#Music

“While you’re on stage, the audience is standing and applauding and yelling. But when you get home, you take off all your clothes and get into bed alone and that can really do something to your head and your heart.

~ Nina Simone


"Time can pass and everything can change in the world except the emotion you get from a photograph”

~ John Simmons

“I like America, just as everybody does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged”

 

~ Bob Dylan 

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“As I drove along the dusty road to Prades in 1954, I had the feeling that I was on a pilgrimage bent. I was going to meet that great self-exile and patron saint of music, Pablo Casals. He did not disappoint me. I had never photographed a warmer or more sensitive human being."

 

~ Yousuf Karsh
(1908 - 2002)

“Of course, I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years.”

 

~ Pablo Casals
(1876 - 1973)

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“There is a brief moment when all that there’s in a man’s mind and soul and spirit may be reflected through his eyes, his hands his attitude. This is the moment to record. This is the elusive “moment of truth”."

 

~ Yousuf Karsh
(1908 - 2002)

 

 

“If I don’t practice one day, I know it.
Two days the critics know it. Three days the public knows it”

 

~ Jascha Heifetz
(1901 - 1987)

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“I never considered giving up on my dreams. You could say I had an invincible optimism"

~ Tina Turner(1939-2023)

“A photographic session is a joint interpersonal exchange, a kind of creative encounter session at a high level of intensity. For me, photography is more a process of creating an experience than one of looking for pictures”

~ Norman Seeff

“Jazz is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.”

 

~ Duke Ellington

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“The thing the 60’s did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility”

~ John Lennon

“I soon saw how the music came naturally. It wasn’t like they’d built in time to compose - they had to do it on the fly. There was a piano in Paul’s room. At one point John pulled up a chair and started tinkering. Paul joined in. John started humming what I would later recognize as the tune to,“Baby’s good to me you know / She’s happy as can be you know / She said so…..” But they got stuck. Where should it go after the melody?

 

George wandered over with his guitar and played a catchy rhythm - and -blues riff, plucking away. He seemed to be improvising, although John was later credited with writing the riff-influenced by Bobby Parker’s song “Watch Your Step” - the way I heard it that day it was George coming up with it. They appeared to be writing a song right in front of me. And as John and Paul kept at it on the piano, Ringo, in a black turtle-neck came over and stood next to George, and I had my shot: The Beatles composing “I Feel Fine”.

 

~ Harry Benson

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“For that second when I look through the lens I absolutely love the sitter and then I’m gone"~ Jane Bown(1925-2014)

“I have never wanted to give up performing on stage, but one day the tours will be over”

~ Mick Jagger

“January 19, 2am. It was two in the morning, just me and the Beatles in John’s room. They were in their night clothes, they‘d ordered up food and whiskey, and Brian Epstein came in. He had big news "I want to hold your hand" had just made it into the charts in US. They erupted in cackles. They were beaming. Then he put the icing on the cake. "And next month we’re off to America. You’re going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show". The song had just entered the Billboard 100 at number 45. (By February 1, it would be number one). So I saw my opening. I suggested they celebrate with a pillow fight-like the one George had mentioned to me before. John immediately shot it down. "No. It’ll make us look silly” But I kept my eye on John, who started slinking off. And just as I lifted my camera, John sneaked up behind Paul and pow, whacked him in the head with a pillow. Paul’s drink went flying and they were off”

 

~ Harry Benson

"Photographing Lenny was always an event. There was always a buzz in the air, an excitement, an anticipation. When Lenny was in the house, something was going to happen. We didn’t know what, but we were on the edges of our chairs waiting to find out. I say we, as if I were one of the musicians. But I was also on stage (or hovering close by), and I found myself equally compelled to rise above my limits, and break through my upper expectations... And that was good. I was never able to let my guard down for a second – my concentration had to be complete if I wanted to follow where he was going – his energy could burst forth suddenly, his body leaping high off the podium, his arms flying in the air, eyes blazing, mouth agape… and then receding just as quickly, and barely moving, conducting with only his shoulders or eyebrows, eyes closed, deep inside the soul of the conductor…. Whatever it was, it was total immersion in the music, and the results are legendary. That night in March 1990, there was no way to know that Leonard Bernstein was struggling or that these would be the last photographs I would ever take of The Maestro. These performances were vintage Bernstein; he was as powerful and vital as ever, and it was thrilling. Yet, some point during the concert, it began to dawn on me that something was off, something was wrong. Not that it showed to the audience, but I was seeing something in him I had never before seen. His usual joy and light had somehow dimmed, and he had a gentle but profound sadness in his eyes, a deeper melancholy than I had ever before seen……Lenny died 7 and a half months later. Years after, as I was looking through these photos, I could not deny what I was seeing, so I emailed his daughter Jamie and asked if he knew at that time that he was dying. She emailed back: “I don’t know the answer to the question. But he knew ‘something wasn't right’ as far back as that January. I think maybe he had a feeling...”

