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Showing posts sorted by date for query birth of rock and roll. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query birth of rock and roll. Sort by relevance Show all posts
The Birth of Rock and Roll Number Seven in the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Series snapshot collection Jim Linderman
The Birth of Rock and Roll Number Six in the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Series Collection Jim Linderman
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The Birth of Rock and Roll number five in the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Series. Collection Jim Linderman
The High and Ho of Weegee Bernard Bailey High Magazine and Ho Magazine from Periodical House Publish Weegee's Poison Portraits
Bailey did have the good taste to either hire, or purchase, a considerable amount of Weegee's more experimental work. Distortions and treatments. They are titled "Poison Portraits" and Weegee's Weirdies" and they are that..
"In 1980 Weegee's widow, Wilma Wilcox, Sidney Kaplan, Aaron Rose and Larry Silver formed The Weegee Portfolio Incorporated to create an exclusive collection of photographic prints made from Weegee’s original negatives. As a bequest, Wilma Wilcox donated the entire Weegee archive - 16,000 photographs and 7,000 negatives to the International Center of Photography in New York. This 1993 gift became the source for several exhibitions and books include "Weegee's World" edited Miles Barth (1997) and "Unknown Weegee" edited by Cynthia Young (2006). The first and largest exhibition was the 329-image "Weegee's World: Life, Death and the Human Drama," brought forth in 1997. It was followed in 2002 by "Weegee's Trick Photography," a show of distorted or otherwise caricatured images, and four years later by "Unknown Weegee," a survey that emphasized his more benign, post-tabloid photographs. In 2012 ICP opened another Weegee exhibition titled, "Murder is my Business". Also in 2012, exhibition called "Weegee: The Naked City" opened at Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow"
Bailey's narrow magazines are bound well and not easily mashed onto my scanner…but let's take a look at some obscurities by Arthur Felig. Weegee's Weirdies is listed in the bibliography of his works HERE, but Weegee's Poison Portraits seems not to be, so here you go.
Bernard Bailey, editor and art director of High and Ho is a bit more obscure, but like many folks working in the golden age of smut, came from the comic book environment. I'll say it again...Kefauver was right. He was an artist who worked for both DC comics and Atlas, which eventually became Marvel. His bio is HERE.
Not much has been published about his connection with High and Ho. Interestingly, High turned into a normal sized magazine after the tall experiment, but it didn't last much longer. Both magazines are chock-full of now prominent artists, photographers and models. Bernard had good taste, if not business sense.
Photography Books by the author include The Birth of Rock and Roll, Take Me to the Water and In Situ American Folk Art in Place.
Photographs by Weegee / INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY
The Birth of Rock and Roll Number 4 from Dull Tool Dim Bulb
Untitled Original Color Slide circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman
The Birth of Rock and Roll Holiday Edition
Number three in the series The Birth of Rock and Roll comes from Cleveland, so I finally have to agree with the choice to locate the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame there! Undated, but certainly 1940 or earlier, an obvious trouble-maker participates in planning for the Thanksgiving dance! I hope it got out of hand. An unusual early photograph of desegregated dance for the kids! On the reverse the person I HOPE chooses the music is identified as "Pete Owens African-American Young Man" at Thomas Edison High School Cleveland Ohio. It comes from a photo book, but I am going to guess it was taken for the High School Yearbook.
Original Snapshot Undated Collection Jim Linderman
Courtship from The Birth of Rock and Roll Book available NOW by Jim Linderman
FROM THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL BOOK by Jim Linderman
AVAILABLE FROM THE PUBLISHER DUST-TO-DIGITAL OR AMAZON.
Original Snapshot circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman
CDV Photographer Trade Card Salesman Sample Photographica collection Horton Grand Rapids Jim Linderman
Orsamus W. Horton was one of the first daguerreotype photographers in Grand Rapids, MI.
Later he created Stereo photographs. In 1916, on his passing, he was referred to as "Grand Rapids First Photographer" and was also the first to install a skylight. He was also known as "Practical Photographer" and listed his location at "Foot of Monroe St."
Original Carte de Visite Photograph circa 1855 Collection Jim Linderman
Order THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL HERE
Browse and order Books and affordable Ebooks by Jim Linderman at Blurb.com HERE
BRONZE THRILLS ! George Levitan Goes Black and Goes Smutty
Not only Bronze Thrills (Breaking the Cross-Dressing barrier here with the story of a husband who got his kicks wearing women's clothes) but Hep, Jive, Sepia, Soul Confessions, Soul Teen and Soul Confessions. A one-man Black publishing empire which was white!
