SHOOTING STARS
SAN JOSE PHOTO EXHIBIT GIVES AN INSIDER'S LOOK AT THE GREATS OF ROCK 'N' ROLL
BY STEVE MARINUCCI
Published Nov. 15, 2000 in the San Jose Mercury News
Henry Diltz knows how to make the rock musicians he photographs feel comfortable. He's one of them.
In 1963, Diltz was co-founder of the Modern Folk Quartet, a group that released several albums and, notably, a single, ''This Could Be the Night,'' produced by the legendary Phil Spector (who co-wrote the song with Harry Nilsson).
''We had a camper and were doing college tours,'' he says. ''We bought these little funky cameras, Japanese 35mm cameras, and started taking pictures like crazy of each other and everything we saw. When we got back to L.A., we had a big slide show. It was so exciting to see all those moments huge on the wall.
''I got bitten by the bug. I said I've got to take more of these pictures so we can have more of these slide shows. So I just started shooting pictures of everything all the time. And during that time, I starting photographing all my friends.''
Those friends included the Buffalo Springfield; the Hollies; Mama Cass Elliott; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and the Lovin' Spoonful (which, in the latter stages of its history included fellow Modern Folk Quartet member Jerry Yester).
Many of Diltz's pictures -- including those used on some of rock's most famous album covers -- will be on view Friday through Sunday at the Hyatt Sainte Claire, 302 S. Market St., San Jose, as part of a 20-city national tour. Limited edition prints will be available for purchase.
It was because of the Spoonful that Diltz began snapping photos professionally.
''My good old friend Erik Jacobsen, who produced them, had been my roommate in Greenwich Village back in my musician days. And he said, 'Hey, if you want to learn how to be a photographer, come and hang out with the boys all summer. We need a lot of pictures.' ''
The Spoonful had just had its first hit, ''Do You Believe in Magic;'' Diltz ended up spending a year with the band on the road.
He then was hired by such teen magazines as ''Flip,'' ''Tiger Beat'' and ''16'' to shoot the Monkees. ''I got to be real good friends with the Monkees,'' he recalls, noting that photographers back then ''were usually old guys. The Monkees didn't like that. I was their age, had long hair and wore love beads, so I fit right in with them.''
He also photographed many of those color pinups of the Partridge Family that the teen magazines seemed to need constantly.
Poster fodder
''These magazines were voracious, you know, for head shots to make posters and magazine covers. So my job was simple: to try to get as many great head shots of David Cassidy.''
The list of other subjects and events Diltz photographed is long and celebrated: Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and George Harrison (at the Concert for Bangladesh), Woodstock (the original and the two in the '90s), the Monterey Pop Festival, Michael Jackson, Richard Harris, Truman Capote, James Taylor, the Doors, Richard Pryor and Kurt Cobain.
Diltz has multitudes of wonderful stories about his photo shoots. For example, ''The Doors had called my partner, Gary Burden, to talk about photos for their new album. We had a meeting.'' Ray Manzarek, the Doors' keyboard player, ''spoke up and said, 'My wife and I saw this great hotel in downtown L.A. the other day called Morrison Hotel.' We said, 'Whoa, let's go check it out.' We drove down there and looked at it and, sure enough, it was fantastic.
''The next day, we brought the whole group down. We went in to take the picture and the guy behind the desk said, 'You can't shoot photos in here.' We went outside, and I noticed him leave the desk and get in the elevator. So Isaid, 'Quick, run inside.' So we did a quick roll of film in about five minutes and we were out of there.''
Shuffled trio
The cover for the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album shows the trio in a different order than their name.
The house on the cover ''was just sitting in Hollywood,'' Diltz says. ''Graham Nash noticed it one day. We just went out to shoot publicity photos. This was before they had even come up with a name. So we took the photo of them sitting on the couch, but they're in the wrong order. So a few days later we went back to reshoot them in the right order and the house was gone, a big pile of sticks shoved to the back of the lot.''
Diltz also was a longtime friend of Linda McCartney, who had been a rock photographer in the days when he was shooting the Spoonful. Diltz photographed Paul and Linda McCartney for a Life magazine cover. ''She called me one day from Malibu and asked if I could come out to their rented house and take photos for a songbook. I spent the afternoon photographing them and, at the time, their two little daughters.
''Then when we were through, they said, 'Well, we want to see these early in the morning because we're looking for a picture to use on the cover of Life magazine.''' Diltz describes Linda McCartney as 'very nurturing, intelligent, very warm, everything good.''
Diltz's recent subjects include Christopher Stills (Stephen's son) and Eagle Timothy B. Schmit. He spends an equal amount of time doing non-rock work these days. ''I'll photograph anything that catches my eye or my fancy,'' he says.
Still, he's amazed by the calls he says he gets almost daily for past work that began as slide shows for his friends.
''It never occurred to me that I would have a big photo collection one day. I never thought it would turn into an archive.''
CAPTION: PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Among the rock legends and luminaries photographed by Henry Diltz, clockwise from above, a photo from the Eagles' ''Desperado'' album cover shoot, [001115 SV 3E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Janis Joplin at Woodstock in 1969
[001115 SV 3E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Singer Joni Mitchell
[001115 SV 3E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
And Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Musicians are comfortable with Diltz behind the camera; he caught the photography bug while touring with the Modern Folk Quartet, which he co-founded in the '60s.
[001115 SV 3E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Paul and Linda McCartney
[001115 SV 1E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographer Diltz had five minutes at the Morrison Hotel to shoot this picture of the Doors, from left, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, Jim Morrison and John Densmore.
[001115 SV 1E]
PHOTO: HENRY DILTZ PHOTOGRAPHS
Before they had decided on a name, Diltz shot this out-of-order photograph of Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and David Crosby. The house had been razed by the time they returned to shoot the trio in proper order.
[001115 SV 1E]
