Sunday, 22 July 2012

The photography of music

I've just been told to lift my game in the "Now & Then" stakes!
After viewing the latest post from the WebUrbanist people - PopSpots: New York City Album Covers Now & Then.
It is a look into New York City’s past, at the locations where iconic album cover photos were taken. Photographer Bob Egan has tracked down the exact places where the photos were taken in the 1960s and 1970s and transposed the album covers onto modern-day photographs.

"After the gold rush" by Neil Young
Neil Young walking at the northwest corner of Sullivan Street and West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village in New York.
"The freewheelin' Bob Dylan"
21 year old Bob Dylan with then girlfriend Suze Rotolo on Jones Street, near West 4th and Bleecker in Greenwich Village.
“Manhattan is constantly being torn down and rebuilt anew, and I’m trying to find these places while they are still around,” says Egan. At times it can take a lot of work to identify the exact spot.
The photo of Bruce Springsteen was taken in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and 53rd Street about a half block down and across the street from The Power Station, the recording studio where Bruce was working on "The River" album.
Bruce Springteen at Public School 111 for "The River"
Egan had to do some sleuthing to spot the exact subway platform upon which Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon stood approximately 47 years ago for the cover of "Wednesday Morning, 3AM". Several websites identified it as the platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, but to find the exact spot he had to look to things like the height of the support beams.

"Wednesday morning, 3am" by Simon & Garfunkel
"Pretzel logic" by Steely Dan
The site of the "Pretzel logic" album cover was Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, west side of street, just above the 79th Street Transverse (the road through Central Park) at the park entrance called "Miners' Gate".
See Bob Egan’s whole collection at PopSpotsNYC.com.
The Beatles have a few locations they have made famous. The most infamous of all "Abbey Road" which a crowd of people have copied, and their early album "Please please me" with the fab four on a balcony of the EMI offices, which was used again for the compilation albums "1962-1966" and "1967-1970".
Thinking about Australian album covers and not many come to mind, Dragon - "Bondi Rd", Cold Chisel with "Breakfast at Sweethearts" (the Sweethearts Cafe in Kings Cross is now a McDonalds) or "Last wave of summer" (the band at a Wyong service station) though like Dylan's iconic "Subterranean Homesick Blues" film-clip (which has been imitated to the nth degree),
I can think of a number of iconic film-clips that could qualify as potential "now & thens" -
AC/DCs "It's a long way to the top" with the guys on the back of a flat-bed truck through the streets of Melbourne; The Mixtures' "Push bike song" again Melbourne streets; The Oils "U.S.Forces" against the backdrop of the Harbour Bridge.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks Bilbliophile,

    Someday I'll look into those Australian covers.

    - Bob Egan, PopSpots

    ReplyDelete