Long before cellphone cameras, there was a time when rock concert photography was a demanding art form practiced only by a few pioneering professionals.
One of those pioneers is Hawaii-born Robert Knight, who is commemorating his 50th anniversary in the business with an updated edition of his beautifully packaged retrospective “Rock Gods: Fifty Years of Rock Photography” (Insight Editions, $19.99).
It is a “tell all” in the best sense of the word.
Knight discovered rock music through a stack of abandoned music magazines, then through records. Still in his teens, he became a travel agent so he could get a discounted ticket to London, an epicenter of youth and pop culture in the swinging mid-’60s. His next move was to San Francisco, which was host to its own cultural revolution and some of the greatest bands and musicians in rock history.
It was amid all that when Knight began creating a career for himself as a professional rock concert photographer. In his book, he describes talking his way into concert venues back when all you needed to do was show up with a camera.
Knight quickly developed the professional skills he needed to be great, and by the time he was in his early 20s, he was known to the era’s biggest rock stars and concert promoters, and had become friends with Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Elton John, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash and Steven Tyler, to name a few.
The photos in Knight’s book, some of them posed and others iconic concert shots, are each memorable. Hawaii residents of a certain age will particularly enjoy his photos of Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart in concert in Honolulu in the early 1970s, and the photo of Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles at the 1973 Diamond Head Crater Festival.
In 2009, Knight’s career was documented in the film “Rock Prophesies.” A second edition of “Rock Gods” was published in January.
Knight, 69, and his wife and partner, rock photographer Maryanne Bilham, are anticipating the opening of their Anthology Lounge, a rock club/cocktail and wine bar in Auckland, New Zealand, in May.
Although his path to success came under circumstances that don’t exist for newcomers in 2018, the advice Knight shares is relevant today: “I have visualized what I wanted and then gone after it,” he writes in the introduction. “This book is about self-empowerment as much as anything else. If you visualize what you want and go after it, your dreams can come true.”
See Knight’s work at knightbilhamphoto.com. The photographer responded to questions via email for a special extended version of “On the Scene.”
QUESTION: That story in your book about Steven Tyler calling you a “scumbag” and then telling you that you could shoot one song in the show — and do it standing one and a half feet in front of Tyler’s microphone at center stage — sounds like a photographer’s nightmare. Was Steven Tyler the most difficult person you ever photographed?
ANSWER: It was not difficult working with Steve, he just liked to wind you up so it could be challenging. At one show, two minutes before Aerosmith was to come on stage, a production guy came up to me and said, “Steven wants you to change your shirt!” I said “You’re kidding!” (and) the guy said, “No, he wants you to wear an Aerosmith T-shirt.” So I ran quickly backstage where they had the shirt and at some point he pulled me on stage.
A difficult shot for me was working for the first time with Yes. I was told to be on time backstage at the Universal Theater in North Hollywood. I waited for an hour only to find out they were eating dinner in front of me. When they finally came over I started to pack up my gear and they said, “What are you doing?” and I said it was time for me to have dinner and left! Years later I was friends with the band and did some amazing shooting with them in the Arizona desert north of Scottsdale.
Q: Did Steven Tyler ever apologize or say anything about those first encounters?
A: For Steven it was always fun. In Nashville on the tour there were dozens of people in his dressing room and in the halls, and he yelled for me down the hall, “Robert come here, are these your people ‘cause they sure are not mine!” I said I did not know who they were.
Q: Your stories about Stevie Ray Vaughan gave me new insight into who he was as a person apart from his work as a guitarist. It sounds like you were able to hang out together as friends as well as working professionals.
A: I had seen Stevie Ray many times before I actually got to know him. In 1989 I was with him and Jeff Beck over at Paisley Park (Prince’s production complex in Minnesota) where they were rehearsing and did a big photo shoot with them all. Stevie and I got to spend a lot of time talking before and after those first shows on tour, and when he found out I hadn’t done any drugs — yet worked with (Jimi) Hendrix and Led Zeppelin — he wanted to know how I stayed straight around all of the madness. He would often come out to L.A. to see me and just talk about how hard it was for him to stay sober, yet once he did he stayed on the path.
Q: Is it possible for you to select a photo where everything came together perfectly?
A: I would say the photo (in his book) of Led Zeppelin in front of the Pan Am plane at Honolulu International Airport (in 1969) was one of those shots. They were carrying the master tapes of “Led Zep 2” and working on it while on tour. How I got them all to stand in front of the plane after everyone got off is still a bit of a mystery to me.
Q: How do you explain to today’s young photographers who know only digital cameras and auto-focus what the challenges were for a concert photographer in the 1970s?
A: You no longer can explain to them what the early days of shooting film and live concerts were like, but it would be like guys from the past trying to talk to me about what photography was like when it was glass plates or tintypes! (Young photographers) are, for the most part, post-production computer artists using all sort of plug-ins. We did not have the luxury of instant playback of images that digital gives you and sometimes needed to wait a few days before we knew the results of our work. Digital has made everyone a photographer (and) iPhones are as powerful in megapixels as our early digital cameras in the mid 2000s.
Q: Is there an entertainer you wanted to photograph but were never able to shoot?
A: Never got to work with Keith Moon. Loved his drumming and first saw (the Who) open for Herman’s Hermits in Hawaii. Also Jim Morrison, who I met when I was very young. He scared me to death but was certainly a possessed person.
Q: Is there an entertainer or two who you remember as being particularly easy or nice to work with?
A: The easiest guys to work with for me would be Stevie Ray, BB King and Buddy Guy. They were all so nice when I worked with them.
Q: Now that the book is out, what is your next big project?
A: I spend my time now between the United States and Auckland, New Zealand, and my wife and I are opening our own rock-and-roll club and high-end cocktail and wine bar in Auckland. My wife is also an amazing rock-and-roll photographer, and you can see large images out of our archives on the walls. (Visit anthologylounge.com).
Reach John Berger at jberger@staradvertiser.com.
