Showing posts with label Eric Clapton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eric Clapton. Show all posts

The Headliners and Legends Auction 2018

The Headliners and Legends Auction
February 1, 2018

Backstage Auctions is proud to present an amazing collection of rock and pop memorabilia, including a highly impressive selection of artist signed guitars, RIAA-certified record awards, a large collection of autographed memorabilia, original Peter Max paintings, and a dazzling array of tour and promotional collectibles.

With over 50 signed guitars from - among others - Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Eagles, Pearl Jam and U2, as well as a host of other great autographed memorabilia such as a Beach Boys surfboard, a Miles Davis print, Elton John Record Award and Queen posters, this auction truly is all about "Headliners and Legends".


This impressive collection of memorabilia comes from the estate of a well-known music industry executive who spent decades working for music retailers, record labels, and festivals. In the course of his nearly 50-year-long career, he worked with just about every artist and band from the 1970s on. He was involved with the Grammy organization, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as various music-related charities. His broad collection reflects not only his true passion for music, but deep friendships forged over the years. A portion of the proceeds of the auction will be donated to the favorite charities of this well-loved industry icon.

The Headliners and Legends Auction will go LIVE with a preview of the entire catalog on February 9th, 2018 and bidding will begin on February 16th and close on February 25th, 2018.

For more about the auction, carve out some time to listen to Goldmine Magazine's interview with our very own Jacques van Gool. Pat Prince, Goldmine editor and Jacques talk about the auction highlights. Click here: Podcast Link


Sign up today for your All Access Auction Pass: Register Here



CD Review: Dr. John – The Atco/Atlantic Singles 1968-1974

CD Review: Dr. John – The Atco/Atlantic Singles 1968-1974
Omnivore Records
All Access Rating: A-

Dr. John - The Atco/Atlantic
Singles 1968-1974 2015
All of America's confounding contradictions are laid bare in Dr. John's "The Patriotic Flag Waver," the mono version of which appears on a new compilation, from Omnivore Recordings, of the New Orleans icon's best-loved music titled The Atco/Atlantic Singles 1968-1974.

Set to martial drums, some light acoustic guitar strumming and a playful, slightly off-key children's choir singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," the beautifully messy, spoken-word reading perfectly encapsulates – without judgment – the cultural and socio-political idiosyncrasies of a country that aspires to greatness and often falls short. Given the current divisiveness over race, religion and any number of hot-button topics that drive people into a frothing rage these days, the song – guileless and honest, to a fault – couldn't possibly be more relevant.

This well-curated collection, complete with insightful and reverential penned liner notes by musicologist Gene Sculatti, gathers together both the A- and B-sides Dr. John recorded for Atlantic's labels during a stretch of particularly inspired work. Revisiting "The Patriotic Flag Waver" – a history lesson that sounds like a distant echo or a recovered memory in mono – is, in and of itself, a rewarding and thought-provoking journey through the nation's checkered past. Still, that's just one of heady intoxicants in a 22-song survey that, while less than comprehensive, serves as an ecumenical worship of an artist and the music of his native home, and a serious lesson in the musical lexicon and history of The Big Easy.

An easy stroll through the diverse sounds of the Bayou, the music of Dr. John is a melange of swampy R&B, jazz, psychedelia, pop, funk, rock 'n' roll and whatever else happens to be trolling through the backstreets of New Orleans blowing sun-dappled, dewey horns. Like a more languorous and soulful Tom Waits, he slinks down Tin Pan Alley in the jazzy, minstrel shamble of "Jump Sturdy" and shuffles through the subdued, engaging R&B of "Mama Roux." However, darkness and danger are present in the mysterious murk of "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" Parts I and II and the sinister "Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya," as a creepy Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, declares himself to be "known as the night tripper" over rolling drums, with hypnotic, zombie-like vocals swaying and moaning as if caught in a voodoo trance.

A Grammy winner six times over, Dr. John is a soulful singer and a wickedly clever keyboardist, his great feel for the material and what it needs always apparent, whether he's shaping the slinky grooves of "Loop Garoo" and the smash hit "Right Place Wrong Time," or laying back and playing it cool on a breezy "Wash Mama Wash." He makes the electric-piano boogie of "Wang Dang Doodle" seductively bounce and gyrate across the dance floor, while the summery "Such A Night" twinkles and sashays under the stars, the high-stepping energy of "Iko Iko" exudes light and "A Man Of Many Words" – where Dr. John is joined by Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy – gets lost in deep, bluesy reflection.

Protective of its traditions, but not inextricably bound to them, Dr. John is a New Orleans institution, an almost mythical figure ingrained in the old, decaying fabric of a haunted city. Among the producers, writers and arrangers he's rubbed elbows with are sainted names like Clapton and Guy, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler , Allen Toussaint, Willie Dixon. Even among such esteemed company, Dr. John – his slightly raspy voice a cocktail that brings on a drowsy buzz all by itself – stands out, his outsized personality and reputation for wildly theatrical performances matched only by the singular character of a place unlike anywhere else. To find the real Dr. John, wander through The Atco/Atlantic Singles 1968-1974 and then seek out the rest of his catalog. It's easy to fall under the spell of the Night Tripper.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Peter Frampton – Premonition, When All The Pieces Fit, Now

CD Review: Peter Frampton – Now
Omnivore Recordings
All Access Rating: A

CD Review: Peter Frampton – Premonition
Omnivore Recordings
All Access Rating: B-

CD Review: Peter Frampton – When All The Pieces Fit
Omnivore Recordings
All Access Rating: C


Peter Frampton - Premonition 2015
Wandering in a neon wilderness of New Wave, punk and hair metal in the 1980s, Peter Frampton had lost his way. A string of commercial defeats had considerably dimmed his star, that is until 1986's Premonition yielded the catchy minor mainstream-rock hit "Lying."

It was a brief glimpse of the old Frampton, a spirited romp of pop defiance with good, sure hooks, but Premonition's heavy reliance on synthesizers and glossy '80s production values pushed Frampton's distinctive guitar work into the album's cobweb-covered recesses – so much so that the record now sounds horribly dated, thin and soulless. Whatever promising melodies and song structures he'd come up with were lost in a technological junkyard, and Premonition came off as a desperate attempt at relevancy, just like its equally disappointing successor, 1989's wet bag When All The Pieces Fit

While each have their moments, the two records, soon to be reissued by Omnivore Recordings along with 2003's Now – each boasting expanded artwork and extensive liner notes drawn from interviews with Frampton – find the Humble Pie co-founder grasping at straws, attempting to retool his earthier blues and hard-rock aesthetics for a modern digital age that seemingly wanted nothing to do with him, and often failing at it. Generic songwriting poisons "You Know So Well," the title track and the syrupy power ballad "All Eyes On You." Much of this material has aged badly, going the way of the floppy disk with all of its synthetic window-dressing. And yet, Premonition can be bright, boisterous and exude a sunny charm, as "Stop," "Hiding From a Heartache," "Into View" and "Call of the Wild" – as well as smartly designed bonus tracks  "So Far Away" and "Nothing At All" – can attest.

Peter Frampton - When All
The Pieces Fit 2015
Three years later, fresh off taking part in David Bowie's "Glass Spider Tour," Frampton stumbled with the drab, lightweight When All The Pieces Fit. The subdued 1989 effort saw him collaborating with The Rembrandts' Danny Wilde and John Regan, and the results were mixed, to say the least. While the pop buoyancy of "Back to the Start" and the wheeling, infectious chorus of "Hard Earned Love" contain some spark of inspiration, the rest of When All the Pieces Fit sounds unconvincing, especially on "Hold Tight," "Holding On To You," "More Ways Than One" and "My Heart Goes Out to You."

All these years later, the cold and aloof When All The Pieces Fit still gives the impression that Frampton was disconnected with contemporary pop music at that time, that he was a fish out of water when it came to using new studio gadgetry. Even the occasional burst of guitar fireworks feels forced, the album's leaden stomps and flimsy melodies clumsily groping for relevance.

Peter Frampton - Now 2015
Redemption would arrive with 2003's Now, undoubtedly the gem of this lot and one Frampton's finest efforts. A vastly underrated work, this is Frampton completely comfortable in his own skin, honest to a fault and staying true to his roots. Keeping it simple, Frampton engages in electrified, riff-mongering rockers such "Verge Of A Thing" and "I'm Back" wearing coats of distorted fuzz to stay warm, then gnashes his teeth while delivering a stirring rendition of The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," his impassioned tribute to George Harrison.

A gentle reading of "Mia Rose," this soft, glowing ballad that is positively luminous and quite possibly one of the best songs he's ever recorded, is exquisitely rendered, as is the brooding, confessional "Hour Of Need," its soul-baring poignancy couched in enticing hooks that evolve wonderfully. Frampton's nuanced guitar work is sublime on Now, at once elegant and understated, but then turning somewhat rougher around the edges, matching the emotional turmoil of these songs. This time around, he turned to George Kennedy (Bonnie Raitt, Garth Brooks, Alison Krauss) as a songwriter, and the man who wrote Eric Clapton's "Change The World" helped Frampton recapture the magic.

