. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.000 When was the last time you played a ukulele? 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.640 Probably around then. I didn't go back after I learned 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.000 to play guitars, very exciting to learn to play the 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:11.400 much fuller notes of the and of course, like many 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:17.160 other folkies, including David Crosby, when when I heard the Beatles, 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.160 I was like, I know those chords. I know all 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:21.040 of those chords. 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:22.120 Right. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.080 That takes your head and puts it in a different 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.120 direction than folk music like it did his. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.280 You know. Okay, So where do you grow up. 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.520 Suburban Philadelphia? I was in Teltenham Township. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.080 And how far is that from downtown from the action? 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.200 Oh, it's still like eight or nine miles. It's a 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.320 near suburb, just over the city line of Philadelphia. 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.920 How'd your family end up in the Philadelphia area? 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.920 You know, they were from there, from a big family 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:58.440 in New York. My grandparents were I came from the 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.680 area around Poland and Russia. And settled in the Lower 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:09.760 East Side, and my grandparents, Uh, they had a tragic 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:15.120 two tragic accidents with in which their first two children, 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.920 their eldest children, were killed in different accidents in New 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.400 York City, and they were so distraught that they left 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.840 everyone they knew and there to go to come to Philadelphia. 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.360 In there, they just couldn't bear to be on the 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.200 streets of New York anymore because both of their children 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.640 died on the streets of New York. So that's so 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.360 they they left to go to Philadelphia and founded the 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.200 Philadelphia Wing of This is a very very poor family, 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.160 eleven kids in the poorest part of town. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.520 So what did your parents do for a living. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:53.839 My dad was a truck driver and in the Depression, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.680 and he met my mom after World where he became 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:03.960 a sol He enlisted for World War Two and he 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.240 became a sergeant and he was in the D Day 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.360 invasion on Omaha Beach in Normandy on the second wave. 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:17.760 And I always try to imagine what that experience would 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.040 have been like for anybody and how it was. I 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.440 don't see how anybody could walk off that beach. It 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:29.680 was such a murderous place. I wouldn't be here if 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.960 he hadn't made it. But he survived that and walked 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.640 through Europe till v day to the end of the war, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.720 and I met my mom after he came home. I 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.240 think it's a pretty typical story. I was thinking about 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.720 Billy Joel's song Allentown where he talks about our fathers 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.240 fought the Second World War. Am was like one of 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:52.240 those kids. 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:58.240 Okay, Traditionally men from that generation didn't talk about being 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.920 in the war. Did your father No. 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.679 He did not. He did not at all, and we 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.080 had to kind of pull it out of him. And 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.319 there would there would be reunions and he would get 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:14.079 notices like, hey, we're we're having a reunion of our 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:19.720 division of our company. And he never went and he 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.240 felt like he told me. I asked him one time 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.480 why he didn't go, and he he just said, you know, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.880 these people act like like this is the biggest thing 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.160 that ever happened to them. You know, you got to 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.640 just keep looking forward and like keep doing what you're 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.920 doing and not like be looking back at what you did. 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:42.040 So but later I will say that he later my 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.520 brother I'm the oldest of five and my brother Stephen 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.800 took my dad to see Saving Private Private Ryan. So 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:55.440 the invasion sequence at Normandy, my dad was there there. 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.600 In the film, they're depicting the first wave of the 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.760 same company, so you have the same divisional at the 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:05.640 Blue and Gray in a circle in the movie that 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:14.600 that he experienced. And my dad started crying in the 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:20.640 theater and he like, broke up, broke, you know, it 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:27.800 broke his h It broke It opened him up emotionally 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:36.480 to relive that. And my brother asked him, was was 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.480 the movie? Was that was the movie like his experience? 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.320 And he said it was just like that, only much worse. 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.839 So it's the late sixties, you're protests against the war. 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.880 What does your father say about that? 0:11:53.880 --> 0:12:00.360 That's a really interesting question. I at some point point 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.120 right before in nineteen sixty three, I think I was 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:09.720 very I was a very introverted kid. I liked to 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.200 read and I like to hunch, like play my guitar 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.839 by myself, hunched over. I think they my parents were 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.959 worried that I was being that I was too shy. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:25.040 And they had a friend who sent his son to 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:29.800 a military academy for the summer session and said it 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:31.640 was the greatest thing that ever happened to him and 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.000 it really turned him around, and so my parents decided 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.600 to do the same for me. This was Valley Forge 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:44.560 Military Academy. This is where Norman Schwartzkoff went to school later, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:50.640 much later, and that so I was very excited about 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:52.839 it because I because I was so proud of my dad. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.200 I studied World War Two a lot. I knew a 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.040 lot about I made models, I knew a lot about 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.640 the maps and who did what and all of that, 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.480 and so I was excited to go to this military academy. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:13.840 And uh, it was really a difficult, uh summer for me. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.160 Sorry to get so deep into the details here, but 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:21.839 I'm just trying to answer your question. I uh I 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:26.400 I came away with it, h with a Instead of 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.520 thinking war was really great and cool, I had it 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.880 just a glimpse of like, no, it's not. And the 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.320 discipline involved in going this is our Our teachers were 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:42.680 ex army guys, and so the the you know, like 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:44.360 waking you up at two or three in the morning 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:49.200 to do calisthenics or bouncing a quarter on your sheets 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.360 when you major bed, and for inspection, you know, and 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.560 how how shine can we see your can the officers 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.920 see his reflection in your belt buckle, your brass belt 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.760 buckle when you've polished it. And do you eat if 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.240 you can imagine eating what we're called square meals, where 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.599 you do this, that's how you're supposed to. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:13.520 Well, this is audio only he's moving his. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.800 Arm in a I'm sorry, it's like a square meal. 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:21.240 Imagine a right angle, lifting your your fork with your 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.560 hands straight up and then straight to your mouth and 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.440 then back, you know, in a right in a right angle. 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.640 It is like the craziest thing. So just as a 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:35.040 as a memory anyway. So I went through that, and 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.920 then I got to hear a lecture of a senator 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:46.600 US senator named Wayne Morse who was talking about how 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:51.280 wrong the war in Vietnam was and there was a 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.040 lot of literature there. I saw the first pin that 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.720 had the peace symbol on it. That was the first 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.400 time I saw that, and I was I think I 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.480 was really prepped, like from my experience at the military 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.520 academy to be like, yeah, this is wrong. Like I 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.760 was really just a young naive kid, but I really 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.240 felt like, yes, this is wrong. So I became a 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:18.400 very early when it was very uncool to protest the war. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.360 Maybe it was in sixty four that I started doing that, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.000 and I was really a big part of my life too, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.560 to protest against the war and to work for the 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.400 Eugene McCarthy presidential campaign and things like that. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:40.000 And what did your father, as a experienced soldier have 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.400 to say about your protests? 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:48.400 A good question. He thought I was right. He thought 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.640 that Vietnam was wrong, was just going to be a quagmire, 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.720 and that he had no illusions about the glory of war, 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:04.960 and he thought it was a an empire building, economically 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:10.720 driven move that we shouldn't have gotten involved in. 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:14.920 So when your father came back from the war, what 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:15.920 did you do for a living? 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:20.720 So he had been a truck driver. It was a 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.960 family business. It was run by his oldest brother. Again 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.760 he's one of who is the tenth of eleven kids. 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:27.720 And. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.840 So he was put in charge of a division called 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:37.080 the export packaging division to ship things to Europe because 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:38.880 we now had a lot, We're doing a lot of 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:45.480 business there. And so he the family grew a storage 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.240 business and then a separate moving business, and he did 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:55.520 the export packaging business and designed crate for industry. Like 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.360 all of he shipped all of the Boeing helicopters that 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.120 were shipped aroun the world. Each individual crates for example, 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.040 like you got to put the fuselage here, and you 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.040 got to put the propellers up, you know, you got 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.080 to fold them and put them in a separate crate. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.480 So we got to see how he made those and 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.960 how they were shipped and things like that. That's what my 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:15.520 dad did. 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.800 Hey, did any of your brothers go in the business? 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.680 Be what happened to the business? 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:32.080 Good question, good questions. Let's see the family. But it 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:36.840 eventually went to cousins of ours to run the business, 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:47.080 and a combination of factors that included deregulation where the 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.479 moving business at that time had been federally regulated and 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.560 you had to be licensed and meet certain requirements to 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:56.440 be able to ship people across interstate want to ship 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:01.520 their goods. At some point they we sended those regulations. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.560 At the same time, there was I'm trying to think 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.400 there was some other economic thing that was going on 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:14.520 that caused the moving business as they were doing it 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.359 to collapse. I was already gone by that point, so 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.680 I don't know the details of it. But my brothers 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.600 did go into that business and in fact what happened 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.919 just as a segue in nineteen seventy four, not to 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:34.360 skip ahead here, Well, I am skipping ahead. In nineteen 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.480 seventy four, I was on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.200 and Young as a tour photographer, and we were doing 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:48.760 our last show at Roosevelt Raceway in Long Island, a large, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.520 really large show, and we had one more show to 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.760 do in England, and I overheard a stage manager talking 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.360 to the tour manager saying, I think when we're doing 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.760 this gig in England, we can't just use the paperwork 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.000 that we had going into Canada for that one gig. 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.919 I think there's something else we need. And I just 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.520 happened to hear that, and I walked over and I said, well, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.400 you know what you're talking about. You do need different paperwork, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.240 and this is what my dad does for a living, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.040 And if you haven't arranged this yet, I suggest you 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.440 call him, like right now, because these things like you're 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:21.800 going to be doing need to do a lot of 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.960 paperwork to get all of our stuff. There was forty 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.000 thousand pounds of gear that was being shipped over to 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.680 England for this one show and to make a long 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.359 story short, my dad got the gig and my brother 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:40.199 came to the show, and I guess, let's see, I 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.800 would have been twenty two, so he was seventeen. This 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.080 is my brother's name is David, David Bernstein, and he 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.600 found it fascinating that, like, wow, everybody who's here backstage, 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.640 like all these people are making money on this, not 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.119 just the band this like this is fascinating. So he 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:03.240 went on from the that experience to found a company 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:08.360 called Rocket Cargo, which became the prime shipper in the 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:13.800 world for musical tours around the world, not just of 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:19.480 American bands but all bands. So he for many many 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:25.600 years had the lion's share of the shipments going whoever 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.639 the band was, whether it was the Rolling Stones or 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:33.439 hip hop groups, or whoever it was. That's so he 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.000 became much more wealthy and more famous than me. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:49.240 Okay, you talked about being introverted. Yes, A. Were you 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.800 a good student? B? Did you have any friends? 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.720 Good question. I had friends, but I was sort of shy. 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.400 I loved to sit with my guitar and figure out 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.600 how to play songs. I was okay to play them 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.399 for other people, like at campfires, or you know, for fun. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.800 I didn't want I did never think about being a musician. 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.720 I just loved playing it. I didn't think I was 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:20.879 good enough to to do it professionally, but I enjoyed 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:26.040 it quite a bit. And once I got a camera, 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.680 I loved doing that. So now I split my time 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.240 between playing guitar and taking photos and learning how to 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.359 develop film. And the first pictures that I took that 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.440 I developed and printed by myself were of the then 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.280 unknown Joni Mitchell in a coffeehouse. This would have been 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.639 in maybe January sixty seven. 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.560 Okay, before we get to that specific event. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:54.600 Yes, yes, hey, were. 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:56.480 You a good student? Not a good student? 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:58.919 Oh, yes, I'm sorry you asked me that I was 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.840 a good student. Yes, I was good. 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.800 Okay, So you got involved at a royalty level of 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:12.679 rock and roll very young. Did you go to college? 