That isn't to say George was a creep. He hired African-American workers, trained them well, paid them well and promoted them to important positions. Sure, the magazine was thrashy, but at the time there really wasn't much else for the race. Soon his primary title, Sepia, was a moving force in the Black community. He also helped raise funds for the United Negro College Fund.
Issue of Bronze Thrills "Thrill Girls: Men meant only sex and a good time to me" and "My Husband was a Transvestitie: He got his kicks from wearing women's clothes" December 1966 Issue Original Collection Jim Linderman
Chief Paul Protects the Public from Peep Show Perversion Second City Smut Vintage Sleaze Midget Movies
Original Press Photograph (8" x 13") Unknown Chicago Paper 1959 Collection Jim Linderman
Order THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL HERE
Books and Downloads by Jim Linderman Available HERE
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Vintage African-American Magazines Hot Black Romance
Black romance! Other than the dynamite duo of Jet and Ebony from Johnson Publications in Chicago, African-American magazines are surprisingly scarce, which is why the examples I pick to show here likely will not look familiar. Smaller circulations, segregated neighborhoods, institutional racism (did YOUR public library subscribe to Jive?) and other reasons account for their rarity. Plus, museums and serious collectors are now purchasing them to compensate for their earlier neglect. Unless you find a box somewhere, you might expect to pay 25 to 50 bucks apiece and more for a mint condition black romance magazine from the 1950s and 1960s...if and when you can find one.
Group of vintage African-American Romance magazines collection Jim Linderman
SEE and PURCHASE DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS HERE
THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL AVAILABLE HERE
Weegee Bettie Page and the FBI The Last (?) Unpublished Photographs and What Weegee told the FBI about Bettie Page
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
What if you could put Bettie Page, the most influential pinup model of the last 50 years in the same room with Weegee, certainly one of the most famous photographers in the world...and he had a camera in his hands? I'd say it would be so juicy even the FBI would be interested. And it appears they were!
Search for a photograph of Bettie Page taken by Weegee. One appears on the International Center of Photography website, which is appropriate as Weegee's widow Wilma Wilcox donated his extensive archive to the museum in 1993. The photo actually appears on Fans in a Flashbulb, the museum's exceptional blog.
Weegee (Arthur Fellig) was personal friends with the model, for years living only three blocks apart from each other just off Times Square (Weegee on West 47th Street and Ms. Page on West 46th Street), a walk one can do in less than five minutes, even Weegee with a cigar. There is a story reported that Weegee once climbed into a bathtub fully clothed with Bettie hoping for a better photo until she literally kicked him out. But until now, very few of the photographs Weegee took of his beautiful acquaintance have ever been publicly shown.
Cass Carr, Harlem jazz musician and promoter of amateur camera club outings also had a space in the very same neighborhood at 218 West 47th Street (a mere two blocks from Weegee's house) which he called the "Concorde Camera Circle" with a rudimentary studio. I believe the revealing studio shot here showing other participants snapping away was taken at Carr's place. It is typical of Weegee to create his own particular view in a photographic setting. The one thing you do NOT want to see in a photo of Bettie Page is other men, but there you go. Leave it to Weegee to turn the camera on the cameramen.
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
Carr also arranged outings to local farms and parks for camera club participants prior to forming the Concorde Club (previously known as the Lens Art Club) but he changed the club's name after being arrested along with others for promoting an outing in South Salem, New York. Some accounts have Weegee arrested at a camera club outing along with Ms. Page, if so it probably would have been the South Salem, New York shoot on July 27, 1952.
One thing I can confirm is the outdoor photographs here were taken at Headley Farm in New Jersey, as the gas pump has figured in other photographer's pictures. Also present at the shoot, which took place on September 9, 1956, were photographers Art Amsie, Arnold Kovacks, Don Baida, and an unknown woman photographer seen here on the left holding her own camera with the boys.
As far as I know, this unknown woman's pictures of Bettie have not turned up, but we can now say Bettie was photographed by at least three women, the others being Paula Klaw (Paula Kramer) and Bunny Yeager (Linnea Eleanor Yeager)
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
The Weegee photographs (and there are more) are beautiful pictures of the model in her prime. Striking poses of a young model obviously both aware of her talents and enjoying the session. That they were taken by one of the most interesting and talented photographers in history adds to their charm and importance.
The photographs Weegee took of Bettie Page have never been shown, and it is an honor I do not take lightly. It is also the reason the copyright notice I have placed under each image is not to be ignored.