Now finds Frampton confronting inner demons and wrestling with them in songs artfully arranged and deftly executed, where Premonition and Where The Pieces Fit are valuable only in that they tell a cautionary tale of an artist straying from his principles. On the surface, it seem odd to lump these three releases together, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. Frampton wasn't afraid to experiment in the '80s, but in doing so, he never quite figured out how to reconcile his songwriting values with all the new toys at his disposal. But, in the end, with Now, he found his way back with a record that deserves to be celebrated and not forgotten.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Jeff Beck – Performing This Week ... Live at Ronnie Scott's – Special Edition

CD Review: Jeff Beck  Performing This Week ... Live at Ronnie Scott's Special Edition
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: A-

Jeff Beck - Performing This Week ...
Live at Ronnie Scott's 2015
It's 2007, and Jeff Beck has taken over London's Ronnie Scott's club, doing a much-ballyhooed series of shows there that called many of the guitar god's most fervent acolytes to worship. If anybody deserves his own church, it's Beck, whose long, remarkable career has seen the virtuoso performer constantly push the envelope and explore a wide variety of genres, while also expanding the limitless possibilities of his chosen instrument.

On the two-CD concert album Performing The Week ... Live at Ronnie Scott's – Special Edition, out via Eagle Rock Entertainment, Beck delivers a series of powerful musical sermons before packed houses, as this set compiles all of the live tracks from those shows for the first time on LP and CD – other CD and DVD versions were released in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Were it not for the singing of Joss Stone sucking the very soul out of "People Get Ready" by over emoting to such ridiculous extremes, disc two would have been far more enjoyable, highlighted by a smoky reading of "Blanket," with siren Imogen Heap lending her seductive vocals to a song ensconced in midnight hour ambiance, and "Little Brown Bird," where Beck and Eric Clapton cook up a simmering, slow-cooked blues meal that seems to drip from their chins. Heap rejoins Beck for a scorching rendition of "Rollin' and Tumblin'" – that's also viciously jarring in parts – prior to a feverish seven-song rockabilly workout with the Big Town Playboys, marked by spirited, swaggering rumbles "Race With The Devil" and "Crazy Legs," and Stone's train wreck is all but forgotten.

More serious business is attended to on disc one, with inspiring forays into jazz fusion, space-age funk and snarling blues-rock on a full and diverse instrumental menu. The manic and propulsive "Scatterbrain" becomes a bi-polar episode that athletically ping-pongs all over the place until order is restored, while "Eternity's Breath," "Stratus" and "Big Block" turn heavy and stormy, stopping only to allow Beck plenty of room to roam in expansive clearings – and roam he does, his unpredictable solos encompassing an unheard of range of emotions and techniques. Fluent in seemingly every possible musical language, Beck wrings big drops of pathos out of a poignant "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," agonizing over every blue note, and in his elegant re-imagining of The Beatles' "Day in the Life" develops it into something more meditative and fluid.

And what Jeff Beck live outing would be complete without the exotic and mysterious "Beck's Bolero," a sweeping epic with rich, dark tones that surges and flows with bold artistry in this close environment. Backed by players who employ preternatural instincts to interpret these instrumental pieces with palpable freshness and vitality and furious drumming, Beck is free to be playful and coy, assertive and aggressive, and gently lyrical when soloing or sketching out melodies. Performing This Week ... Live at Ronnie Scott's succeeds both as a survey of Beck's life's work and a testament to his supernatural talent.
– Peter Lindblad

CD/DVD Review: The Rolling Stones – From the Vault: The Marquee Club – Live In 1971

CD/DVD Review: The Rolling Stones – From the Vault: The Marquee – Live In 1971
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: A

The Rolling Stones - From
The Vault: The Marquee Club -
Live In 1971
Still a month away from the hotly anticipated release of Sticky Fingers, the Rolling Stones – fresh off their "1971 Farewell Tour of the UK" – set up at London's famed Marquee Club for a rare intimate performance filmed for American television.

Eric Clapton was there to see it, and so was Jimmy Page, among others of similar stature. And the Stones showed them all how it was done, their swagger born of an innate knowledge that nobody, but nobody, could touch them on a good night, let alone a great one.

And to think, highly sought-after footage of that gig sat in an attic for two decades, just gathering dust. What better time than the present for its new unveiling, now that the Stones have reissued, in grand fashion, Sticky Fingers in all its gritty, cocksure glory.

Restored with loving care by Bob Clearmountain, its impressive 5.1 surround sound on the DVD and SD Blu-ray versions and rich, luxuriously colorful imagery capturing the essence of a band at the absolute peak of its powers, "From the Vault: The Marquee Club – Live In 1971" finds the Stones brimming with confidence and unafraid to mess around with songs considered sacred by many. They're almost cavalier in how they approach a rather ramshackle, easy-going version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" that seems gleefully out of step with the urgency and the barely contained sexual frustration of the original. And after romping through "Midnight Rambler" with feverish energy, the Stones sounding as tight and industrious as ever, and Mick Jagger huffing and puffing away on harmonica, a wide, natural smile spreads across Keith Richards' face and it says, "That was pretty good, wasn't it?" Yes it was, Keith. Yes it was.

Strutting and preening, as is his wont, the playful Jagger is a magnet for smartly directed cameras and close-ups, as he savors every line dripping from a slowly cooked "I Got The Blues," throws himself into a raucous cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock" and, as Ian Stewart's high-stepping piano gets to work, infuses machismo, arrogance and sass into the ripping opener "Live With Me." Charlie Watt's drumming is clever, propulsive and rigorous, while Bill Wyman calmly and unobtrusively steers the ship with gripping bass lines, Bobby Keys and Jim Price assertively blow their horns with soulful conviction on command and Richards and Mick Taylor negotiate whatever issues they had with an uneasy mixture of toughness and licks that can be nasty or tasteful.

Packaged as a CD/DVD combo, and also available as a DVD/LP or Blu-ray/CD offering, "From The Vault: The Marquee Club – Live In 1971" is a true treasure, since much of material has gone completely unseen. Filmed professionally with a thirst for action and seemingly covered in a lush, early '70s patina that's almost glossy, it has great historical value. This is where the forbidden fruits of "Brown Sugar," "Bitch" and a crisply played "Dead Flowers" were first tasted, and they must have left the ragged company that witnessed it flush with excitement. Eagle Rock Entertainment ups the ante on this concise, yet explosive set, with alternate takes of "I Got The Blues" and "Bitch," plus a bit of the Stones doing "Brown Sugar" on "Top Of The Pops" in 1971 adding value. All these years later, the Stones are still delivering the goods in concert, but they were hitting on all cylinders in 1971, and this is the kind of show that made them legends.
– Peter Lindblad

DVD Review: Eric Clapton – Planes, Trains and Eric

DVD Review: Eric Clapton – Planes, Trains and Eric
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: B+

Eric Clapton - Planes, Trains and Eric 2014
Japan won't be seeing much of Eric Clapton anymore, that is if the blues-rock guitar legend sticks to his plan to retire from touring when he hits 70 years of age next spring.

Worn out from the rigors of traveling across the globe and performing in far-flung locales for years, Clapton has earned some much-needed rest, and if that means the end of playing in perhaps his favorite place on earth, so be it. Clapton will miss the Land of the Rising Sun, though.

That much is apparent from "Planes, Trains and Eric," an intimate and revealing new documentary film from Eagle Rock Entertainment that follows ol' "Slowhand" on the Far and Middle Eastern leg of his 2014 World Tour, a bittersweet sense of finality hanging over the proceedings.

During an incandescent acoustic reading of "Layla," one of 13 live full live performances of Clapton favorites included here, Clapton expresses his fondness for Japan, adding, "I've been coming here since before some of you were born." His deep respect for the kindness and integrity of its people shining through in reflective and unguarded interviews with Clapton, with much attention paid to his enduring friendship with his concert promoter in Japan, Mister Udo, who Clapton says helped him through "the dark days."

These are happier times for Clapton, who leads his band here through a vigorous, stirring rendition of "Pretending" that simmers and smolders, while "I Shot the Sheriff" protests peacefully and quietly, "Wonderful Tonight" glows and sparkles, and rollicking versions of "Tell The Truth," "Crossroads" and "Key to the Highway" swing and roll with bluesy abandon – all of it played with both a freewheeling, if also somewhat restrained, spirit, an undeniably strong group chemistry and sunny warmth. At times, Clapton seems to turn the stage into a homey back porch, just strumming and picking away at his guitar in front of a circle of friends, but there are other moments where he is still electrifying, displaying that deft, lightning-quick touch and preternatural feel that still leave worshippers slack-jawed.