 

~ Steve J. Sherman

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“I do not use the word “genius” lightly but if David Bowie is not a genius, then there is no such thing”

 

~ Mick Rock

 

“As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself”

 

~ David Bowie

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“I did not want to be somebody who lived off his reputation. I wanted to continue to be part of the modern music scene”

~ Mick Rock

 

“Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions the listener has"

~ Lou Reed
(1942-2013)

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"All I ask you to do is to listen with your eyes. The international language of jazz and photography need no special education or sophistication to be enjoyed."

 

~ William Claxton

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“Every professional should remain always in his or her heart an amateur”

 

~ Alfred Eisenstaedt
(1898-1995)

 

“I can’t live one day without hearing music, playing it, studying it or thinking about it”

 

~ Leonard Bernstein
(1918-1990)

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“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

 

~ James Baldwin

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“I see that I could stop touring at anytime, but then I don’t feel like it right now. I’ve got no retirement plans”

 

~ Bob Dylan

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“I couldn’t believe I was going to photograph Bob Dylan. I chose the Ambassador Hotel because of the variety it gave me as a location. It also had a great history. It was where the Rat Pack used to hang out and play at its Coconut Grove Room. Also Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. Dylan was also interested in the history of the location. I think he stayed a few hours more for that reason. We also decided to create images with atmosphere and capturing special moments. We decided to find some props and someone came back with some foreign language newspapers and we thought it would be fun to go with that. I was simply amazed he even showed up !”

 

~ Danny Clinch

 

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do”

 

~ Bob Dylan

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"Photography is a waiting game. The shutter may take only a instant, but the photographer has waited for exactly the right subject, the correct perspective, the perfect light, carefully arranging it all in the frame to be paused in time."

 

~ Douglas Gilbert

"I saw photographing jazz artists as a visual diary of what I was hearing. I wanted to preserve the mood and atmosphere as much as possible. My goal was to capture these artists at the height of their finest creative moments."

 

~ Herman Leonard
(1923-2010)

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom”

 

~ Bob Dylan

“Bob Dylan’s arrival in New York was like a prophecy come true. He fit the image that had already been established by Pete Seeger in his blue jeans and work shirts and by Woody Guthrie - a refugee from the dust bowl era -and his dirty rugged clothing. Dylan stepped into this legacy and played his character well with his own comedy and original insights. People remember that he was “stealing" from everybody around him, absorbing the entire scene. In the process he energized folk music, created his own songs, incorporated earlier American traditional music, shaped Rock’n’Roll and wrote some of the most moving songs of the century”

 

~ John Cohen
(1932 - 2019)

“At that time, whatever Dylan would send to the record companies, they would use. He picked all the inside photographs also. They were lying around my studio and he chose them."

 

~ Jerry Schatzberg

"It took me 30 years and a lot of pain to discover the truth of what Henri Cartier Bresson always said “One should only use one camera, with one lens that coincides with your angle of vision, with the same film at its normal speed. The rest is just gimmicks and hardware”

~ Jean-Philippe Charbonnier

“She’s my first love”

~ Miles Davis

“He’s a man I have deep love for and huge admiration”

~ Juliette Greco

“All I can be is me - whoever that is.”

~ Bob Dylan

"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it"

~ Burt Glinn

"You always have two choices:
your commitment versus your fear"

~ Sammy Davis Jr.

"This appears to be a lonely picture when I look at it—like a couple of kids practicing harmonies alone in their back yard. Except that is the inverse of the truth: behind me are 250,000 marchers for the Washington March in 1963, 60 years ago. The biggest DC crowd ever at that time. Joan asked Bob to accompany her on one of the side stages before the march. Later, Baez sang alone on the big stage where Dr King made his Dream speech. This happened in August. The previous month, these two were at the Newport Folk Festival. Dylan's breakout weekend."