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:19.040 So what briefly happened is that so I took these 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.560 pictures of Joni Mitchell. I brought two prints. I was 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:26.359 very excited to make these prints at my friend's house 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.440 in the dark room. I remember going to the laundry 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.040 room in my parents' house and taking my mom's iron 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:38.240 and put ironing the print onto the mountboard. You took 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.560 this sheet of paper that turned into glue under no kidding, 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.560 under the heat of the iron, and then you wound 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:48.080 up with a mounted print. And I made two of 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:49.959 them and took them down to the coffee house she 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.440 was playing at where I had just taken the pictures 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.760 and asked her to I wanted to give her one 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:03.840 and would she sign one for me? And she wrote 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.119 the Circle Game Forever Joni Mitchell the one that she 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:14.840 gave me. And then about a year so I kept photograph. 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:17.359 I was the photographer of my newspaper. 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:19.720 Let me stop you here because I want to ask 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.560 some questions before we get into your actual career. Sure, 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:29.600 of course, so your parents give your parents give you 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.200 a brownie camera, When does it click in your brain? 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:37.080 And when do you get a reflex camera or whatever 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:37.720 bitter camera? 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:41.080 You get, very good question. What happens is my dad 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:47.200 gets a really good German single lens reflex camera called 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:53.160 an Exacta, and you know it's it's from my viewpoint, 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:55.760 of course, it's like it's much fancier than the camera 0:23:55.840 --> 0:23:57.840 I have. But that's he's I'm a kid and he's, 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:00.800 you know, an adult, and so he's got this cool camera. 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:05.000 And at some point I get pretty good at I 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:08.959 have a By that point, I have a rangefinder camera, 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.160 maybe a Konica rangefinder. That is, you're not looking through 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.880 the lens with his camera. You actually could look through 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:19.320 the lens. And he had two or three lenses that 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:23.119 you could change. You could have a normal lens, you 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.159 could have a slightly telephoto lens, or a slightly wide lens. 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.960 And I love that. I just thought that was amazing, 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.919 and he lent me to his credit, Unlike many dads, 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:37.679 maybe even me like that. If I were him, I 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:40.159 probably would have said, hey, son, look here's a camera 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:43.600 for you. It is better than your Hawkeye, But why 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:47.119 don't you just use that? Don't touch my camera, right, 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:52.440 But he didn't, And so I learned with a single 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:57.719 lens reflex, and that's when you get into that. Then 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:00.320 what you're looking at is very similar to the photo 0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:02.399 you're going to be seeing. You see how what's in 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:06.000 focus and what's not in focus. It's a very different experience. 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:10.000 And so I was able to do that. I want 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:15.920 to say maybe when I was thirteen fourteen, and that 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:21.200 shooting with that kind of camera really made a difference. 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:23.399 For me, and at some point he went on a 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:27.640 business trip to Japan and got me an Asahi Pentax 0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:31.240 Spot Mattic, the camera that Ringo was using in Hard 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:37.119 Day's Night, and that became my main camera. And I 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:42.440 just and then I'll just say briefly, I was the 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:46.680 yearbook photographer and the newspaper photographer in my junior high school. 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:50.000 And I learned right away that like, you can't use 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:52.760 a flash in a class. It's way too distracting to 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:56.800 just set off a flashing class. But there's not enough 0:25:56.920 --> 0:26:00.240 light in there to use a regular speed film. And 0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:04.119 I went to the camera store where the guy was 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:06.760 very helpful to me and said, oh, what you need 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:10.200 is this thing, this film by code I called Triax. 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:13.800 You need to use this. The ASA is a four hundred, 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:20.000 not one hundred or fifty or sixty four. It's four hundred, really, yes, 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:22.800 which means it's just very sensitive to light, which meant 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:25.920 that I could without a flash take people's photos in 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:29.680 class at school, and when I was in like eighth 0:26:29.760 --> 0:26:33.560 grade or you know, I could use it to take 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:37.639 football practice photos outdoors. But I could shoot, finally for 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:40.200 the first time, indoors. And that's how I learned to 0:26:40.280 --> 0:26:45.040 shoot with what referred to in photography as available light, 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:48.399 meaning you're not bringing in any supplemental light, you're just 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:49.520 using what's available. 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:53.959 Okay, so I got very good at that. Hey, did 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:58.600 you go to public school? Yes, b you know there 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:01.560 was a photography boom around the turn of the decade 0:27:01.600 --> 0:27:04.680 of sixties into seventies, but you were in early yes, 0:27:05.280 --> 0:27:08.560 so it wasn't like schools had dark rooms. How did 0:27:08.600 --> 0:27:11.520 you learn by trial and error? What? 0:27:11.920 --> 0:27:15.400 Amazingly, I will say, I'm sorry to interrupt, No interrupt, 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:23.320 how I learned? Okay, how my school actually was the township, 0:27:23.400 --> 0:27:26.800 the tax base of it as a suburb was good 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:29.080 enough that they actually did have a dark room. They 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:31.119 had just put in a dark room a couple of 0:27:31.160 --> 0:27:36.359 years before I was there. But I learned at the 0:27:36.440 --> 0:27:38.840 dark room of friends of mine who had set up 0:27:38.880 --> 0:27:42.400 an enlarger and a dark room at their parents' home, 0:27:42.720 --> 0:27:45.960 and they showed me how to develop film, how to 0:27:46.040 --> 0:27:49.760 put how to develop the negative. So I had several 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:54.360 friends who did that, and it just became a home thing. 0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:57.000 Like it was amazing to me that you could actually 0:27:57.520 --> 0:27:59.840 it was very, very exciting to know that you could 0:28:00.480 --> 0:28:04.200 get a roll of film loaded in your camera, go 0:28:04.400 --> 0:28:08.119 around after school and take pictures of whatever you wanted 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:12.000 to come back into the dark room, develop the film, 0:28:12.200 --> 0:28:15.119 and then there would be the negatives of the picture 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:20.000 the pictures you just took, like hanging wet in the 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:23.400 dark room. After you finally processed it, and then after 0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:25.600 it dried, you could put it in the enlarger and 0:28:25.760 --> 0:28:28.600 actually make a print of it. This process to me 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:32.280 was like magic. You know, this could happen and you 0:28:32.359 --> 0:28:34.920 could do it in a matter of hours and it 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:39.120 wasn't that complicated. So I really latched onto it. And 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:43.400 I think I still was playing guitar and probably played 0:28:43.440 --> 0:28:48.680 every day, but it became my second love of things 0:28:49.000 --> 0:28:53.280 to be doing. And then, like I was saying, when 0:28:54.520 --> 0:29:01.360 my first You'll probably remember this first time I went 0:29:01.520 --> 0:29:06.240 to with my parents to look at records and it 0:29:06.360 --> 0:29:11.520 was at a newly newly made EJ. Corvette's department store 0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:12.120 that didn't. 0:29:11.920 --> 0:29:15.000 A lot of records at Corvette. 0:29:15.680 --> 0:29:18.120 Okay, So there I was with my parents the first 0:29:18.160 --> 0:29:21.160 time and they're there after seeing Okay, we have to 0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:25.240 go back and say, this would be after seeing the 0:29:25.360 --> 0:29:28.160 Beatles perform on Ed Sullivan, like one of the seminal 0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:31.240 moments you probably discussed with ninety percent of your guests, 0:29:32.000 --> 0:29:36.080 where like, what was that like? So as a folky 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:38.600 like I said, as a folk student of folk music, 0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:41.000 I was like, that's a scene, that's a name. I'm like, 0:29:41.520 --> 0:29:45.640 I know what they're doing. It's like, this isn't magic, 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:49.520 this is so Literally. When I went to my next 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:52.840 folk music lesson, the guitar teacher and her daughters were like, 0:29:53.720 --> 0:29:58.080 no folk music today, I forget that. We are going 0:29:58.160 --> 0:29:59.840 to like can you did you figure out that thing? 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:02.000 And I want to hold your hand? Right? 0:30:02.120 --> 0:30:02.280 Did? 0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:06.320 We were like, we were all into it and that 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:09.000 just set us off onto that whole new trajectory. 0:30:10.400 --> 0:30:14.800 Okay, now you talk about shooting Joni Mitchell before we 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:19.000 talk about that actual event. So were you an avid 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:22.480 club goer concert goer? How did you end up with the. 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.160 No, I wasn't at all. I never went to clubs 0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:27.520 and I didn't go to concerts. I never didn't occur 0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:31.200 to me to go. I had friends who would go 0:30:31.320 --> 0:30:35.120 to who went to see the Beatles like a packed 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:38.520 sports stadium. A couple friends I knew who did that, 0:30:39.360 --> 0:30:42.800 who told me they could not hear like a single 0:30:42.880 --> 0:30:46.960 note of the Beatles for the screaming I don't know. 0:30:47.040 --> 0:30:49.760 I was a shy kid and I didn't So I 0:30:49.920 --> 0:30:54.080 learned to play songs from books from my guitar teacher. Occasionally, 0:30:54.240 --> 0:30:59.160 like at those hooton nannies or wing dings, you would 0:30:59.280 --> 0:31:02.080 learn some thing. Let's say, somebody would play a song 0:31:02.720 --> 0:31:05.400 that you knew how to play, but they they knew 0:31:05.440 --> 0:31:07.960 another verse, Like what is that verse? I never played? 0:31:08.560 --> 0:31:11.120 Where did you learn that verse? What do you mean? 0:31:11.160 --> 0:31:12.880 Why are you using an A minor there? 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:13.800 Like that? 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:14.880 That's an E minor? 0:31:15.000 --> 0:31:15.440 What you know? 0:31:15.560 --> 0:31:18.760 So you was really a good, good uh lesson in 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:25.240 learning songs. And then like I said, uh, like you, 0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:29.240 I'm imagining your ear is you know, glued to AM radio. 0:31:30.520 --> 0:31:33.640 You're I was like vaguely aware of it. I was not, 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:36.920 you know, like Elvis was already in the past. It 0:31:37.080 --> 0:31:39.600 was like it was like that's for my older cousins. 0:31:40.000 --> 0:31:45.440 Not doesn't do much for me. Uh, you know, the 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:49.320 first Beatle things were electrifying to me. And also I 0:31:49.440 --> 0:31:54.239 have to go back and just say I think there 0:31:54.320 --> 0:31:58.000 was a major, a major slingshot effect. I think that 0:31:58.160 --> 0:32:02.600 happened when the death of John Kennedy was so shocking 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:05.280 to people, to kids my age, who I was a 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:09.160 Kennedy kid in terms of my outlook and in terms 0:32:09.200 --> 0:32:12.200 of America and being patriotic and what could you do 0:32:12.360 --> 0:32:18.560 for your country? And his youth and his humor we 0:32:18.800 --> 0:32:23.520 as kids like really identified with and to have him 0:32:24.440 --> 0:32:29.920 assassinated like that in a way that previously you only 0:32:29.960 --> 0:32:33.720 heard about things like that going on in third world countries. 0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:36.240 This did not this kind of thing didn't happen in 0:32:36.320 --> 0:32:42.000 our country. It was so disheartening, so sad, tragic the 0:32:42.120 --> 0:32:46.920 day of and sad for so long, which only happened 0:32:48.240 --> 0:32:51.719 a matter of months before the Beatles played on at Sullivan. 0:32:51.760 --> 0:32:57.880 And I feel that wherever the Beatles themselves were coming from, 0:32:58.080 --> 0:33:00.640 in terms of their career at the time, how exciting 0:33:00.720 --> 0:33:04.960 it was for them to come to America, they probably 0:33:06.160 --> 0:33:09.600 at the time didn't quite realize that there was a 0:33:09.760 --> 0:33:14.160 nation of young kids who were really hurting and were 0:33:14.320 --> 0:33:20.520 so needing the kind of up energy and fun and 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:26.240 positive energy that they were putting out there. That it, 0:33:29.320 --> 0:33:31.320 like I said, it was like a slingshot effect of 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:37.160 going from being feeling so sad and heartbroken and what 0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:44.600 happened to our country to this very happy, exuberant kind 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:50.040 of energy. And I think that that, you know, began 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:53.920 in America, a lot of what the sixties became starting 0:33:54.000 --> 0:33:54.320 right there. 0:33:55.600 --> 0:34:00.320 Okay, so the Joney photographs were the main point. 0:34:01.600 --> 0:34:04.320 No, there was before I photographed her at the main point, 0:34:04.360 --> 0:34:06.440 Thank you for asking. This was at a place called 0:34:06.480 --> 0:34:07.240 the Second Fret. 0:34:07.840 --> 0:34:12.640 Okay, the Second Fret. When you went the night Jonie 0:34:12.800 --> 0:34:15.319 was there and you took the photographs. How many times 0:34:15.360 --> 0:34:18.359 have been to that club previously? None? 0:34:19.440 --> 0:34:22.120 Okay, I only I only went there because I knew 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:26.160 her name from from hearing Tom Rutt. What happened is 0:34:26.280 --> 0:34:30.440 you'll appreciate this briefly. Of course, you had to have 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:33.919 a transistor radio. When you know, at a certain age, 0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:36.359 when transistor radios come in as a as a kid, 0:34:36.400 --> 0:34:38.680 they're just like taking you into a whole other world. 0:34:39.440 --> 0:34:42.640 I was given at some point a transistor radio with 0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:46.959 a large whip antenna, not the kind of pocket size 0:34:47.000 --> 0:34:48.879 that you would take to school, but a larger one 0:34:48.960 --> 0:34:51.400 that you could have at home. And I was shooting 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:53.960 baskets one day in the driveway and I had the 0:34:54.120 --> 0:34:57.120 radio on and I realized, wait a sec, I can 0:34:57.200 --> 0:35:00.600 hear it's sunset and now I I can hear New 0:35:00.680 --> 0:35:03.520 York like clear as day, I can hear Boston, I 0:35:03.600 --> 0:35:07.240 can hear WLS in Chicago. So that whole thing really 0:35:07.520 --> 0:35:10.839 was another big eye opening thing because instead of only 0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:16.440 being able to hear the records played by your local DJs, 0:35:16.840 --> 0:35:19.600 you could pick up you could hear what the DJ's 0:35:19.640 --> 0:35:21.759 were playing in New York and what their pattern was, 0:35:21.840 --> 0:35:25.160 and what their names were and their personas, and so, I, 0:35:25.440 --> 0:35:28.520 you know, really love that. And my favorite station was 0:35:28.560 --> 0:35:34.240 the one called WBZ in Boston that clearly the daytime 0:35:34.360 --> 0:35:37.520 manager when you know, after five o'clock when he left, 0:35:37.800 --> 0:35:42.120 didn't care what the night shift the like, just just 0:35:42.280 --> 0:35:44.480 didn't put it on, didn't turn his radio on because 0:35:44.520 --> 0:35:48.719 they were doing really crazy stuff on the radio. Was 0:35:48.800 --> 0:35:52.319 the first time I heard screaming Jay Hawkins, I put 0:35:52.360 --> 0:35:55.239 a spell on you like on AM radio if you 0:35:55.280 --> 0:35:59.480 can imagine, right, they would do Stan Freberg ads and 0:35:59.600 --> 0:36:02.920 things like that. So it was a very exciting experience. 0:36:03.000 --> 0:36:04.960 And one day I was listening to it, as I said, 0:36:05.040 --> 0:36:09.080 playing basketball, and and it was a I didn't know 0:36:09.120 --> 0:36:10.680 it was a tape at the time. I thought he 0:36:10.800 --> 0:36:13.359 was live in the studio. Tom Rush, who I knew 0:36:13.440 --> 0:36:15.440 was a folk singer and whose album one of his 0:36:15.520 --> 0:36:18.560 albums I had came on and said, this is a 0:36:18.640 --> 0:36:23.399 song I just learned from my friend Joni Mitchell. It's 0:36:23.480 --> 0:36:26.279 called the Urge for Going and played this song and 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:31.760 I thought, oh my god, what a great song that is, Like, Wow, 0:36:32.080 --> 0:36:38.080 Joni Mitchell, the Urge for That's just fantastic. And that 0:36:38.239 --> 0:36:42.640 was the first time I heard of her. And then 0:36:43.520 --> 0:36:46.920 she and her husband were playing at the Second Frat 0:36:47.239 --> 0:36:51.600 and they were going to appear at a folk music weekly. 0:36:51.680 --> 0:36:57.799 Folk music show hosted by someone who's who's went under 0:36:57.840 --> 0:37:00.759 the name Geene Shay Ivan Shane his name was, but 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:04.560 he was called Gene Shay had a show called Folklore 0:37:04.680 --> 0:37:11.200 every Sunday and who played folk music and would also 0:37:13.520 --> 0:37:16.399 UH folk acts that would play at the Second Fret 0:37:16.520 --> 0:37:19.439 or the main point would then go to his show 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:21.960 if they were playing over a weekend, and then play 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:26.640 be interviewed and then play posician audio or TV audio. 0:37:27.400 --> 0:37:31.360 This is all all all on radio and it was 0:37:31.520 --> 0:37:36.080 a mono FM uh, And so I. 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:39.840 Got to. 0:37:41.560 --> 0:37:45.359 I was too young to get into this club. Either 0:37:45.440 --> 0:37:47.520 I had homework or I was too young, I don't 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:51.920 remember which. I couldn't go to the show, but they 0:37:51.960 --> 0:37:55.279 were going to be playing at this radio station, so 0:37:55.400 --> 0:38:01.080 I tuned in the radio. My dad had just brought 0:38:01.120 --> 0:38:05.359 home a little micro cassette recorder to replace his dictaphone 0:38:05.880 --> 0:38:09.279 and had showed me like how it worked, so I 0:38:11.320 --> 0:38:16.560 he let's see. I took the micro cassette recorder and 0:38:16.640 --> 0:38:18.920 put it next to the speaker of the radio and 0:38:19.040 --> 0:38:23.640 recorded Jony and her husband, Chuck Mitchell doing their set 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:26.239 and their interview. And the last thing they did was 0:38:26.280 --> 0:38:30.560 a song called the Circle Game, which was new to her, 0:38:30.760 --> 0:38:33.080 which was which I'd never heard, and I by the 0:38:33.160 --> 0:38:35.800 time the song was over, I was like, I have 0:38:36.000 --> 0:38:38.920 to learn how to play that song right now. That 0:38:39.120 --> 0:38:42.480 is the greatest thing I've ever heard. I didn't know about. 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:48.200 So there's things called tunings and guitar So ninety five 0:38:48.480 --> 0:38:51.680 or more percent of the guitar work in the world 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:56.040 is played in what's called standard tuning, with a strings 0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:58.799 tune in a particular way, and the chords that you're 0:38:58.840 --> 0:39:02.400 taught as a guitarist are based on your tuning the strings. 