The rest of "Planes, Trains and Eric" is as much an artfully pieced together tour diary as anything else. There are brief snippets of rehearsal and sound-check footage, meaningful behind-the-scenes interaction, informal presentations related to Clapton's 200th show in Japan – as well as a mention of his 86th performance at Budokan, the most ever by a foreign artist – and scenes from cars, airports and train stations that help the narrative flow. Candid interviews with drummer Steve Gadd, Hammond organ player Paul Carrack, bassist Nathan East, keyboardist Chris Stainton and backing vocalists Michelle John and Shar White reveal much about the inner workings of Clapton and those musicians in his employ, adding rather wistful commentary on the possibility that this just might be it for him.

Blind Faith, Cream, The Yardbirds, Derek and the Dominos, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, not to mention his own multi-platinum solo work ... that's an impressive musical history to say the least. "Planes, Trains and Eric" doesn't get into all that, nor does it delve into those scandalous "dark days" Clapton spoke of to provide some sense of context for those words, choosing instead to stay in the moment and give a sense of what it's like for an aging superstar to let go gracefully, with dignity and good humor.
– Peter Lindblad

Bobby Whitlock's ups and downs with Delaney & Bonnie

Rock/soul revue's instability, substance abuse led to group's downfall
By Peter Lindblad

Bobby Whitlock is doing jewelry design
these days, along with music and other
artistic endeavors
Almost from the very start, the soul/rock revue Delaney & Bonnie and Friends was a band of musical vagabonds, the lineup always in a state of flux.

When Bobby Whitlock, reared at Stax Records, joined up in the late 1960s, however, he found it to be a close-knit assemblage of talented artists, even going so far as to call it a "family." They were kindred spirits, according to Whitlock, passionate and knowledgeable about Southern music and making themselves right at home in the nurturing environment of Stax.

At the same time, there was constant turnover, and Whitlock sympathized with Delaney Bramlett, knowing that the transience vexed him.

"It's frustrating to be the leader of it, because it's always changing," said Whitlock, the keyboardist/guitarist who would go on to help form Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton and play on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album. "If everyone is always going, and everyone is always changing and every situation always changes. Everyone wants to better themselves, and the doors of opportunity are always open for everyone to get themselves on a higher plateau."

Whitlock eventually did likewise, but he remained with Delaney & Bonnie from 1968 to 1970, playing keyboards and lending vocals to 1969's Home and Accept No Substitute albums. Members at the time included a horn section consisting of Bobby Keys and Jim Price, bassist Carl Radle and drummers Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon, with guitar god Eric Clapton becoming lead guitarist midway through the summer of 1969 on a U.S. tour.

At first, everything ran like clockwork. Then, the group began to suffer from a chemical imbalance. "That carried on until D&A got involved. I call it 'drugs and alcohol,'" said Whitlock. "That kindred spirit seemed to fall to the wayside. In the beginning, everyone could relate to each other."

Bobby Whitlock performing with
his wife, CoCo Carmel.
Nowadays, Whitlock has a family with wife Coco Carmel, the two forming a husband-and-wife musical duo. He said she does everything well, and added that " ... she sees the big picture. She saw the big picture in me before I did." Coming into focus currently is Whitlock's art work, including his jewelry design. Whitlock is currently auctioning a piece called the "Mountain Ring" and preparing to see his works to the public. Information regarding the ring can be found here: http://backstageauctions.blogspot.com/2014/10/auction-for-bobby-whitlocks-mountain.html

Whitlock works in a variety of mediums these days, including root art, wood carving and painting. As a musician, versatility has always been his calling card, and he was called on to do something with Delaney & Bonnie that was a bit out of his comfort zone.

"Yeah, I was surprised. I didn't know I was going to be singing chick parts number one," said Whitlock. "It all worked out. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open, because I was surrounded by great people, but I had always been surrounded by great people, always."

That was the case at Stax, a place that had been his home, where he cut his teeth with Sam & Dave and Booker T. & the MGs. "When I got with Delaney & Bonnie, I left my career at Stax to be with them," said Whitlock, who had become a part of a disciplined unit that prized tightness and efficiency. "It was like being with James Brown. It was Delaney's way or no way at all."

Bobby Whitlock at the piano, with Eric Clapton on the guitar.
Delaney & Bonnie excelled at vocal harmonies, and Whitlock sang those "chick parts" with zeal. "As it turned out, it was a good thing that for me, because singing those second-part harmonies, that's what we did with the Dominos."

His background in gospel music made it easy for him to assimilate into the vocal harmony boot camps of Sam & Dave and Delaney & Bonnie, and what Delaney & Bonnie did at first, as an acoustic duo, influences what Whitlock and Carmel do today. Still, Whitlock feels the Delaney & Bonnie and Friends "couldn't be topped" as far as vocal harmonies go.

And while the ever-evolving lineup caused consternation among those who stuck it out for a while, Whitlock is quick to say that "nobody ever got fired from Delaney & Bonnie. Everybody left. It was like a revolving door, just coming in and going out." Eventually, Whitlock went out that door as well, going off to work on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album and then forming Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton. His days with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, however, were important to his development as an artist.

(We'll have more from Bobby Whitlock on his work on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album and his days with Derek and the Dominos coming soon)

Bobby Whitlock on his 'sacred art,' his Stax education and Delaney and Bonnie

Legendary musician talks about his formative years as a musician
By Peter Lindblad

Bobby Whitlock learned to play the Hammond organ
from Booker T. at Stax Records
(In the second part of our look at the art and career of Bobby Whitlock, we review his early days at Stax Records and his move to Delaney and Bonnie. Part 3 will discuss the downfall of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and his participation in George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and the creation of Derek and the Dominos)

To Bobby Whitlock, art is art. It doesn't matter if he's making music or doing something else – like making jewelry, his more recent pursuit – the creative process is the same.

"There's no difference in designing a piece of jewelry, writing songs, carving a piece of wood or anything ... painting pictures, no, it's all the same and really ... as a songwriter, I'm just the vessel or the instrument," explained Whitlock, a founding member of Derek and the Dominos. "And the same holds true in jewelry design, wood, root art ... any of the stuff that I do, and it's that way for any artist. They're the tool, the instrument."

Whitlock's humility is sincere. Having played with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends at the height of their popularity, and then performing keyboards on George Harrison's legendary All Things Must Pass album, before teaming with Eric Clapton in the short-lived super group Derek and the Dominoes, Whitlock has every reason in the world to boast.

Bobby Whitlock with his
second solo album 'Raw Velvet'
He's had an incredible career in music, including helping out on records by Dr. John, the Rolling Stones, Clapton and John Lennon, playing with Booker T. & The MGs and Sam & Dave, and issuing a series of well-received solo albums. While with Derek and the Dominos, Whitlock wrote classics such as "Anyday" and "Tell The Truth." More recently, Whitlock has been performing with his wife, CoCo Carmel, also a supremely talented musician.

At home, however, he's just Bobby, quietly creating art out of whatever's available, including the cedar stumps and logs he's collected over the years from a river area near his home in Austin, Texas. To him, what he does is "sacred art." It's natural and organic, like his root art, and it has very little to do with the modern world.

Bobby Whitlock's "The Mountain Ring"
Hearing that term, "sacred art," for the first time, Whitlock didn't know what it meant. He does now, and it means the world to him. It's a good description for his jewelry creations, one of which is the "Mountain Ring," currently up for auction. Here's all the information (http://www.filedropper.com/bw-mountain-ring-epk Download Bobby Whitlock's Official Press Kit Today and bid via email to WhitlockMountain@Gmail.com) for the public sale of the "Mountain Ring." For auction rules, see http://backstageauctions.blogspot.com/2014/10/auction-for-bobby-whitlocks-mountain.html

"It comes from sacred place," said Whitlock. "I didn't sit around with a computer and an imaging machine come up with it. Nobody did. It's not involved. As a matter of fact, I cut out some people in my experience who wanted me to do that. They wanted me to start using computerized imagery, and I'm like, 'No, no, no man ... hell no. That's like using a rhyme book (laughs)." In his Southern drawl, Whitlock added, "That ain't happening man."

His mentors at Stax Records certainly would not approve of that sort of thing either. As a teen growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, in the mid-to-late 1960s, Whitlock spent a lot of time hanging around Stax artists, including Sam & Dave, Booker T. and the MGs, the Staples Singers and Albert King. It was where he received a priceless education in soul music, having learned to play the Hammond organ watching Booker T. Eventually, Whitlock became the first white artist signed to Stax's Hip label, doing rock 'n' roll and R&B.

"What I brought with me from that time was simplicity," said Whitlock. King's guitar playing "emobodied" that, Whitlock added. So did Steve Cropper and his playing, as Whitlock cited Cropper's solo on "Green Onions" as a prime example.

"He may not be Eric Clapton in the fluid department, but there ain't but one Eric Clapton," said Whitlock. "For Eric, it's all in the wrist. Well, you've gotta have that wrist (laughs)."

A lot of people wish they could play like Clapton, including Whitlock, himself a guitarist. "But then it wouldn't be special if everybody played like him," Whitlock said.

There were plenty of special artists at Stax, including the songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter.

