Henry Diltz | |
|---|---|
 Diltz in 2010 | |
| Born | Henry Stanford Diltz September 6, 1938 |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Known for | Music photography |
| Website | henrydiltz |
Henry Stanford Diltz (born September 6, 1938, in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American folk musician and photographer who has been active since the 1960s. [1]
Among the bands Diltz played with was the Modern Folk Quartet. While a member of the Modern Folk Quartet, Diltz became interested in photography, met The Monkees, played on some of their recording sessions, and took numerous photographs of the band, many of which have been published.
His work also attracted the eye of other musicians who needed publicity and album cover photos. He was the official photographer at Woodstock, and at the Monterey Pop Festival and Miami Pop Festival, and has photographed over 200 record album covers.[ citation needed ]
Diltz photographed 1960s folk-rock stars who lived in Los Angeles's Laurel Canyon. [2] During that time, Laurel Canyon was a center of American music. [3] Many rising stars were drawn to Laurel Canyon, a laid-back neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills. [4] Diltz recalled: "There was a sense of brotherhood in all of this - in the music scene, in Laurel Canyon, certainly at Woodstock. But all the people I photographed: I love their music." [4]
One of Diltz's most recognizable works is his photo of The Doors, which was used on their 1970 album Morrison Hotel . The album cover photograph was taken at the Morrison Hotel on South Hope Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The band were not given permission to photograph, so they did it while the clerk was called away from the desk. The band were said to have jumped right behind the windows and hit their places without shuffling as Diltz took the shot. The building was destroyed by a fire on December 26, 2024 [6]
Diltz contributed all the photographs to the 1978 book California Rock, California Sound, which archived the Los Angeles music scene of the 1970s. British writer Anthony Fawcett provided the bulk of the text. He also has a book titled California Dreaming, from Genesis Publications UK. [7] The self-published Unpainted Faces book of black and white photographs was released through Morrison Hotel Gallery. [8]
Diltz is co-founder along with Peter Blachley and Rich Horowitz of the Morrison Hotel Gallery [9] in SoHo, New York City, and in West Hollywood. The galleries specialize in fine-art music photography, including his own works. [10]
Diltz is still active, including a role as contributing photographer to The Henry Rollins Show . He was among the 43 photographers invited to donate a print to "FOCUS: an auction of the finest photography to benefit City Harvest...." The fund-raiser was on September 18, 2008, supported City Harvest, a food collection bank in New York City. [11]
In 2023, Diltz received the lifetime achievement prize at the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards. [12]
He has two children (Zoe Diltz Pratt and Nicholas Harrison Diltz) with Elizabeth Joy Grand Diltz.[ citation needed ]
In 1971, he and songwriter Jimmy Webb nearly died in a glider aircraft accident. Webb was piloting and Diltz was shooting 35 mm motion picture film from the rear seat. Both suffered significant injuries. The film did not survive. [13]
Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) was a folk-rock supergroup comprising the American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and the English-American singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by the Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, they were known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). They are noted for their intricate vocal harmonies and lasting influence on American music and culture, their political activism and their tumultuous relationships.
Morrison Hotel is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Doors, released on February 9, 1970, by Elektra Records. After the use of brass and string arrangements recommended by producer Paul A. Rothchild on their previous album, The Soft Parade (1969), the Doors returned to their blues rock style and this album was largely seen as a return to form for the band. The group entered Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in November 1969 to record the album which is divided into two separately titled sides, namely: "Hard Rock Café" and "Morrison Hotel". Blues rock guitar pioneer Lonnie Mack and Ray Neapolitan also contributed to the album as session bassists.
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighborhood with the more urbanized parts of Los Angeles to the north and south, between Ventura Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard.
At Your Birthday Party is the third studio album by Canadian-American rock band Steppenwolf. The album was released in March 1969, by ABC Dunhill Records.
Nurit Wilde is an Israeli-born photographer and socialite. She was an occasional actress in the 1960s and 1970s, and was closely associated with the creative community of that era in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The Modern Folk Quartet was an American folk music revival group that formed in the early 1960s. Originally emphasizing acoustic instruments and group harmonies, they performed extensively and recorded two albums. In 1965, as the Modern Folk Quintet, they ventured into electric folk rock and recorded with producers Phil Spector and Jack Nitzsche. Although MFQ received a fair amount of exposure, their rock-oriented recordings failed to capture their sound or generate enough interest and they disbanded in 1966. Subsequently, MFQ re-formed several times and made further recordings.
Joel Larson is an American rock drummer and percussionist who is known as a founding member of The Merry-Go-Round and for being associated with the Turtles and the Grass Roots.