0:39:02.440 --> 0:39:05.960 In that tuning, she was taking the guitar and tuning 0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:08.560 it to a chord like a g chord and then 0:39:09.080 --> 0:39:11.960 playing different chords than any of the ones I knew 0:39:13.000 --> 0:39:20.279 in that tuning. And so let's see, briefly, I'd been 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:24.880 studying cryptanalysis, which was code breaking at the time, and 0:39:25.320 --> 0:39:27.960 the logic that you need to figure out how somebody's 0:39:28.000 --> 0:39:31.000 playing something in a tuning is what are all the 0:39:31.160 --> 0:39:35.640 open strings? First? Are what notes is? Each string? Is 0:39:35.719 --> 0:39:38.080 what I need to figure out. And then once I 0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:41.600 figure that out, how what chords is she playing? So 0:39:42.400 --> 0:39:45.839 I taped that performance and I just stayed up till dawn. 0:39:46.560 --> 0:39:49.920 I would have been fourteen to figure out how she 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:52.440 played it. And I did figure it out, like by 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:55.960 six in the morning. Took me that long, but I 0:39:56.040 --> 0:39:58.560 did figure it out. And so that started me off 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:02.759 in a lifetime of figuring out how to play Joni 0:40:02.840 --> 0:40:06.359 Mitchell songs. And later later when she would forget an 0:40:06.400 --> 0:40:09.000 older song, I would go actually and teach it back 0:40:09.080 --> 0:40:11.880 to her. Back in the seventies, I would do that 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:13.880 seventies and eighties. 0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:16.480 So how long after that was the gig where you 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:17.440 took the photos? 0:40:18.960 --> 0:40:21.680 Good question. I think that was about that would have 0:40:21.760 --> 0:40:26.560 been about well, she was there with her husband. She 0:40:26.760 --> 0:40:30.359 broke up with him right after that, and left where 0:40:30.400 --> 0:40:32.640 they were living in Detroit and moved to New York 0:40:33.080 --> 0:40:35.359 and I saw her. It was really just about now 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:37.480 that I'm thinking of It would have been only about 0:40:37.480 --> 0:40:41.239 two or three months later that I started that She's 0:40:42.280 --> 0:40:46.440 played at the second Fret and I was able to 0:40:46.960 --> 0:40:51.920 get into to literally three sets a night, four of 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:56.640 maybe you know, twenty five minutes each and about a 0:40:56.760 --> 0:40:58.160 dozen people listening. 0:41:06.239 --> 0:41:11.360 Okay, things changed over your career. We're bringing a camera 0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:14.239 to a gig would be an issue. People would stop 0:41:14.280 --> 0:41:18.200 whatever you're going. At age fourteen fifteen, you're bringing your 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:20.640 camera not thinking twice. No one stopped you. 0:41:21.640 --> 0:41:23.840 No, there was no nobody cared. I mean, it's like 0:41:23.960 --> 0:41:27.080 it's too it's too low level. There's not It's not 0:41:27.440 --> 0:41:31.640 like later. If let's say, if I am going to 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:36.000 the first rock show that I went and photographed, I 0:41:36.080 --> 0:41:38.400 knew the opening act. They were friends of mine and 0:41:38.960 --> 0:41:44.440 they were opening for I'm Not Kidding Cream at the 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:50.960 Spectrum in Philadelphia. Later, Ariic Clapton was quoted as saying, 0:41:51.000 --> 0:41:54.200 this was the great single, greatest Cream concert of all 0:41:54.320 --> 0:41:56.040 time by. 0:41:56.000 --> 0:41:57.520 Far this shell. 0:41:58.360 --> 0:42:02.200 It was on a rotator stage in the middle of 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:09.480 the arena, and I can remember photographing them as the 0:42:09.560 --> 0:42:14.080 stage is going around waiting for our Clapton, Jack Bruce 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:20.680 Ginger Baker. It was amazing and I can still remember 0:42:22.000 --> 0:42:25.200 as the stage turned, the huge marshal stack that our 0:42:25.320 --> 0:42:30.120 Claptain was playing through would every thirty seconds or so 0:42:30.680 --> 0:42:34.040 like beam like a like a huge heat ray into 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:36.640 my ear. It was so loud, like the loudest thing 0:42:36.640 --> 0:42:40.520 I'd ever heard in my life as I was lifting 0:42:40.600 --> 0:42:44.719 my camera up trying to take the pictures. So that 0:42:45.040 --> 0:42:47.000 was very exciting to do that. 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:52.000 Okay, so you give the photos to Jonie, Yes, and 0:42:52.160 --> 0:42:57.799 she signs one. Obviously that's a thrilling moment. Do you say, oh, 0:42:57.920 --> 0:43:00.440 that was a thrilling moment. You say, I did it once, 0:43:00.560 --> 0:43:01.320 I'll do it again. 0:43:02.880 --> 0:43:06.240 I just thought, well it was I was. We got along, 0:43:06.480 --> 0:43:09.239 and so she was fine for me to come, and 0:43:10.239 --> 0:43:13.879 I saw her again at the second Fret, and then 0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:16.800 the next year, I still meant going to high school. 0:43:16.800 --> 0:43:25.719 I'm in tenth grade. What happened was that she when 0:43:25.840 --> 0:43:28.320 her first album came out, which would have been like 0:43:28.560 --> 0:43:32.000 March of sixty eight, she then could get kicked upstairs 0:43:32.040 --> 0:43:34.839 to the next level of club, which was the main 0:43:34.920 --> 0:43:38.520 point that you mentioned out on the main Line, a 0:43:38.600 --> 0:43:45.680 nicer club, more seats, and the main Point had only 0:43:45.840 --> 0:43:49.080 only had people there who had a record deal. So 0:43:49.360 --> 0:43:51.719 Joni Mitchell back in the day was not going to 0:43:51.760 --> 0:43:54.000 be They wouldn't have taken her at the at the 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:57.239 main Point. But because she had her first album out, 0:43:57.719 --> 0:44:02.200 she could get booked into the main Point. And while 0:44:02.280 --> 0:44:04.800 I was there and so so her fan base was growing. 0:44:04.840 --> 0:44:07.840 I could see, Wow, there's a lot more like this is. 0:44:08.680 --> 0:44:12.640 There's like three times more to it. Wow, and people 0:44:12.719 --> 0:44:15.480 are into it, they're paying attention. This is like what 0:44:15.640 --> 0:44:17.960 had been this very little thing that you know. And 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:20.080 of course back when she was playing the Second Fret, 0:44:20.160 --> 0:44:22.400 nobody had heard of her. I was raving about this 0:44:22.560 --> 0:44:25.200 person to all all of my friends and anyone else 0:44:25.200 --> 0:44:28.480 who would listen, and I could see that this was 0:44:28.600 --> 0:44:31.600 like taking off. And there were college kids from Bryn Marr, 0:44:31.680 --> 0:44:37.280 which is where the Main Point is, right And anyway, 0:44:38.719 --> 0:44:42.839 what happened is in the interim that year, I spent 0:44:42.920 --> 0:44:44.600 a lot of time. A friend of mine had a 0:44:44.640 --> 0:44:48.360 tape recorder and he would every time Joni would go 0:44:48.520 --> 0:44:52.359 to that folk music show I talked about with geene Jay, 0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:56.960 she'd play a few songs and we'd record those and 0:44:57.040 --> 0:44:58.920 then I would stay up and figure out how to 0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:02.279 play those songs. So my whole poppy that was like 0:45:02.400 --> 0:45:06.960 my biggest thrill. I didn't collect baseball cards by then. 0:45:07.080 --> 0:45:09.480 I didn't like I just what I you know. The 0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:11.279 thing I wanted to do was to figure out how 0:45:11.360 --> 0:45:16.640 Joni Mitchell played her songs. So I did that, and 0:45:16.760 --> 0:45:19.520 she was writing her songs in different tunings by then, 0:45:19.960 --> 0:45:25.120 so it was very it was it was an exciting 0:45:25.200 --> 0:45:27.400 thing for me to do. So by the time I 0:45:27.480 --> 0:45:29.520 went to see her at the main point, after she 0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:32.200 now had her first album come out and she had 0:45:32.320 --> 0:45:38.000 fans from from that album being played after. At first 0:45:38.080 --> 0:45:43.200 I took a picture of her that I remember thinking, God, 0:45:43.239 --> 0:45:45.279 if I got that thing that I just saw, it's 0:45:45.360 --> 0:45:46.719 really going to be good. It's going to be the 0:45:46.760 --> 0:45:49.120 best picture I ever took of her, for sure, And 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:54.360 and I did get it. And so that that happened first, 0:45:54.800 --> 0:45:58.160 and then later a few minutes later, I took out 0:45:59.000 --> 0:46:03.279 a list that i'd of her songs and she said, oh, 0:46:03.560 --> 0:46:04.319 she's very nice. 0:46:04.360 --> 0:46:04.600 Again. 0:46:04.800 --> 0:46:08.400 Let's see, I'm sixteen by that point and she is 0:46:10.880 --> 0:46:15.759 nine years older than me, so she's twenty five. Very 0:46:15.800 --> 0:46:17.719 few twenty five year olds have much to say to 0:46:17.840 --> 0:46:22.960 six that there's not much going on there. But she 0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:25.759 was very nice, and she says, oh, is that a 0:46:25.840 --> 0:46:29.320 list of songs of mine you've heard? And I said, no, 0:46:29.480 --> 0:46:33.360 those are the ones I can play. And her eyes blazed, 0:46:34.239 --> 0:46:36.360 and she took her guitar by the neck and thrust 0:46:36.440 --> 0:46:42.600 it at me and said show me. So I took 0:46:42.680 --> 0:46:46.560 the guitar. I retuned it. I was pretty nervous, I'm 0:46:46.600 --> 0:46:51.239 sure I started playing one of her songs. She just 0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:55.800 stared at my hands, like he figured this out. Like 0:46:57.040 --> 0:47:00.680 it blew her mind that this kid, this nature, had 0:47:00.719 --> 0:47:04.520 figured out her professional secrets, the things that she was 0:47:04.600 --> 0:47:08.400 doing on stage, because she had these very breezy stories 0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:10.640 and stuff she would be talking about as she's retuning 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:14.480 the guitar to another tuning. Nobody in the audience is 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:18.160 noticing what she's doing kind of thing. And so the 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:21.120 fact that I had figured these out, she said, play 0:47:21.360 --> 0:47:24.360 play another one when I got done. So I played 0:47:24.400 --> 0:47:26.799 her a second song. She says, Okay, we are fast 0:47:26.880 --> 0:47:33.640 friends now. And then a few weeks later, a letter 0:47:33.760 --> 0:47:37.879 came from California in my parents' mailbox. Dear Joel, would 0:47:37.920 --> 0:47:40.560 you please come to I'm writing you. Thank you so 0:47:40.680 --> 0:47:43.239 much for sending the Prince. I really love this one. 0:47:44.400 --> 0:47:46.080 I'm writing to ask you, would you please come to 0:47:46.200 --> 0:47:49.400 Carnegie Hall my first concert at Carnegie Hall in New 0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:53.320 York City on February first. So imagine this is February 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:58.560 of eleventh grade. Getting this letter, which by the way, 0:47:58.640 --> 0:48:03.840 has a beautiful multi colored pen drawing on construction paper, 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:06.840 Joni Mitchell drawing on the first part. She folds it 0:48:06.920 --> 0:48:08.719 in half and makes it into a reading card, and 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:12.600 there's the letter from Joni. Pardon me, a letter from 0:48:12.640 --> 0:48:17.080 her inviting me to Carnegie Hall. So you can imagine 0:48:17.120 --> 0:48:24.719 how exciting that was. I took the train to New York. 0:48:24.880 --> 0:48:28.279 I can remember standing outside the stage store of Carnegie Hall, 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:33.239 which is still in the same place, and each time 0:48:33.280 --> 0:48:36.520 I've walked by it since then. I remember standing there 0:48:36.600 --> 0:48:41.440 and how nervous I was with my camera bag. And 0:48:44.160 --> 0:48:47.680 I went there and I met her, and her parents 0:48:47.719 --> 0:48:51.239 were there, and her manager, Elliott Roberts, was there, and 0:48:51.320 --> 0:48:54.200 he said, I hope you brought a lot of film tonight, 0:48:54.280 --> 0:48:56.200 because we're recording the show and you're going to do 0:48:56.280 --> 0:49:03.040 the album coverew. So that was very intense and I 0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:06.360 did the best I could shooting her backstage and on stage, 0:49:06.480 --> 0:49:12.000 and it was like a big throne. She did a great, great, 0:49:12.680 --> 0:49:15.640 great job, like she really rose to the occasion. It 0:49:15.800 --> 0:49:18.680 was nothing like her, folks, like seeing her at a 0:49:18.760 --> 0:49:23.160 little coffee house. The audience went crazy. You can now 0:49:23.880 --> 0:49:28.560 hear pardon me, you can now hear that performance of 0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:32.759 hers live at Carnegie Hall. It's been released with I 0:49:32.840 --> 0:49:35.239 was actually on vinyl with my pictures that I'm talking 0:49:35.239 --> 0:49:37.960 about that I took as a cover and the inside 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:41.240 which when I saw that, it was like a dream 0:49:41.320 --> 0:49:48.359 come true. That it's something that I'd imagined back then. 0:49:48.760 --> 0:49:51.800 I should say. I have to tell you this one story, 0:49:51.840 --> 0:49:57.640 which is when I was fifteen, the summer of Sergeant 0:49:57.640 --> 0:50:01.120 Pepper's I was in a in a summer camp that 0:50:01.360 --> 0:50:04.280 was on wheels, that is, we had two army trucks 0:50:04.360 --> 0:50:07.240 and about twenty kids, and we camped at a different 0:50:07.320 --> 0:50:10.600 state park or national park every night, and one night 0:50:10.880 --> 0:50:14.480 in the Dakota's, I was there my sleeping bag, staring 0:50:14.560 --> 0:50:18.799 up at the stars, thinking about. 0:50:22.440 --> 0:50:23.320 What am I going to do? 0:50:23.880 --> 0:50:26.920 Like this, You're fifteen, You're starting you have a you know, 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:29.640 your guidance counselor starts talking about, so, what career are 0:50:29.719 --> 0:50:35.840 you thinking about? So I was thinking about that, and 0:50:38.000 --> 0:50:41.320 as I looked at the stars, I remembered the picture 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:46.200 that the first picture that I took, not the next one, 0:50:46.239 --> 0:50:50.040 which was really good. But I was looking at that 0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:53.160 first picture. This I hadn't taken that second picture yet, 0:50:53.200 --> 0:50:58.520 this is still sixty seven, pardon me. And I saw 0:50:59.040 --> 0:51:02.680 that picture cropped into a square as an album cover 0:51:02.840 --> 0:51:07.960 with her name handwritten across it across the top, Joni 0:51:08.040 --> 0:51:14.759 Mitchell and the epiphany. I had an epiphany that that's 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:16.880 what I wanted to do. I wanted to do album 0:51:17.000 --> 0:51:20.520 covers for musicians. I wanted to blend the two things 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:25.080 that I did together, and I wanted to do photographs 0:51:25.120 --> 0:51:25.840 of musicians. 0:51:26.080 --> 0:51:28.520 So that's what was my. 0:51:30.719 --> 0:51:34.279 Motivation from when I was fifteen, and I've just been 0:51:34.560 --> 0:51:35.480 continuing to do that. 0:51:36.200 --> 0:51:39.080 Okay, most people have that idea at fifteen, and it's 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:42.719 purely a dream. You'd already had some success. So what 0:51:43.000 --> 0:51:45.640 was the next step after the Carnegie Hall shows? 0:51:48.000 --> 0:51:51.640 Well, let's see. The next week, I was asked to 0:51:51.680 --> 0:51:55.319 photograph Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their first East 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:59.040 Coast show at the Bitter End, and then I was 0:51:59.120 --> 0:52:02.439 asked to photo David geff Elliet said, I have a friend, 0:52:02.520 --> 0:52:08.200 David Geffen who's managing a career of a singer named 0:52:08.239 --> 0:52:11.160 Laura Nero, And I was like, I know, Laura, I love. 0:52:11.360 --> 0:52:15.680 I had ELI in the fifteenth Thirteenth Confession album, which 0:52:15.680 --> 0:52:17.840 I just flipped out about. I just thought I was 0:52:18.000 --> 0:52:21.520 listening to the post Dylan singer songwriters a lot by then, 0:52:21.880 --> 0:52:25.120 and she was a big I loved her records. And 0:52:25.320 --> 0:52:27.319 she said, so could you come to New York again 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:31.759 and photograph Laura? Meet Laura and take some photos of her. 0:52:33.040 --> 0:52:35.719 So that was my next two weekends, after Carnegie Hall, 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:38.759 Neil and Crazy Horse at the Binner End, and then 0:52:38.840 --> 0:52:45.040 Laura Nero at David Geffen's apartment during a blizzard overlooking 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:47.680 Central Park as she played the grand piano in David's 0:52:47.680 --> 0:52:53.160 apartment doing not only songs from the ELI and the 0:52:53.200 --> 0:52:56.239 Thirteenth Confession album that I knew, but songs that she 0:52:56.400 --> 0:53:02.000 was writing for her next album, New York Tenderbury. After 0:53:02.160 --> 0:53:07.080 those three weeks, the whole issue about likes, college preparation 0:53:07.360 --> 0:53:10.640 and what all of that like sort of receded like 0:53:12.040 --> 0:53:15.000 in importance for me because it was like, yeah, yeah, 0:53:15.040 --> 0:53:17.759 I'll get to that whatever. This is like so much 0:53:17.800 --> 0:53:21.279 more interesting to me. So that's how that worked. That 0:53:21.320 --> 0:53:23.879 would have been like starting in nineteen sixty nine. 0:53:24.080 --> 0:53:29.680 Okay, you're a teenager. As they say, Lauren Nero became 0:53:29.800 --> 0:53:32.440 bigger with the New York tend to Berry, but she 0:53:32.520 --> 0:53:35.840 was pretty big already. She was yeh, how did you 0:53:36.120 --> 0:53:40.200 cope emotionally? David Geffen was not of the stature that 0:53:40.280 --> 0:53:43.000 he used today. But you're in these environments you had 0:53:43.080 --> 0:53:47.239 teenagers twenty six. Are you anxious or are you saying? 0:53:47.280 --> 0:53:52.880 You know? This is my good question, you know, because. 0:53:54.600 --> 0:53:57.920 Because Joni was so accepting of me and didn't just 0:53:58.000 --> 0:53:59.120 be like get out of here, kid. 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:02.360 Uh. That was. 0:54:02.920 --> 0:54:08.400 And so imagine if you're meeting Jonie and her new boyfriend, 0:54:09.080 --> 0:54:13.160 Graham Nash, who's just come from the Hollies, who's left 0:54:13.680 --> 0:54:16.440 the Hollies, whose voice I know really well from listening 0:54:16.520 --> 0:54:20.160 to the radio. So I'm meeting him, and who says, 0:54:20.800 --> 0:54:22.800 can you teach me how to take pictures like you 0:54:22.920 --> 0:54:27.080 do and like to print make prints like this? Sure, Graham, 0:54:27.080 --> 0:54:30.239 I'd love to. And meanwhile, out in the hallways is 0:54:30.400 --> 0:54:35.239 his friend David Crosby, Toni's ex boyfriend who had been 0:54:35.320 --> 0:54:40.200 her boyfriend previously, who's who's in the hallway, And the 0:54:40.320 --> 0:54:42.840 two of them are going to be starting a group 0:54:42.960 --> 0:54:46.240 together that they're going to be going into the studio 0:54:46.320 --> 0:54:50.920 in about a week to start the recording of So 0:54:53.000 --> 0:54:55.520 by the way, after the Carnegie Honk concert, we go 0:54:55.760 --> 0:55:04.880 to Levenhal, the promoter's apartment, who is managing all the 0:55:04.960 --> 0:55:08.000 folkies up to that point and was still Judy Collins manager. 0:55:08.760 --> 0:55:14.120 And I was talking to Joni when she at the 0:55:14.160 --> 0:55:19.000 party when she looks over my shoulder and says, oh, Leonard, 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:22.680 you must meet my friend Joel. He's really a genius. 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:24.759 And I turn around and it's Leonard Cohen. I have 0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:27.840 just finished reading his book of poetry. I think he 0:55:27.960 --> 0:55:31.600 walks on water. When she says, you know, he's really 0:55:31.719 --> 0:55:34.320 a genius, I want to shrink to the size of 0:55:34.360 --> 0:55:36.759 the head of a pin because I'm actually in the 0:55:36.800 --> 0:55:40.560 presence of two actual geniuses, and I just feel like 0:55:41.280 --> 0:55:44.680 this kid, this little kid who's like, I'm going to school. 0:55:44.800 --> 0:55:51.120 I don't even what No, I'm not, You're the geniuses here. 0:55:51.480 --> 0:55:56.480 So that was quite an amazing thing. And then I 0:55:56.560 --> 0:56:00.360 didn't even like in New York, of course we have 0:56:00.440 --> 0:56:02.279 to have an after show. Not only do I have 0:56:02.360 --> 0:56:04.000 to have the party after the show, we have to 0:56:04.040 --> 0:56:07.560 have a party after that party. So everybody gets up 0:56:08.400 --> 0:56:10.399 and we all go down to the Bitter End where 0:56:10.520 --> 0:56:15.000 the Everly Brothers are playing, and in the audience, I'm 0:56:15.040 --> 0:56:19.120 introduced to Bob Dylan, who has brought like a couple 0:56:19.239 --> 0:56:22.719 songs to play for the Everly Brothers. Unbeknows to me, 0:56:23.239 --> 0:56:25.160 but in other words, by the time I get back 0:56:25.239 --> 0:56:29.320 to home room, like after I leave New York and 0:56:29.400 --> 0:56:31.880 take the three am Trailways bus after all of this 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:38.160 on the Sunday night, to like get back after this 0:56:38.280 --> 0:56:43.320 heady experience, I finally, you know, take take the I 0:56:43.440 --> 0:56:45.440 take actually a bus back and then I get the 0:56:45.520 --> 0:56:48.080 subway out to the suburbs. And then I've got to 0:56:48.200 --> 0:56:50.719 run to get my books for the school and then 0:56:50.760 --> 0:56:53.160 I got to run for the school bus and collapse 0:56:53.239 --> 0:56:55.040 on the school bus. And I get to the home room, 0:56:55.120 --> 0:56:59.359 I'm like, I've like had like a couple hours sleep. 0:57:00.280 --> 0:57:03.840 The kid next to me says, so what did you 0:57:03.960 --> 0:57:13.279 do this weekend? I said, you wouldn't believe me if 0:57:13.280 --> 0:57:19.960 I told you so, that sets me up, and that 0:57:20.720 --> 0:57:22.520 leads me into my adult life. 0:57:22.560 --> 0:57:27.400 Well, okay, you're in high school, you're doing this. Most 0:57:27.440 --> 0:57:31.600 of the connections seemed to come from Joni Mitchell, Elliott Roberts, 0:57:31.760 --> 0:57:32.920 David Geffen. 0:57:32.840 --> 0:57:33.320 Neil Young. 0:57:33.920 --> 0:57:37.959 This point in time, especially at this point in time, 0:57:40.200 --> 0:57:44.720 it was not seen as a lucrative career shooting rock photos. 0:57:45.280 --> 0:57:47.400 Oh no, no it was. It was in fact, my 0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:53.080 guidance counselor wanted to persuade me from pursuing the career, 0:57:53.280 --> 0:57:56.160 not even as forget the rock part of it, that 0:57:56.240 --> 0:57:59.440 would be absolutely life forgetting Well, there's no money there 0:57:59.520 --> 0:58:01.360 for sure. But if you just want to be a 0:58:01.440 --> 0:58:04.640 professional photographer and stead up a studio and take portraits 0:58:04.680 --> 0:58:08.640 of you know, of high school kids, or you know, 0:58:08.760 --> 0:58:11.880 be an actual professional photographer, Like, how's that looking for you? 0:58:11.960 --> 0:58:12.280 How much? 0:58:12.600 --> 0:58:15.040 You know, it's like that's not really you really don't 0:58:15.040 --> 0:58:19.680 want to do that. You could be your sat score, 0:58:19.800 --> 0:58:22.680 You could be a lawyer, you could be a doctor, 0:58:22.760 --> 0:58:25.320 you could be whatever you literally, you could be whatever 0:58:25.400 --> 0:58:28.320 you want to be. So don't get hung up on this. 0:58:28.480 --> 0:58:31.520 Photography is a nice hobby kind of thing. 