"I met them when they were a songwriting team at Stax," said Whitlock. "So I watched them work. I watched songs come into expression in one room and taken into the studio room, the artists' auditorium – Stax was an old movie theater ... taking it to the auditorium and recording it on a four-track machine upstairs."

Observing Cropper work his magic in the studio and the control booth, expertly and skillfully taking a recording from a 2-track to cutting acetates and incorporating fades, Whitlock was exposed to a kind of artistry that others never witnessed.

Bobby Whitlock played
keyboards on two 1969
Delaney and Bonnie albums
Raised on gospel and Southern music, Whitlock said, "I have a real colorful background," one that offers him incredible inspiration. "And my inspiration is from everything around me," he added, "and I don't know anything about things that I don't know."

So the subjects of Whitlock's songs, as well as those of his art, come straight from his own experiences.

"It's all brand new," said Whitlock. "Every moment is a learning experience."

And he's tried to soak it all in, as he said, "I sure am enjoying the ride." Part of his secret, he says, is "surrounding myself with people who are better at doing what they do than I am at what I do."

Some of those people were Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn and Don Nix, who were all set to produce a Whitlock solo album for the Stax subsidiary Hip, when Whitlock left to join the husband-and-wife team of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett in a soul revue project they were putting together. Whitlock played keyboards and sang vocals on two 1969 Delaney and Bonnie albums, Home and Accept No Substitute.

In the beginning, Whitlock compared the situation to a family. "We were all really close," and he says that "carried on until 'D&A' got involved." And by D&A, Whitlock means "drugs and alcohol." Whitlock said everyone could relate to one another and "nobody told anyone what to do." Whitlock said it was similar to "birds flying." That situation wouldn't last, though.

Bobby Whitlock: Lord of the Rings

Guitarist/keyboardist for Derek & the Dominos, George Harrison puts 'Mountain Ring' up for auction 
By Peter Lindblad

Bobby Whitlock with wife CoCo Carmel
Black diamonds, it seems, are Bobby Whitlock's best friend these days, at least as far as his jewelry art is concerned.

Practically raised at Stax Records, the Memphis native played alongside soul legends Booker T. & the MGs and Sam & Dave, before joining Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, contributing keyboards to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album and forming Derek and The Dominos with Eric Clapton. But, Whitlock has other artistic interests outside of music.

Much of his attention these days is centered on his ability to create stunning jewelry, including an incredible new piece called the "Mountain Ring," which is being auctioned off right now. The auction began on Saturday, Oct. 11, and will conclude Nov. 29 at 11:59 p.m. Bids are to be submitted by e-mail to: whitlockmountain@gmail.com.

For auction rules, go to http://backstageauctions.blogspot.com/2014/10/auction-for-bobby-whitlocks-mountain.html

"You know, it’s not so much the selling of it, as it is making my art available," said Whitlock. "This is the first interview I’ve ever done that has to do with my art, other than my musical art. And it’s really all one and the same. Art is art, just like love is love."

Bobby Whitlock's 'Mountain Ring'
As a teenager, growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, Whitlock would go through stones and picture making "those big rings, those big, chunky things, and I always like that they symbolized something. I never knew that it’d be something, an art form, that I would express myself at any point."

That is until his wife CoCo Carmel came along.

"My wife and I, have been together 14 years, and the first thing I did was have something made for her, just ‘cause I wanted something unique and it was an earring," explained Whitlock. "And I had this idea that I’d make it for her, and I don’t know … it just seemed like I had a knack for it. And that piece won an award."

Other pieces followed, as Whitlock designed one ring and then another, without ever thinking he'd sell them. He enjoys the entire process, from finding the right stone through the casting of the wax. It was a trip overseas, however, that gave him the idea for the Mountain Ring.

"When CoCo and I went back and forth to Geneva, Switzerland, to perform for 5,000 Japanese people at a symposium they were having, I was really taken by the grandeur of the mountains and the cliffs," said Whitlock. "After going there three times, ‘cause we stayed each time quite a while, you get to know the place, and even when we were shopping ... when I came back and started  fooling around, I came up with the idea of the mountain range, but I didn’t know exactly how it was going to be, because it’s hard to make a mountain range. You don’t just put a stone on top of it (laughs)."

A trip to Geneva, Switzerland, inspired
Bobby Whitlock to create the
"Mountain Ring"
For the piece, Whitlock chose his old favorite, black diamonds, " ... which no one uses on the other end of the spectrum, and they’re beautiful," added Whitlock, who goes through a process of creating the design and drawing it out, then picking the stones, carving the wax, and then casting the gold through the lost wax process.

Making the Mountain Ring even more special, Whitlock used the very last bit of "rose gold" in his possession that was made by a friend, Danny Abbott, who used to render copper into 24-karat gold by "putting a little piece of penny into it," related Whitlock. "He’s no longer around ... and he was an alchemist and an incredible jeweler. That was his thing. He was frustrated because he wanted to be a rock star, you know. Everybody wants to be a rock star, but his gift … now he could play guitar, but his real true gift was incredible art."

That little touch helps make the "Mountain Ring" special. Some of it he used for CoCo's jewelry.

According to Whitlock, a number of people had a hand in making the "Mountain Ring."

"Charles Kirkpatrick owns the Midas manufacturing here in Austin, and there were different artists casting in that, and among them was a girl named Rima," said Whitlock. "She was one of the artists who was designing. And there were several other people … actually, in the making of the Mountain Ring;there were seven people involved in the piling of the wax, and that was one that worked and then we did another one where another artist got involved, and so I just started out with like a rough draft of just something I do, and the next thing you know I presented it to – in this case for the Mountain Ring – to Rima and we bounced around some different ideas and she said, 'Well, how about this, you know? It’s pretty incredible. She’s off doing her own thing here in Austin as well, so it’s never really the same person, except my stone setter Aaron. He’s a big guy, about 6-foot-3, a big man, and it always seemed interesting, setting a stone … that’s most important part of the whole thing, because the whole thing is built around the stone."

The 'Mountain Ring' has an
ounce of gold and an
ounce of black diamonds
As for Kirkpatrick, Whitlock said, "His thing is, he loves stones. He’s a stone man, and it was six months in finding the star sapphire that’s in the Mountain Ring. It was six months of going through stones and him going to different gem dealers and stuff to find the right stone. So the piece is built around the stone. So if the stone breaks or something compromises the stone, the piece is gone, because you’re not going to get another stone that’s just exactly that size. And everything changes, you know."

At his wife's suggestion, Whitlock is finally letting the public see his work, and he added that reaction so far to the Mountain Ring has been incredible.

"There’s over an ounce of gold in the thing, and over a karat of black diamonds – over a karat and a half or so of black diamonds, I can’t remember what the number is," said Whitlock. "It’s either 48 or 49 diamonds all throughout, and it’s absolutely a beautiful piece. I’m real proud of it. And I never thought about letting anybody see it in a public way, just people near me or in my circle … I don’t know, but it’s okay. We started now. We started Bobby Whitlock Jewelry, and it’s funny how it’s opening the door for something. Everything I do is a one-off anyway, and I may do some commissioned things down the line. What I’m going to do is just turn this “Mountain Ring” into something else, you know, for someone else, and just make that available … I don’t know, it’s just opening the door for maybe a jewelry store. There’s always a song in everything, my life is a song and just like that, the doors open for something like a jewelry store."

We'll have more with Bobby Whitlock in the coming days and weeks as he talked to us about his time in Derek and the Dominos, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and, of course, his work on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.

Ian Wright is ready for his close-up

Rare photos of The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix to be auctioned
By Peter Lindblad

Mick Jagger and a soda bottle, photographed before
a performance in which he was struck above the eye
by a filed-down coin. The image appeared on
page 1 of The Northern Echo with the
headline "Blood from a Stone."
He was only a teenager, riding his bike from assignment to assignment in northeast England in all kinds of weather. Lugging his heavy camera equipment to and fro, young Ian Wright found himself in the middle of a cultural and social sea change.

Working as a dark room boy at a newspaper in the early '60s, Wright eventually was entrusted with the task of photographing a pop music scene that was suddenly exploding, his candid, expressive photos of stars like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, The Animals and The Kinks appearing in a supplement to The Northern Echo newspaper called "The Teenage Special."

And then there were the American acts, such as Johnny Cash, Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, that brought their exciting brand of music over to Britain. Wright's lens captured them all, including a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix. When England was swept up in the Swinging '60s, Wright got as close to the action as anyone, and he would later rejoin the famed editor of The Northern Echo, Sir Harold Evans, at The Sunday Times in London, working all over the world, including the U.S.

Wright's book "On the Brink of Fame" includes a treasure trove of images from those thrilling days of yore, along with the fascinating stories behind each and every one of them. His work also appears at The National Portrait Gallery collection in London, with some included in the present exhibition "Beatles to Bowie," and will also be exhibited at The Morrison Hotel Gallery later this year in New York.

Soon, you'll have a chance to own your own piece of the Swinging '60s, as Wright is preparing to auction off some of his most beloved photos of The Beatles, The Rollings Stones, Hendrix and other greats through Backstage Auctions. In this interview, Wright talks about the sale and shares tales from a time when revolution was in the air.

