Growing up in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Tim B. Wride frequented his share of rock shows at legendary venues…
Growing up in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Tim B. Wride frequented his share of rock shows at legendary venues such as the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theatre. His first concert was Grand Funk Railroad at the Forum, followed by iconic singer-songwriter acts of his generation: Linda Ronstadt, Loggins and Messina, Jackson Browne. What he remembers best about these shows is that they defined how he and his high school friends saw themselves and the country around them: expanding and contracting, joyously and painfully, into an altogether new shape.
“As a kid, I was 14 when Woodstock happened,” says Wride, who is the recently appointed curator of photography at the Norton Museum of Art. “I was listening to music before that, but all of a sudden, I realized there was a whole world out there.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that images of Woodstock, which celebrates its 43rd anniversary in August, open “Clubs, Joints and Honky-Tonks: Photographers Experience the Music Scene.” Slated to run alongside three months of music-centric programming, the exhibit assembles more than 75 images aimed at conveying what it feels like to be one cog in the enchanted machinery of live music.
“What I was primarily focusing on while selecting photographs was the experience of the place and of the moment,” Wride explains, “what music lends its aura to as opposed to the person singing the song. The artists are players in a larger context, whether it’s in a huge arena or an intimate gathering. In a funny way, music, much like art, isn’t fulfilled until it’s experienced. As beautiful as musical notation is on a page, it’s not the same as being there.”
Escape for Less. We’ve got some amazing cruise deals and they’re just a click away
The experience of music, as opposed to its accompanying celebrity, is what this gamut of visceral photographs offers, whether they reveal Elliot Landy’s images of sound technicians monkey-climbing the sound tower at Yasgur’s farm or Moby’s shots of innumerable fans surging toward the stage.
Although Wride deliberately chose to eschew rock-star portraiture, there are plenty of famous faces here. But they’re captured less as demigods than as simply one part of a much-greater pageant. A tiny Mick Jagger hovers downstage like an offering to the audience, and a tightly framed shot of a young Mos Def reveals the hip-hop artist at the beginning of his solo career, his expression affable and almost startled by the attention of the camera.
Equal attention is paid to the spaces music inhabits, such as Henry Horenstein’s pictures of a bubble-top jukebox at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville or the linoleum-floored Merchant’s Cafe, where a harmonica player sprawls across a bar stool blowing notes into his cupped hands. Both shots, along with most of Horenstein’s work, display the more-intimate details of live performances. Part of the exhibit’s title was taken from the photographer’s latest book, “Honky Tonks: Portraits of Country Music,” an imprint Wride partly credits for inspiring him to organize the show in just three months.
In another creative stroke of curating, Wride decided to include “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” a 1986 documentary that has since achieved a kind of cult status for its unintentionally hilarious account of Judas Priest fans tailgating in the parking lot before a concert. Wride doesn’t see a clash between the fine-art tonalities of the photographs and the lowbrow aesthetics of the film.
“Music just doesn’t happen in the venue. It starts before you even walk through the door. It has a much earthier beginning,” Wride says. “We tend to locate our psychic energy on the one person performing, but the whole space really becomes a giant crackle of energy. If a group of artists are all exploring what it is that makes this experience unique, that to me is a fertile place to go.”
“As a kid, I was 14 when Woodstock happened,” says Wride, who is the recently appointed curator of photography at the Norton Museum of Art. “I was listening to music before that, but all of a sudden, I realized there was a whole world out there.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that images of Woodstock, which celebrates its 43rd anniversary in August, open “Clubs, Joints and Honky-Tonks: Photographers Experience the Music Scene.” Slated to run alongside three months of music-centric programming, the exhibit assembles more than 75 images aimed at conveying what it feels like to be one cog in the enchanted machinery of live music.
“What I was primarily focusing on while selecting photographs was the experience of the place and of the moment,” Wride explains, “what music lends its aura to as opposed to the person singing the song. The artists are players in a larger context, whether it’s in a huge arena or an intimate gathering. In a funny way, music, much like art, isn’t fulfilled until it’s experienced. As beautiful as musical notation is on a page, it’s not the same as being there.”
Escape for Less. We’ve got some amazing cruise deals and they’re just a click away
The experience of music, as opposed to its accompanying celebrity, is what this gamut of visceral photographs offers, whether they reveal Elliot Landy’s images of sound technicians monkey-climbing the sound tower at Yasgur’s farm or Moby’s shots of innumerable fans surging toward the stage.
Although Wride deliberately chose to eschew rock-star portraiture, there are plenty of famous faces here. But they’re captured less as demigods than as simply one part of a much-greater pageant. A tiny Mick Jagger hovers downstage like an offering to the audience, and a tightly framed shot of a young Mos Def reveals the hip-hop artist at the beginning of his solo career, his expression affable and almost startled by the attention of the camera.
Equal attention is paid to the spaces music inhabits, such as Henry Horenstein’s pictures of a bubble-top jukebox at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville or the linoleum-floored Merchant’s Cafe, where a harmonica player sprawls across a bar stool blowing notes into his cupped hands. Both shots, along with most of Horenstein’s work, display the more-intimate details of live performances. Part of the exhibit’s title was taken from the photographer’s latest book, “Honky Tonks: Portraits of Country Music,” an imprint Wride partly credits for inspiring him to organize the show in just three months.
In another creative stroke of curating, Wride decided to include “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” a 1986 documentary that has since achieved a kind of cult status for its unintentionally hilarious account of Judas Priest fans tailgating in the parking lot before a concert. Wride doesn’t see a clash between the fine-art tonalities of the photographs and the lowbrow aesthetics of the film.
“Music just doesn’t happen in the venue. It starts before you even walk through the door. It has a much earthier beginning,” Wride says. “We tend to locate our psychic energy on the one person performing, but the whole space really becomes a giant crackle of energy. If a group of artists are all exploring what it is that makes this experience unique, that to me is a fertile place to go.”