0:58:39.280 --> 0:58:44.000 Okay, so these first Crosbie Stills in Nash album comes 0:58:44.000 --> 0:58:46.360 out in sixty nine, after the gold Rush comes in 0:58:46.520 --> 0:58:51.320 fall of seventy seventy. You graduate from high school in 0:58:51.480 --> 0:58:54.160 seventy in May or June of seventy. 0:58:54.880 --> 0:58:56.880 In June or seven, first week of June. 0:58:57.120 --> 0:58:59.160 What happens for you the following fall. 0:59:00.600 --> 0:59:03.760 Well before the fall. What happens is the day after 0:59:03.880 --> 0:59:06.680 I graduate high school, and that first week of June, 0:59:07.520 --> 0:59:11.240 on the Monday night, I get on a train to 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:13.880 go to New York to photograph Crosby Stills Nashing Young 0:59:14.720 --> 0:59:17.320 at the Filmore East. They're doing like a residency at 0:59:17.360 --> 0:59:22.040 the Filmore East. I have never seen them before. They 0:59:22.080 --> 0:59:24.520 had been there in nineteen six September of sixty nine, 0:59:24.680 --> 0:59:28.640 I wasn't there. This is the first time that I 0:59:28.720 --> 0:59:29.520 got to see them. 0:59:30.480 --> 0:59:35.760 That was very Let's see. 0:59:36.800 --> 0:59:39.920 I was so impressed by their musicianship and that they 0:59:40.000 --> 0:59:45.920 could be so fluent on acoustic and electric guitars really 0:59:46.000 --> 0:59:48.200 kind of blew my mind. How good Stephen and Neil, 0:59:48.800 --> 0:59:53.960 all of them, and Crosby doing triad and winevere on guitar. 0:59:54.040 --> 1:00:01.520 You're like, what, So all of it was really remarkable, 1:00:01.560 --> 1:00:08.200 and I stayed there for that week to photograph them, 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:11.720 and during the first couple of days, I took a 1:00:11.880 --> 1:00:14.920 walk with Neil. We were going to sound check at 1:00:15.000 --> 1:00:19.320 the film Wore and Graham and I with Neil were 1:00:19.360 --> 1:00:26.240 walking down the streets in We were actually on Thompson 1:00:26.320 --> 1:00:32.680 Street and I looked down the sidewalk and saw a small, 1:00:33.880 --> 1:00:37.960 older woman with very bright eyes. It really struck me 1:00:38.280 --> 1:00:41.200 coming towards us on the sidewalk, and I just for 1:00:41.320 --> 1:00:43.400 some reason, I stepped back and I wanted to get 1:00:43.440 --> 1:00:46.040 the moment that she crossed Neil. I don't know why, 1:00:46.200 --> 1:00:49.080 but I did. Boom click, I got the moment that 1:00:49.160 --> 1:00:54.160 they passed. After photographing all those shows, I didn't think 1:00:54.200 --> 1:00:56.920 about it twice. I was thinking more about the performance 1:00:56.960 --> 1:01:00.360 shots I was doing, and it was a very shot, 1:01:00.440 --> 1:01:05.440 so many pictures ever in my life. And when I 1:01:05.520 --> 1:01:08.840 got in the dark room and was got to that shot, 1:01:09.520 --> 1:01:11.880 I was looking forward to seeing if I'd gotten the 1:01:12.080 --> 1:01:14.800 moment that they passed. It was a little bit out 1:01:14.840 --> 1:01:18.240 of focus. I was focused more on the lady than 1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:21.760 I was Neil, which I see things very crisply, and 1:01:21.880 --> 1:01:28.360 it bothered me. So I applied a strange technique called 1:01:28.400 --> 1:01:32.280 pseudo solarization which you turn in what you turn on 1:01:32.400 --> 1:01:34.560 a bright white light just for an instant while the 1:01:34.640 --> 1:01:37.400 print is developing. This is the thing you're never supposed 1:01:37.440 --> 1:01:39.000 to do in a dark room. Of course, when you 1:01:39.480 --> 1:01:41.480 have white light in a dark room, you'll ruin the 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:43.520 print if you leave it on long enough. But if 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:46.640 you just put it on for a second, half the 1:01:46.720 --> 1:01:50.000 print days positive and half of its days negative, you'll 1:01:50.040 --> 1:01:52.520 never be able to duplicate what it does. And it 1:01:52.600 --> 1:02:02.120 turns into a very surreal kind of intense graphic and 1:02:03.680 --> 1:02:07.080 it sharpens things as it does that. So I did that, 1:02:07.440 --> 1:02:11.479 and I got the looked at the print of it again. 1:02:11.520 --> 1:02:15.040 It's called a solarized print, and I just thought that's 1:02:15.200 --> 1:02:18.000 way more intense than the shot looks on its own. 1:02:18.360 --> 1:02:20.240 I'm just going to put that in the stack of print. 1:02:20.320 --> 1:02:23.520 That's the one he should see. So when I after 1:02:23.760 --> 1:02:27.280 photographing them at the film More East, and then spending 1:02:27.440 --> 1:02:32.440 days developing the film, and then days proofing making contact sheets, 1:02:32.680 --> 1:02:35.560 and then looking at the contact sheets and making prints, 1:02:36.040 --> 1:02:38.760 so that when they came back to Philadelphia, I would 1:02:38.760 --> 1:02:41.640 have a box done of prints that I could show 1:02:41.720 --> 1:02:43.840 them all show the band like what I had done. 1:02:47.160 --> 1:02:51.280 So I I did that. 1:02:51.720 --> 1:02:58.280 It was kind of exhausting. I assumed I had a 1:02:59.480 --> 1:03:02.040 I had a vision of the band very much like 1:03:03.200 --> 1:03:06.240 in my mind's eye. It was like, Oh, these guys 1:03:06.280 --> 1:03:07.920 are on tour, so they must like what do they do? 1:03:08.120 --> 1:03:10.200 Like they get like a big, big suite or something, 1:03:10.240 --> 1:03:12.200 and they all like it. It's like the Beatles in Help, 1:03:12.520 --> 1:03:14.640 where they just have like a row houses or something 1:03:14.720 --> 1:03:18.720 like that. No, they're each in their own hotel room separately, 1:03:18.760 --> 1:03:20.640 and I've got to go from one room to the 1:03:20.800 --> 1:03:24.520 next with my photos to show them this thing. 1:03:25.480 --> 1:03:29.520 And so when I. 1:03:31.280 --> 1:03:34.200 Showed the Prince to Neil, each of them, I was 1:03:34.240 --> 1:03:37.840 only showing prints of themselves nobody. I figured even then, 1:03:38.640 --> 1:03:41.120 like David doesn't need to see pictures of Stephen. Yes, 1:03:41.160 --> 1:03:43.240 he can see the group shots and stuff, but on 1:03:43.360 --> 1:03:45.840 the individual stuff, I'm just going to show each guy 1:03:45.960 --> 1:03:48.880 their own things. So here's the shot of Neil passing 1:03:48.960 --> 1:03:54.520 the woman with a little print this big, and he 1:03:54.640 --> 1:03:58.240 stares at it for a few seconds and then he 1:03:58.320 --> 1:04:00.280 looks up at me and says, that's my album cover. 1:04:02.320 --> 1:04:06.920 And I thought, okay, Joel, don't get too excited, because 1:04:07.200 --> 1:04:10.040 these guys changed their mind all the time and he 1:04:10.200 --> 1:04:13.080 might think that now so it's really cool and he 1:04:13.200 --> 1:04:18.880 said that, but don't go nuts about it, okay, But 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:22.840 it turned out that it was and that was my 1:04:22.920 --> 1:04:25.160 first album cover. So back to my first week of 1:04:25.600 --> 1:04:30.320 classes of going to Madison, Wisconsin, because I was had 1:04:30.360 --> 1:04:32.680 been convinced that like, no, I can't just I'm still 1:04:32.680 --> 1:04:34.600 going to have to go to college. I can't just 1:04:34.720 --> 1:04:37.840 do this photography thing, like you know, that's no, no, no, 1:04:37.960 --> 1:04:39.960 You're just not going to make any money. And even 1:04:40.000 --> 1:04:42.120 though it's lots of fun and wouldn't it be great 1:04:42.160 --> 1:04:47.000 if you could do it, but no. So there I 1:04:47.080 --> 1:04:53.320 am at school and after the gold Rush album comes 1:04:53.360 --> 1:04:56.360 out that week, I go down to the record store. 1:04:56.440 --> 1:04:59.600 There's like fifty of them on the floor with my 1:04:59.720 --> 1:05:03.040 picture on the front and on the back and on 1:05:03.160 --> 1:05:08.560 the inside, and I'm like shocked. It was like I 1:05:08.760 --> 1:05:12.080 just took that picture like months ago. That was I 1:05:12.240 --> 1:05:16.200 did that, and now it's in shrink wrap with all 1:05:16.240 --> 1:05:20.320 the other albums on the floor of this record store. 1:05:21.800 --> 1:05:23.800 And then I look up and there's a poster of 1:05:23.920 --> 1:05:26.520 another shot of Neil that Warner's is put out as 1:05:26.520 --> 1:05:31.640 a promotional thing. Anyway, I call Elliott up and I'm like, Elliott, 1:05:31.680 --> 1:05:34.800 I just saw the It's like, can I send them 1:05:34.840 --> 1:05:38.800 a bill for this short jowel? Of course. Just let's see. 1:05:38.800 --> 1:05:41.160 You have the front and the back and the inside. 1:05:41.440 --> 1:05:43.560 Each one of those should be five hundred dollars. Joel, 1:05:43.600 --> 1:05:47.240 you send Warner Brothers a bill for fifteen hundred dollars. 1:05:47.720 --> 1:05:50.920 Now fifteen hundred dollars in nineteen seventy when you're a 1:05:51.040 --> 1:05:53.360 freshman in college and you're like, am I going to 1:05:53.440 --> 1:05:55.400 buy something for two dollars and twenty five cents or 1:05:55.440 --> 1:05:56.760 two dollars in a day? You know what I mean, 1:05:57.200 --> 1:05:59.919 It's insane. You might as well say like, I'm giving 1:06:00.080 --> 1:06:03.280 you like two million dollars or something. It was really 1:06:03.520 --> 1:06:04.240 quite crazy. 1:06:04.440 --> 1:06:04.960 And that. 1:06:06.480 --> 1:06:11.080 Combined with that this was this it's it's now there. 1:06:11.360 --> 1:06:13.880 It's like, wait a second, this is going to look 1:06:13.960 --> 1:06:16.200 like this around the world. They're going to have this 1:06:16.320 --> 1:06:23.720 album in France, in England was really like whoa, whoa, whoa. 1:06:26.480 --> 1:06:30.400 And then Joni called in my dorm room. If you 1:06:30.480 --> 1:06:35.480 can imagine the phone ringing, ye, Joni called and said, hey, 1:06:35.560 --> 1:06:38.440 could you I need some photos done? Could you come 1:06:38.520 --> 1:06:43.800 out like next weekend to do some photos of me 1:06:45.080 --> 1:06:49.840 at my house. Well, Joned, I mean, you know, I 1:06:50.040 --> 1:06:54.120 just I just started college. Okay, but you know what 1:06:54.280 --> 1:06:57.200 if if I leave on Friday, if I leave Friday 1:06:57.320 --> 1:06:59.600 night and then like I can shoot, I'll get there 1:06:59.640 --> 1:07:03.040 on Friday and then we can maybe shoot Saturday Sunday. 1:07:03.080 --> 1:07:05.280 But I've got to leave like early Monday morning because 1:07:05.280 --> 1:07:09.360 i got class to go back to like on Monday. Sure, 1:07:09.520 --> 1:07:10.400 sure that sounds great. 1:07:11.560 --> 1:07:12.560 So I did. 1:07:12.680 --> 1:07:15.880 I you know, it's like around October, first end of September, 1:07:17.240 --> 1:07:20.480 snow flurries in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm in a dorm room, 1:07:21.240 --> 1:07:28.320 like one of a series of dorms. I'm a dorm complex, 1:07:28.440 --> 1:07:31.680 five different dormitories. I was told that we were being 1:07:31.720 --> 1:07:35.120 fed by the second largest kitchen in North America after 1:07:35.240 --> 1:07:43.120 the one at the Pentagon. Forty thousand undergraduates. Forty thousand undergraduates. Okay, 1:07:45.520 --> 1:07:48.680 the floor of my dorm is filled with Wisconsin beer 1:07:48.840 --> 1:07:52.560 drinking jocks with perhaps blue ribbon posters on their doors 1:07:53.280 --> 1:07:53.840 kind of thing. 1:07:54.480 --> 1:07:56.800 Right, And. 1:07:58.920 --> 1:08:01.520 I leave to you know, for the weekend to go 1:08:01.600 --> 1:08:05.120 to Los Angeles. It's Santa Anna wins. It's eighty five 1:08:05.240 --> 1:08:09.440 degrees breezy, and now you're going to go to Laurel 1:08:09.520 --> 1:08:13.240 Canyon and meet Gary Burden, the art director, and Henry Gilts, 1:08:13.480 --> 1:08:16.200 the photographer who's also going to be shooting at her 1:08:16.400 --> 1:08:21.519 at the same session. And these are the pictures of Joni, 1:08:21.760 --> 1:08:23.680 like leaning out the window that you see with our 1:08:23.720 --> 1:08:27.080 house in the green paint that Henry's came out much 1:08:27.200 --> 1:08:32.360 much before minded. But anyway, that was my intro to that. 1:08:32.760 --> 1:08:37.120 And to make a long story short, Jonie asked me 1:08:37.280 --> 1:08:40.640 to stay. My parents dropped me off on a to 1:08:40.760 --> 1:08:43.160 go on an around the world trip. They got me, 1:08:43.360 --> 1:08:45.160 they were like, okay, we're going to take you to Madison. 1:08:45.520 --> 1:08:48.360 Here's your stuff everything. Okay, see you later. We're going 1:08:48.439 --> 1:08:50.639 to be off. We'll talk to you in a few weeks. 1:08:51.400 --> 1:08:54.439 And all of this happened during that time, so there 1:08:54.520 --> 1:08:55.920 was nobody to call nobody. 1:08:56.160 --> 1:08:56.760 I just did it. 1:08:57.200 --> 1:09:01.439 And and then Joni said, hey, could you could you 1:09:01.520 --> 1:09:03.479 house in my place? Like while I'm in Europe with 1:09:03.560 --> 1:09:06.559 James Taylor. She was James Taylor was her boyfriend at 1:09:06.600 --> 1:09:12.040 the time, and she was writing the Blue Album when 1:09:12.080 --> 1:09:16.559 I was when I was there, and then they both left, 1:09:16.720 --> 1:09:20.439 she and they went to England where you have those 1:09:20.479 --> 1:09:23.800 beautiful recordings that you and I would have heard first 1:09:23.880 --> 1:09:30.600 on that bootleg of Joni and James right. And so 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:38.439 I wound up being able to rent a house into 1:09:38.560 --> 1:09:41.760 Panga and work for the art director as his assistant. 1:09:42.560 --> 1:09:45.880 And that began my I never went back. I only 1:09:45.960 --> 1:09:49.559 went back to I only went back. I forfeited the tuition, 1:09:50.600 --> 1:09:52.920 and I went back and picked up all my stuff 1:09:53.000 --> 1:09:54.360 and moved out to California. 1:09:55.200 --> 1:09:58.680 And what did your parents say when they found out? Right? 1:09:58.760 --> 1:10:01.280 Well, so my parents where like, You've got to come 1:10:01.320 --> 1:10:04.240 back here right now, like they came back to Philadelphia. 1:10:04.840 --> 1:10:07.000 So I had to explain to them what okay, okay. 1:10:07.479 --> 1:10:10.160 Now most parents would be like, you get your ass 1:10:10.800 --> 1:10:12.720 back in that school, and now you can go and 1:10:12.800 --> 1:10:15.680 get a job since you forfeited your tuition, you know 1:10:15.720 --> 1:10:17.519 what I mean. It was the big kind of thing 1:10:17.600 --> 1:10:22.040 to have done. And they just said, okay, I can't 1:10:22.080 --> 1:10:24.200 believe you did this. But we know these guys and 1:10:24.280 --> 1:10:26.719 they're real Like they had met Elliott and they'd met Jonie. 1:10:26.760 --> 1:10:28.760 They were like they were they were okay with me 1:10:28.880 --> 1:10:30.720 hanging out with you. They weren't. I was not in 1:10:30.800 --> 1:10:33.439 a crash pad in the hate Ashbury okay, like things 1:10:33.479 --> 1:10:37.479 were better than that, but you know, you got to 1:10:37.520 --> 1:10:40.559 go to college, so we want you to go. Well, 1:10:40.720 --> 1:10:43.439 I just want to learn photography, Okay, well I want 1:10:43.439 --> 1:10:46.360 you to go to all you go to the art schools, 1:10:46.560 --> 1:10:50.120 like go to the places that have photography courses in 1:10:50.280 --> 1:10:53.439 Los Angeles and like figure out which one you can 1:10:53.479 --> 1:10:56.000 go to, because we want you to be back in school. 1:10:56.640 --> 1:11:04.160 So I went to four different colleges, including the new 1:11:04.800 --> 1:11:12.360 cal Arts which had just opened, and I just what 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:14.840 I for me. I just said, you know, I really 1:11:14.880 --> 1:11:17.720 don't need these people to teach me how to do this. 1:11:17.920 --> 1:11:22.040 I can do this already, and they're concentrating on technical, 1:11:22.560 --> 1:11:25.679 on technique. But their stuff is like it has no soul, 1:11:26.200 --> 1:11:28.000 it's not they're not doing what I want to do. 1:11:28.840 --> 1:11:31.599 I can't learn from these people. That's how I felt. 1:11:32.240 --> 1:11:37.360 And they let me move to Tipanga and I got 1:11:37.560 --> 1:11:40.040 a job working as an assistant for the art director 1:11:40.760 --> 1:11:46.720 and that then then just kept doing more photographs, like oh, 1:11:46.840 --> 1:11:50.799 we're starting asylum records, you do photograph Judy cell or whatever. 1:11:51.360 --> 1:11:54.520 That was how I just started working as a photographer. 1:11:54.640 --> 1:11:59.080 Then was it you know the crossby stools Nashy Nung tour. 1:11:59.160 --> 1:12:02.599 The reference at the time was seventy four. You start 1:12:02.760 --> 1:12:07.559 going to LA in October seventy Is it pretty steady 1:12:07.960 --> 1:12:10.479 for that period of time or they're ups and downs. 1:12:12.400 --> 1:12:16.800 Well, if you're a freelance of anything, it's going to 1:12:16.840 --> 1:12:20.560 be up and down and it's going to be unpredictable. 1:12:22.240 --> 1:12:22.680 But I. 1:12:24.880 --> 1:12:27.320 Enjoyed it, and I didn't need to. I wasn't paying 1:12:27.360 --> 1:12:32.759 a whole lot of rent and everyone I hitchhiked everywhere. 1:12:32.800 --> 1:12:37.240 I didn't have a car, but I was able to. 1:12:37.439 --> 1:12:40.280 Let's see, so early seventy one, for example, just after 1:12:40.520 --> 1:12:43.639 I was a house sitting at Jones and then came 1:12:43.760 --> 1:12:50.000 back to California. I'm with Graham Nash. He's about to 1:12:50.080 --> 1:12:54.040 do his first solo album. We're at Wally Hiders studio. 1:12:55.600 --> 1:12:58.840 He's with the engineer playing back a playback of a 1:12:58.960 --> 1:13:03.000 song that he recorded a few months ago at Crosby's 1:13:03.080 --> 1:13:09.760 sessions for his solo album in San Francisco. And this 1:13:09.880 --> 1:13:12.240 is when I start learning about like the repetition, how 1:13:12.280 --> 1:13:16.559 much repetition is involved in recordings in studios and playback 1:13:16.640 --> 1:13:19.360 and all of that. So they play the same thing 1:13:19.479 --> 1:13:22.040 back and back, and I finally get bored and I 1:13:22.200 --> 1:13:26.880 walk into the studio itself, where no one is there. 1:13:27.560 --> 1:13:30.880 There's a piano. I don't know how to play piano, 1:13:31.320 --> 1:13:33.280 but I'm bored. So I sit at the piano and 1:13:33.400 --> 1:13:36.160 I through the glass I can hear the tape they're playing, 1:13:36.200 --> 1:13:40.920 which is the song Military Madness, and I just start 1:13:40.960 --> 1:13:45.240 playing along with it on the piano. I can't play 1:13:45.280 --> 1:13:47.960 piano at all. I'm playing like a chopsticks kind of piano, 1:13:48.600 --> 1:13:55.160 literally one finger on the loft, two fingers right. And 1:13:55.400 --> 1:13:58.320 suddenly Graham's voice comes out loud over the speakers in 1:13:58.400 --> 1:14:00.680 the studio, Joel, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, 1:14:01.240 --> 1:14:04.719 I'm so sorry. I figured I was interrupting their hearing 1:14:04.720 --> 1:14:07.760 and they could hear me for some reason. No, no, no, 1:14:07.920 --> 1:14:12.719 it's just what are you doing? Like, what are you playing? Nothing, Graham, 1:14:12.760 --> 1:14:16.679 I'm just just playing along with it. Go back, he says, 1:14:16.680 --> 1:14:18.519 the engineer. Take the tape back to the head of 1:14:18.560 --> 1:14:21.880 the thing, and just start at the beginning, so and 1:14:22.040 --> 1:14:24.000 just play what you were doing. So I start playing, 1:14:24.200 --> 1:14:26.160 and I play all the way through, and Graham says, 1:14:27.120 --> 1:14:33.040 you're on the session tomorrow. So I'm not yet nineteen. 1:14:35.000 --> 1:14:39.080 Get to the session. This is like John Barbada, Chris Ethridge, 1:14:39.560 --> 1:14:44.920 Rita Coolidge. I'm thinking, you know, if I was playing guitar, 1:14:45.080 --> 1:14:47.080 I wouldn't be very nervous because I can play guitar. 1:14:47.160 --> 1:14:50.040 I'm like good, I'm good enough that if I needed 1:14:50.040 --> 1:14:51.880 to play a rhythm guitar part on this thing, I 1:14:51.920 --> 1:14:53.760 could do it fine. But I don't know how to 1:14:53.840 --> 1:14:57.160 play piano for shit, like at all. These people are 1:14:57.960 --> 1:15:02.639 the major guys. I'm like kind of sweating bullets thinking about. 1:15:02.640 --> 1:15:05.840 The door of the studio opens, Dave Mason walks in. 1:15:06.560 --> 1:15:11.000 I'm a huge traffic fan. He fucking Dave Mason walks 1:15:11.040 --> 1:15:14.639 in with a plugs this strat into an amp, sits 1:15:14.720 --> 1:15:16.439 down next to me on the piano bench. 1:15:17.800 --> 1:15:18.400 Now, I'm. 1:15:21.000 --> 1:15:27.720 Oh, and we do a live take of it. It's 1:15:27.760 --> 1:15:30.040 I think like the second take or something like that. 1:15:30.320 --> 1:15:33.639 And I'm on the record. It was the first time 1:15:33.680 --> 1:15:36.720 I ever played on a record. It was a big 1:15:36.840 --> 1:15:37.760 heady experience. 1:15:40.439 --> 1:15:42.080 Well, how many records have you played on? 1:15:44.040 --> 1:15:50.680 Oh, that's a good question. I don't know totally how 1:15:50.760 --> 1:15:52.880 many recordings I did. I was a member of the 1:15:53.280 --> 1:15:58.040 became a member of the LA Musicians Union because I 1:15:58.080 --> 1:16:01.280 played on enough things I let's see how my records 1:16:01.320 --> 1:16:04.240 that I ever play on. I don't know, not many, 1:16:04.640 --> 1:16:09.639 eight ten. I played on Graham Nash, David Crosby, Crosby 1:16:09.680 --> 1:16:14.439 and Nash Crosby Stills in Nash. I played with Joni 1:16:14.520 --> 1:16:23.360 Mitchell on stage, played with Neil on stage. In terms 1:16:23.400 --> 1:16:31.719 of playing on on records, I played on Terry Reid's 1:16:31.760 --> 1:16:35.120 Seed of Memory, a great, great album that Graham Nash produced. 1:16:35.200 --> 1:16:38.000 I played on that. I was really thrilled about that. 1:16:38.840 --> 1:16:42.920 I played on his Wild Tales album, his second album 1:16:43.000 --> 1:16:46.240 as well. And I played on Wasted on the Way 1:16:46.920 --> 1:16:51.960 When Crosby Stills Nash. Anyway, So I never became a 1:16:52.120 --> 1:16:55.120 real session player at all, No, but I did. I 1:16:55.400 --> 1:16:58.720 liked accompany and I was a thrilled to do all 1:16:58.760 --> 1:16:59.040 of those. 1:17:00.200 --> 1:17:04.120 Okay, you go. You know we talk about that show 1:17:04.200 --> 1:17:06.280 at the beginning, you know, in England on the seventy 1:17:06.360 --> 1:17:09.720 Forard tour, and then ultimately you shoot the Running on 1:17:09.880 --> 1:17:14.719 Empty Stuff, which is nineteen yes, seventy eighty seven, seventy seven, 1:17:14.800 --> 1:17:17.519 seventy eight, whenever it comes out right right right? Are 1:17:17.560 --> 1:17:20.439 you continuously working through that period? 1:17:21.680 --> 1:17:26.519 Yeah, I was working mostly as a photographer, so I 1:17:26.600 --> 1:17:29.200 did the Wind on the Water album cover and the 1:17:30.800 --> 1:17:33.479 shots of CSN on the boat for example, Right, that 1:17:33.479 --> 1:17:37.920 would have been earlier that year, in seventy seven. I 1:17:39.080 --> 1:17:41.840 let's see after it was just going back I had 1:17:41.920 --> 1:17:46.240 done after the gold Rush cover. I did the inside 1:17:46.280 --> 1:17:49.880 and back cover, the inside and back cover for the 1:17:49.960 --> 1:17:54.280 Harvest album the group in the barn there that was 1:17:54.400 --> 1:18:00.360 September seventy one. I did the photos of Jony for 1:18:00.560 --> 1:18:03.519 the Four of the Roses album that I did those 1:18:03.560 --> 1:18:10.479 in September of seventy two. And did the Time Fades 1:18:10.520 --> 1:18:13.080 Away cover for Neil Young of the Kid in the 1:18:13.120 --> 1:18:16.400 audience at the Spectrum giving a peace sign. Right, that 1:18:16.560 --> 1:18:22.160 was then. So I just kept going forward doing those. 1:18:22.439 --> 1:18:24.479 Okay, A couple of questions. First, got to stop on 1:18:24.600 --> 1:18:27.320 Four of the Roses that famously had a picture of 1:18:27.520 --> 1:18:32.240 Joni in Canada with no clothes on. I didn't see 1:18:32.280 --> 1:18:35.360 it is that much of a limit tester, but the 1:18:35.560 --> 1:18:38.680 press it was depicted that way. How much of there 1:18:38.840 --> 1:18:41.360 was a discussion of a shooting it and b using it. 1:18:43.640 --> 1:18:46.280 There was no discussion about shooting it. I was just 1:18:46.400 --> 1:18:50.280 walking with Joni and she just took her clothes off 1:18:50.320 --> 1:18:53.679 and walked out onto the rocks. It looks like she's 1:18:54.280 --> 1:18:57.360 way out to see, but she's really only about twenty 1:18:57.920 --> 1:19:00.360 feet away from me. I'm using a wide angle lens 1:19:01.360 --> 1:19:08.120 on that shot, and knew that I had gotten a 1:19:08.200 --> 1:19:14.479 really good series there, and I did the later I 1:19:14.560 --> 1:19:16.120 did the photo of her on the cover, of her 1:19:16.200 --> 1:19:21.760 in the forest, nearly in the forest. I'm sorry, I 1:19:21.800 --> 1:19:23.560 think I forgot which her question. 