Why did you decide to auction these photos off now?
Ian Wright: I do books now myself, and I’m going through this procedure, and I thought at 70 I might as well start a new life. And I’ve played around with this stamp collection for long enough, and I’ve got as much out of it as I possibly can. So that is the reason behind putting these things in with Jacques, to see what we could do, to see if we could get anything from them, because in the publishing industry, the same is happening as far as anybody now wanting to buy your material at a reasonable price to reproduce. And secondly, there isn’t enough coming in enough numbers to be represented by a gallery, and so I thought it’s time for me to move on. I’ve had them for 50 years. It’s about time I got something for them, get rid of them, get some cash in and then invest that into the publishing side. So that’s the reason behind it, no other reason for it. It’s just we thought we might take the money and do something with it in the autumn of our years. 

What do you hope the people who buy them get out of them?
IW: The one vehicle that should be marketed for some of this material is that if they have that material, then they own it. They have the rights to it. It gives them a hands-on something, particularly with the collectors. Secondly, of course, with that material, the other people that are going to be interested are going to be things like the Hendrix estate, and also the possibility that news agencies like Getty Images and people like that are always on the lookout to hoover up material.

Take me back to when you began. What got you into photography?
IW: It started in 1959. And the draw line is the Duke of Edinburgh brought in an awards scheme for youngsters to give them sort of a head start in various areas, such as keep fit and having a hobby, but they didn’t want you to have a hobby, because you got marks for each area that you were involved in. You had to do first aid, keep fit and hobbies of another kind, which I can't remember what that was … but you couldn’t have a hobby which was just like stamp collecting. It had to be a bit more than just model airplanes. And so, once again, what happened was, they led young people through the age of 14 into the three stages of this to go for two or three years was a bronze, silver and gold. So bronze obviously was for the youngest, and I was in for that. And consequently, they put all of these things through school. 

Now in those days in England, the Duke of Edinburgh Award was something that was a very prestigious thing to be involved in, and as well in those days, school teachers who had an interest in whatever it was always would put their name in a hat to say how they could help people who were looking to take on a hobby that needed some form of training. So we had a teacher in my school in the northeast of England ... and Arthur Soakell put in his name and said, “Well, I’d be prepared to teach photography.” And I thought, “Well, that sounds good. That sounds good. My dad’s got a camera.” Well, he did. It was a Box Brownie. And he said I could use it. So I stick my hand up and say, “Well, what do you want?” So for months and months, I was under the tutelage of my old school teacher, and twice a week I’d go around to his house, and his wife was there and his daughter was there, and he would get them to shift all the casserole dishes off the kitchen table, and then he’d put developing dishes dishes up on there, and then he’d teach the junior how to load a spool and put the film in with his eyes closed – things like that. And he taught me all the basics, the fundamentals of it all, and that’s basically my first interest in photography. 

Going on from there, I started building portfolios of pictures which he would look at and then critique them. But what I didn’t know was that his next door neighbor was a chap called Teddy Page. And Teddy Page was the chief photographer of the local paper The Northern Echo. And he showed these photographs to Teddy Page. Teddy Page said, “Well, the Duke is coming in June.” And he said, “I’m going to get your lad – because he’s the only one, your lad – I’m going to get him to go with the rank of press photographers and get him accreditation so that he can carry on doing his part for his medal, the Duke of Edinburgh Award, so that he can go and learn from the professionals." And so, like Keith Richards, whose first gig was singing in the choir at Westminster Abby at the Queen’s coronation, my first gig was by royal appointment because I had to go and photograph the Duke of Edinburgh when he came to the town to find out how his awards scheme was progressing. And then what happened was, we developed all these pictures – on the sofa, in his darkroom, in the kitchen, in the toilet, whatever, you know, putting towels under the bottom of the door so everything was light tight – and then they saw my photographs the next day. They took them to the editor of the paper, and the editor says, “Well, we’re expanding. We’re getting a new editor next year, and your lad leaves next year. Get him to apply for the job as the darkroom boy.” So I did, and I went the same day as Sir Harold Evans went to his editorship. We went for interviews on the same day. After our respective interviews, he became the editor and I became the darkroom boy that washed the floors, made the tea and do what they do as doormen.

Who was the first pop celebrity you ever photographed?
IW: Ella Fitzgerald. That was the first one, because what happened – I assume you know who Sir Harold Evans is … so Harry, in his week or month there, he found that I was upstairs in the darkroom. He wanted to begin his first-ever supplement. He eventually was the founder of Conde Nast travel magazine when he was the president and publisher of Random House. But the first supplement he did ... because he was a visionary, a modernist and he was only 33 and I was 15, and he was into The Beatles. He was into the Stones. He was into all this by ’62. He knew. He called it “The Revolution of the Last Century.” He wrote it, he chronicled it, and I photographed it and sent it across the world. And he made this little supplement. 

It was a broadsheet page, four pages, fold-over, every Monday, and by the beginning of ’63, on every Monday, it put 30,000 extra copies on the circulation. It was that good. It was that good. And it was called “The Teenage Special.” Because all the other photographers had all come through the war and had come through the ‘50s, they had no idea who these up-and-coming artists were. They knew who Ella Fitzgerald was, naturally, but these were the people coming over from Vegas, playing the nightclubs in the northeast. I didn’t really know who Ella Fitzgerald was, and Billy Epstein and people like that, but they came over from Vegas and played there. But the emerging Beat groups started or were formed about January or February of 1962, when The Beatles came back from Hamburg. And I was the one in the office that was the youngest of them all, and I was the only one that knew who these up-and-coming people were. And so, Harry asked me if I could do the photographs. The chief photographer agreed, with certain restrictions that I wouldn’t get time off, I wouldn’t get any overtime and I wouldn’t get any expenses, so I rode my bicycle to all of these events, all of these things that were just starting to happen. And that’s when I photographed The Beatles. They were on the bottom of the bill of “The Helen Shapiro Variety Show” in February 1963.

How many times did you photograph The Beatles?
IW: I photographed all four tours in 1963. First of all, Harry’s wife, his first wife – of course he’s married to Tina Brown now – his first wife, Enid, who’s passed away, she went out and bought a record player and bought all The Beatles records, and Harry used to jive around to them in the office. He even took me to see what he called “The Revolution.” He actually went and took me to one of these “Beatlemania” concerts, with 50,000 people in Hyde Street. And then I’d gotten to know them, of course, because I’d done them a favor with the picture of mine in the lift, "On the Way Up." That’s what set it all off really ... and Harry really got into this; he got into the groove. I got him backstage, and he met The Beatles, and he was jiving around. He was just a bit nervous, you know, because he had his university scarf on ... and I took him backstage and I introduced him to the boys. And then George Harrison came up and said, “Hey, that scarf is a little bit grotty.” And Evans had no idea what he was meaning, because “grotty” was a Liverpool expression for the word “grotesque.” So when Harry was given this, it was like being touched by the hand of God. Everything in the office was grotty – “I don’t like that headline. It’s grotty.” “I don’t like that intro. It’s grotty.” “I don’t like those shoes. They’re grotty.” And he just drove every bugger mad for about six months, but he captured what was in front of him, what he could see the other side of. He could see the political side of the change, he could see the social change and the music was what was driving all these changes.

Are there any unusual or funny little stories you can tell from your days of hanging out with The Beatles?
IW: Well, basically when I started, I was only 15 and I was on my bike, and I had a big plate camera. In those days, naturally, I would just leave my bicycle in the stage door. And the doorman would say, “I’ll look after your bike. Off you go. You know where everybody is.” And I had free range backstage, because in those days, there were no backstage passes. They didn’t exist … So that was the first thing. I had carte blanche to go backstage and photograph whoever I wanted. Nobody was there to stop me. And usually, I was the only one, because no other newspaper at the beginning had a magazine like that. 

When we started, it was the end of October or November in 1962, and we started covering what was called the U.K.-U.S. beat tour, and they would send over American stars. It could be Buddy Holly. It could be Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. And then they promoted the bill with a lot of up-and-coming beat groups, which The Beatles were one of. And then you had The Shadows and the Telstars and Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, and all these people – 10 acts on each bill, with an American headliner. So I photographed all that lot. And then, of course, I got to know The Beatles, and I did this one photograph of them, because I heard this sound coming from the stage and I was completely awed by it. And it was at this variety show on a blizzard of a night on Feb. 9, 1963, and I can still hear it today. I just heard this mouth organ and “a one, two, a one, two, three, four.” And I was just riveted. I mean I’d never anything like it before in my life. And I went out front, and I think I was using the plate, I only had 12 plates. I took one of them live on stage … What was that first song they had? “Love Me Do” was No. 47 on the charts. And that was it. 

