THE JOURNAL
Opener: Messrs Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger, Top of the Pops, 1967. Photograph by Mr Alec Byrne, courtesy of Virgin Books
A new book and exhibition captures the spirit of the London music scene in the 1960s.
If you’d spent your youth photographing Messrs David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix at the height of their fame, it’s unlikely to be the kind of thing you’d want to keep under wraps, but that’s exactly what Mr Alec Byrne has done for the past five decades. The rock photographer took pictures of some of era’s brightest luminaries, but his extensive archive has hitherto remained largely unseen.
After leaving London for Hollywood in the 1970s and packing much of his rock photography away into boxes, Mr Byrne, now an émigré in Los Angeles, only recently discovered that people may actually like to see his pictures again. From the pyrotechnic London rock scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s of images that he took for publications like Melody Maker and NME, Mr Byrne will show the photographs at London’s Proud Gallery this December, and is also releasing a book, entitled London Rock: The Unseen Archives, filled with images he took of everyone from The Who and The Beatles to Mr Bob Marley and Ms Aretha Franklin. We caught up with the 68-year-old photographer ahead of the exhibition to ask him why he’s decided to show these pictures now, and to find out what it was like reaching the zenith of British rock music.
Do you have any favourites in your archive?
There were so many surprises when I went back in [to the archive] and pulled the negatives out of their sleeves for the first time in 40 years. One of my favourites is a photograph of Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger together. I’m not big on dates but that one stuck in my brain – it was 4 May in 1967, and I’d just turned 18. It was at Top of the Pops. Hendrix was performing, and I was shooting him on stage, and out of the corner of my eye I could see someone moving around in the shadows. Hendrix finished, walked over to this guy and I realised it was Jagger. I went up to them – I was the only photographer there – and said “Hey Mick, can we just photograph this?” One frame was all I took, and that turned out to be the first time Hendrix and Jagger had been photographed [together]. When I saw that printed large… the detail, the clothes – it’s one of my favourites.
Why has the archive been unseen for so long?
In 1975, the music business had changed, so I left England for Hollywood, and all of [these photographs] just went into boxes. I was working with an IT guy called Drew Evans, and he was here one day and as he was leaving there was a picture of the Beatles by the front door, and he said: “Oh, where’d you buy that?” and I said: “I took it, along with many others!” I gave him a box of my images, which he went through and said: “We’ve got to show these.” So he put together a one-night [exhibition] five years ago, and 1,000 people showed up. The impact it had on people was quite stunning. There were people who got quite emotional – there was some woman that was at the Led Zeppelin gig in Newcastle who said: “Oh god, I was there, I remember that night – these are amazing.”
How did you get into photographing the rock scene?
I got a job in Fleet Street at Keystone Press as a 16-year-old dispatch rider. I had to race around London meeting photographers and collecting their films and race back. I was a Mod on my little scooter. I used to hang out with the darkroom guys and when I saw my first photograph appear in the dish, I was hooked. I started going to gigs and asking if I could stand on stage and photograph from the side. I would send my pictures into Melody Maker and the NME. I remember when my first picture got published, and that feeling when the envelope arrived with a cheque for one guinea! I started getting more work and I thought maybe I should quit my day job. Keystone fired me for sneaking into the darkroom and printing my own rock ’n’ roll stuff. The next day I went to NME and they gave me a retainer to be a photographer, so at 17 years old I found myself shooting at all the rock gigs.
What was special about the time you were photographing?
London was the epicentre of the whole rock ‘n’ roll scene, flower power, the mad Sixties, everything. It was all coming out of London. Fashion on Carnaby Street, the music scene, the nightclubs, everything was just buzzing. At the time I assumed it would go on and on. It didn’t really occur to me what a special time it is. I look at all the work diaries I used to keep, and it was just endless. I was doing Van Morrison on Tuesday at The Rainbow, Southampton on Thursday with The Who, David Bowie at the Hammersmith Odeon on Saturday.
What changed?
Well, the music changed, and I was photographing bands like the Sex Pistols. That’s when I thought hmm, this isn’t really for me. After doing Hendrix and Marley and all these icons, I couldn’t get excited about going out to some grimy club where the guys were spitting on the audience and you’re in a mosh pit.
What is it like for you to look back on this archive in the present day?
It’s truly life changing. This is something I walked away from and really didn’t give too much consideration to. I got totally involved in the Hollywood scene, and five years ago when I did that one-day exhibition, I was overwhelmed by the response, and so I’m really looking forward to seeing what reaction the book will have. So I’m kind of turning my back on Hollywood, and embracing rock ‘n’ roll one more time, at my age. It’s going to be a fun ride.