1:19:23.560 --> 1:19:26.080 Was when the album was being put together and that 1:19:26.200 --> 1:19:29.599 photo was used, was anybody thinking twice of the fact 1:19:29.640 --> 1:19:30.280 she was naked? 1:19:30.720 --> 1:19:34.080 Oh? Yes, No, what happened was I remember that we 1:19:34.840 --> 1:19:37.880 Janie and I had a meeting with David Geffen about 1:19:38.000 --> 1:19:41.120 that her choice of that picture on the cover. I 1:19:42.000 --> 1:19:45.800 originally she wanted to put it on the cover. And 1:19:45.920 --> 1:19:48.920 she said, Jony, do you know three of us at 1:19:48.960 --> 1:19:50.560 a meeting And he said, Johnny, did you know that 1:19:50.800 --> 1:19:57.160 Sears sells something like sixty percent of the LPs in America? 1:19:58.240 --> 1:20:02.040 And she said, no, I didn't know that. Yeah, well 1:20:02.080 --> 1:20:04.680 they do. And they have a very strict kind of 1:20:06.360 --> 1:20:12.719 a rule at Sears about like the kinds of there's 1:20:12.760 --> 1:20:15.880 like all kinds of album covers that they will not 1:20:16.320 --> 1:20:22.080 stock based on the artwork. So this would be like 1:20:22.479 --> 1:20:24.640 no this, which would mean you would you would be 1:20:24.760 --> 1:20:28.639 losing that many that percent of like your sales because 1:20:28.640 --> 1:20:31.160 it's not being represented. So we've got it. So that's over, Like, 1:20:31.240 --> 1:20:31.920 we can't do that. 1:20:32.800 --> 1:20:32.880 So. 1:20:35.200 --> 1:20:40.000 Okay, well can I put it on the inside. Well 1:20:40.240 --> 1:20:43.519 we could try. So that's how we wound up taking 1:20:43.560 --> 1:20:45.760 the picture of her that was going to be on 1:20:45.840 --> 1:20:49.040 the inside, and that became the cover and the the 1:20:49.880 --> 1:20:56.160 the inside shot you talked about, but it was it 1:20:56.320 --> 1:20:56.960 was talked about. 1:21:06.320 --> 1:21:10.000 Okay, you talked about being Okay, let's just talk about 1:21:10.000 --> 1:21:13.760 this period. You're in Los Angeles, You've got the whole 1:21:13.880 --> 1:21:19.519 Geffen Roberts Asylum camp covered. Are you going to record labels? 1:21:19.560 --> 1:21:21.800 Are you trying to network with other racks to do 1:21:21.960 --> 1:21:22.439 their work. 1:21:23.320 --> 1:21:29.000 That's a really good question. I was not at all 1:21:29.120 --> 1:21:34.719 business oriented at the time. I sort of let things 1:21:34.840 --> 1:21:38.240 happen as they did because so much just the things 1:21:38.280 --> 1:21:41.400 I've related to you happened without my doing them. That is, 1:21:41.479 --> 1:21:44.840 they all came to me. These were like there was 1:21:44.880 --> 1:21:49.640 a certain organic flow to things that happened to me, 1:21:49.920 --> 1:21:51.960 and it didn't seem like I was going to be 1:21:52.720 --> 1:21:56.160 helping it. If I had a particular goal in mind 1:21:56.240 --> 1:21:58.240 that I wanted to do it seemed like at the time, 1:21:58.360 --> 1:22:00.679 it seemed like a better thing was just to see 1:22:00.720 --> 1:22:05.960 what happened. So I didn't pound the pavement, and I 1:22:06.479 --> 1:22:09.600 probably should have or could have, or maybe would have 1:22:10.080 --> 1:22:16.120 if we have to just say this happened in nineteen 1:22:16.160 --> 1:22:20.200 seventy three when I was on tour with Neil and 1:22:20.320 --> 1:22:23.760 taking some photos of him backstage as the tour photographer. 1:22:24.720 --> 1:22:26.799 He looked over to me and he goes, wait a minute, 1:22:28.960 --> 1:22:32.400 and he remembered this moment. When I went to photograph 1:22:32.479 --> 1:22:35.480 him in Crazy Horse at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, 1:22:36.320 --> 1:22:39.439 it was I'd seen them at the Bitter End and 1:22:39.560 --> 1:22:41.479 then they were coming to Philadelphia. This would be in 1:22:41.840 --> 1:22:46.920 the end of February beginning of March nineteen seventy still 1:22:47.160 --> 1:22:55.639 I'm still in twelfth grade. And I took the photos 1:22:55.720 --> 1:23:00.120 that became the inside of After the Gold Rush of 1:23:00.200 --> 1:23:02.880 Neil on the couch, sprawled on the couch with the 1:23:02.920 --> 1:23:05.320 guitars all around, and his wife Susan on the fore 1:23:05.479 --> 1:23:09.920 end lighting a cigarette. I also took the picture of 1:23:10.600 --> 1:23:12.760 the close up at the back of his jeans because 1:23:12.760 --> 1:23:16.200 I'd never seen patches like that before. I just I 1:23:16.320 --> 1:23:18.439 had patches. You had patches here, right, you fall, you, 1:23:19.680 --> 1:23:22.400 you rip your jeans, your mom puts a patch on it, right, 1:23:22.960 --> 1:23:24.760 But those were the kind of patches I knew. I 1:23:24.840 --> 1:23:27.680 didn't this was now art right, Like, he had this 1:23:27.840 --> 1:23:30.960 beautiful embroidery going on on the pack there. So I 1:23:31.080 --> 1:23:33.920 knelt down to take a picture of it. Click, I 1:23:34.000 --> 1:23:39.679 take the picture. No, right before the click, Billy Talbot 1:23:39.720 --> 1:23:43.880 the bass players says to Neil, hey Man, that guy's 1:23:43.960 --> 1:23:50.439 taking a picture of your ass man. That becomes the 1:23:50.479 --> 1:23:54.120 back cover. Still the back cover. It's very funny. So, yes, 1:23:55.960 --> 1:23:57.760 what was I going to say? There was some. 1:24:00.640 --> 1:24:03.040 He was saying something to you in the nineteen seventy 1:24:03.160 --> 1:24:03.759 three tours. 1:24:03.840 --> 1:24:06.320 Oh yes, thank you, thank you very much for the 1:24:06.360 --> 1:24:12.600 breadcrumbs there. So what happened is before I took the 1:24:13.439 --> 1:24:16.000 before or after, pardon me, after I took the pictures 1:24:16.479 --> 1:24:18.600 of him on the couch. They are back at the 1:24:18.640 --> 1:24:24.360 Electric Factory in nineteen seventy his D forty five, which 1:24:24.400 --> 1:24:27.960 you can see in the picture leaning up against a wall. 1:24:28.040 --> 1:24:30.519 That's the top of the line Martin guitar. I never 1:24:30.600 --> 1:24:33.479 seen one before, never seen anything close to that nice 1:24:33.520 --> 1:24:36.160 of a guitar, I said, is there any way I 1:24:36.240 --> 1:24:39.479 could just play that guitar for just a minute, Like 1:24:39.960 --> 1:24:41.479 he's like, yeah, sure, go ahead and pick it up, 1:24:41.520 --> 1:24:47.200 a brand new white faced guitar. I pick it up. 1:24:47.280 --> 1:24:49.439 I start playing, and it's like the best guitar by 1:24:49.479 --> 1:24:53.240 far I've ever played. It's about many thousands of dollars guitar. 1:24:53.960 --> 1:24:59.599 And as I'm playing it, somebody from the promoter sticks 1:24:59.640 --> 1:25:02.519 their head in the dressing room door and says, Neil, 1:25:02.560 --> 1:25:05.360 you're on. So Neil looks at me and he says, 1:25:05.400 --> 1:25:08.200 I need the guitar. So I quickly touch up the guitar, 1:25:08.439 --> 1:25:15.240 meaning I tuned it very quickly by ear using harmonics, 1:25:16.479 --> 1:25:20.280 and I hand it to him and he's standing in 1:25:20.360 --> 1:25:23.519 the doorway of the room and he plays three different 1:25:23.600 --> 1:25:25.800 chords on it, and he looks at me quizzically like 1:25:27.040 --> 1:25:32.360 and says that's perfect, Like how could you? What's with you? 1:25:32.840 --> 1:25:34.160 Like? How could you do that? 1:25:34.760 --> 1:25:38.439 Because it's hard to tune a guitar really well, like 1:25:38.560 --> 1:25:40.360 and to do it by ear. But I've been I 1:25:40.479 --> 1:25:43.120 was good enough that by then I gave him the 1:25:43.120 --> 1:25:47.439 guitar back perfectly. So three years later we're in a 1:25:47.560 --> 1:25:49.439 dressing room together and it's just the two of us, 1:25:49.840 --> 1:25:53.960 and he's spending forty minutes before every show tuning his 1:25:54.080 --> 1:25:57.200 own guitars with a throbba tuner. Write a little device. 1:25:58.160 --> 1:25:59.800 I'll spare you what it is, but it's like that 1:25:59.880 --> 1:26:03.280 you used to help tune your guitar. And he looks 1:26:03.280 --> 1:26:06.200 at me and says, wait a minute, you're that kid 1:26:06.800 --> 1:26:09.880 who tuned that D forty five perfectly. What am I 1:26:10.120 --> 1:26:13.600 doing here? You should be doing this here. Let me 1:26:13.720 --> 1:26:16.519 show you how to work this Strova tuner. And so 1:26:16.960 --> 1:26:18.760 he teaches me how to do that, and then I 1:26:18.920 --> 1:26:23.080 become his guitar tech for his shows for the rest 1:26:23.120 --> 1:26:29.080 of the tour on that tour, and that launches me 1:26:29.320 --> 1:26:35.920 into a career of me a guitar technician. After that, 1:26:36.120 --> 1:26:39.240 my first thing is with Crosby and Nash. That becomes 1:26:39.360 --> 1:26:44.800 that's thirty five different instruments, Danny Cooch, David Linley, David 1:26:44.920 --> 1:26:51.360 has ten lap slides, guitar, you know, guitars, banjo, pedal, 1:26:51.439 --> 1:26:55.640 steel guitar, A total of thirty five guitars that I 1:26:55.720 --> 1:26:59.760 have to then tune and restring for the Crosby Nash show. 1:27:00.680 --> 1:27:06.200 And right after I had finished that tour, which was 1:27:06.240 --> 1:27:09.760 our big challenge, which I was able to do. And 1:27:12.080 --> 1:27:14.120 it's a pleasure to like, you know, when when things 1:27:14.120 --> 1:27:18.519 are tuned well, it's like a big thrill. So I 1:27:19.920 --> 1:27:24.560 then ran into the previous tour managers for the CSNY 1:27:24.680 --> 1:27:31.120 tour in nineteen seventy four at Dantanna's on Santa Monica. Joel, 1:27:31.200 --> 1:27:33.000 what are you doing here? I don't know I'm here? 1:27:33.880 --> 1:27:36.360 They said, I said, didn't you just finish the Uh? 1:27:37.320 --> 1:27:40.360 You finished that Rolling Thunder tour with Bob Dylan, didn't you? 1:27:40.720 --> 1:27:43.160 The two of you? You just I so wanted to 1:27:43.200 --> 1:27:44.960 be on that. I was on the Crosby Nash tour 1:27:45.080 --> 1:27:48.400 working on that. But you guys were kicking ass on 1:27:48.560 --> 1:27:49.960 that first Rolling Thunder tour. 1:27:50.000 --> 1:27:50.320 I got. 1:27:50.400 --> 1:27:55.160 I wish I could have been on that. They said, yeah, yeah, 1:27:55.200 --> 1:27:57.280 we did that. So so what have you been doing? 1:27:57.800 --> 1:27:57.920 Oh? 1:27:58.000 --> 1:28:00.519 I was a guitar tech for Crosby and Nasha had 1:28:00.560 --> 1:28:02.400 these thirty five guitars and they look at each other 1:28:02.600 --> 1:28:09.439 like and one of them says, so like, just leave 1:28:09.520 --> 1:28:12.600 the spring open for us. Okay, don't book anything for 1:28:12.720 --> 1:28:14.240 the spring. We can't tell you what it's about. 1:28:16.720 --> 1:28:17.400 Just leave it open. 1:28:18.240 --> 1:28:20.679 Later they call me and say, Okay, what it's about 1:28:20.800 --> 1:28:23.240 is like, it's the Bob Dylan the second Rolling Thunder 1:28:23.320 --> 1:28:26.720 Review tour. We're doing it this spring, and we're doing 1:28:26.760 --> 1:28:28.640 it along the Gulf Coast and we want you to 1:28:28.720 --> 1:28:32.719 start at the Clearwater. We're doing rehearsals at the Bellevue 1:28:32.760 --> 1:28:34.879 buildmore in Clearwater, Florida. 1:28:35.600 --> 1:28:36.000 Be there. 1:28:39.040 --> 1:28:43.560 And that was another tour with thirty five guitars and 1:28:44.640 --> 1:28:49.880 a huge thrill. And of course, you know, dropping into 1:28:50.200 --> 1:28:57.360 each of these worlds, it's it's a bit like your 1:28:59.000 --> 1:29:01.160 Many of these scenes have people in them who have 1:29:01.240 --> 1:29:07.559 been there for years. And going from let's say Neil 1:29:07.640 --> 1:29:11.719 Young's world into Joni Mitchell's world into Bob Dylan's world 1:29:11.880 --> 1:29:15.000 or Prince's world, each one of those is like a 1:29:15.120 --> 1:29:21.559 different kingdom ruled by a different monarch with a totally 1:29:21.640 --> 1:29:25.600 different style, and the rules are different and will the 1:29:25.960 --> 1:29:29.200 priorities are different and whatever. And most of the people 1:29:29.280 --> 1:29:32.920 who work in those places only know that place. They 1:29:32.960 --> 1:29:36.439 don't travel, they're just in that one place. So it's 1:29:36.520 --> 1:29:39.080 wild in what I was doing as a photographer and 1:29:39.160 --> 1:29:41.960 a guitar tech to go from one of those scenes, 1:29:42.600 --> 1:29:47.880 you know, into a whole other thing. And so I 1:29:48.040 --> 1:29:52.320 learned a lot from working for Bob, and it was, 1:29:52.960 --> 1:29:55.080 you know, a big challenge and a big thrill. 1:29:56.120 --> 1:30:00.800 Okay, you so you learned a lot, would you learn? Well? 1:30:03.520 --> 1:30:07.120 I learned like Bob, for example, is a man of 1:30:07.240 --> 1:30:09.600 few words. He's not going to tell you what the 1:30:09.720 --> 1:30:14.040 issue is. He's going to look like something's wrong and 1:30:14.160 --> 1:30:16.920 you have to figure it out. So that was a 1:30:17.000 --> 1:30:21.960 big lesson for me. But the nonverbal communication thing, because 1:30:22.040 --> 1:30:23.880 Bob is just not going to tell you a lot, 1:30:23.960 --> 1:30:26.080 you really do have to figure out what it is, 1:30:26.200 --> 1:30:28.559 and sometimes it's something serious and you've got to deal 1:30:28.600 --> 1:30:30.160 with it like right then. 1:30:30.720 --> 1:30:32.960 So that stood me in. 1:30:33.000 --> 1:30:35.920 Goodstead many many years later when I went to work 1:30:36.000 --> 1:30:39.559 for Prince, because they're both so intense. I mean, Bob 1:30:39.600 --> 1:30:41.800 could give you a look that could kill and you 1:30:41.880 --> 1:30:45.719 could be dead. His looks are so intense. 1:30:47.200 --> 1:30:47.360 You know. 1:30:47.520 --> 1:30:52.800 Prince was incredibly it was an intense person, but he 1:30:53.000 --> 1:30:56.160 was so focused on what it was he wanted to 1:30:56.280 --> 1:31:00.280 do that you really you wanted to help him, wanted 1:31:00.320 --> 1:31:01.960 to like it's like, okay, if I'm going to get 1:31:02.000 --> 1:31:03.680 on this bus, I'm going to do the best I 1:31:03.800 --> 1:31:10.560 can and and and do it. So all of my 1:31:11.479 --> 1:31:14.800 career as a a what became as a guitar technician 1:31:16.439 --> 1:31:23.960 occasionally with me playing on records or live was intermingled 1:31:24.040 --> 1:31:26.320 with my career as a photographer, so I got to 1:31:26.400 --> 1:31:29.560 do for many years, I got to do an alternate 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:34.559 between between the two and got to go to Europe 1:31:34.640 --> 1:31:39.040 and Japan and be on many tours with great, great 1:31:39.120 --> 1:31:45.120 crews of people and see, you know how this amazing 1:31:45.240 --> 1:31:47.920 variety of performers and what moves them, like, like, what 1:31:48.080 --> 1:31:50.439 is motivating each of them and why are they doing it? 1:31:50.760 --> 1:31:53.840 But well, go a little deeper there, what is motivating 1:31:53.960 --> 1:31:55.519 these artists and why are they doing it? 1:31:56.320 --> 1:32:03.880 It's a really good question. I think there are artists 1:32:04.520 --> 1:32:11.360 like Jonie or James Taylor who are not there to 1:32:11.479 --> 1:32:14.479 begin with. They're not picking up the guitar like I 1:32:14.840 --> 1:32:20.439 was at the time. They're not like looking for the 1:32:20.760 --> 1:32:23.880 for applause. They're not looking for you to tell them 1:32:23.920 --> 1:32:26.560 how great they are. They just have to do this. 1:32:27.280 --> 1:32:30.920 And if they could stay in their room and slip 1:32:31.400 --> 1:32:34.840 the cassette they just finished under the door to to 1:32:35.000 --> 1:32:37.880 the world and stay in their room, that would be 1:32:38.000 --> 1:32:42.880 great for them. Their their motivation is about what they 1:32:43.000 --> 1:32:44.640 have to say and what they have to do and 1:32:44.960 --> 1:32:47.439 the hours that are going to spend making it just 1:32:47.800 --> 1:32:57.519 so for them. Other people are the the roar of 1:32:57.600 --> 1:33:02.200 the crowd, the the emotion of that coming to them 1:33:02.280 --> 1:33:05.880 made me seeing that so many times made me feel 1:33:07.240 --> 1:33:11.360 that for some performing artists it's a matter of attention 1:33:11.760 --> 1:33:15.200 in the sense of did your parents pay you enough 1:33:15.240 --> 1:33:20.840 attention as a kid. Maybe they paid you too much attention, right, 1:33:21.000 --> 1:33:25.120 so that as an adult you need that extra attention, 1:33:26.000 --> 1:33:28.559 or maybe they paid you too little attention, and that's 1:33:28.640 --> 1:33:33.000 what you need now from the audience. When you're the 1:33:33.240 --> 1:33:36.519 person on stage and all of those people give you 1:33:36.680 --> 1:33:40.920 that roar of approval, that's what is, you know, moving 1:33:41.040 --> 1:33:43.479 you right. So I think it's a big that's just 1:33:44.040 --> 1:33:46.960 a couple of polls, a couple of ways people are moved. 1:33:47.000 --> 1:33:53.439 But it is really interesting to just see how also 1:33:54.200 --> 1:33:59.080 in one scene music itself might be king the music 1:34:00.360 --> 1:34:12.320 right and in another style might be right or are 1:34:12.479 --> 1:34:16.920 artfully making a show right? Are making a performance? How 1:34:17.000 --> 1:34:22.880 well do you artfully do that? As opposed to I 1:34:22.960 --> 1:34:26.480 think because I was working with the post Dylan singer songwriters, 1:34:28.640 --> 1:34:31.160 that was that's the main world that I lived in, 1:34:31.320 --> 1:34:33.840 so that most most of the people I was photographing, 1:34:33.880 --> 1:34:43.120 were composing the things they were performing right, really different 1:34:43.400 --> 1:34:47.880 from you know, Bob, Bob Dylan says in the biograph 1:34:47.960 --> 1:34:51.240 notes to Cameron Crow, I didn't know it as a kid, 1:34:51.880 --> 1:34:56.400 he says, growing up. But there were on the one 1:34:56.680 --> 1:34:59.680 there were singers and then there were songwriters, and there 1:34:59.720 --> 1:35:03.400 were for almost nobody did both things. I think about it, 1:35:04.120 --> 1:35:08.000 there really was. There's the professional singers, right, and then 1:35:08.040 --> 1:35:11.639 there's the professional performers, and very few, like you could 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:15.120 count them on one hand, almost like right, Chuck Burry, 1:35:16.720 --> 1:35:19.559 Jerry Lee Lewis, like people who wrote their own material 1:35:19.640 --> 1:35:20.320 and performed it. 1:35:21.360 --> 1:35:21.840 Not a lot. 1:35:23.200 --> 1:35:27.920 So it was wonderful for me to get to see 1:35:28.680 --> 1:35:33.960 I was on tour, I guess starting with I don't know, 1:35:34.160 --> 1:35:38.240 Neil in seventy ors Crosby Nash seventy one, going all 1:35:38.280 --> 1:35:46.240 the way up to probably Neil in ninety three, something 1:35:46.400 --> 1:35:55.880 like that, and the unplugged period. So you know, I 1:35:56.080 --> 1:36:01.920 loved the opportunity to it, to to see that up close. 1:36:03.040 --> 1:36:05.000 Now, when you were tuning guitars, when you were a 1:36:05.040 --> 1:36:08.280 guitar technician, were you also shooting photos on those same gigs? 1:36:09.600 --> 1:36:14.720 Good question. I usually if I was hired as a 1:36:14.760 --> 1:36:17.240 guitar tech. That was all I could do. And the 1:36:17.320 --> 1:36:21.519 Bob Dylan world, they specifically said Joel, like, we know 1:36:21.880 --> 1:36:25.360 you know because I was the guitar the tour photographer 1:36:25.439 --> 1:36:28.600 for the seventy four tour for the same producers. They 1:36:28.680 --> 1:36:31.880 said to me, listen on this Bob Dylan tour, just 1:36:31.960 --> 1:36:34.840 don't even bring your cameras. Okay, he doesn't want you 1:36:34.920 --> 1:36:37.720 to take in pictures. We know what you do all 1:36:37.800 --> 1:36:40.400 of that. Just leave them at home. You're going to 1:36:40.439 --> 1:36:43.479 be the guitar tech. Fine, So I did that, and 1:36:43.560 --> 1:36:46.760 then one night Bob's assistant runs to me and goes, Joe, 1:36:46.880 --> 1:36:50.840 Bob wants you to photograph the show tonight, And I said, 1:36:51.160 --> 1:36:54.360 wasn't that you who called me on the phone and said, like, 1:36:54.560 --> 1:36:58.040 leave your cameras at home because they're at home. They 1:36:58.160 --> 1:37:01.000 really are home. So I'd love to do it, but 1:37:01.120 --> 1:37:05.240 I can't. So I had my all my cameras shipped, 1:37:06.600 --> 1:37:09.679 and then I did photograph like the next few shows 1:37:09.840 --> 1:37:14.040 of Bob's. But again, you're responsible for thirty five guitars. 1:37:14.400 --> 1:37:16.360 They all have to be in tune. If somebody breaks 1:37:16.400 --> 1:37:17.760 the string, you gotta deal with. 1:37:17.800 --> 1:37:22.519 It, Okay. On these shows where you're the guitar tick. Yes, 1:37:22.720 --> 1:37:25.440 how many of them have their own separate tour photographer. 1:37:27.960 --> 1:37:34.080 Who wasn't me? Let's see, that's a good question. Very 1:37:34.120 --> 1:37:34.639 few of them. 1:37:35.760 --> 1:37:36.040 I was. 1:37:36.120 --> 1:37:38.600 I mean, I wasn't paying attention. Who was photography? 1:37:39.080 --> 1:37:40.880 I let me ask a different Let me ask you 1:37:40.880 --> 1:37:45.639 a different question. You know, anybody on the road who's 1:37:45.680 --> 1:37:49.840 doing anything that has to think is being pretty well compensated, 1:37:50.200 --> 1:37:56.760 although you're working around the clock. However, shooting photos is different. 1:37:56.439 --> 1:37:59.320 From tuning guitars, really different. Ye. 1:37:59.640 --> 1:38:01.760 Is there part of you saying, well, this is kind 1:38:01.800 --> 1:38:05.080 of okay, and I'm getting paid, but it's not as 1:38:05.160 --> 1:38:07.320 fulfilling as shooting photos. Yeah. 1:38:08.200 --> 1:38:11.240 Absolutely. If I had it all to do again, I 1:38:11.320 --> 1:38:13.639 would do no. I would not be a guitar tech 1:38:13.760 --> 1:38:16.160 and I would not have done any of that. I 1:38:16.320 --> 1:38:19.760 realized when I went to a couple award shows for 1:38:19.880 --> 1:38:25.880 photographers or lifetime achievement awards, that everyone who was being 1:38:25.920 --> 1:38:28.640 presented with an award on stage got to be a 1:38:28.680 --> 1:38:31.920 photographer early on, and they just stayed with it. There 1:38:32.000 --> 1:38:35.000 was no second career. They were not. None of them 1:38:35.120 --> 1:38:38.600 were doing photography and something else. So I think that 1:38:42.560 --> 1:38:45.800 I'd have to say that my photography suffered that in 1:38:45.920 --> 1:38:51.400 the sense of not taking all of those hours and 1:38:51.479 --> 1:38:54.280 weeks and years that I put into being a guitar 1:38:54.400 --> 1:38:58.080 tech that could have been used to become a better photographer. 1:38:58.560 --> 1:39:03.240 So in hindsight, as much because I had a lot 1:39:03.280 --> 1:39:05.640 of great fun and I lot did, I'm proud of 1:39:05.680 --> 1:39:08.120 a lot of the stuff I did. I was the 1:39:08.160 --> 1:39:11.880 guitar tech for the Last Waltz, the band's last concert 1:39:11.960 --> 1:39:13.880 with Bob Dylan and Jony and Neil and all of that, 1:39:14.040 --> 1:39:16.240 and that was a big thrill for me. And I 1:39:16.400 --> 1:39:19.599 can still listen to that concert and say, I did 1:39:19.640 --> 1:39:23.280 a good job. It's not a train wreck. It's in tune, right, 1:39:23.560 --> 1:39:25.760 that kind of thing. So if there's something you know, 1:39:26.360 --> 1:39:31.639 but it's not the same as Tom Petty or someone 1:39:31.920 --> 1:39:35.400 or Bruce Springsteen using a photo of yours for an 1:39:35.400 --> 1:39:38.000 album cover or a single sleeve or something like that's 1:39:38.000 --> 1:39:39.240 a whole other kind of excitement. 1:39:40.000 --> 1:39:43.960 Okay, you have this start when you're in high school, 1:39:44.600 --> 1:39:48.400 wet behind the years. Joni Mitchell sort of plucks you 1:39:48.560 --> 1:39:53.439 from obscurity. Once you're in LA you dropped out of 1:39:53.520 --> 1:39:58.640 college and the years that did n't suit Okay, are 1:39:58.720 --> 1:40:02.920 you a member of a group or you an exterearior character. 