You could tell just by watching them perform on stage how they got the audience going, clapping their hands over their heads. You could hear the first screams from the young girls from the front row. And McCartney, who was never one to be shy about taking the limelight, he was cupping his hands around his ear and bending down and would wave at them to get them to scream more. And Ringo’s in the back. He’s like a Rolls Royce engine was Ringo. I mean this guy was born to drum. I mean he was the guy who was driving them on. He literally was like a wrecking ball was Ringo, but he was the sweetheart of the group. I would be backstage between the shows, two shows every night, and when they started to get popular only a few weeks after, because “Please Please Me” came out by the end of March of that year, and then it started, all of the stuff – the screaming started, all this mayhem, 50,000 people in a town that only had 30,000 inhabitants. You know, 30,000 people … More than the people who lived in the town were out in the streets.

And they would throw all this stuff on the stage, and the charladies, between the concerts, while one crowd was going out and the next audience was coming in, would sweep up all of the presents when they were gone. Usually, they were things like autograph books, but occasionally, people would throw a shoe, things like that. But the majority of things were teddy bears, toys, dolls. And when the charladies had collected it all up, they were all in bins … you know, dust bins. And they would bring them all up into the dressing room, and they’d all pile in and sign the autograph books, ‘cause the next day the doorman would get their books and then he’d charge them a couple of shillings to get their books back all signed by The Beatles and all the other people on the show. But Ringo would just sit there very quietly and he’d just pick out all the little dolls and all the cuddly little bears and this, that and the other, and he’d put them all in a lovely pile in a chair and he’d go to George Skelton, one of the managers of the (The Globe Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees), and say to George, “Just make sure you send them all around for the children’s hospitals in the morning, would you?” You had to be there. You just can’t make these things up. You had to be there to see it.

What was your favorite photo you ever took of The Beatles?


Taken in 1964 at the Futurist
Theatre in Scarborough, England,
on the eve of The Beatles'
"Eye of the Hurricane" U.S. tour.
IW: I think the early ones, of course, are very, very scarce, because there weren’t many photographers taking them. There’s great value in the first two that I’ve just explained. But my favorite portrait of them was the one of them in the window ... there’s one of them in a window of a theatre, and in the background, you can see the crowd and you can see the Futurist Theatre background, and I kind of got to know them. They nicknamed me “Wrighty,” that’s where I got my nickname from. John Lennon nicknamed me “Wrighty” after I took the picture in the lift. And about 18 months later, they were there in the theatre, and John said, “Hey Wrighty,” he said, “Have you got a passport?” And I said, “No, I don’t.” And he said, “Oh, you’re out of luck. We’re going to America next week. You could have come with us.” And then he said to the rest of the lads, “Hey, let’s just go next door and do a picture for Wrighty,” before the Futurist Theatre. And they walked into this other room where those windows are. None of the other photographers were allowed in, and I got that one picture, and that was so encouraging to a young lad that had seen them on the bike about 18 months before. Now there’s 50,000 people on the street looking up at the theatre. There’s 150 photographers, journalists – radio, television – and suddenly the kid on his bike wasn’t a kid anymore. So I think that has to go down as one of the nicest portraits I’ve ever seen or ever done, and then they left a few days later for the “Eye of the Hurricane” tour, which they just celebrated here yesterday – 50 years yesterday, that The Beatles performed in Las Vegas on that tour that they invited me to go on. And I think that picture is definitely in that auction, too. There’s a lot of anecdotes I’ve written as captions to with them. 

What do you remember about your first encounter with The Rolling Stones?
IW: Well, the first one, I met them was the first time they ever played outside of London in one of these middle annexed towns, because Mick Jagger had an agreement with the group that to if he was going to stay with them, he had to honor a grant that was being given to him by the Conservative government, that was issued by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary, that he had been awarded a grant for extra education. I mean, the guy was brilliant in whatever he did. If he’d become the CEO of British Telecom or whatever, he’d still be there. He was that good. The guy was bilingual in French, Latin, Greek … it was just unbelievable. But what this grant afforded him was the fact that he had a place in the London School of Economics, and he was so determined that he wasn’t going to let his parents down or the government that was giving him this grant, that he told the Stones that he had to go through those doors at 9 o’clock every weekday. They agreed to do that. He went to the London School of Economics. 

Of course, that played out very well later on in life, because when they had Allen Klein, after he bankrupted The Beatles, Allen Klein just about bankrupted the Stones. And then all of a sudden, Jagger stepped in with Count Loewenstein, or whatever his name is … he just died, this guy from Lichtenstein. And the two of them got their heads together and they became the financial wizards behind Rolling Stones, Inc., and when they got Warhol to do the red tongue, the Rolling Stones’ logo. And it was because of that intervention and Jagger’s expertise in learning at the London School of Economics, that’s what got them financially set forever more on end. And that’s how I got to meet with them the first time, as they came out of their cocoon of London, they came up to the northeast of England. And the one I got to know probably the best of all the people I know that are in my book is Mick Jagger. And that’s because we were both hooked and completely besotted by the English game of cricket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When we first met, we talked about cricket. When we met on previous occasions, we talked about cricket. I bumped into him once at [an airport], where we were getting on the same flight from Paris back to London, and we sat back and started talking about cricket on the plane. And that’s how it all came about. And then when I was living in France, I wasn’t living very far away from where what he calls his main world residence, in the Loire Valley in Saumur. He’s got one of those chateaus on the river Loire. And we had a cricket team in France, all ex-pats. And when he moved there, he became president of the Saumur Cricket Club, and I saw him in France playing cricket. 

So, all the way through, there’s been this connection, and I haven’t seen him for a while, but a few years ago, we were both members of a cricket charity called the Lords Taverners. And a few years ago, they were doing an auction of prints of mine to raise money for a charity, and it’s a patronage with members of the Royal Family, etc. It’s a very well-respected club, a lot of celebrities, authors … people like that who indulge in it. Anyway, Jagger had agreed to open it for me, but neither of us gt there. It was the time when the volcano erupted in Iceland, and he was in his home in Guadalupe in the West Indies, and I was here. And neither of us got there. It was a bit of a shame ... So it was just one of those … but that was something [different], because none of The Beatles were interested in any kind of sport or anything like that. But in the years that have gone past there’s been one or two of us that have come out into the cricketing … Tim Rice is a big cricket supporter. Eric Clapton is, as well. Bill Wyman was a lunatic on cricket. So often, that’s a very good connection going from this kid on a bike still pertains today, that relationship … yeah.

What would you say is something interesting about the Stones or individual members of the Stones that the public doesn’t know about, maybe about them as people or a story?
IW: Well, gosh, I thought I’d given you about 10, hadn’t I? (laughs) I mean, people don’t realize that Keith Richards sang at the Queen’s coronation in 1953. So there’s one. And then I met Jagger when I was 17, and in ’64. That’s when I took that picture of him holding the Coke bottle (taken at the Globe Theatre at Stockton on Tees, England), and he was telling me that he had promised his father that if they hadn’t made it and weren’t earning money in any way, shape or form earning money, then he said he, after six months, was going to give up. And I said, “What you were going to do?” And he said, “I know what I was going to be. I was going to go into your game.” I said, “Be a photographer?” He said, “No, be a journalist.” I said, “Really? What were you going to do?” Oh, he said, “I had it all worked out. I was going to be a bilingual economist/journalist working for the Financial Times, working at the stock exchance, etc., in England, and at the bourse in Paris.” And I said, “Oh, yeah? Really? Good.” That’s just how he was. He was so intelligent, it was beyond belief. Nobody . He passed every exam going in every category ... he would go with his brothers, his mother and father, because they lived in Kent, where you could get across the channel pretty quickly on the ferry to France, and they would go on camping holidays. And he was 12, was Jagger, and he acted as the family interpreter.

What do you remember about watching them as performers compared to The Beatles?
IW: Well, they didn’t have that … because their music was rhythm and blues, as opposed to The Beatles, which used quite a number of things. But their songs were really all up-tempo, even though a lot of them they covered from people like Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly and made them their own. And they were much more dynamic ... I think both of them had the same professionalism, and they certainly enjoyed what they were doing every time they walked on stage. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. You never got anything but their level best. But as for the Stones, they had to try and find a way to present themselves, whereas The Beatles had … the Stones didn’t have someone with the charisma, the style or the vision of Brian Epstein to put his guys in suits. The Stones were all sort of a motley “rag-tag and bobtails group,” which then led to the long hair and they got a bad press reputation really, basically because they didn’t have anyone do what Epstein had been with The Beatles.

