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Capturing the essence of rock legends
by Conrad Astley28/ 4/2005
WHEN the teenage Jay Blakesberg took his father's camera to a rock concert he had no idea it would be the start of a long and prosperous career that would lead him to Manchester.
Young Jay began snapping his heroes The Grateful Dead at
concerts in his native New Jersey in the late seventies, at the age
of 17.
While this was merely an attempt to combine his two passions -
photography and rock music - it became the start of a close
relationship with the band that was to last a quarter of a
century.
His photographs of them resulted in the successful book Between The
Dark And Light, and Jay's work has also appeared on record sleeves
and in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, and
Mojo.
Recently, his interest in Oklahoma-based band The Flaming Lips has
seen his images appear in Waking Up With A Placebo Headwound, a
book chronicling their rise.
Now, his work is appearing in its first ever European exhibition,
at the Richard Goodall Gallery on Thomas Street, in the Northern
Quarter.
Although this will include Jay's shots of rock stars including Bob
Dylan, Neil Young and Kurt Cobain, his work with the elusive Tom
Waits will be exhibition's centrepiece.
Jay has shot numerous magazine photographs of the singer, as well
as one album cover, and the pair have developed a close
relationship, although the photographer says it has not always been
easy.
He said: "Tom likes to push the envelope. He doesn't let you sit
still and he doesn't always make it easy for you, which makes
things interesting. He always likes there to be some sort of
tension."
Jay recalls one session in which he had driven up to a recording
studio in north California, to take what he thought would be
typical photographs of Tom posing next to crumbling barns and
chicken shacks.
However, the singer insisted they jumped into his truck and drove
out to an abandoned car he had spotted several days earlier.
Jay assumed he knew the vehicle's owner, but when they arrived, Tom
told him this wasn't the case, saying, "I don't know who's house
this is or who that car belongs to, but you are the captain of this
ship so you better go knock on that door and ask permission to take
some pictures."
After getting no answer, they set to work, but soon found
themselves confronted by an old lady, who owned the building and
the car.
When he explained they needed some shots of Tom by the car, she
began screaming the car didn't work, had no wheels, and hadn't been
driven for 30 years.
When Jay eventually got what he needed, the singer suddenly leapt
over a fence.
He jumped into his truck and sped off, leaving Jay, his assistant,
and Tom's publicist standing in the middle of nowhere very
confused.
The photographer says this was just a typical surreal Tom Waits
moment.
The exhibition at Richard Goodall Gallery until May
28
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