1:40:03.920 --> 1:40:06.640 Are they saying, oh, we're having a party where so 1:40:06.800 --> 1:40:07.920 and so called Joel. 1:40:08.680 --> 1:40:11.439 It's a good question. I think when I lived in 1:40:11.800 --> 1:40:15.000 La I think I was considered part of an part 1:40:15.040 --> 1:40:19.160 of the extended family, and did get to do lots 1:40:19.200 --> 1:40:25.920 of things with some of the artists. I when I 1:40:26.280 --> 1:40:30.600 moved here in seventy three, Neil had just bought his 1:40:30.880 --> 1:40:31.880 ranch right, so it'd be. 1:40:31.920 --> 1:40:34.400 Well, just to be clear, not everybody's up to speed. 1:40:35.120 --> 1:40:35.760 Where is here? 1:40:38.040 --> 1:40:44.400 Oh, I'm sorry. I moved to San Francisco from Tipanga 1:40:45.040 --> 1:40:49.519 in April of nineteen seventy three, after doing the Time 1:40:49.560 --> 1:40:52.000 Fades Away tour, after doing all those photos. 1:40:53.160 --> 1:40:53.960 I lived. 1:40:55.280 --> 1:41:00.120 Graham Nash lived at a Victorian three story home on 1:41:00.200 --> 1:41:04.559 Buenavista Park in San Francisco in the city and had 1:41:04.680 --> 1:41:08.280 an apartment that he'd been renting next door that came 1:41:08.400 --> 1:41:10.800 up for rent, and he invited me to move there 1:41:11.320 --> 1:41:15.800 from Topanga. And I think that rent was one hundred 1:41:15.800 --> 1:41:19.080 and fifty nine dollars a month at the time, so 1:41:19.280 --> 1:41:24.680 it was not hard to do. And I loved San Francisco, so. 1:41:28.120 --> 1:41:29.200 I really. 1:41:31.040 --> 1:41:33.040 Enjoyed that, But I think I just lost my train 1:41:33.080 --> 1:41:35.200 of thought about what question I was answering. 1:41:35.240 --> 1:41:37.559 Well, you were saying, you know, when you moved up north, 1:41:37.680 --> 1:41:40.240 being a member of the group, being included. 1:41:40.320 --> 1:41:44.639 Oh, yes, so I would again. In the fall, right after, 1:41:44.840 --> 1:41:47.560 well before I moved up there, I came up to 1:41:47.680 --> 1:41:51.880 photograph Neil in the Harvest for the Harvest album. So 1:41:52.000 --> 1:41:55.559 the picture of him of the giant doorknob that's reflected 1:41:55.600 --> 1:41:58.599 on the inside there, that's you can see me taking 1:41:58.640 --> 1:42:01.200 the picture in the doorknob and Meil standing there with 1:42:01.280 --> 1:42:06.840 his hands on his lips looking at me. I felt 1:42:07.160 --> 1:42:10.599 welcome by all of these people. They were all considering 1:42:11.640 --> 1:42:15.400 I was always the youngest one around. They were always 1:42:16.280 --> 1:42:18.800 I felt welcome, and I didn't feel like. 1:42:20.360 --> 1:42:20.759 I didn't. 1:42:21.400 --> 1:42:27.400 I didn't feel part of the group, except when occasionally 1:42:27.520 --> 1:42:30.560 I would get asked to play, like Graham asked me 1:42:30.640 --> 1:42:33.120 to play on song wind on the Water, for example, 1:42:33.160 --> 1:42:36.040 when Crosby, Stills and Nash would play that song and 1:42:36.160 --> 1:42:39.800 we would actually have a film of from the Acousto 1:42:39.960 --> 1:42:42.920 Society of Whales behind us, and I would get to 1:42:42.960 --> 1:42:46.600 play an acoustic guitar part on that song. And a 1:42:46.640 --> 1:42:51.200 couple other songs sometimes for CSN. So I enjoyed that, 1:42:51.439 --> 1:42:58.519 and you know, I certainly, Yeah, I did not feel 1:42:58.640 --> 1:43:01.240 exterior to them at all. I felt like I was 1:43:01.400 --> 1:43:04.240 We were, we were good friends. And I did things 1:43:04.400 --> 1:43:08.559 like I transcribed all of David Crosby's songs for guitar 1:43:09.840 --> 1:43:13.360 back when I was nineteen for uh SO that so 1:43:13.600 --> 1:43:16.400 the guitarist could play all of those songs tune in 1:43:16.479 --> 1:43:18.280 the tunings that they were that he wrote them in. 1:43:18.680 --> 1:43:21.080 That was a big accomplishment for me. And I did 1:43:21.120 --> 1:43:23.800 the same thing for Jonie for the for the Roses album. 1:43:25.320 --> 1:43:28.360 So there are all kinds of like other little less 1:43:28.760 --> 1:43:31.320 things that I could do. I felt very at home. 1:43:31.760 --> 1:43:32.880 Uh it was. 1:43:33.040 --> 1:43:38.799 It was, uh, you know, compared especially if I compared 1:43:38.880 --> 1:43:43.720 my my career path to other friends of mine who 1:43:43.800 --> 1:43:46.759 I knew in high school or just friends or neighbors 1:43:46.840 --> 1:43:49.160 and what they were doing. I was not doing any 1:43:49.240 --> 1:43:52.200 kind of nine to five anything, you know ever. 1:43:52.840 --> 1:43:57.080 Okay, a couple of questions. The seventy three tour that 1:43:57.320 --> 1:44:01.479 came after Harvest. The Yeah album that was released was 1:44:01.600 --> 1:44:05.559 Time Fades Away, which was a live album cover, very rocking, 1:44:06.280 --> 1:44:10.759 very different from Harvest. You were a different at those shows. 1:44:11.720 --> 1:44:15.000 He was playing arenas because of the success of Heart 1:44:15.080 --> 1:44:18.800 of Gold. You hear that the people did not enjoy 1:44:18.960 --> 1:44:19.920 that you were there? 1:44:20.040 --> 1:44:25.040 What was absolutely okay, that's very really good astute question there, Bob. 1:44:25.479 --> 1:44:34.000 So yes, the people were expecting to hear the Harvest album. This, 1:44:34.280 --> 1:44:36.479 by the way, happens on the Tonight's the Night tour 1:44:36.720 --> 1:44:39.559 later that year, also in late fall of seventy three, 1:44:40.840 --> 1:44:43.760 especially when Neil is touring colleges at the beginning of 1:44:43.840 --> 1:44:50.639 that tour, people were puzzled and the way that Neil looked, 1:44:51.800 --> 1:44:57.720 his look combined with how chaotic it was, and he 1:44:59.479 --> 1:45:02.560 had never on a show, he had never done a 1:45:02.640 --> 1:45:12.559 show of arenas and large theaters like that before ever, and. 1:45:15.160 --> 1:45:15.680 It was. 1:45:18.840 --> 1:45:23.280 I think that his his his putting the band together 1:45:23.520 --> 1:45:25.920 was like, who did I have the most fun playing with? 1:45:26.760 --> 1:45:28.639 So I want to have It was, you know, quite 1:45:28.760 --> 1:45:33.479 a great band. He had Kenny Buttery on drums, who 1:45:33.560 --> 1:45:36.320 he'd hired, who was a Nashville A list player then 1:45:37.080 --> 1:45:40.920 and who Neil had to match what his salary would 1:45:40.920 --> 1:45:43.599 have been had he'd stayed in Nashville. If you can imagine, right, 1:45:43.840 --> 1:45:47.280 if Kenny's Buttery stays at home in Nashville does X 1:45:47.400 --> 1:45:49.599 number of sessions per week. What is that number? It's 1:45:49.640 --> 1:45:52.960 a large number. So most people are not hiring Kenny 1:45:53.400 --> 1:45:55.519 to go on their tour. They can't afford to. But 1:45:55.680 --> 1:45:59.720 Neil could, so he did. And so you've got and 1:45:59.840 --> 1:46:04.360 Jack Nietzschee for God's sake, Phil Spector's arranger, among other things. 1:46:04.439 --> 1:46:08.760 You know, the great Jack Nietzschee a part of his 1:46:08.920 --> 1:46:09.559 band as well. 1:46:09.880 --> 1:46:12.040 So but. 1:46:14.080 --> 1:46:21.240 His right before the tour begins, in rehearsals, Neil's guitarist 1:46:21.280 --> 1:46:24.439 from Crazy Horse, Danny Whitten, Neil decides he wants to 1:46:24.520 --> 1:46:27.880 have him in the band. He knows that Danny is 1:46:28.280 --> 1:46:31.519 a heroin addict and had written Needle and the Damage 1:46:31.560 --> 1:46:36.040 Done about him, and he knows the dangers of that, 1:46:36.240 --> 1:46:38.719 but he really wants to have him in a rhythm 1:46:38.840 --> 1:46:42.920 guitar position. It just gives him the freedom to play, 1:46:43.160 --> 1:46:47.799 you know, to take off when Danny's there. And in rehearsal, 1:46:47.960 --> 1:46:52.080 Danny is too messed up from drugs to be able 1:46:52.160 --> 1:46:55.599 to actually do the part, and Neil has to send 1:46:55.680 --> 1:46:57.640 him home and he. 1:46:59.640 --> 1:46:59.920 Danny. 1:47:00.000 --> 1:47:03.920 He flies home to Los Angeles, goes right to his 1:47:04.360 --> 1:47:11.040 heroin dealers and buys enough heroin and he overdoses that night, 1:47:12.280 --> 1:47:14.240 and Neil gets woken up at four in the morning 1:47:14.280 --> 1:47:20.240 by the La County Sheriff's department because because Danny had 1:47:20.240 --> 1:47:22.599 put Neil's phone number in a crumpled piece of paper 1:47:22.640 --> 1:47:25.519 in his pocket, so they call that number when he's 1:47:25.560 --> 1:47:30.640 dead and it's Neil. So that's how Neil learns that that, 1:47:30.920 --> 1:47:34.040 like Danny is dead, and that puts. 1:47:33.800 --> 1:47:34.960 A really. 1:47:36.640 --> 1:47:45.960 Black, you know, cloak over the whole enterprise of what's 1:47:45.960 --> 1:47:53.599 supposed to be his first, you know, huge national tour 1:47:55.200 --> 1:47:59.000 because because of the shock of that, So there's a 1:47:59.720 --> 1:48:06.960 there's a that combined with trying to deal with like 1:48:07.160 --> 1:48:11.360 monitors and sound levels. Right, it's an electric band. He's 1:48:11.439 --> 1:48:14.400 used to being a solo acoustic act. Of course, he's 1:48:14.400 --> 1:48:19.040 played with Buffalo Springfield, but they're playing in small places mostly, right, 1:48:19.280 --> 1:48:21.960 and the main volume issu who has to do between 1:48:22.040 --> 1:48:25.439 him and Steven there here it is on his own 1:48:26.200 --> 1:48:30.160 young tour, and I have a photo of him with 1:48:30.280 --> 1:48:32.280 a with a flying V guitar at one of the 1:48:32.520 --> 1:48:36.000 sound checks on this tour with a huge wall of 1:48:36.080 --> 1:48:41.000 amplifiers that he's staring out trying to get his guitar 1:48:41.160 --> 1:48:45.080 sound right, and he's looking at these amps with great intensity, 1:48:46.160 --> 1:48:49.600 trying to like get his guitar sound dialed in, and 1:48:49.680 --> 1:48:53.000 he never does for the whole tour. So there's a 1:48:53.200 --> 1:48:59.320 discomfort for him about the size of the arenas, the 1:49:00.520 --> 1:49:05.960 mm hmm. He becomes unhappy with Kenny Butterer's playing because 1:49:06.040 --> 1:49:10.080 Kenny's not playing loud enough. Now, Kenny's playing as hard 1:49:11.040 --> 1:49:12.439 as he can play, and he's like one of the 1:49:12.520 --> 1:49:18.360 great drummers of our time, and yet he's it's not 1:49:18.680 --> 1:49:23.559 enough for Neil. Like Neil actually fires him halfway through 1:49:23.840 --> 1:49:29.080 the tour and yes, John Barbado to cover it. So 1:49:30.760 --> 1:49:34.320 it was not a happy tour for Neil, like you said. 1:49:35.120 --> 1:49:40.600 And the next album, Tonight's the Night, is like is 1:49:40.680 --> 1:49:46.640 his tribute to Danny Whitten. Basically it's the he and 1:49:46.760 --> 1:49:50.920 the band he puts together record really late at night 1:49:51.000 --> 1:49:57.280 with having taken a lot of tequila, and you know, 1:49:57.479 --> 1:50:01.800 come up with the very dark but brilliant Tonight's the 1:50:01.880 --> 1:50:04.280 Night album. So I was there for that part. 1:50:04.360 --> 1:50:17.360 Also, Okay, you know you mentioned Petty who's managed by 1:50:17.439 --> 1:50:21.960 Tony Dimitriotis, who's part of Elliott Roberts Lookout Management. But 1:50:22.040 --> 1:50:25.200 you ultimately worked with Springsteen. How does that come about? 1:50:25.400 --> 1:50:29.679 Yes, you know, I think it was. It came about. 1:50:31.160 --> 1:50:33.880 I don't remember how it was that I was. I 1:50:34.000 --> 1:50:37.519 must have met John Landau through Jackson. I was on 1:50:37.560 --> 1:50:41.400 the Running on Empty tour in nineteen seventy seven. Jackson 1:50:41.479 --> 1:50:44.360 originally asked me to be one of the harmony singers, 1:50:44.840 --> 1:50:47.519 so the first time anyone asked to hire me as 1:50:47.560 --> 1:50:53.400 a singer. I'm a huge fan of Jackson's music from 1:50:53.479 --> 1:51:01.280 his first album Onward and Learn, and rehearsed with Jackson 1:51:01.560 --> 1:51:04.880 with his two existing harmony singers. So I was to 1:51:05.080 --> 1:51:10.160 sing a third harmony, which means you're doing four part vocals, 1:51:10.200 --> 1:51:16.559 which is very complicated, not easy to do. I learned 1:51:16.920 --> 1:51:21.400 all the songs and before. I don't want to get 1:51:21.400 --> 1:51:25.280 too lost in all of this, but briefly, I was 1:51:25.640 --> 1:51:30.040 very thrilled to be able to be a singer. And 1:51:31.000 --> 1:51:36.080 the night before the tour started, Jackson called and said, Hey, Jeaul, 1:51:36.120 --> 1:51:38.879 I've been listening to the tape of our production rehearsal 1:51:39.080 --> 1:51:43.519 and you sound great and you're getting your pitch is perfect. 1:51:43.560 --> 1:51:47.160 You've got everything right. But you know, and listening to 1:51:47.280 --> 1:51:52.160 this the tape, I think three harmony singers is just 1:51:52.280 --> 1:51:54.840 one harmony too much, So I've got to ask you 1:51:54.960 --> 1:51:59.720 to just stay home, which was really like like I was, 1:52:00.560 --> 1:52:04.000 and I said, well, Jackson, you know I've been looking 1:52:04.040 --> 1:52:06.759 for it's like two in the morning. This conversation's happening 1:52:06.800 --> 1:52:08.599 the two in the morning of the night I'm packing 1:52:08.680 --> 1:52:14.479 to go there. I said, could it? Could I come 1:52:14.520 --> 1:52:16.240 out on the tour for like a week or something 1:52:16.280 --> 1:52:18.160 and just do some photos so at least I will 1:52:18.200 --> 1:52:20.680 have done something because this I've been looking forward to 1:52:20.760 --> 1:52:24.000 this now for months and to singing, so it's a 1:52:24.040 --> 1:52:26.479 big disappointment to me to not be able to do that. 1:52:26.640 --> 1:52:31.840 But I'd like to come out there anyway and just 1:52:31.920 --> 1:52:36.000 do some photos. And I did, and I wound up 1:52:36.320 --> 1:52:40.840 shooting the whole tour, and I wound up singing on 1:52:40.960 --> 1:52:50.639 the song Rosie on that album, which it's not as 1:52:50.720 --> 1:52:53.120 great as being able to sing all the songs. I 1:52:53.240 --> 1:52:56.880 loved being able to work out all those harmonies. So 1:52:57.080 --> 1:53:01.080 it was a big disappointment, my biggest disappointment actually professionally 1:53:01.200 --> 1:53:06.320 up to that point, to have the expectations of being 1:53:06.360 --> 1:53:08.920 a singer and then not being able to do it. 1:53:09.520 --> 1:53:12.000 But I did get some really good photos, and I 1:53:12.080 --> 1:53:14.639 did the running on Empty cover and all the many 1:53:14.720 --> 1:53:16.320 of the photos that most of the photos that you 1:53:16.400 --> 1:53:19.080 see on that package, all of which were lost by 1:53:19.120 --> 1:53:19.799 the art director. 1:53:20.200 --> 1:53:23.840 But ultimately you were telling this story connecting to Springsteen. 1:53:25.200 --> 1:53:28.599 Oh yes, pardon me. I believe that that Jackson introduced 1:53:28.640 --> 1:53:33.240 me to John Landau because John had produced the Pretender album, 1:53:34.560 --> 1:53:41.240 and somehow the subject of Bruce's new album cover came up, 1:53:41.439 --> 1:53:44.360 which was Darkness on the Edge of Town, and John 1:53:44.439 --> 1:53:47.040 asked me what I thought of it, and I felt 1:53:47.320 --> 1:53:50.559 I said, you know, it's a good photo on its own, right, 1:53:51.400 --> 1:53:54.040 but it has nothing to do with the title or 1:53:54.160 --> 1:53:55.400 the feel of the song. 1:53:55.520 --> 1:53:55.760 To me. 1:53:57.000 --> 1:53:59.160 The phrase darkness on the edge of town, to me, 1:53:59.360 --> 1:54:04.640 conjures up a very vibe kind of thing, almost like 1:54:04.800 --> 1:54:06.599 I don't know, you probably know the photo of Bruce 1:54:06.640 --> 1:54:08.560 sitting on a stoop, like at a outside of a 1:54:09.000 --> 1:54:11.160 gas station. I think it is, or maybe it's like 1:54:11.280 --> 1:54:16.120 a store at night in New Jersey somewhere. In other words, 1:54:16.840 --> 1:54:21.080 I was thinking more of a more moody kind of thing, 1:54:21.160 --> 1:54:24.640 where this is like actually studio lighting set up in 1:54:24.720 --> 1:54:29.840 Bruce's home. It just didn't I just said I was 1:54:29.880 --> 1:54:31.280 trying to be honest with him. I just said, I 1:54:31.320 --> 1:54:36.320 don't think it has the right feel. And then he 1:54:36.440 --> 1:54:38.960 called and said, would you come in photograph Bruce like 1:54:39.320 --> 1:54:41.960 you know, in the next couple of weeks he's recording 1:54:42.040 --> 1:54:47.600 some new songs. So I went to New York after 1:54:47.720 --> 1:54:52.960 having just photographed Tom petty In working on the Dan 1:54:53.040 --> 1:54:56.440 the Torpedo sessions, and I went to New York and 1:54:56.560 --> 1:55:01.600 met Bruce and he was working on an album. His 1:55:01.760 --> 1:55:04.720 next album was going to be called The Ties That Bind, 1:55:05.280 --> 1:55:09.960 and it was a single album that he'd written. Uh, 1:55:10.240 --> 1:55:13.440 and he invited me to the session, which was amazing 1:55:13.440 --> 1:55:17.600 because apparently people he never did that. But so I 1:55:17.680 --> 1:55:21.840 got to be there when he taught the band the 1:55:21.960 --> 1:55:24.240 song the River, and then be there for when they 1:55:24.280 --> 1:55:27.600 got the master tape, which is quite amazing. And he 1:55:27.840 --> 1:55:32.080 was just a few days before the muse concerts that 1:55:32.240 --> 1:55:37.600 Bruce played at the multi artist anti nuclear benefit concerts 1:55:37.680 --> 1:55:45.080 of multiple days in Madison Square Garden that I photographed. So, uh, 1:55:45.400 --> 1:55:47.560 that's how I met Bruce. He he I got to 1:55:47.600 --> 1:55:50.560 spend time with him at his home. I took pictures 1:55:50.600 --> 1:55:53.120 of him on the boardwalk, and you know, he took 1:55:53.200 --> 1:55:58.160 me around to his favorite places in New Jersey. I 1:55:58.760 --> 1:56:01.880 learned later when I when the album finally came out 1:56:02.120 --> 1:56:05.000 as a double album, the River Album, and I was 1:56:05.040 --> 1:56:08.600 looking at which pictures were mine and which weren't. There 1:56:08.680 --> 1:56:10.960 was only a few pictures of mine on there that 1:56:11.080 --> 1:56:14.400 he used at the time. But I could see that 1:56:14.480 --> 1:56:17.720 he had taken David Garr and Annie Leebowitz to the 1:56:17.800 --> 1:56:21.840 same places that he had taken me too. It was 1:56:22.240 --> 1:56:24.280 like right and not just as there was one other 1:56:26.000 --> 1:56:28.919 the person who did the picture of him with the corvette, 1:56:28.960 --> 1:56:31.360 I'm sorry, his name is escaping me. Great photographer, Frank 1:56:31.680 --> 1:56:35.600 Frank Stefanco. So four of us he had us go. 1:56:36.200 --> 1:56:37.520 You know, it's like this is the house, this is 1:56:37.560 --> 1:56:40.040 a block I grew up on, and you know here 1:56:40.160 --> 1:56:42.360 here we are in Holme Dell. It was a really 1:56:42.440 --> 1:56:51.200 kind of an interesting thing and it was I love 1:56:51.720 --> 1:56:57.320 I really enjoyed him. He was very understated. He was 1:56:57.480 --> 1:56:58.560 the king of New Jersey. 1:57:00.560 --> 1:57:00.720 You know. 1:57:01.000 --> 1:57:03.640 I went with him to the Stone Pony. He was 1:57:03.760 --> 1:57:07.800 like God, you know, he wasn't not from his viewpoint, 1:57:07.840 --> 1:57:09.880 from the point of view of the fans and how 1:57:09.920 --> 1:57:13.160 he was regarded. But I got to, for example, drive 1:57:13.600 --> 1:57:18.880 under the full moonlight in the black Corvette with you know, 1:57:19.120 --> 1:57:21.920 in the passenger seat, with the full moon overhead in 1:57:22.000 --> 1:57:24.440 the trees while we had the listening to a Sun 1:57:24.560 --> 1:57:30.800 Records compilation cassette he had made in the corvette on 1:57:30.920 --> 1:57:35.360 our way to the Stone Pony, and it was another 1:57:35.800 --> 1:57:39.200 like in the realm of dropping into these worlds. That 1:57:39.360 --> 1:57:42.000 was an amazing world to drop into. The Bruce Springsteen 1:57:42.200 --> 1:57:43.080 New Jersey world. 1:57:44.000 --> 1:57:47.840 Okay, you know you're not a rock store. So there 1:57:47.960 --> 1:57:51.240 was all this rock scene in San Francisco in the sixties. 1:57:52.480 --> 1:57:55.520 Then there was a scene in La But as we 1:57:55.800 --> 1:58:00.160 hit the seventies and eighties, it's more and more lay. 1:58:00.840 --> 1:58:04.680 You're living in San Francisco, you feel like you're missing out. 1:58:05.760 --> 1:58:13.320 And a very good question. Interestingly, as the seventies went on, 1:58:15.000 --> 1:58:17.360 you know, as you say, in the beginning of the seventies, 1:58:17.560 --> 1:58:21.800 late sixties, early seventies, San Francisco was a big music scene. 1:58:22.440 --> 1:58:27.120 When Neil played in Buffalo Springfield in sixty seven and 1:58:28.080 --> 1:58:31.919 they were coming up here to do their first shows. 1:58:33.000 --> 1:58:36.280 There's an amazing interview with him by a DJ named 1:58:36.320 --> 1:58:40.360 Tony Pigg where Neil talks about like how intimidating it 1:58:40.560 --> 1:58:43.200 was to be from La and come up in nineteen 1:58:43.240 --> 1:58:47.360 sixty seven and come up to San Francisco with the 1:58:47.480 --> 1:58:49.440 bands that he said, well, are you kidding? You guys 1:58:49.520 --> 1:58:54.640 have the Airplane and the Dead, but you have and Quicksilver, 1:58:55.360 --> 1:58:58.920 right but really but like you have Moby Graate. Okay, 1:58:58.960 --> 1:59:02.360 So the biggest in fluences for Neil and Buffalo Springfield 1:59:02.400 --> 1:59:12.600 are Moby Grape and love seriously right Forever changes And 1:59:13.680 --> 1:59:18.560 so to him it was like very intimidating to come 1:59:18.680 --> 1:59:25.560 to northern California. So anyway, that scene did go on, 1:59:25.800 --> 1:59:29.960 and here's you know, Crosby does his solo album the 1:59:30.120 --> 1:59:33.760 same month that Jerry Garcia does his solo album, and 1:59:34.440 --> 1:59:36.480 right they're next to each other in the same studio. 1:59:36.560 --> 1:59:39.320 So you get this great bleed through with all of 1:59:39.760 --> 1:59:42.760 you know, these people playing together. You get members of 1:59:43.360 --> 1:59:48.320 the Airplane and the Dead together playing on both Jerry's 1:59:48.360 --> 1:59:52.600 album and in Crosby's album. To me, I would say 1:59:52.640 --> 1:59:55.839 there's something especially about David's album there that is almost 1:59:56.360 --> 2:00:02.760 like the pinnacle in some ways in terms of execution 2:00:03.000 --> 2:00:09.280 and really doing something fantastically well of Crosby's If I 2:00:09.320 --> 2:00:12.200 could only remember my name album, and I think that 2:00:13.160 --> 2:00:19.600 was a great, uh, you know, work of art for him, 2:00:19.680 --> 2:00:23.120 and and and showed you what that scene was was 2:00:23.200 --> 2:00:27.680 capable of. But as you say, it gradually went away 2:00:27.880 --> 2:00:31.800 until by the late seventies things had definitely shifted for La. 2:00:32.800 --> 2:00:35.920 I didn't feel having lived there, I was not going 2:00:36.000 --> 2:00:38.600 to move back to La. I didn't care for it. 2:00:39.280 --> 2:00:40.040 I really didn't. 2:00:40.120 --> 2:00:40.400 I was. 2:00:40.600 --> 2:00:45.400 I liked the green of northern California more. I liked 2:00:45.440 --> 2:00:51.160 that it was more urbane and not so sprawled and diffuse. 2:00:51.360 --> 2:00:56.800 And I think that Hollywood, that the film business, which 2:00:56.920 --> 2:01:00.120 you know, really came to precedence way over you know, 2:01:00.240 --> 2:01:04.120 became the uh I'm sure always been, but at least 2:01:04.720 --> 2:01:07.800 what I could see, you know, the music business was 2:01:09.240 --> 2:01:11.880 the whole of it was considered like a little step 2:01:12.000 --> 2:01:15.720 child compared to film in Hollywood. Right, it was just like, oh, 2:01:15.760 --> 2:01:18.920 you're in Oh you're in music. Oh that's so pat 2:01:19.000 --> 2:01:22.240 on the head, you know, that's so nice. How interesting 2:01:22.320 --> 2:01:22.760 for you is that? 2:01:22.960 --> 2:01:23.480 Do you like that? 2:01:23.680 --> 2:01:27.000 You like being making records? That kind of thing. So 2:01:29.840 --> 2:01:33.440 also you had this other thing going on, which was 2:01:33.600 --> 2:01:37.880 the ascension of cocaine and what that did you know, 2:01:38.560 --> 2:01:41.520 among groups that previously had smoked pot, and what the 2:01:41.680 --> 2:01:45.600 difference in that vibe was going on in the same 2:01:45.800 --> 2:01:48.640 in that same sweep of time right through the seventies. 2:01:49.600 --> 2:01:54.240 Okay, you end up running mew Young's archives for a while. 