One of the Weegee photos of the model taken in a studio is notable primarily for the unusual bikini Bettie wears which she would have made herself! It was a talent she was proud of, but maybe she should have stuck with store-bought. It also appears in a cropped version on a website or two, but in poor and possibly purloined quality.
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
The other Weegee image from the ICP collection which has appeared on the web is a cropped print showing Ms. Page in virtually the same pose taken at the same day by four different photographers.
Another Weegee photograph here shows Ms. Page in a make-shift studio not as yet identified. It could be either of their own apartments, as Page was known to pose individually on request and for her standard modeling fee. It is not known (to me anyway) if Weegee was in the habit of hiring individual models, but he did sell and publish other cheesecake photographs in news digests and quite likely some joke and gag publications. I would like to think Bettie gave him a freebie on this one!
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
But what of the FBI? Recently the FBI released several documents on Bettie Page, likely in response to repeated requests. As we know, the model was harassed and hounded by zealots and government agencies during her modeling years. Once being called by the Kefauver Committee in conjunction with their investigation of Irving Klaw, and earlier in relation to an obscenity bust in 1956 Harlem (in which the amateur bondage model was asked about "ping pong paddles" and a riding crop. She denied being involved, and also denied knowing of any photographs of the sort being produced in Harlem.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
In the the newly released FBI document pictured here I noticed a most interesting story hiding in the redacted print! Half way down, note the passage enlarged here which indicates photos of the model were "turned over on 5/25/60...by (name omitted) also known as (name omitted) a photographer who resides at (location omitted.) Now I do not know of any other New York City photographer working with a short pseudonym who took pictures of Bettie Page! So there you go... it now looks like we can add Weegee to the long list of artists who have been pestered by the long arm of the law.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Now if I were writing this for a tabloid in the 1950s, when the neighborhood all three principles called home was known as "Hell's Kitchen" I would have titled this 'WEEGEE SQUAWKS TO FEDS" but to be fair, anyone with the slightest connection to "dirty" pictures was vulnerable to such puritanical procedures, when the laws attempting to define obscenity were far more strict than today. So let's call them all pioneers rather than pigeons.
(c) Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images
I would like to thank the International Center of Photography for allowing me to use the above unpublished photographs from their archive to help illustrate this discovery and story. If you are not an active member or supporter of the museum, please take the time to join.
Jim Linderman is author of Times Square Smut and The Birth of Rock and Roll
"Times Square Smut" available now covers the same time period as the above in detail and publishes numerous works by African-American artist Eugene Bilbrew unseen for over 50 years. Times Square Smut will tell the story of denizen and mobster Edward Mishkin, who printed and sold proto-porno soft-core books using the artist's work on 42nd Street at the same time Irving Klaw was publishing photographs of Bettie Page. In the meantime. The Birth of Rock and Roll might be the most unusual music book you have ever seen!
Last Nail in the Coffin (The LAST Unheard Robert Johnson Track) 100 years of Traveling Riverside Blues
The only bad thing about Robert Johnson is that there are no more tracks to find. It used to be when one discovered an artist worth hearing, one had to go look for the rest at record stores, or under the mattress in bad neighborhoods.
Johnson is now 100...and they've all been found. The last discovery was made in 1997 when an "obscene" track withheld from the Columbia releases was added to the public canon. That the obscene lyric is the now familiar and standard blues phrase involving "juice running down a leg" doesn't matter, what does matter is that although the recording was purchased by the national trust, we still had to pay Columbia/Sony to hear it. The unreleased version of Traveling Riverside Blues on a 10 inch test-pressing was sold by the Alan Lomax archive to the Library of Congress American Folklife Center for $10,000, and was at the time the only unheard track by the artist. That Columbia was allowed to profit from it 8 years after millions had already paid for the reissue of Johnson's other output in 1990 (and the LP version years earlier) seemed odd to me.
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| Billboard Magazine June 17, 2000 |
But it was worth the wait and I gladly shelled out the dough for the shellac.
By the way, they also erased the smoke from Johnson's lips when they put him on a U.S. Postage Stamp. A perfect example of Orwell's premise. Erase the cigarette, erase history and create a new reality. Call me stickler.
The Birth of Rock and Roll is HERE
Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE
Dull Tool Dim Bulb the Blog HERE
What's Your Sign? Horoscope Astrology Zodiac Unfurled.
Astrology sign with two lecturers.
Original Snapshot circa 1925 collection Jim Linderman
The new book of photographs from the Linderman Collection is
THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL available from Amazon
Barnes and Noble and publisher Dust-to-Digital.
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