The 1,000th Blog Post ~ John Patteson

When I first met John Patteson (there is no "R" in it) back in the late 1960's he was still in his teens and enrolled in what was then Dade County Junior College. He was fresh back from a year or two living in Thailand, which is where his folks were.

I don't remember if I met him at the weekly love-in at Greynolds Park or at Thee Mushroom, a head shop about a block from the entrance to the park. I do remember that he had a sitar, and to my uneducated ear seemed pretty decent with it, but the 12 string was really HIM. He could make that guitar sing!

This photo was taken about 1969, shot a few blocks from my house in the oak hammock near Natural Bridge over Arch Creek. His manager wanted some pictures to show around and this was scanned from one of those 8x10 glossy hand-outs. I was shooting with a Leica M4 and a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens.

John never made it big as a folk singer. He got involved with the motion picture industry as an armorer and special effects person. He worked on Miami Vice for years, along with a large variety of films and TV shows. He never married and has no kids. He now lives about a hundred miles up the coast. We talk on occasion.