Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 10 Aug 2016

Rolling Stone: Images of Rock and Roll by Fred Woodward and Anthony DeCurtis

Rolling Stone is something of an American institution and given its origins – San Francisco in 1967 – it isn’t really surprising that it has always presented itself as in some way counter-cultural. Although it may have started life at the epicentre of Hippiedom, it long ago lost its radical edge and became, quite quickly I think, part of a journalistic establishment that promoted rather than questioned the cultural hegemony and championed a very US-centric notion of rock music.

Rolling Stone never really crossed over into the British rock music mainstream which was dominated more by the weeklies that were steeped in a sort of fanzine temperament – NME, Melody Maker, Sounds etc. Where the British went for opinionated, off-the-cuff young gunslinger journalists, Rolling Stone began to develop a reputation for ‘serious’ writing and backed this up by using high quality photography to illustrate their columns.

The magazine developed a portfolio of photography that was a work of art in its own right and this big, glossy publication by Virgin Books brings many of the best, groundbreaking work together. There are, of course, some big names represented here – Art Kane, Annie Leibovitz, Terry O’Neill, Robert Mapplethorpe – but I was really surprised to see how many of the examples in this book are ascribed as ‘photographer unknown’ and this seems to reflect the way in which rock photography used to be an open and democratic art-form which was not policed and image-protected in the way it now is.

The vast majority of images included here are in black and white but there are a small selection of colour images too. The decision on which medium is used seems to be more about artistic vision than economics – black and white provides mood and authenticity in a way that is very hard to achieve in colour. The photographs are also set out in careful ways – the use of double-page spreads is really intelligent and adds to the impact. Annie Leibovitz’s colour  photographs of Marvin Gaye show just what can be achieved by the clever use of double page spread. The book’s editor and designer, Fred Woodward, should take a bow for producing a thing of beauty in this instance. The text here was written by Anthony DeCurtis and is really only a short prelude to the fabulous series of plates that follow. Nevertheless, it’s a more than useful introduction.

The book was first published in 1995 and retailed through the Virgin record shops when they existed – which is where I picked up my copy. I think there were quite a number printed and this accounts for why copies can be picked up on the second hand market for well under £10 – although you might pay up to £15 for a copy is very good condition. Well worth the outlay for anyone interested in some of the rock gods of American music ( with a few Brits thrown in too!).

Terry Potter

August 2016