2:01:54.320 --> 2:01:57.720 How did that come to be? In what was that? Like? 2:02:00.560 --> 2:02:04.440 What happened was Let's see, I had been asked in 2:02:05.160 --> 2:02:07.600 nineteen eighty four when I was on a Neil Young tour, 2:02:07.680 --> 2:02:10.160 could I could I stop what I was doing and 2:02:10.280 --> 2:02:14.360 become Prince's guitar tech They just fired the guitar technician 2:02:14.440 --> 2:02:16.400 on the Purple Rain tour. Could I come and finish 2:02:16.480 --> 2:02:20.000 the tour? Well, I have five shows left with my 2:02:20.120 --> 2:02:22.600 Neil Young tour, which is like a country the country 2:02:23.360 --> 2:02:26.840 bands that he was doing. But I could I could 2:02:26.960 --> 2:02:30.400 be there like in you know, eight or nine days, No, 2:02:30.520 --> 2:02:34.080 we need you somebody here tomorrow. I just said, well, 2:02:35.000 --> 2:02:37.600 I'm sorry, I got to finish this tour and can't 2:02:37.640 --> 2:02:40.120 you just leave? And I said, you wouldn't want to 2:02:40.160 --> 2:02:42.760 hire me and then have me, you know, flake out 2:02:42.800 --> 2:02:44.680 on you in the last eight days of the tour, 2:02:44.760 --> 2:02:48.400 would you right? So No, I can't. I can't do that. 2:02:48.480 --> 2:02:51.200 I'm sorry, Like if you can, if it just if 2:02:51.760 --> 2:02:55.680 in a week or two weeks. You need still need somebody, 2:02:55.920 --> 2:02:58.120 let me give me a call. Never heard from them again. 2:02:59.320 --> 2:03:06.040 Three years later I get a call, Joel, could you 2:03:06.240 --> 2:03:11.840 be in Minneapolis like on January tewod Prince needs get 2:03:11.840 --> 2:03:15.080 a new guitar and technician. He needs to figure out 2:03:15.120 --> 2:03:17.280 something about his guitar soundup. He's not happy with his 2:03:17.400 --> 2:03:20.840 guitar sound So I thought it was like, Okay, this 2:03:20.920 --> 2:03:22.920 will be like a little consultant kind of thing and 2:03:22.960 --> 2:03:24.440 I'll figure it out what it is will be a 2:03:24.480 --> 2:03:30.320 few days. And instead I did work with one of 2:03:30.360 --> 2:03:34.280 his technicians to fix the problem he was having. It 2:03:34.400 --> 2:03:37.600 was completely different than any other scene that I had 2:03:37.760 --> 2:03:42.720 been at. It was quite wild, and he was Mozartian 2:03:42.880 --> 2:03:43.680 and his genius. 2:03:44.080 --> 2:03:45.960 Okay, but you're telling me about how you end up 2:03:46.000 --> 2:03:46.920 working for the Archives. 2:03:47.680 --> 2:03:53.400 After I worked for Prince, which was a wonderful life 2:03:53.480 --> 2:03:59.560 changing thing to do, I got a call from Neil 2:03:59.640 --> 2:04:02.480 that he was working on his what was going to 2:04:02.560 --> 2:04:06.160 be Decade two. He had the Decade album from nineteen 2:04:06.200 --> 2:04:09.400 seventy six. He was originally going to do It's starting 2:04:09.440 --> 2:04:11.640 in eighty six, but it kept going on and it 2:04:11.800 --> 2:04:16.200 wasn't being It wasn't finished he was still working on it. 2:04:16.360 --> 2:04:21.120 Could I come and oh, could I come with him 2:04:21.120 --> 2:04:21.840 and help him with that? 2:04:22.480 --> 2:04:27.240 So I I did. 2:04:27.920 --> 2:04:31.320 This was now nineteen ninety and I started in January 2:04:31.760 --> 2:04:34.520 and originally was just going to do the artwork and 2:04:34.600 --> 2:04:38.120 the photographs. And also I got his chronology together. He 2:04:38.160 --> 2:04:40.720 didn't have a sense of like what happened when, so 2:04:41.240 --> 2:04:43.120 he had a sense, but he wasn't correct for a 2:04:43.160 --> 2:04:46.600 lot of it. So I did a database in which 2:04:46.640 --> 2:04:49.640 we could see the total chronology of Neil Young from 2:04:49.720 --> 2:04:52.400 before Buffalo Springfield, from when he was in the Squire's's 2:04:52.480 --> 2:04:55.080 Band in Canada all the way to the present day. 2:04:55.720 --> 2:05:03.480 And then I became the me to do the He said, well, 2:05:03.520 --> 2:05:06.120 here's a list of the things I'm interested in putting 2:05:06.160 --> 2:05:07.880 out and I said, yeah, but you skipped over this 2:05:08.120 --> 2:05:11.720 and this and this and this. So he said, you know, 2:05:12.280 --> 2:05:16.080 why don't you do this part too, Like you you 2:05:16.160 --> 2:05:18.480 can be the archivist for the music stuff too, because 2:05:18.480 --> 2:05:20.440 I want to know what you know a lot of 2:05:20.440 --> 2:05:23.880 stuff I've forgotten. So that's how all of that became. 2:05:23.960 --> 2:05:26.400 And I was his archivist for about twenty years. 2:05:26.840 --> 2:05:28.840 And was that essentially a full time job? 2:05:29.840 --> 2:05:34.680 Yes, it was so that what was that that job 2:05:34.840 --> 2:05:37.760 was So imagine if you're Neil Young and you want 2:05:37.800 --> 2:05:41.320 to put out I asked him one day, like, so, Neil, 2:05:41.400 --> 2:05:44.080 are you do you have a sense of like, uh 2:05:44.240 --> 2:05:46.080 in this in this box set you want to do, 2:05:46.720 --> 2:05:48.240 is it going? Do you have a sense of the 2:05:48.320 --> 2:05:52.960 relationship of release material versus unreleased material? He thought for 2:05:53.000 --> 2:05:55.200 a second. He said, no, it's not whether it's released 2:05:55.280 --> 2:05:58.520 or not. I just want the best. So I said, 2:05:58.680 --> 2:06:02.520 so you're looking for the best performances of the best songs. 2:06:02.880 --> 2:06:05.880 He said, That's exactly what I'm looking for. So I 2:06:06.000 --> 2:06:08.680 took it upon myself to go and do that listening 2:06:08.840 --> 2:06:12.360 for him, so I could say, okay, Neil, of all 2:06:12.440 --> 2:06:15.120 of the versions of calgaryl and the Sand you've ever done, 2:06:15.520 --> 2:06:17.600 these are the only three you need to listen to 2:06:17.600 --> 2:06:20.400 to figure out the best one. Because if it's already 2:06:20.440 --> 2:06:22.840 come out on it as an album, whatever the best 2:06:22.960 --> 2:06:25.680 is has to be better than that master better than 2:06:25.720 --> 2:06:29.520 the released album, whether it's a demo or a live 2:06:29.680 --> 2:06:32.680 version or whatever. So I did that for years and 2:06:33.080 --> 2:06:36.360 listened to all as much music as I could, studio 2:06:36.560 --> 2:06:40.960 and live of his to pick what was the very 2:06:41.000 --> 2:06:42.560 best Neil Young music. 2:06:43.680 --> 2:06:46.280 We're in this story. Do you meet your wife and 2:06:46.400 --> 2:06:47.080 have children? 2:06:49.160 --> 2:06:52.879 I don't. I don't get married and I don't have children. 2:06:53.200 --> 2:06:54.360 That they're not in the story. 2:06:54.400 --> 2:06:57.240 Okay, well you know the same. You know, my research 2:06:57.440 --> 2:07:00.840 is kind of funny. Just as an aside, I wanted 2:07:00.880 --> 2:07:03.080 to know what year you were born in and it 2:07:03.200 --> 2:07:09.880 said you were dead AI, and it was definitely Joel Bernstein, 2:07:09.960 --> 2:07:10.800 the photographer. 2:07:11.680 --> 2:07:14.120 Okay, so check this out. This is you're reminding me 2:07:14.200 --> 2:07:18.360 of a moment I have to which is this. I'm 2:07:19.120 --> 2:07:21.720 I'm rarely ill, but at this point I'm at my 2:07:21.960 --> 2:07:24.640 apartment in San Francisco next door to Grams. I have 2:07:24.760 --> 2:07:30.800 a really high fever and feeling terrible. And the phone 2:07:30.840 --> 2:07:33.960 starts ringing off the hook and it's people I know, 2:07:34.040 --> 2:07:37.600 and they're going, oh, oh you're there. 2:07:37.920 --> 2:07:40.000 I knew you were there, Thank God. 2:07:40.720 --> 2:07:43.960 The next call is like they're crying on the phone. 2:07:44.600 --> 2:07:46.160 What what is this? Okay. 2:07:46.280 --> 2:07:50.840 It turns out that it's the night of the Grammys 2:07:52.640 --> 2:07:58.240 and they're doing the memorial section in the Grammys and 2:07:58.440 --> 2:08:01.400 the you know, the narrow and saying and you know, 2:08:01.520 --> 2:08:04.760 with this person passed away in sadly and this next 2:08:04.800 --> 2:08:10.520 person and Rock photographer Joel Brodsky passed away. So it 2:08:10.640 --> 2:08:13.120 turns out that the guy on the desk, the entertainment 2:08:13.280 --> 2:08:18.000 guy who's watching the Grammys, hears rock photographer Joel and 2:08:18.120 --> 2:08:21.800 he just immediately thinks it's me because I'm from Philadelphia. 2:08:21.920 --> 2:08:24.960 He's the Philadelphia paper. He writes up in the paper 2:08:25.160 --> 2:08:29.400 and online that Joel Bernstein has died. Unfortunately, right Rock 2:08:30.080 --> 2:08:33.160 after his successful career with Crosby Stoleson Nash and Joni 2:08:33.200 --> 2:08:37.120 Mitchell and Neili yelling yourself, apparently he's dead and that's 2:08:37.160 --> 2:08:38.320 why everybody was calling me. 2:08:40.520 --> 2:08:43.480 Well, you know, that's probably part of what's going on 2:08:43.720 --> 2:08:46.200 in AI, which is also I did you know, because 2:08:46.320 --> 2:08:49.560 obviously Joel Bernstein, You're not the only Joel Bernstein, but 2:08:49.680 --> 2:08:54.240 in terms of Joel Bernstein, rock photographer, and you look 2:08:54.320 --> 2:08:57.040 and it says two children's name whatever. 2:08:57.240 --> 2:09:00.880 It's like, Okay, I wonder, see I wonder if you 2:09:01.000 --> 2:09:04.600 put parentheses around the Joel bost Believe me, you said. 2:09:04.640 --> 2:09:07.760 Believe me. Okay, I'm an expert googler. 2:09:08.120 --> 2:09:11.400 Oh okay, got it, I get it. That's really funny. 2:09:11.680 --> 2:09:14.760 Okay. A couple of questions here. You talked about the 2:09:15.000 --> 2:09:18.120 album cover after the ghuld Rush and Elliott told you. 2:09:18.200 --> 2:09:19.080 What to charge? 2:09:20.320 --> 2:09:22.880 How did you decide what to charge your I mean 2:09:23.000 --> 2:09:26.080 some things like guitar tick, there's an at there's a 2:09:26.200 --> 2:09:26.840 range of real. 2:09:26.920 --> 2:09:28.720 Right, there's going to be you're going to get a 2:09:29.120 --> 2:09:30.720 weekly salary in per diem. 2:09:31.840 --> 2:09:34.760 Right, But if you're shooting a photo that is used 2:09:34.760 --> 2:09:37.760 for certain purpose, right, you know it could be anything 2:09:37.840 --> 2:09:42.000 from zero to you know, fifty thousand dollars, Right, how 2:09:42.040 --> 2:09:43.760 do you decide what the price is? 2:09:45.040 --> 2:09:47.720 I guess you learn more at the time, like what 2:09:48.000 --> 2:09:51.960 could what could you charge? When he suggested that, I 2:09:52.120 --> 2:09:54.640 charged them fifteen hundred dollars, you know, for the front, 2:09:54.760 --> 2:09:59.720 back and inside of that. Then when I saw the poster, 2:10:00.440 --> 2:10:02.560 I called them back and said, so there's a poster 2:10:02.920 --> 2:10:06.120 also a different shot. Send them another bill for five 2:10:06.200 --> 2:10:10.760 hundred dollars. So that was like my basis. 2:10:11.000 --> 2:10:11.600 I guess. 2:10:13.600 --> 2:10:15.880 Those are just numbers he came up with. I don't 2:10:15.960 --> 2:10:19.880 know whether they were commensurate with what the figures were 2:10:19.920 --> 2:10:26.760 at the time, honestly, but you know, over time, when 2:10:26.800 --> 2:10:31.240 you're starting, you know, you every one who's paying you 2:10:31.280 --> 2:10:34.000 wants to pay as little as possible, and it takes 2:10:34.120 --> 2:10:41.440 time for you two years to say, well, somebody you 2:10:41.560 --> 2:10:45.080 know paid me this much for that same usage, so 2:10:45.320 --> 2:10:47.320 that that's what I'm going to charge you for that 2:10:47.520 --> 2:10:51.880 cover or for that the inside of your songbook or 2:10:51.960 --> 2:10:55.600 you know, whatever the thing is. Right, So, all through 2:10:56.040 --> 2:11:01.240 my whole career, I've had to make those decisions about 2:11:01.320 --> 2:11:07.360 like what to charge. You know, I'm not a great 2:11:07.400 --> 2:11:09.800 business person. I probably could have if I had been 2:11:10.000 --> 2:11:14.240 more when you asked, like was I pounding the pavement 2:11:14.320 --> 2:11:18.080 and taking my portfolio, for example, to Columbia Records in 2:11:18.320 --> 2:11:21.400 LA when like in the early seven mid seventies or 2:11:21.440 --> 2:11:23.440 something when I could have been doing that, I didn't. 2:11:24.480 --> 2:11:27.560 I think I was more let's just let it happen, 2:11:27.880 --> 2:11:30.400 like let's just see. You know. I think if I 2:11:32.400 --> 2:11:35.880 was not making enough money to pay my rent and 2:11:36.120 --> 2:11:38.920 buy groceries, that I would have would have done those 2:11:39.000 --> 2:11:40.600 things and like pounded the pavement more. 2:11:40.960 --> 2:11:45.680 Okay. Another big issue now more than ever is ownership. Yes, 2:11:46.600 --> 2:11:48.760 a lot of stuff today is licensed yet and now 2:11:48.760 --> 2:11:51.960 I'm cover a license license in perpetuity for this use 2:11:52.160 --> 2:11:54.520 if you want to use it for something. Right, So 2:11:54.800 --> 2:11:58.320 all of this legendary stuff that you did, do you 2:11:58.520 --> 2:12:00.879 own in it? Or did you all the rights. 2:12:02.480 --> 2:12:05.360 I own the copyright to everything, and I the rights 2:12:05.400 --> 2:12:08.080 I sold would be as you say, would be license, 2:12:08.800 --> 2:12:13.680 would be a one time use license for whatever it 2:12:13.880 --> 2:12:20.240 was for Rolling Stone Magazine, for Columbia Records, for you know, 2:12:21.320 --> 2:12:25.720 mainly for the use in a documentary film. For example, 2:12:25.920 --> 2:12:30.680 I'm currently working on a documentary of I've had a 2:12:30.720 --> 2:12:36.440 lot of photos used in documents, documentary films, uh for 2:12:37.240 --> 2:12:39.800 that I used that used a lot of my photos, 2:12:39.800 --> 2:12:45.320 including for Tom Petty, The Heartbreakers, for Bruce Springsteen, for Jonie, 2:12:46.240 --> 2:12:50.840 for Neil and I'm currently working on a documentary film 2:12:51.120 --> 2:12:56.560 on Crosby, Stills and Nash and their history. So you know, 2:12:56.760 --> 2:12:59.720 in the end of the the to the what I 2:12:59.760 --> 2:13:02.959 get paid will be a function of how many images 2:13:03.560 --> 2:13:07.720 are they using and what rate do we negotiate at 2:13:08.240 --> 2:13:14.680 those for those hundred those those usages. The more usages 2:13:14.760 --> 2:13:20.200 you have, the less the rate goes down. If you 2:13:20.440 --> 2:13:24.600 use like fifty of something instead of ten, right, or 2:13:24.680 --> 2:13:27.960 if you use one hundred instead of twenty, right, those 2:13:28.080 --> 2:13:30.400 kinds of things. So and you just have to become 2:13:30.560 --> 2:13:34.920 familiar with what is the going rate that my peers, 2:13:34.960 --> 2:13:37.839 for example, are getting charged for the same kind of usages. 2:13:38.760 --> 2:13:44.240 Okay, if you're a musician, as one ages irrelevant of 2:13:44.320 --> 2:13:47.640 playing live, all the money is in the publishing as 2:13:47.680 --> 2:13:51.560 opposed to the record royalties at dis laid date owning 2:13:51.680 --> 2:13:56.440 these iconic images. Yes, there's one time events like these movies. 2:13:56.560 --> 2:14:00.200 But if you annualize it, is this like cab a 2:14:00.320 --> 2:14:01.800 pension or is it not that loose? 2:14:02.840 --> 2:14:06.280 That's a good question. I would say it's never risen 2:14:06.320 --> 2:14:10.480 to the to the level of it being maybe there 2:14:10.560 --> 2:14:12.880 have been some years where it could it could be 2:14:13.040 --> 2:14:20.240 a significant part of my income. It's it's not like 2:14:21.800 --> 2:14:26.200 especially as a photography Let's see, I have to back up. 2:14:26.960 --> 2:14:31.040 I started selling prints of my photographs starting with Neil 2:14:31.120 --> 2:14:36.879 Young Prince in twenty eleven. So I've had a business 2:14:37.480 --> 2:14:40.720 doing that where my prints are sold at galleries. They 2:14:40.760 --> 2:14:45.480 are also now sold online in my website Joel Bernstein 2:14:45.520 --> 2:14:45.920 dot com. 2:14:46.400 --> 2:14:48.720 And so the. 2:14:51.000 --> 2:14:54.400 Figuring out which photos people want to buy and how 2:14:54.560 --> 2:14:58.320 you want to present those photos to them something I've 2:14:58.360 --> 2:15:03.200 been doing since since twenty eleven. So that's been a 2:15:03.240 --> 2:15:07.080 big thrill actually for me, and that helps. It's not 2:15:07.320 --> 2:15:11.040 again going to support me, but it's going to add 2:15:11.240 --> 2:15:12.920 to the income coming in. 2:15:14.680 --> 2:15:15.920 So what is supporting you. 2:15:16.960 --> 2:15:22.000 Well, I'm saying it's a combination of my selling prints, 2:15:22.480 --> 2:15:28.600 my having photos used for something like this Crosby Stills 2:15:28.640 --> 2:15:34.480 and Nash documentary. I also, for example, did a I 2:15:34.640 --> 2:15:37.720 was at Neil Young asked me would I redo the 2:15:37.920 --> 2:15:44.680 layout of his third volume of his archives, which is 2:15:44.720 --> 2:15:47.000 not something I normally is like sort of being an 2:15:47.080 --> 2:15:50.880 art director and editor, which I can do well by now, 2:15:51.040 --> 2:15:54.640 and so that's something I was paid for on an 2:15:54.680 --> 2:15:58.360 hourly basis. I'll be paid as a consultant to the 2:15:58.960 --> 2:16:04.240 CSN film and hopefully there'll be other projects I'm going 2:16:04.320 --> 2:16:07.080 to be working on. I'm hoping to work on a 2:16:07.200 --> 2:16:10.600 film by Cameron Crowe coming up. I'm helping him with 2:16:10.680 --> 2:16:14.520 the accuracy of the chronology of his memoir of Joni Mitchell, 2:16:15.080 --> 2:16:17.800 and I'm hoping that they'll be also a film having 2:16:17.880 --> 2:16:19.800 to do with her that I might be involved in. 2:16:20.600 --> 2:16:23.840 At this late date. How much contact do you have 2:16:24.040 --> 2:16:28.840 with these people like Jonie, Neil, Graham, Nash, etc. 2:16:29.800 --> 2:16:33.560 It varies. I speak to Graham often. We're still really 2:16:33.600 --> 2:16:39.080 good friends. I worked on Jony's archival. She has four 2:16:39.240 --> 2:16:44.039 volumes of archival projects that are all previously unreleased material 2:16:44.320 --> 2:16:47.520 going back to before she was signed, and I have 2:16:47.800 --> 2:16:51.720 a lot of photos in those, and I should say 2:16:51.720 --> 2:16:55.760 at some point that Joni was giving away her earthly possessions. 2:16:56.640 --> 2:17:02.440 In nineteen seventy one, when I was nineteen, and I 2:17:02.560 --> 2:17:04.480 came to her house and it was sort of in disarray, 2:17:04.600 --> 2:17:07.280 and I said, what's going on. She said, well, I've 2:17:07.320 --> 2:17:10.640 decided I've gotten too comfortable here and I'm going to 2:17:10.680 --> 2:17:13.520 give away my earthly possessions and move. I'm going to 2:17:13.800 --> 2:17:16.800 I bought some land in Canada and I'm going to 2:17:16.879 --> 2:17:19.720 buy a build a small house there, and I'm leaving 2:17:19.800 --> 2:17:25.400 this town. And she said, you can have anything you want. 2:17:26.320 --> 2:17:28.160 The Tiffany lamp, so and so I was taking the 2:17:28.240 --> 2:17:32.920 Tiffany lamp and the carousel pig, life sized carousel pig 2:17:33.000 --> 2:17:35.680 of wood that she had behind her couch, like, I'm 2:17:35.720 --> 2:17:38.640 taking that with me, but anything else, it's up. You 2:17:38.720 --> 2:17:41.680 can take what. Let's look around. And I don't know 2:17:41.840 --> 2:17:45.760 how I thought of this at nineteen, but I said, well, 2:17:45.800 --> 2:17:49.040 has anyone asked you for the tapes and acetates? And 2:17:49.120 --> 2:17:51.760 she said, no, you can have them all. So she 2:17:51.920 --> 2:17:54.400 gave me all of the tapes and acetates that she 2:17:54.480 --> 2:17:57.880 had taken home from the studio and live up to 2:17:58.000 --> 2:18:02.600 that point. And that started me a whole collection of 2:18:02.720 --> 2:18:05.120 those kinds of tapes because people didn't care about them. 2:18:05.600 --> 2:18:08.160 These are the tape copies that they take home to 2:18:08.360 --> 2:18:10.920 like here, how did I sound that night? Do we 2:18:11.000 --> 2:18:14.680 want to use take three or take eleven? Those kinds 2:18:14.720 --> 2:18:20.119 of tapes, rough mixtapes. So she gave me all of those, 2:18:20.200 --> 2:18:23.400 which included the tapes that Graham Nash had left behind 2:18:23.480 --> 2:18:27.320 when they had lived together. And so the rough mixes 2:18:27.360 --> 2:18:31.199 of the first CSN album and Deja Vu, for example, 2:18:31.240 --> 2:18:34.040 are there. And oh, her engineer was working on what 2:18:34.320 --> 2:18:37.560 the Flying Burrito Brothers first album at the same time, 2:18:37.640 --> 2:18:41.280 and here's rough mixes of that. So that was like 2:18:41.400 --> 2:18:46.440 another exciting kind of thing for me to be doing. 2:18:46.520 --> 2:18:49.000 And we've gotten to use those tapes over time. In 2:18:49.760 --> 2:18:55.840 so I got to produce, well or co produce the 2:18:55.959 --> 2:19:00.360 box set for David Crosby Stephen Still's in Graham Nash, 2:19:01.280 --> 2:19:04.840 which is like lifetime sets to sort of so you 2:19:04.879 --> 2:19:06.680 don't know who these people are here, let me show 2:19:06.680 --> 2:19:10.120 you who they are. So that's a big thing to 2:19:10.200 --> 2:19:12.680 be able to do. And I, you know, it's a big. 2:19:14.000 --> 2:19:16.280 It's a big responsibility to try to get it right 2:19:16.520 --> 2:19:20.600 and to decide which versions of things you're doing. You know, Bob, 2:19:20.640 --> 2:19:26.600 there's this whole thing of They say all comparisons are odious, 2:19:27.680 --> 2:19:30.400 and I sort of subscribe to that. There's right, it's 2:19:30.520 --> 2:19:32.360 not a good thing to be comparing this to that, 2:19:32.560 --> 2:19:34.760 and then what's your best album and what's the best 2:19:35.080 --> 2:19:37.080 which is a better song and all of that. But 2:19:37.280 --> 2:19:40.040 if you're doing my job, let's say, in the editing 2:19:40.120 --> 2:19:42.720 I was doing for Neil Young, I do have to 2:19:42.800 --> 2:19:45.880 make those decisions, right. I have to listen to like 2:19:46.040 --> 2:19:49.000 twenty or fifty versions of something and say, okay, Neil, 2:19:49.040 --> 2:19:53.600 you're only hearing these three or four. So I found 2:19:54.040 --> 2:19:59.440 that this is a great It's good to have that 2:19:59.560 --> 2:20:02.280 discern and to be able to figure out those things, 2:20:02.400 --> 2:20:06.840 especially because most people if you said, like, here's ten 2:20:07.000 --> 2:20:09.200 versions of the same song done by Neil Young on 2:20:09.280 --> 2:20:11.160 the same tour, which one do you think is the best? 2:20:11.959 --> 2:20:14.959 Even a really Neil Young fan who would think, oh, 2:20:15.320 --> 2:20:18.520 this is my dream job. I know all about Neil Young. 2:20:18.640 --> 2:20:21.760 I can tell you what the best Sugar Mountain is. No. Actually, 2:20:21.840 --> 2:20:23.600 your eyes are going to glaze over and you won't 2:20:23.680 --> 2:20:26.520 remember whether it was three or five or whatever it is. 2:20:26.920 --> 2:20:29.160 So all of that has been, you know, kind of 2:20:29.240 --> 2:20:32.840 a thrill for me to be able to do as 2:20:32.879 --> 2:20:34.040 well as the photography. 2:20:35.280 --> 2:20:40.720 Okay, from a very young age. To use the Hamilton quote, 2:20:40.760 --> 2:20:44.520 you were in the room where it happened. Anybody who 2:20:44.720 --> 2:20:50.120 knows who's been in those rooms knows that they're rules. Yes, 2:20:50.440 --> 2:20:53.600 it's kind of like private jet rules. You can get 2:20:53.680 --> 2:20:56.720 on the jet, but there are certain seats. You better 2:20:56.840 --> 2:20:59.200 not suiting those seats. 2:21:00.040 --> 2:21:03.920 It's so well said. I've watched that role be violated. 2:21:06.640 --> 2:21:09.480 Believe me, that's an ugly scene. But in any event, 2:21:10.240 --> 2:21:14.560 you're in the room where it happens, I have you know. 2:21:14.720 --> 2:21:18.800 There are a couple of basic rules when you're interacting 2:21:18.920 --> 2:21:21.920 with people like this. A you don't want to come 2:21:21.959 --> 2:21:25.560 across as a fan, and usually you don't want to 2:21:25.640 --> 2:21:28.360 talk about what they're famous for. You want to treat 2:21:28.400 --> 2:21:31.240 them as regular people. Because we both know their exceptions. 2:21:31.240 --> 2:21:33.119 I can tell you some hilarious of steps, and people 2:21:33.160 --> 2:21:35.680 love to talk about themselves. And of course, of course, 2:21:36.080 --> 2:21:39.600 then there are people they're in the room that it happens, 2:21:40.040 --> 2:21:43.279 they don't understand the rules. They're not a major player, 2:21:43.760 --> 2:21:45.880 they start to eat up a lot of air and 2:21:46.040 --> 2:21:48.520 everybody agrees they can never come right. 2:21:49.680 --> 2:21:52.600 Okay, somebody please say score that person out right now. 2:21:52.800 --> 2:21:57.360 I mean, I will say that many You can imagine 2:21:57.400 --> 2:22:02.160 there's a very very varying sensitivity of different artists, recording artists. 