Bob Gruen is an American author and photographer known for his rock and roll photographs. By the mid 1970s, Gruen was already regarded as one of the foremost photographers in music working with major artist such as John Lennon, Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, and Kiss. He also covered emerging new wave and punk rock bands, including the New York Dolls, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and Blondie. Gruen has also appeared in films.
Elliott Landy is an American photographer and writer. Best known for his iconic photographs from the Sixties Classic Rock period, Elliott Landy was one of the first "music photographers" to be recognized as an "artist.”
Paul Ferrara is an American photographer known for his relationship with singer Jim Morrison of the band the Doors. Born to Italian–American parents, Ferrara met the band after photographing Jim Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson. He began working with the group as a stills photographers and many of his color and black & white photos appeared in a 24-page souvenir book sold at Doors' concerts in 1968. Many iconic images of Morrison were taken by Ferrara. Ferrara also took the cover photograph of the Doors album Waiting for the Sun in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present was the first major museum exhibition of Rock music photography. The exhibit was organized by guest curator Gail Buckland at the Brooklyn Museum in 2009. The exhibition toured from 2009 to 2013, visiting the Brooklyn Museum, Worcester Art Museum, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum, Columbia Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Tucson Museum of Art, Allentown Art Museum, Annenberg Space for Photography and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
Ethan Allen Russell is an American photographer, author and video director, mostly of musicians. He is known as "the only rock photographer to have shot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who."
Joel Lee Brodsky was an American photographer, best known for his photography of musicians, particularly his iconic "Young Lion" photographs of Jim Morrison. In his lifetime, he is credited with photographing over 400 album covers.
Barry Feinstein was an American photographer and filmmaker, known for his photographs of 1950s Hollywood, the 1960s music scene, and his close personal and professional relationships with celebrities like Bob Dylan and Steve McQueen. Feinstein produced over 500 album covers, featuring his photographs and graphic designs.
Joel Bernstein is a photographer, guitarist, and record producer based in Oakland, California. His photographs have appeared as the album covers for After the Gold Rush, 4 Way Street, Rita Coolidge, Wind on the Water, Running on Empty, CSN, Bob Dylan at Budokan, Rust Never Sleeps, Shadows and Light, Hard Promises and many others. His photographs have been published in Time, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among other publications, and there have been retrospective exhibits of his work in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. As a guitarist, he is most noted for support work to his friends David Crosby and Graham Nash, both individually and on their Crosby & Nash records. He has acted as a co-producer and archivist with Nash for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and is responsible with Nash for the compilation and production of the box sets Voyage for Crosby, Reflections for Nash, Carry On for Stephen Stills, and CSNY 1974 for the band's tour of that year.
Frank Lisciandro is an American film maker, writer and photographer born in Brooklyn, New York. He studied Photojournalism at Michigan State University and Motion Picture production and writing at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), graduating with an MFA; while at UCLA he studied photography with the renowned American photographer Robert Heinecken.
Harvey Kubernik is an American author, journalist and music historian. From the mid 1970s, he wrote for music publications such as Melody Maker, Los Angeles Free Press, Crawdaddy! and Phonograph Record. His articles, interviews and reviews have since been published in many other music magazines, including Goldmine, Mojo, Musician, Classic Rock, DISCoveries, Uncut, Mix, Harp and Hits, and in the Los Angeles Times. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he also worked as an A&R director for MCA Records and as a record producer.
Guy Michael Webster ) was one of the early innovators of rock ‘n’ roll photography. His fifty-year career spanned the worlds not only of music but film and politics. While shooting album covers and magazine layouts for numerous groups – The Rolling Stones, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel among many others – he also photographed film legends like Rita Hayworth, Dean Martin, and Natalie Wood. As the primary celebrity photographer for dozens of magazines worldwide, Webster captured entertainers including Igor Stravinsky, Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson and American presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Webster's work was collected in the award-winning book, Big Shots: The Photography of Guy Webster, published by Insight Editions. His passion for photography was matched by his love of Italian motorcycles; his personal collection of bikes considered among the world's finest. He spent the later part of his life in Ojai, California, where he volunteered and taught photography at the Oak Grove School. He died there on February 5, 2019, as a result of complications arising from diabetes and liver cancer.
Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time is a two-part documentary television series directed by Alison Ellwood. It is executive-produced by Frank Marshall; Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, Amblin Television; Craig Kallman and Mark Pinkus, Warner Music Entertainment; Alex Gibney, Stacey Offman and Richard Perello, Jigsaw Productions; and Jeff Pollack. It premiered in two parts on Epix on May 31, 2020 and June 7, 2020.
Michael A. Friedman is a former music manager and producer, photographer and author.
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