What is your favorite shot of The Rolling Stones or Mick Jagger even?
IW: Well, there’s only one that stands out for me, and that’s the one taken after the portrait of Jagger holding the bottle. It was the night that some people were throwing filed-down coins. That was just the lunacy of the Teddy boys. And they had filed down these coins and they were just throwing them at the stage in the hopes of cutting someone up and taking their eye out. And I was down in the orchestra pit. I was watching this before this happened, and a banner? flew over my head and crashed into Charlie Watts’ part of the stage where his drums were. Jagger was adept at ducking flying stiletto heels, but he didn’t duck because he couldn’t see the coin coming and the coin came and split him, it split him above his right eye. And blood just came cascading down in a second all over his face – all down on his shirt, on his trousers and dripping on the floor, and I got a picture of him being taken in with a white hanker chief out and he held it up to his eye to stem the flow of the blood. And I got the shot and went straight back to the office with it. And Harry said, “That’s page 1.” And I left it. I left the picture with him, and then I come for it – I think he had to go for a swift pint before he went home – and I went over and I got the paper the next morning. There was Jagger standing … there he was on page 1 of the paper, the Northern Echo, and all it said was, “Blood from a Stone.” So not only is that a rare photograph. It’s also the best headline anybody ever wrote for one of my photographs.

Another big star you met and photographed was Jimi Hendrix. How did you come to shoot him and what was he like?
IW: He was very nice. He was very shy, a tall chap, very skinny, buck teeth, very sure of himself, as all the Americans were, whether it was Tommy Roe, Bobby Vee, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash – all the Americans had all this charisma about them and the way they conducted themselves. Jimi was
Famed photographer Ian Wright was
on assignment in Darlington, England, when
he met Jimi Hendrix. This photo is
regarded as the very first posed,
non-concert photo of Hendrix in the U.K.
immaculate in everything that he did, and I got a call from Chas Chandler, who I’d known from The Animals, because he came from the same part of the world as me, and of course Chas had been the bass player for Eric Burdon and The Animals. And he remembered me on my bike, and, as you might be aware, he found Jimi at Café Wha? in the Village, in Greenwich Village … and they had recorded “Hey Joe,” and they started the tour in my part of the world. 

And Chas called me up and invited me ‘round to a rhythm and blues club in a pub, and he said, “I’ve just come back from America with this chap.” He said, “Nobody’s heard of him. His name is Jimi Hendrix.” I even wrote the name down incorrectly. I’d written it as “icks,” not “ix.” So that’s how famous he was. And Chas says, “Can you come around and take a couple of pictures?” He said, “He’s going to be big. He’s going to be big.” I said, “Oh, I know how this goes.” But I went around and took two photographs. They’re in the sale. They’re the first professional portraits, as far as we know. They pre-date the Gered Mankowitz studio pictures, because “Hey Joe” wasn’t in the charts, but the recollection I have was Chas was making the rounds at sound check, and he introduced me. He was very polite and Chas asked me what I thought, and I said, “I thought he was a very nice fellow.” He had Noel Redding on bass guitar and Mitch Mitchell on the drums, and you can tell it’s very early because Mitch Mitchell hasn’t got an afro yet. 

So they get everything plugged in, they start and I thought this is like the orchestra’s always out of tune when they’re tuning up before a recital. Well, they started playing all this stuff out of tune and out of key, and I thought, “Well, they’re just tuning up.” Apparently, that was the bloody music – just terrible. Anyway, within a few seconds of this, they’re blowing the fuses in the amps. That was the first thing that went wrong. You could see smoke coming out the back. Anyway, this sort of club president, he said they knew that was going to happen and they just kept going, and then all the bloody fuses blew in the whole place, in the pub. It was done. Everything was in total darkness, so I was off. I never saw him again.

That was the only time you saw him?
IW: Yeah, I think I was only there 20 minutes. Why would I do anymore? I didn’t know he was going to be famous. This was 1966. We had no idea. In the back of my book, there are pages of photographs … who are they? We don’t know. You can’t identify them, because they weren’t on the bill. A lot of them died too young. A lot of them fell by the wayside. And so consequently, by the time this happened, I’d gotten pretty wise to all this by then. I’d become a bit of an old salt by then, I knew the deal. But I wasn’t going to let Chas down. They’d been good to me, the Animals. Every time they came up, I’d always had to photograph them before “House of the Rising Sun” became a hit.   
   
Were you aware of the other ones by Gerard Mankowitz that were said to be the first?
IW: Well, I don’t think anybody could say they were the first because the clothes that Jimi’s wearing in the photographs I took were all dated, and they were exactly … he had on exactly the same Carnaby Street uniform as he’s got in Gerard Mankowitz’s studio, which was probably about a month later. So it was just fortuitous that I knew Chas and he had the sense to call me up. In fact when the photograph was published, there was a reporter there and there was a critique in there – she didn’t see the show either, because it was over almost before they went on. She wrote two paragraphs in “The Teenage Special” and my photograph went in of Jimi Hendrix and it was the size of a thumbnail.

When did you realize that Jimi was a huge star?
IW: Well, it wasn’t long after that. I think either Spencer Davis or Denny Laine of the Moody Blues had been telling me something about being on a recording for the British television “Top of the Pops” show. And he’d been on there, and they were raving about him. They were raving about him. They’d never heard anything like it, and apparently, I didn’t know Eric Clapton at all, but he said a big influence was Jimi Hendrix. He just thought the sun shown out of every part of his orifices.

Out of everyone you’ve shot, who was your favorite out of these three or any other stars you photographed?

IW: Well, I don’t know, but for facial expressions, Jagger’s face is pretty, pretty unique. I mean, that aura that we were talking about earlier, I think it comes through in portraits I’ve taken of him … but for me, photographing people, I never had problems with any of them. Never did I have any problems at all. But for me, the nicest and one of the greatest solo singers of all-time, a guy who would bend over backwards when you were with him … that was Roy Orbison. And on the ladies side, the nicest person, with the best voice ever in the whole of the ‘60s, was definitely one of the nicest persons on the female side ... one of the nicest people of any genre which sticks out in my mind is No. 1 Roy Orbison and then Dusty Springfield. But from what we’ve got (in the sale), the biggest character, of course, was Lennon, and he was the charismatic leader of The Beatles. When I did my picture of them in the lift, if I had to talk to them, it was him that thought about it. It was him that told them, “Get in the lift.” And then it was Lennon who then placed himself front and center square under the counter in the middle of the picture. He was totally in charge of The Beatles in early ’63, but as far as my favorite portrait goes, I think it was the picture of Jagger. He had a marvelous face, wonderful features.


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Player has 'Too Many Reasons' to come back


‘70s group to release new album, ready to make film debut

By Peter Lindblad

Player - Peter Beckett and Ronn Moss 2013
Peel off the layers of the onion known as Player, and it quickly becomes apparent that there was more – much more – to these ‘70s hit-makers than the ubiquitous soft-rock chart-topper “Baby Come Back.”

Right off, there’s the fact that Ronn Moss is a huge international soap opera star, having portrayed fashion mogul Ridge Forrester on “The Bold and the Beautiful” for an astounding 25 years, before recently calling it quits.

Moss’s partner in Player, Peter Beckett, may have an even more interesting background. Not only did he see The Beatles play at the Cavern Club and perform with the Little River Band from 1989 to 1997, but he also was an integral member of Paladin, one of the U.K.’s most intriguing and experimental early 1970s progressive-rock outfits.

When Paladin, which Beckett called “a fusion-rock, quasi-jazz thing” formed by ex-Terry Reid band members Keith Webb and Peter Solley, split up, Beckett headed for America – or more specifically, California – at the behest of friend Steve Kipner.

Thinking back to Paladin, Beckett recalls, “We did that whole thing where we went out and lived in a castle in Gloucestershire in the countryside for six months, and then did an album and we came back to London, and we did the whole university circuit. We did two albums. It was a pretty well-known band in England, and then it split up. And truthfully, I can’t remember why it split up. It was just a couple of guys left, and we replaced them, and it was never as good and the band split up.”

Looking around for work in L.A. after Paladin dissolved, Beckett auditioned for record labels and management companies, before winding up in something rather ridiculous called Skyband.

“It was atrocious,” says Beckett. “I mean, I’m sure they had their reasons, but they made us all dye our hair white, and they took pictures of us with no shirts on with these big helmets with feathers in … and it was Skyband and we were supposed to be like warriors from the sky – very embarrassing album cover.”

Nothing they did was well-received.

“We put out one album, and it did nothing,” remembers Beckett. “We did one tour of England, believe it or not, with the [Sensational] Alex Harvey Band. We were horrible, and we came back and split up [in 1975], and I was like floating for a year.”

Whatever sins Beckett committed beforehand in his life, Beckett’s penance with Skyband more than made up for them, and soon, he was rewarded with a 1977 meeting in Los Angeles with future band mates Moss and Texan J.C. Crowley that would lead to the formation of Player.

As Moss recalls, “We met at J.C. Crowley’s little cockroach-infested apartment. Peter and J.C. were there already and our soon to become manager Paul Palmer had said to me, ‘I’ve got a couple guys that I think you should meet, and I think the three of you will work really well.’ So he arranged it, we exchanged demos that day, we played … the place was so small that we had to go outside to meet each other, because there wasn’t room for all three of us. But we wound up using his garage to finish writing all the songs for the first Player album. And it worked out really well. I really liked the guys, and we had a camaraderie that worked well.”