 

~ Rowland Scherman

We are pleased to announce that we have secured a group of the first editions copies of the amazing new Magnum Opus book Bob Dylan, Mixing up the Medicine (published by our friends Callaway), due to be released October 24th, 2023. I know this first edition is close to selling out already and will become a highly sought out and valuable collectible book in the years to come as this is the definitive bible on Bob Dylan.

If you would like to pre order some copies please contact Peter at peter@peterfetterman.com. The book is available at $100 (+packing/shipping).

Bob Dylan
Mixing Up The Medicine
Publisher: Callaway
608 pages
$100.00

Exhibition Opening : Tuesday, October 24th. 5-7 PM

Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica
2525 Michigan Ave, Suite A1

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“Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame…. I understand I’ve torn up the dreams of those around me. But those aren’t my dreams. No one ever asked me what my dreams were. They just got mad at me for not being who they wanted me to be”

~ Sinead O’Connor

"I photographed Sinead O’Connor for the first time in October 1988 for the NME (the leading British music paper). She was pretty shy, but she was only 21. Like many young musicians, she was quite intimidated by the fact that I’d photographed Ian Curtis (Joy Division). I then photographed her a year later for the same publication, two weeks after her 23rd birthday. She was more sure of herself and liked the ideas we worked with. Many of the shots were single spotlit head shots against a black cloth. This series used a similar light but against a grey cloth, echoing a 60s fashion style. This is my favourite shot from the session. Sinead looks fully in control of the look she’s giving me for the photograph."

~ Kevin Cummins

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy or any of your time or any of your space."

~ Johnny Cash

 

“A photographic session is a joint interpersonal exchange, a kind of creative encounter session at a high level of intensity. For me , photography is more a process of creating an experience than one of looking for pictures.”

~ Norman Seeff

“I shot Whitney at the height of her career. Her voice was transcendent. She came into my studio so appreciative of what I was doing and very delicate in her interaction with me, more interested in my well being than anything else. I fell in love with her. She was sensitive and vulnerable and open”

~ Norman Seeff

“I decided long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow. If I fail or if I succeed at least I did as I believed"

~ Whitney Houston

“I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.”

 

~ John Coltrane (1926 - 1967)

“Every night I was going somewhere. I’d work all day on a farm, play all night and get back home about sunrise. I’d get the mule and get right on going. I went to sleep once in the shed. I used to go to sleep so much when we were playing they called me “Sleepy”. But I never missed a note”

~ Sleepy John
(1899-1977)

“ I arrived at a small house far beyond the outskirts of Memphis. My guide asked Sleepy if I could photograph him. Sleepy replied “Okay buts got to buy beer” I couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying-his southern accent was so extreme. My hippie guide had to act as an interpreter. I ended up buying a lot of beer. People from all around the neighborhood rolled up and it turned into a big party.”
~Norman Seeff

"All I really, really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too"

 

~ "All I Want" by Joni Mitchell

"If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Californi-a
You'd see them wearing their baggies
Huarache sandals too
A bushy bushy blond hairdo
Surfin' U.S.A"

~ "Surfin' U.S.A." by The Beach Boys

“I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me - like food or water.”

~ Ray Charles
(1930 - 2004)

"My best pictures are always taken when I succeed in establishing a bond of sympathy with my sitter"

~ Doris Ulmann
(1882 - 1934)

"Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice”

~ Paul Robeson
(1898 -1976)

“The pursuit of Justice is all I have ever known”

~ Harry Belafonte
(1927 - 2023)

“I am a visually upbeat person. I see things that are “up” and it gets me interested"

~ George Zimbel

“I grew up not wanting to grow up. Growing up seemed terrible. To me it was awful. Children were free and sane and grown ups were hideous”

~ Mary Quant
(1930-2023)

“It is given to a fortunate few to be born at the right time, in the right place with the right talents. In recent fashion there are three. Chanel, Dior and Mary Quant”

~ Ernestine Carter

“At 16 I was a funny, skinny little thing, all eyelashes and legs. And then suddenly people told me I was gorgeous. I thought they had gone mad”

