RockShots.Co
Images from UK gigs 1967-1980
Bonzos last stand (almost!), Hailsham, 2014
Jeff Beck tribute 2023 (shot in 1981)
In the 1967 Easter holiday a fifteen-year-old London schoolboy photographer acquired his first 35mm SLR camera and it accompanied him to notable gigs for several years. Its first outing was the Jeff Beck Group debut at the Marquee Club (above and in Jeff's autobiography published in 2016 by Genesis Publications) which featured Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. A few months later the National Jazz and Blues Festival lineup included Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac debut and these historic images have become widely known since their publication by Bob Brunning in his biography of the band and by Mick Fleetwood in My First Twenty Five Years in Fleetwod Mac and more recently in his lavish half-century tribute tome, Love That Burns, also published by Genesis in 2017 (thanks for the invitation to Mick's London launch event guys as it, in effect, marked both our 50th anniversaries).
The Rockshots archive comprises mostly black and white images, many of which were published in the monochrome music press at the time which included Beat Instrumental, Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Record Mirror and Sounds. Max Browne captured many famous and up-coming performers at club and festival gigs and is now digitally scanning these film images and uploading samples to the RockShots.Co website. Lo-res versions are being made available as memorabilia for free reference and hi-res images for commercial use at standard reproduction rates. This is an ongoing project and will take some time to complete.
Two noteworthy publications using RockShots images are the 50th Anniversary re-release by Warner of Jethro Tull's first album This Was (1968) and Christian Larsen's lavish limited edition Eric Clapton Live History using mostly unpublished images and with a major slice of profits bound for charities. The Where's Eric website have featured this impressive publication noting the sigificance of the Rockshots contribution which also includes a limited edition print of the great man playing his psychedelic SG guitar. This is included with the exotic leather bound edition which features this legendary instrument, known as The Fool, on the cover. Incidentally this was my first published rock shot (in Beat Instrumental monthly, January '68) - not bad for a 16 year old! Here's the famed Gibson in it's present state on the cover artwork for the book:
Documentarian, Eduardo Genzolini, has published a new expanded English edition of his The Who: A Million Little Memories also with some shots from 1968 taken at The Marquee, here's a quirky one taken on an old 6x6cm Zeiss bellows camera, above my head, and one without flash but strong Moon!
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Also of note are the exhibition quality signed limited edition prints published by top rock images publisher RockArchive. The first two of these were included in RockArchive's 2018 exhibition at the Albert Hall. As ever this was selected from their renowned collection of classic and often iconic rock images. Here is a snap of the photographer, during a visit, showing due acknowledgement to the subject of one of his favourite onstage shots which also features in a review of the show.
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RockArchive rose to the occasion by publishing another favourite onstage image of Kate Bush to mark the 40th anniversary of her dazzling groundbreaking shows that so many were enchanted and influenced by. We were hoping too that more of the stunning images in our archive may contribute to a finely illustrated tribute and celebration of this highlight of rock history before the year was out . . .
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( 'The Madonna of the Music' or 'The Siren of the Symphony' . . can you spot the blessing from the god of lighting - it's heart shaped!)
. . and lo and behold the 'Kate Bush Symposium' at Edinburgh College of Art enabled this on 13 December 2019! Nearly 150 RockShots images of Kate onstage were projected as an HD video to open the second day of the conference and also provide a fanfare for Professor Ian Cawood's following talk on Kate as a live performer. An SD video version of the Shooting Kate in '79 slideshow is available to view on YouTube following the Edinburgh launch.
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Here is my earlier attempt at a visual fanfare for a 40th celebration - this became the title slide for the Edinburgh video Shooting Kate in '79:-
It's great that earlier in 2019 Sean Twomey included a selection for his 40th Anniversary notice of the 1979 tour in KateBushNews.Com (which is how you may have found your way here!) and has continued to champion them, with much appreciated notices, ever since he first heard about them from an enthused Del Palmer.
Record Collector magazine have published the first substantial selection of the shots in their Kate Bush Special Edition, December 2020, with their fee donated to the endangered animals charity Explorers Against Extinction.
They are also set to receive the proceeds of Three Nights in Hammersmith: Kate Bush onstage in 1979 the illustrated book that so many have been waiting for. Having been on standby for so long I finally decided present them 'my way' and as true to Kate's concerts as such graphics can be. The result is a lavish large format collection of 250 shots, self-published and printed and distributed by Blurb, Inc. UK.
ENJOY
(BTW this is effectively a relatively expensive limited edition publication and so if any enterprising publisher would like to get in contact with a view to a cheaper popular edition for more fans, that would be great)
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Eric Clapton lead a tribute concert to late great drummer Ginger Baker on the 17th February 2020 at our favourite Hammersmith venue - here is a photograph of them playing together (Eric as an unannounced guest at Ginger's Drum Session with his hero, Phil Seaman) at the 1968 National Jazz and Blues Festival, Sunbury
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With sadness I also include one of the Fleetwood Mac 1967 debut shots here to honour the recent passing of their brilliant founder Peter Green:
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And with equal sadness I now include my tribute to the late and very great Jeff Beck who passed away so unexpectedly and who left, perhaps, the greatest electric guitar legacy ever. RIP Jeff
As can be seen at the top of this page Jeff was the first rock artist I shot on stage as a schoolboy photographer - and he has never failed to impress since. My tribute takes the form of a humourous and characteristic series of photographs of Jeff that I shot at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1981 - it has been spoofed as a cartoon type slideshow purporting to show Jeff on a 'Legendary Night' when he finally gave up using plectrums (click on the photo for the YouTube link)!
For further information email: info@rockshots.co