2:22:02.200 --> 2:22:07.120 Let's say, to who's in the studio, who's in the 2:22:07.200 --> 2:22:10.160 control room when they're making a record, for example, would 2:22:10.160 --> 2:22:12.959 be a really good one. Some people are like, let's 2:22:13.000 --> 2:22:16.160 have a party, bring bring your you're sure my girlfriend's 2:22:16.200 --> 2:22:21.080 coming in whatever. Fine. Other people are like so sensitive, 2:22:21.840 --> 2:22:25.120 people like Neil or Bob Dylan are so sensitive to 2:22:25.240 --> 2:22:28.920 who is in the room that there really needs to be. 2:22:31.440 --> 2:22:34.000 You only want to have the bare minimum of people. 2:22:34.080 --> 2:22:38.240 And if you're not there, like if you're there, you're 2:22:38.320 --> 2:22:40.840 not there for a reason, you really shouldn't be there 2:22:41.440 --> 2:22:43.880 kind of thing. Because they they're they're going to be 2:22:44.160 --> 2:22:48.080 very sensitive to every single person who is that they're 2:22:48.120 --> 2:22:51.400 why are they here right? Because they're they're working, they're 2:22:51.440 --> 2:22:53.720 trying to they're not hanging out. They're there to do 2:22:53.840 --> 2:22:54.320 their job. 2:22:55.040 --> 2:22:57.039 So you know, the the. 2:22:58.760 --> 2:23:04.680 Uh, the whole issue of not being not drawing attention 2:23:04.760 --> 2:23:08.480 to yourself. By the way, as a photographer. Also both 2:23:08.520 --> 2:23:12.640 as a crew member and as a photographer, you want 2:23:12.720 --> 2:23:16.560 to disappear, right, you really do you? You want to 2:23:16.720 --> 2:23:19.080 be more like a ninja. What how did he get 2:23:19.120 --> 2:23:19.600 that picture? 2:23:19.760 --> 2:23:19.960 Where? 2:23:20.320 --> 2:23:20.880 Where was he? 2:23:21.800 --> 2:23:21.959 Right? 2:23:22.280 --> 2:23:24.720 Don't I don't remember him doing that? That that sort 2:23:24.720 --> 2:23:26.840 of thing. You don't want to be like, hey, it's 2:23:26.879 --> 2:23:29.920 all about me and oh yeah, hey, hey, good to 2:23:30.000 --> 2:23:31.960 see you, you know, glad ending no, no, no, no, 2:23:32.720 --> 2:23:36.080 you know so And if you think about it, taking 2:23:36.160 --> 2:23:39.840 someone's photograph, even whoever it is a father to their daughter, 2:23:41.040 --> 2:23:44.320 you know, a friend to a friend, there's a dance, 2:23:44.400 --> 2:23:48.440 there's a social dance about photography about okay, are you posing? 2:23:49.040 --> 2:23:49.880 Are you not? Are you? 2:23:50.080 --> 2:23:52.080 You know, you don't know I'm taking the picture. So 2:23:52.160 --> 2:23:57.560 I'm getting this, you know, amazing, like you know, very 2:23:59.640 --> 2:24:01.800 person moment of who you are, but you don't even 2:24:01.879 --> 2:24:06.560 know that I'm doing it. There's you have to be 2:24:06.879 --> 2:24:12.600 very aware of that. And as a crew member, you know, 2:24:12.720 --> 2:24:17.920 let's say you can't be drawing attention to yourself. You 2:24:18.040 --> 2:24:22.240 have to really disappear. So it's an interesting combination of 2:24:22.360 --> 2:24:23.040 lessons to learn. 2:24:23.879 --> 2:24:28.640 Okay, you're an intelligent guy, you're a nice guy and 2:24:28.680 --> 2:24:33.040 you're articulate. I say that totally straightforward. Don't deny it. Whatever, 2:24:34.040 --> 2:24:40.160 you're nineteen, you're sitting in the room with Joni Mitchell, 2:24:40.480 --> 2:24:45.199 James Taylor, whatever do you say to yourself, I'd better 2:24:45.400 --> 2:24:50.160 shut up or you gauging how much you're talking like 2:24:50.280 --> 2:24:53.560 I'm privileged to be here, And are you judging how 2:24:53.640 --> 2:24:57.039 much comfort you achieve over time as to how much 2:24:57.160 --> 2:24:58.000 to participate? 2:24:59.600 --> 2:25:02.480 Yes, I think that you're just you just develop a 2:25:02.560 --> 2:25:07.280 sensitivity to vibe too in the room and and make sure, 2:25:08.400 --> 2:25:11.440 uh you know that whatever you're contributing is is to 2:25:11.560 --> 2:25:15.600 the better right uh, and that you're. 2:25:17.440 --> 2:25:17.600 Uh. 2:25:18.920 --> 2:25:22.279 I was very surprised that these people who were older 2:25:22.360 --> 2:25:27.880 than me were treating me so nicely and and and 2:25:28.120 --> 2:25:30.680 we're not like saying, hey, kid, get out of here 2:25:32.040 --> 2:25:32.520 kind of thing. 2:25:32.840 --> 2:25:33.000 Uh. 2:25:33.720 --> 2:25:35.640 There was something. I think it partly had to do 2:25:35.800 --> 2:25:38.480 with the fact that I could play guitar. That I 2:25:38.640 --> 2:25:43.680 was that they were related to that and were like, oh, 2:25:43.720 --> 2:25:48.040 you understand me better. You're you you you your guitar 2:25:48.160 --> 2:25:50.320 is too, so you sort of understand like what this 2:25:50.480 --> 2:25:53.800 is about, but it is. 2:25:55.760 --> 2:25:56.080 I I. 2:25:58.520 --> 2:26:01.200 Would I would hope that if someone were to look 2:26:01.240 --> 2:26:03.440 at the best of my photos, and I'm hoping at 2:26:03.480 --> 2:26:05.680 some point to do a book of my best photos 2:26:05.720 --> 2:26:09.800 of musicians as a big goal of mine. I envision 2:26:09.959 --> 2:26:12.720 this like me taking you into these rooms you'll never 2:26:12.879 --> 2:26:16.080 be in yourself. I want to give you what it 2:26:16.280 --> 2:26:19.600 felt like to be in that room. I want to 2:26:19.800 --> 2:26:22.480 provide you that you don't have to be there yourself. 2:26:23.200 --> 2:26:28.280 If you probably won't be ever in a bistro at 2:26:28.360 --> 2:26:32.720 eleven at night with Joni Mitchell in Italy, but if 2:26:32.800 --> 2:26:35.360 you were, this is what it would look like across 2:26:35.480 --> 2:26:38.440 the table. This is how it would feel, not just look. 2:26:39.160 --> 2:26:42.680 That's a thing, right, you're trying to One of the 2:26:42.760 --> 2:26:46.280 things in photography is you could make it your goal 2:26:46.440 --> 2:26:49.279 to make someone as pretty or handsome as possible. 2:26:50.120 --> 2:26:50.280 Right. 2:26:50.440 --> 2:26:56.720 Many photographers do that. Many sitters of photos want that, right. 2:26:58.040 --> 2:27:02.280 I'm looking to get underneath the skin and reveal something 2:27:02.840 --> 2:27:08.240 of the inner, the interior world of that person. Some 2:27:08.400 --> 2:27:11.920 religions feel that what we see on the outside is 2:27:11.920 --> 2:27:17.760 an illusion, right, if that everything the beautiful woman, No, 2:27:17.920 --> 2:27:21.960 that's just an illusions. What's really going on? And I 2:27:22.120 --> 2:27:26.280 think that if you my goal has always been to 2:27:26.520 --> 2:27:29.800 like give you the viewer of the photograph some idea 2:27:29.840 --> 2:27:31.680 of what it's like to be in that room with 2:27:31.840 --> 2:27:35.080 that person. I'm not trying to make them better or 2:27:35.400 --> 2:27:37.760 make them laugh or whatever it is. I'm trying to 2:27:37.920 --> 2:27:40.080 give you an insight into them as a person. 2:27:41.200 --> 2:27:45.000 Well, Joel, thank you for giving us insight into your world. 2:27:45.560 --> 2:27:48.640 First and foremost. So many people you talk about what 2:27:48.840 --> 2:27:52.800 happened in the past, you have to remind them the 2:27:52.920 --> 2:27:55.560 fact that you knew exactly when these albums came out 2:27:55.560 --> 2:27:58.080 and said, I say okay, and I have a million 2:27:58.160 --> 2:28:01.640 more questions. And there's so many things. Reference the week 2:28:01.760 --> 2:28:04.320 of Crosby Stills in Nash and Young. I couldn't get 2:28:04.360 --> 2:28:08.680 tickets for that at the filmore recent June. There are 2:28:08.720 --> 2:28:11.280 other shows you mentioned. You know, I've been there. It's 2:28:11.360 --> 2:28:16.040 really I saw the CSNY seventy four to where I 2:28:16.200 --> 2:28:18.760 saw a Nassau Coli seat, even though I grew up 2:28:18.760 --> 2:28:19.400 in Connecticut. 2:28:19.760 --> 2:28:24.840 Once I got tickets, do you remember, I'm really curious, Oh, 2:28:24.879 --> 2:28:26.640 I remember exactly where I was. 2:28:26.800 --> 2:28:28.680 I could tell you where I went to the bathroom 2:28:28.720 --> 2:28:31.680 where I was seating. Listen. I'm one of the people 2:28:32.959 --> 2:28:36.240 who doesn't go with conventional wisdom. Four Way Street. I 2:28:36.320 --> 2:28:38.440 don't think the harmonies are excellent. 2:28:39.360 --> 2:28:41.520 There's several things, yes, I agree, okay. 2:28:41.680 --> 2:28:45.280 And in the interim from June to seventy to when 2:28:46.520 --> 2:28:48.680 Neil Young joined the band again and they went on 2:28:48.800 --> 2:28:51.320 the road in seventy four, there were a number of 2:28:51.440 --> 2:28:56.879 acts who could replicate the harmonies live, not only acoustic 2:28:57.200 --> 2:29:00.720 or you know country rock musicians who could do right well, 2:29:01.440 --> 2:29:06.680 bands like Yes, etc. So when I went to the show, 2:29:07.520 --> 2:29:10.400 I didn't expect the harmonies to be as good as 2:29:10.520 --> 2:29:14.680 they were. Ah, I was just saying, I'm gonna have 2:29:14.920 --> 2:29:20.320 the experience. And you know, certainly as the years went by, 2:29:21.840 --> 2:29:25.120 it was more of a privilege to have Neil on 2:29:25.280 --> 2:29:27.480 the road with the other three or to make music 2:29:27.560 --> 2:29:30.640 with the other three, whereas at this point I felt 2:29:30.680 --> 2:29:35.120 it was more equalized. Listen, as I say, I remember Vivid, 2:29:35.200 --> 2:29:36.800 I thought it was a great show, not because I'm 2:29:36.840 --> 2:29:39.000 talking to you, because I can tell you about other 2:29:39.240 --> 2:29:42.280 Crosby stills in that shows that weren't as good as that. 2:29:42.480 --> 2:29:44.080 Let's leave it right at It was. 2:29:44.120 --> 2:29:47.320 An amazing mix of songs. Also, like Neil's writing, in 2:29:47.440 --> 2:29:50.360 particular the things that he was the new songs he 2:29:50.600 --> 2:29:53.640 was writing that he pulled out in the acoustic set, 2:29:53.720 --> 2:29:56.080 plus things like pushed it over the end and on 2:29:56.200 --> 2:29:58.920 the beach on the are you kidding on the beach? 2:29:59.040 --> 2:30:02.400 Live with that band? Crazy? Like so good, so great. 2:30:02.680 --> 2:30:05.440 The other funny thing is you went to college in 2:30:05.520 --> 2:30:07.840 the fall of seventy yeah, and your parents went on 2:30:07.959 --> 2:30:12.680 around the world trip. I went to college in September 2:30:12.720 --> 2:30:16.080 of seventy. My parents immediately went to Europe and there 2:30:16.200 --> 2:30:18.720 was not a phone in the room, so there was 2:30:18.800 --> 2:30:21.560 that simbling. It's like, you know, first of all, it's 2:30:21.600 --> 2:30:23.840 so different from today where people connect with their parents. 2:30:24.080 --> 2:30:27.000 That part is so mild to me, Like like I 2:30:27.080 --> 2:30:29.240 have friends who is like they're always on the phone 2:30:29.280 --> 2:30:31.920 with their daughter at college. I'm like, at some point 2:30:31.920 --> 2:30:35.000 I have to go, excuse me. But like when I 2:30:35.160 --> 2:30:38.120 was growing up, like when you went to college, part 2:30:38.160 --> 2:30:40.440 of the thing was like you didn't call it when 2:30:40.480 --> 2:30:42.880 there was a problem. You didn't call your parents every 2:30:42.920 --> 2:30:45.160 time there was a problem. Like you seem to be 2:30:45.280 --> 2:30:47.720 calling your daughter, like she's calling you like two or 2:30:47.760 --> 2:30:50.640 three times a day, Like like, what's up with that? 2:30:50.720 --> 2:30:52.080 Are you sure that's a good thing? 2:30:54.000 --> 2:30:56.040 Well, it's like, you know, I know, people's kids call 2:30:56.120 --> 2:30:58.800 them how to do the laundry. I never did the 2:30:58.920 --> 2:31:01.440 laundry at home, but I'm went to college. I didn't 2:31:01.480 --> 2:31:03.400 think twice that I had to learn how to do 2:31:03.560 --> 2:31:06.520 the launch. You know, you went down to the I 2:31:06.640 --> 2:31:07.880 learned you had to do it in the middle of 2:31:07.920 --> 2:31:09.600 the night because otherwise couldn't get a massie right. 2:31:09.959 --> 2:31:11.080 But you learn how to. 2:31:11.440 --> 2:31:13.959 Also, you learned how to like clean your own dishes. 2:31:14.040 --> 2:31:17.160 You know the great sign in the dormitory, you know, 2:31:17.400 --> 2:31:19.320 like it would say there'd be a sign that says, 2:31:19.400 --> 2:31:21.520 like your mother does clean your dishes. 2:31:21.600 --> 2:31:28.160 Your mother doesn't, Yeah, exactly. The other thing is I 2:31:28.280 --> 2:31:30.600 went to I bought my records at EJ Corp. 2:31:30.760 --> 2:31:31.840 Sure cheap. 2:31:31.959 --> 2:31:35.840 I bought so many records. You remember those people just 2:31:35.879 --> 2:31:40.520 don't know people the vinyl fetishization. I have all my vinyl. 2:31:40.840 --> 2:31:44.199 If it was originally recorded the analog, I understand completely. 2:31:44.840 --> 2:31:48.680 But people have no idea how defective the vinyl was. 2:31:48.840 --> 2:31:51.520 They don't to get a record with nose skips, no 2:31:52.400 --> 2:31:57.400 surface noise, flat records impossible. I returned so many records 2:31:57.920 --> 2:32:01.680 at EJ corbat Well, don't buy any more records here. 2:32:01.800 --> 2:32:04.560 That's really funny. I can remember having records, what was it? 2:32:04.680 --> 2:32:08.000 Days of future pasted right by the moody blues, Like 2:32:08.080 --> 2:32:10.280 I couldn't get a decent pressing, Like I didn't know 2:32:10.320 --> 2:32:13.520 about pressings, and like why why do I put this on? 2:32:13.920 --> 2:32:17.199 And like my knee, I just hear scratches like right away, 2:32:17.280 --> 2:32:19.600 and then the voices sound like far away. That's not 2:32:19.760 --> 2:32:24.080 what it sounded like on the radio. It's so true. 2:32:24.320 --> 2:32:26.600 Well the thing I'm reaching. So I go to college 2:32:26.640 --> 2:32:29.520 in Vermont. This is the dark ages before cable TV, 2:32:30.160 --> 2:32:33.600 cell phones, whatever. And if you put an EJ corve vet, 2:32:34.920 --> 2:32:39.000 you realize things went on sales and you bought so 2:32:39.120 --> 2:32:42.200 many records you were not going to pay Certainly they 2:32:42.280 --> 2:32:45.120 were usually two dollars off this price. So I'm gonna 2:32:45.680 --> 2:32:48.880 I mean, living in Vermont and the store wants to 2:32:49.080 --> 2:32:52.200 charge you a dollar more than EJ coord Sure, but 2:32:52.400 --> 2:32:54.800 that damn after the gold Rutch album came out the 2:32:54.840 --> 2:32:57.560 first week college, right, Oh I paid for that? Sure? 2:32:58.000 --> 2:33:01.760 I was, well, yeah, you can imagine how I felt 2:33:01.840 --> 2:33:03.920 like as a kid. Just imagine you're like if it 2:33:04.040 --> 2:33:07.080 was your first week as a freshman in college and 2:33:07.200 --> 2:33:09.400 you see that, but you've taken the pictures and you 2:33:09.560 --> 2:33:13.480 walk into the record store and it's all fifty copies 2:33:13.520 --> 2:33:16.680 of it are in shrink wrap on the floor, in piles. 2:33:16.680 --> 2:33:18.400 And it was it was. 2:33:18.680 --> 2:33:20.880 That was a big moment in my life. 2:33:21.160 --> 2:33:26.960 I cannot even imagine it. That's beyond the story. Well, 2:33:27.000 --> 2:33:31.320 one thing, you know, at the second fret, there's another thing, 2:33:31.520 --> 2:33:36.240 going to David Geffen's apartment. Okay, but walking into the 2:33:36.440 --> 2:33:41.320 record store, it's not any record. That was the breakthrough. 2:33:42.200 --> 2:33:45.560 You know, everybody, if you were engh you owned everything. 2:33:45.680 --> 2:33:48.480 Everybody knows this is nowhere, but the average person still 2:33:48.600 --> 2:33:51.440 wasn't buying and you went that record. It was the 2:33:51.600 --> 2:33:52.840 soundtrack of the dorm. 2:33:53.320 --> 2:33:55.360 To go to the record store, I was going to say, 2:33:55.800 --> 2:33:59.280 it was, like I've said to people, you know, like 2:33:59.440 --> 2:34:03.280 that was the dorm record of that year. For sure, 2:34:03.680 --> 2:34:07.520 every kid wanted to play how to play? How does 2:34:07.640 --> 2:34:08.480 how do you play? Tell me? 2:34:08.600 --> 2:34:08.760 Why? 2:34:09.240 --> 2:34:11.280 How can I play? Southern Man? It was like the 2:34:11.560 --> 2:34:12.480 record to play. 2:34:12.440 --> 2:34:14.480 And believe me, I played along with my guitar. Not 2:34:14.560 --> 2:34:17.160 that I'm in the league of you, but right, but 2:34:18.080 --> 2:34:21.119 the fact that you, I mean, okay, you weren't there, 2:34:21.680 --> 2:34:24.800 You're in college, you're a lady back guy. How do 2:34:24.879 --> 2:34:28.119 you end up telling people and do they even believe 2:34:28.280 --> 2:34:29.360 you that you've shot them? 2:34:30.000 --> 2:34:33.640 It is funny you asked that. I can remember, well, 2:34:33.680 --> 2:34:37.959 I realized first of all later that so the picture 2:34:38.000 --> 2:34:40.120 of Neil that we were talking about with lying on 2:34:40.240 --> 2:34:44.160 the couch in this funky dressing room, that's the gatefold 2:34:44.200 --> 2:34:46.360 of the cover. And by the way, all the pictures 2:34:46.400 --> 2:34:49.240 on the cover of that album are very gritty and 2:34:49.440 --> 2:34:52.800 very urban. They're like very not like what the music 2:34:52.959 --> 2:34:57.480 is inside, right right, they really which like which at 2:34:57.520 --> 2:35:00.800 the time I didn't really quite understand why he chose 2:35:00.879 --> 2:35:03.840 those things. Now I have a better understanding of it. 2:35:04.040 --> 2:35:07.440 But uh, that that. 2:35:10.200 --> 2:35:14.039 That that became such a major album, And now I'm 2:35:14.120 --> 2:35:17.160 out of college. I was left. But all my friends 2:35:17.200 --> 2:35:20.720 are like playing that record. And I remember a friend 2:35:20.760 --> 2:35:27.240 of mine telling me about being in Paris that year 2:35:27.959 --> 2:35:33.200 and how the DJ in Paris was just was describing 2:35:33.320 --> 2:35:36.800 the album cover to his audience on the radio in Paris, 2:35:37.400 --> 2:35:40.640 and I was like, I just my head blew up. 2:35:40.800 --> 2:35:45.040 I was like, I you know, you're you know there 2:35:45.080 --> 2:35:47.120 you are walking down the street with these two guys 2:35:47.160 --> 2:35:50.640 who are older than you. You know who knows that? Like, 2:35:51.080 --> 2:35:55.560 so you know that it becomes a classic. It's you know, 2:35:56.080 --> 2:35:58.280 considered one of the top one hundred album covers. 2:35:58.400 --> 2:36:02.800 Like well they In addition, people have no idea you 2:36:03.120 --> 2:36:05.040 used you talked about the Beatles on it. It's all 2:36:05.040 --> 2:36:09.920 of them. People have no idea to have access when 2:36:09.959 --> 2:36:13.760 you're a high school student. One thing, if you live 2:36:13.800 --> 2:36:17.760 in La the people there possibly, but you're living in 2:36:17.879 --> 2:36:20.200 the suburbs game access to these people. 2:36:20.240 --> 2:36:24.880 It would be impossible, unheard of. I just have to 2:36:24.920 --> 2:36:29.320 say that after csny's show at the at the Spectrum 2:36:29.360 --> 2:36:32.720 in Philadelphia, where I took the picture that's Neil's Greatest 2:36:32.800 --> 2:36:35.000 Hits cover for example, that really intense shot of him 2:36:35.040 --> 2:36:39.760 looking down after having gone through the box of photos 2:36:39.800 --> 2:36:40.080 with him. 2:36:41.840 --> 2:36:41.960 Uh. 2:36:42.440 --> 2:36:45.320 After the show, they're looking for a pool hall. They 2:36:45.360 --> 2:36:47.720 can't find a pool hall that to now, how could 2:36:47.720 --> 2:36:50.160 there not be a pool hall open? But for some reason, 2:36:50.280 --> 2:36:52.280 the guy the promoter saying, yeah, well, like we can't 2:36:52.760 --> 2:36:56.240 find one that Steven's got like a portable like a 2:36:56.360 --> 2:36:58.240 pool queue that you you know, in two pieces with 2:36:58.320 --> 2:37:00.880 a carrying right right right, No, I really I really 2:37:01.000 --> 2:37:03.560 like one. I play and I go, well, you know, 2:37:03.680 --> 2:37:07.760 my parents have a pool table at my house. I 2:37:07.840 --> 2:37:11.320 mean I'm sure he could come over, and they go really, yeah, 2:37:11.360 --> 2:37:14.760 well we'll be there, and I'm like really, And so 2:37:14.920 --> 2:37:18.040 I go home. I take the train home, you know, 2:37:18.560 --> 2:37:21.879 and then like a limo pulls up and it's Stephen 2:37:22.040 --> 2:37:25.199 and Graham and a film crew at my parents' house. 2:37:25.440 --> 2:37:28.280 It's like now it's midnight, twelve thirty. My parents are 2:37:28.320 --> 2:37:32.320 asleep upstairs. Okay, guys, all right, come in. We're gonna 2:37:32.560 --> 2:37:35.480 go to the pool tables in the basement. Okay, so 2:37:35.680 --> 2:37:43.000 shita there we thing they like when they start smoking 2:37:43.040 --> 2:37:46.400 a joint in the basement. Okay, maybe they're doing some 2:37:46.560 --> 2:37:51.960 other drug in the basement as well. At some point, 2:37:52.040 --> 2:37:56.039 the intercom phone rings. It's from my parents' bedroom. It's 2:37:56.120 --> 2:37:58.720 my dad. We pick it up, son, what's going on 2:37:58.920 --> 2:38:02.600 down there? What's all that noise? Oh god, Dad? I'm sorry. 2:38:03.120 --> 2:38:05.039 Uh you know, remember I went to that show tonight 2:38:05.120 --> 2:38:09.120 to photograph that band, and they they wanted to they 2:38:09.280 --> 2:38:11.600 needed a place to play pool. So two of them 2:38:11.640 --> 2:38:14.800 are are here with me tonight. I'm gonna just make 2:38:14.840 --> 2:38:17.600 sure they'll be really cool. I'm really sorry, but they'll 2:38:17.640 --> 2:38:22.640 be quiet, you know, we'll just keep it down. I 2:38:22.760 --> 2:38:28.320 hang up. There is full of hash smoke. Five seconds later, 2:38:28.440 --> 2:38:35.400 my dad appears in his bathroom hand out Stanley Bernstein, Hi, 2:38:35.560 --> 2:38:43.879 how are you doing? Come to my house? That's hysticle, 2:38:44.240 --> 2:38:46.320 that really really happened. 2:38:46.400 --> 2:38:51.440 So my point is that he's totally cool with them. 2:38:51.680 --> 2:38:55.240 He doesn't say what is that? Nothing, He's like, Hey, 2:38:55.280 --> 2:38:57.120 how you doing? Can I get you something to drink? 2:38:58.200 --> 2:39:03.480 Totally amazing, right, So later they come. 2:39:03.440 --> 2:39:06.320 Up to my bedroom with the film crew. I have 2:39:06.480 --> 2:39:08.360 my pictures that I've been taking so far, So I 2:39:08.440 --> 2:39:11.440 have Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and Laura Nira up 2:39:11.520 --> 2:39:13.720 on the wall like this behind them, and they shoot 2:39:13.800 --> 2:39:20.360 this on film, and that footage becomes Cameron's inspiration for 2:39:20.520 --> 2:39:24.160 the whole idea of the band comes to visit the 2:39:24.280 --> 2:39:27.720 kid in almost famous and the poster is up on 2:39:27.800 --> 2:39:31.080 the wall right, that posters thee after the it's taken 2:39:31.480 --> 2:39:35.720 let's say, inspired by the after the gold Rush. Inside right, 2:39:35.800 --> 2:39:40.520 it's it's the band Sweetwater or whatever it is, you know, 2:39:40.920 --> 2:39:44.000 posed right up in the kids thing and the guy 2:39:44.160 --> 2:39:47.280 is actually visiting him in his bedroom. That whole scene 2:39:47.320 --> 2:39:51.760 comes from my actual experience to telling Cameron about that 2:39:51.840 --> 2:39:53.560 whole story. That's how that happens. 2:39:55.360 --> 2:40:00.600 Normally with the story like that, the emphasis is on, yeah, 2:40:00.760 --> 2:40:05.680 I influenced the movie. Okay, in this case, fuck the movie. 2:40:06.120 --> 2:40:09.280 The story itself is so fucking great. 2:40:09.520 --> 2:40:11.520 It doesn't matter about the movie. 2:40:13.840 --> 2:40:18.920 Well, thank you, it was. You can you can dive 2:40:19.000 --> 2:40:21.119 out of a story like that for a lifetime. 2:40:21.800 --> 2:40:23.640 Well, I think I should be doing more of that. 2:40:23.920 --> 2:40:25.960 I'm feeling a little a little package. 2:40:26.400 --> 2:40:28.840 Okay, So in any of that, I'm gonna leave it 2:40:28.920 --> 2:40:31.000 at that because I can't. I'm sure there might be 2:40:31.080 --> 2:40:33.360 a story better than that. But that's a ten out 2:40:33.400 --> 2:40:36.920 of ten Joel. Okay, Well, thank you, Bob. I wanted 2:40:37.000 --> 2:40:38.279 to thank me anytime. 2:40:38.360 --> 2:40:41.680 It's great. It's really great talking right, and we really 2:40:41.760 --> 2:40:43.000 have so much a coin right it. 2:40:43.080 --> 2:40:47.000 Literally same era really, so thanks for taking time talk 2:40:47.040 --> 2:40:50.160 to my audience. Till next time. This is Bob left 2:40:50.240 --> 2:40:50.520 Sex