~ Twiggy

“There were about 100 people who ran the 1960’s in England and I was fortunate enough to meet, work with and/or photograph virtually all of them”

~ Robert Whitaker

“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow”

~ John Lennon

“I saw the small old woman coming towards us down the sidewalk. I was intrigued and wanted to catch her passing Neil. The mistake to me was that I had in my haste focused the lens just past the two figures closer to the fence than to Neil’s face.That was the original reason why I made a small sized print and solarized it to help with the apparent sharpness.. But the solarization in this case added a somewhat spooky dimension to the image, which Neil took to immediately”

~ Joel Bernstein

“When you’re young, you don’t have any experience-you are charged up but you’re out of control. And if you’re old and you’re not charged up, then all you have are memories. But if you’re charged and stimulated by what’s going on around you and you also have experience, you know what to appreciate and what to pass by”

~ Neil Young

I think this is one of the most expressive jazz images I've ever made. Of course, I didn't make it, I just captured it.

 

~ Fred Lyon
(1924-2022)

“Today people talk a lot about “reading” a photograph. That means getting it, understanding what it’s all about. But man, when it comes to Herman Leonard, I think a better word is “listen”. You need to “listen” to Herman's pictures. They are full of music and you can hear it”

~ Quincy Jones
(Quoted in the book “Listen: Herman Leonard and his World of Jazz”- 21st Editions)

“Today music is visual”

~ Archie Shepp

“My pictures do not only belong to me”

~ Edouard Boubat
(1923-1999)

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone work so hard in my life, be so dedicated to putting on a show that the crowd would remember for the rest of their lives. It’s hard to forget an event like that, whether you were on the stage or off. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing”

~Terry O’Neill
(1938-2019)

“John’s Saturday and Sunday appearances were indeed akin to a World Series for rock music fans. Not only is singer-composer-pianist, John, the biggest star in pop music, but his weekend concerts marked the first time a rock act had played Dodger Stadium - the city’s most prestigious and best designed outdoor athletic facility - since the Beatles in 1966. The audience response predictably was tumultuous at times”

~ Robert Hilburn, Times Pop Music Critic, Los Angeles Times, Monday October 27, 1975

“It seemed John and Paul could compose anywhere.They would wander over to the piano, sit down and start playing, taking no notice of what was going on around them. Here in their George V Hotel suite they were composing “I Feel Fine”. George and Ringo wandered over and started to join in. It was fascinating to watch how intense they were while creating a song"

~ Harry Benson

“I was aware that Pete Townshend might be difficult as he had a history of being impossible with the press. On the contrary, I found him to be very cooperative to the point of giving orders to everyone around him that I was to have complete access and could even go on stage during a performance”

~ Harry Benson

“It was 3.00am after a concert at the Olympia in Paris in January 1964. They had so much pent-up energy after a performance, and they really couldn’t go out because they would be mobbed. So we were sitting around talking and drinking. Their manager, Brian Epstein burst into their suite at the George V Hotel to tell them, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was number one on the American charts, which meant they were going to America to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. That also meant I was going to America with them and I was pleased. America had always fascinated me. Ever since I was a boy in Glasgow watching James Cagney gang movies, I knew that was where I wanted to be.

They were excited about having a number -one hit in America. I had heard the Beatles talking about a pillow fight they had had a few nights before, so I suggested it. I thought it would make a good photo to celebrate. At first they said okay, but then John said, no, it would make them look silly, so that was that. Then John slipped up behind Paul and hit him over the head with a pillow, spilling his drink, and that started it."

~ Harry Benson

“I realized that pictures are far more important than the photographers themselves. For myself I could only say the whole of the game was to remain invisible and to have the least possible impact on what was going on around me”

~ Dominique Tarlé

“To me “Exile on Main Street" was probably the best Rolling Stones album as far as the connection between the band members. We were coming up with song ideas like crazy and the ideas were catching on. Everyone was going flat out”

~Keith Richards

“People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it”

~ Billie Holiday

“I was merely a living witness. What does any good journalist do? Record what’s going on, observe the artist and their expressions, then leap in. You’ve got to react to something that’s happening or anticipate that it’s about to happen.”

 

~ Don Hunstein

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with their freedom”

~Bob Dylan (b. 1941)