Pee Wee Ellis, the great saxophonist and arranger for James Brown and Van Morrison passed away this week at the age of 80. He was a fixture in Marin County in the seventies and eighties when he played with Van the Man. His musical accomplishments are awesome and historical. Pee Wee shared credit with Brown for writing 26 songs, including “Cold Sweat” and “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud.” He will be missed.....read Obituary.
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This is the 50th anniversary of the CSNY album Deja Vu (1970), postponed from last year. The classic antique photo of the band was shot by rock photographer Tom Gundelfinger O'Neal. I had the good fortune to connect with him after 50 years by way of Instagram. I photographed Tom by chance in 1971 while he was photographing Steppenwolf in San Francisco. I was an amateur at the time and he was one of the photographers that had an influence on me becoming a professional photographer. He has a great book recounting his career including info on the making of the iconic album cover. I met the band in the early eighties when I was living in Mill Valley, Ca. and photographed them in Berkeley in 1982.
CSN Daylight Again Tour 1982, Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA.
Steve Douglas, saxophonist. He was a member of the legendary "Wrecking Crew", a group of L.A. studio musicians who performed on countless hit records in the sixties and seventies. A documentary about the group has just been released to theaters (see trailer). I photographed him in my studio in 1992 (above), a year before his untimely death. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. Read his full bio here.
There are replicas of this car out there but this is the original car down to the original Beverly Hills license plates. The car was bought used by Janis in 1968 when it was 3 years old. It's a '65 356 Cabriolet and was all white when she bought it. Big Brother roadie Dave Richmond gave it the psychedelic paint job. In later years the original paint faded and flaked off and it has since been restored to it's original condition. On loan from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio it is shown here at the Marin-Sonoma Concours de Elegance. Janis drove this car around Marin County, Ca., where she lived just before her death in 1970.
Janis Joplin's redwood-studded home at the time of her death in 1970. The hard-living rocker died at age 27 from a drug overdose in a Los Angeles hotel room. She had lived in the wood-shingled, creekside house less than two years.
There were sightings of Doors' singer Jim Morrison and singer Kris Kristofferson, who wrote "Me and Bobby McGee" which became a Joplin hit after she died. Nearly 40 years later, there are still remnants of Joplin's short stay in the house, including a small bar made from redwood burl and wall paneling made by the carpenter who did much of the striking artistic woodwork that was featured in the interior of The Trident restaurant, a popular Sausalito watering hole during the 1970s. There's also a 4-foot-high dog door next to the front door that Joplin had installed for her St. Bernard. A bathroom includes a tiled sunken bath and shower below a skylight that looks out into the towering redwoods. Joplin's pool table still stands in the family room. "She loved Marin; she bought a house in Larkspur in Baltimore Canyon. That’s when she had the Full Tilt Boogie Band and met Kris Kristofferson, who was not famous at all. We’d sit around and sing country music in her house and then we’d go out and ride in her Porsche. The three of us would ride in that car together through downtown San Rafael. Janis, Kris, and me, driving down the street, waving. It was like the procession of the Queen. Everybody knew who Janis was. Nobody really knew who I was or Kris but we had a really fun time." (Sam Andrew of Big Brother & the Holding Company) |
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September 2021
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