Player - Too Many Reasons 2013
That friendship between Moss and Beckett that began in that tiny hole-in-the-wall has survived for decades, and they have made a lot of music together, even though it’s been almost 20 years since the last official Player record. In 2013, however, Player has resurfaced, with its newest album Too Many Reasons, and it feels to them like the late ‘70s all over again, when Player’s varied musical tastes helped propel them up the charts.

“Player’s always been a very eclectic band,” says Beckett. “I’m always worried about the songs fitting together, which is kind of stupid because The Beatles were like that anyway. You know, they always had hard rock and soft ones, and so even in the old days, we’d have a song like ‘Baby Come Back’ on the same album as a song like ‘Silver Linings,’ which was a total hard rock song. And then we’d stick some pop in there, and it was always very eclectic, and this album has turned out to be exactly that. As Ronn will tell you, I was really worried that the songs didn’t go together, but when we put them all together and mastered it, it sounded exactly like one of the old Player albums. It’s got a bit of everything in it.”

Moss adds, “I feel like these songs now, even though some of them are pulled from older songs, we’ve given them a new flavor. They are not sounding like old songs. They sound new.” And that includes the title track, which Beckett claims is “… from a while ago, and we fixed it up. That could be anybody. It sounds to me like it could be a Whitesnake record.”

‘Silver Linings’ Playbook
Unlike Beckett, Moss grew up in L.A., the son of the owner of Mutual Ticket Agency, a predecessor to Ticketmaster. Concerts, theater and music – Moss became immersed in the entertainment industry from a young age, and he played multiple instruments, including drums, guitar and bass.

Moss found his kindred spirits in Beckett and Crowley, who had been in a band together called Riff Raff, which changed its name to Bandana. That band had been on Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter’s label Haven, but Haven folded. There was a silver lining, however. The two record company moguls eventually moved on over to RSO Records, the Robert Stigwood label that would go on to sign Player, but not before Beckett, Crowley, Moss and the drummer Moss brought to Player, John Friesen, went to great lengths to get a deal.

“We got turned down by almost every record label in America, until we found the RSO label through Dennis Lambert,” remembers Beckett.

Player’s search for a label involved performing live in front of producers, because as Moss puts it, “We’d always wanted to play live in those showcases. We never wanted to play tapes of us playing. We wanted to make sure they saw us and heard us playing live.”

Before each one, Beckett says Player would rehearse for a week.

“I think we did two or three, the final one being when we had ‘Baby Come Back,’ and that’s when we were starting to get pretty good,” says Beckett. “There was one we did … I think we did about five songs, and we did ‘Baby Come Back’ at the end, and got all of it done. I seem to remember being very cocky in those days and all that, but I went on the mic and on that last song – nobody had ever heard ‘Baby Come Back’ yet – and there’s all these record executives, and I said, ‘Now, we’d like to do our No. 1 record.’ And this was like six months before it even came out, and we did it and it kicked ass. And everybody’s mouth was open like, ‘Oh my God. That sounds like a hit.’ And then we went and recorded it, and you know the rest.”

Player's self-titled debut album
Well, that’s not quite all there is to the story. With their self-titled first record out, Player brought their brand of breezy, laid-back pop-rock out on the road, initially touring with Gino Vannelli in November 1977.

“The very first gig we did – and we’d been rehearsing for a while, but we hadn’t been playing gigs – and we got this gig at the Buffalo Town Hall and we were supporting Gino Vannelli, who is, you know, amazing,” says Beckett. “And we all, with our little guitar cases, just kind of walked in behind the stage and he was doing his sound check, and it was just monstrous. It was just so good, just as synthesizers were coming in and his whole thing was synthesizers, and it was just huge. And we were sitting in the wings going, ‘Oh my God, we’ll never be anything like that (laughs).’”

While out with Vannelli, “Baby Come Back” was climbing the charts by leaps and bounds.

“We were in … a real dirty little rehearsal place, and the manager comes running and he said, ‘You guys are No. 80 on Billboard,’” says Beckett. “And we just went crazy,” much as they did when they first heard the song on the radio.

“I remember the first time we heard it on the radio,” says Moss. “J.C., Peter and I were actually driving up La Brea Avenue in my car and it came on the radio – it was one of those freak things that just happen in life. And we just started screaming in the car. It was a great moment.”

There would be many more highlights. With their hit single on the rise, going all the way to No. 1, where it spent three weeks in the top spot, Player was shifted from the Vannelli tour to the Boz Scaggs bill. “We were plucked and put on [Scaggs’s] ‘Silk Degrees’ tour,” says Beckett. “And we went from just medium-sized gigs to doing huge arenas, and [‘Baby Come Back’] hit No. 1.”

The Scaggs gig was a high-profile one for Player, but in short order, they’d be called up to the big leagues as the support act for guitar god Eric Clapton on his “Slowhand” tour.

“Well, you know, the Boz Scaggs tour wasn’t chopped liver, either,” says Beckett. “But we’d already done about two months of 30,000-seat arenas, and then we went back and did the Danger Zone album. We knew we were going on the ‘Slowhand’ tour, so we made the Danger Zone album harder edged so that we were able to go out and support Eric Clapton and have the right kind of music under our belts.”

As it turned out, they were a little too good for Clapton’s entourage.

“We had a wonderful little thing happen to us at the Aladdin Theatre in Las Vegas,” says Moss. “Player had the No. 1 record, and in the middle of ‘Baby Come Back’ there’s a silence, before the last chorus starts. Well, right at that downbeat to that chorus, after the silence, we all came in … and, no power. The power had gone out. There was nothing but drums.”

Beckett chimed in, “The sound had gone out,” before Moss added, “The lights didn’t go out – just the power to our amplifiers. So we all looked around, and they finally got it up and rolling.”

Evidently, as Player would later find out, one of Clapton’s roadies pulled the plug on Player’s performance. “It took several days for somebody backstage to finally fess up,” says Moss. “And it turned out to be Eric Clapton’s crew who fessed up and said, ‘Yeah, we pulled the plug on you guys.’ We were going down to well, and initially, we were really pissed. ‘Why would you do that?’ and the guy said, ‘It’s because you were going over a little too well.’”   

Beckett says Clapton knew nothing about the incident, but after the roadie admitted what he’d done, Clapton tried to make peace. “They fessed up. They fessed up. And [Clapton] came in the dressing room a couple of weeks later with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and he never really admitted anything, but he said, ‘Are you guys okay?’” says Beckett.

Comeback
The original Player lineup started to break apart after the Danger Zone LP, as Crowley departed for a solo career in country music. There were arena tours with Heart and Kenny Loggins, a handful of hit singles such as “This Time I’m in it for Love” – which went to No. 11 on the Billboard chart – and 1980 saw Player release Room with a View, but Moss and Friesen left soon after.

“My own decision came from the fact that our record company seemed to be falling out from under us,” explains Moss. “RSO Records had reached the pinnacle and then disbanded. And then we went to Casablanca, after Neil Bogart had died. And we weren’t recording enough. We were basically sitting around, getting frustrated and I decided to do acting and give it a try. So I went from having something in music to basically having absolutely nothing in the acting world. And I took a couple of years’ hiatus from being with Peter and Player and doing music, and they continued on, with another album from Player. He never stopped doing music, and I took a short break, and eventually we hooked back up and it’s been a nice ride – still is a nice ride.”

Player - Lost in Reality 1996
Beckett kept Player going, recording one more album with Spies of Life in the early ‘80s before shelving the Player name, until Moss and Beckett – the sole remaining original members – made 1996’s Lost in Reality. Over the years, Beckett has been a prolific behind-the-scenes songwriter, penning material for such artists as Heart (one of his favorites), Kenny Rogers, The Temptations, Poco, Janet Jackson, Survivor, and Olivia Newton-John, who scored a Top Five hit with one of Beckett’s compositions.

“I love Heart. I had a song on Bad Animals,” says Beckett. “Kenny Rogers, I had a beautiful song that Ronn actually did as well, called ‘All This Time.’ It’s a song that’s one of my favorites of what I’ve done. Kenny Rogers did it and then Ronn put it on one of his solo albums. With Olivia Newton-John, she had a song at No. 5 on Billboard called “Twist of Fate,” which we do onstage today with our band. It’s a lot harder than Olivia did it.”

Writing music for the movies has also kept Beckett busy. “I’ve written rap songs for movies. I’ve written ballads. I’ve written heavy metal. I had two things in ‘Rock Star,’ the Mark Wahlberg movie. I had the main song, ‘Living the Life.’ And that’s serious metal,” says Beckett.

But, it’s his partnership with Moss that has endured, and soon Player and its music will make it into a feature film being directed by none other than Moss himself.

“Combining Player’s music with the visual, that’s something we’ve been heading toward for a long time,” says Moss, who regrets that Player missed out on the MTV explosion. “When we did our videos, everything was very simple – standing up on a soundstage and filming the band actually playing the song. We didn’t have all that great imagery you have now.”

With their latest album, out Feb. 26 on the FrontiersRecords label, Player now has plenty of songs for Moss’s directorial debut as a filmmaker. Player will have more to say about their new album in a blog slated for that release date.