Ike and Tina Turner ~ March 1970

I'd recently shot a record album cover for a Miami group called Fantasy and I got a call from Wayne at Liberty Records. He wanted to know if I could schedule a shoot in a few days. They wanted black & white to use for publicity, concert programs, and such. Ike and Tina were playing and staying at the Newport Hotel in Sunny Isles, just a few kilometers from my house. We set up a time for a few days later.

When I arrived they asked me to come up to the room. Tina wasn't ready. She was still doing her hair and make-up. She did her own. Ike asked me if I played guitar, pointing to the one on the bed. I said "not really, but I do know a few blues runs", picked up the guitar and asked him if it would be OK to put it in open G tuning. Once retuned I proceeded to do some fancy runs, slides, and muffing the strings with the heel of my hand after stroking the strings. He liked it and then I had to show him the fingering. We talked about some of the great blues players from the past and he was intrigued that I had so many re-releases of blues records going back the 1920's. Then he said "play something else" and I had to tell him that the reason I could wow him wasn't that I was an accomplished player but that I'd been practicing the same little bit for years, over and over. Tina said she was now lookin' good.

The first location was by the fishing pier that was just south of the Newport, and then we got into a stretch black limo and I told the driver how to get to a place with rows of stately royal palms where a motel had been years before, near Greynolds Park. then they wanted to go to a colored neighborhood.

Just A few blocks to the north were some gravel roads heading east from U.S. 1, going towards the mangroves, that had a number of run down two story houses with rental apartments. In those segregated days that was where the maids and gardeners lived so they could easily walk to work or catch a bus. When we pulled in it caused quite a stir! People wanted autographs and the Turners obliged. That entire neighborhood was bulldozed a few years later and replaced with retirement condos.

On the way back to the Newport Ike talked about the fact that when the hotel booked them they told them that they'd made reservations for the Turners to stay at a colored hotel in downtown Miami. Ike said that if they were good enough to play in the Newport's night club they were good enough to stay at the Newport. Management relented and they were the first blacks to stay at a beachfront "white" hotel in the Miami area.

The top photo was the one that I liked best. The scan is directly off the contact sheet so it's a bit light. I was shooting with an old Minolta Autocord. The art director didn't want me using 35mm.

A Party In Boston ~ Spring 1964

I have no recollection of who she was. I don't remember her name or exactly where the party was. A group of us were at somebody's apartment having a good time. College age people were still making do with bookcases made out of concrete blocks and bare lumber, and just about everybody had a footlocker being used for storage as well as serving double duty as a coffee table or an extra seat. Clothing, though, had yet to adopt the hippie look of studied slovenliness. Heels and a skirt or slacks and a sport jacket were still in fashion. Together with red lips and the pointy tip bra made famous by famous blonde movie star Marilyn Monroe this resulted in some very sexy looking broads. Believe it or not, this was not a posed picture, and I only exposed two frames of the two of them together. The shot of her playing guitar was also one of only two frames, and the other one was vertical.

For a camera I was using a Leica III-f with a 50mm f/1.8 Canon lens

Trying To Play The Guitar

This is one of a mess of old prints I discovered hiding in some 8x10 paper boxes from years ago. "Vintage Print" is what they call them now. It dates to about 1965 and was most likely shot by my new bride Stephanie. We were living in Boston at the time. This new apartment was larger than the last and living room furniture was of lower priority than a kitchen table and chairs. Back then sitting on a floor wasn't unusual in our social set, and I could still spring to my feet without grabbing onto the the window sill and complaining about pain in my knees.

It must have been winter time because snow is plainly visible on the ground outside. I still had visions of becoming a great guitar player. I had no trouble learning the fingering but I can't read music and I'm about as tone deaf as they come. Eventually reality set in and I concentrated on my photography. Back then I had a Leica IIIf with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens and a Nikon finder. It was most likely shot on Tri-X souped in Acufine and printed on DuPont Velour Black graded paper. The print has held up well over the years.