![\"Clash](\"\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2014\/10\/ClashBobGruen.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBob Gruen is without a doubt a living legend, albeit one who has spent more time out of the spotlight and behind the lens than in front of it. You likely haven\u2019t heard of him, but you\u2019ve almost certainly seen his work. One of the most prolific rock photographers of the \u201860s and \u201870s \u2013 and still producing iconic images to this day \u2013 a recent exhibition of some of his most famous photographs (we\u2019re talking stunning shots of Dylan, Bowie, Lennon and many others) has recently gone on display in Shoreditch, for a new show: \u201cRock Seen\u201d, introducing his talent to a whole new generation of fans: kids who were raised on their parents\u2019 vinyl and the myriad myths and legends that accompanied them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Gruen\u2019s talent is, as he sees it, to capture each person as they want to be seen, and it\u2019s an attitude that\u2019s clear in each and every photograph, which not only shows the subject aesthetically, but somehow translates their spirit into a still image. He is a master of the portrait and, having spent much of his life working with film, possessed of reams of knowledge about a dying art.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I had the honour of catching up with the man himself to discuss his upbringing by less-than-conventional parents in New York in the \u201850s, his entry into the world of Rock N Roll in the \u201860s, and how things have changed thanks to the advent of social media and digital photography. Plus, you know, some casual anecdotes about John Lennon and Yoko Ono!<\/p>\n
How did you get into taking photographs?<\/b><\/p>\n Well photography was my mum\u2019s hobby. So when I was very little, about 3 or 4 years old I was too little to go to sleep very early and too little to be left to around the house, so she\u2019d bring me into the darkroom where she was doing her work. So some of my earliest memories are of developing pictures and counting the seconds. By the time I was 8 years old, since my parents realised I already had an interest in photography they gave me my first camera. And pretty soon I became the family photographer, which I think was good training, because trying to get 5 or 6 dysfunctional people all looking good at the same time was good training for a Rock band!<\/p>\n Who were the first band you took photos of?<\/b><\/p>\n I lived with a band. When I was growing up Rock photography wasn\u2019t a career goal, so my goal at the time was to turn on, tune in, and drop out \u2013 to live with a Rock n Roll band. These guys that I lived with changed names when they changed drummers, but by the end of the \u201860s they were known as the \u201cGlitterhouse\u201d.\u00a0 Just as they were about to break up they were discovered by Bob Crewe, who was an amazing producer, and he did an album for them, and since I\u2019d been living with them and my hobby was photography, I\u2019d been taking photos of them, not as a business, but just, you know, for their publicity as friends \u2013 you know, when they played a show they needed a photo to put up outside the place \u2013 and the record company started using those photographs, and hiring me for more pictures, and pretty soon every time I went on a job I\u2019d meet more people and they\u2019d ask me to take more pictures and it just kinda went on from there. That\u2019s still pretty much what happens now.<\/p>\n So you’re still taking photos?<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, but not as much, because everybody takes pictures. Because what I used to do was news: you\u2019d take some pictures, go home and develop them, find out what you had the next day and make some prints out of that and then send them to a magazine and a week or so later it would get published, and that was news, because people didn\u2019t have the kind of media that we have today. Certainly Rock n Roll wasn\u2019t in the mainstream media in the way it is today. The New York Times<\/i> would not review a Rock n Roll show. Nowadays they do it all the time. So the fact that everybody is taking pictures now, it changes what\u2019s news because by the time the first song is over there are pictures on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram \u2013 it\u2019s not news. So I don\u2019t take pictures the way I used to. But thankfully people like my pictures, and I can have exhibitions like this, with pictures that people will never be able to take again.<\/p>\n They’re really amazing.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n There was something exciting that happened in the \u201870s you know, when Rock n Roll was really developing and going through changes, now it\u2019s much more derivative from those origins.<\/p>\n \u00a0Is there a particular scene that you identify with the most?<\/b><\/p>\n Well it\u2019s not something I think of in that way. I think of myself as today. I learn from the past, look to the future and live in the present. That\u2019s what I try to do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do you still listen to all those old records? They must hold so many memories for you.<\/b><\/p>\n Well I have a huge collection of records and a huge collection of CDs but I mostly listen to what my assistants play. I have a great collection of compilations \u2013 I have a good friend in France, Bruno Blum, who makes some amazing compilations of the roots of Black music, the roots of Rock n Roll, like really rocking music, but from 1926-62, so it\u2019s kind of a Punk attitude, but it\u2019s not necessarily Punk bands. But yeah I listen to whatever, I just put it on shuffle. I\u2019ve got The Clash, everybody from Miles Davis to Green Day and The Strypes, and John Coltrane, Fela Kuti \u2013 there are some great African compilations Bruno has done.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>How did your parents feel about your career path?<\/b><\/p>\n Photography to my mum was a hobby. Both of my parents were lawyers, so they were expecting me to go to college and have a profession where you wear a suit and tie. The fact that I just wanted to take pictures, they had no concept of that as a job, that was what you did after work, so for many years the fact that I was living with Rock n Roll bands, the fact that I was getting drunk all the time, they didn\u2019t think I was accomplishing much. It wasn\u2019t until I got my first book published and some of my parents\u2019 friends started commenting on how amazing the photos were that my mother began thinking I\u2019d accomplished something. Then about 8 years ago I had a large exhibit in a museum in Brazil and my mum came down to that and met a Senator and the Mayor of Sao Paolo, and so I was lucky she lived long enough to see me accomplish something. She\u2019s 101 now!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Wow, she must have seen a lot!<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, she\u2019s a strong woman. I mean becoming a lawyer in 1932 she was one of 5 women in a class of 200 men. And the type of woman my mum was she liked to play basketball, so she founded the St John\u2019s University Women\u2019s Basketball team. And she did that by going up to every woman she saw on the campus and asking if they played basketball. One woman became a good friend of my mum\u2019s. My mum went up to her and asked her if she played basketball, and the woman raised her hand, and said \u201cbut my hand is deformed.\u201d And my mum said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t asking about your hand, I was asking if you played basketball.\u201d So that\u2019s where I come from.<\/p>\n \u00a0You\u2019ve literally photographed everyone.<\/b><\/p>\n Just about. I didn\u2019t get to photograph Otis Redding.<\/p>\n \u00a0Who\u2019s the favourite person you\u2019ve taken photos of?<\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s a tough one, like asking who\u2019s your favourite son. I don\u2019t make lists – I have a lot of favourites. I have great experiences everyday, and I don\u2019t want to do any of them over again. Certainly wouldn\u2019t want to get on The Sex Pistols\u2019 bus again, but it was a hell of a lot of fun when I did!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n