Classic rock photographer gives Montalvo audience ‘Best Seat in the House’
Saratoga’s Montalvo Arts Center host the only photographer to have shot album covers for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and The Who for a night of multimedia storytelling on March 19.
Photographer and writer Ethan Russell will present “The Best Seat in the House” at the Carriage House Theatre at 7:30 p.m.
“Montalvo has presented iconic musicians to the community for decades, and now we are so excited to present the iconic photographs of Ethan Russell,” said Kelly Hudson, Montalvo’s managing director.
The show features more than 400 photos Russell shot in the 1960s and ’70s, but Russel said he’s going beyond the photography to give the audience insight on rock ‘n’ roll and the history of the time period.
Russel is among those who saw the Rolling Stones at Altamont and watched the Beatles’ last live performance at at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.
He is a multi-Grammy nominated photographer and director who shot the album covers for the Beatles’ “Let it Be” and “Hey Jude,” as well as the Rolling Stones’ “Through the Past Darkly.” Russell is also featured in Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary “Get Back” on Apple TV.
“For me, the value of my photography…is that I got to be in these incredible places with these incredible people, and I was just there with them taking pictures that didn’t change what was in front of the camera,” Russell said. “That’s what you get to see; you get to be a part of the show. You get to be there.”
Russell will tell the audience about his “extraordinary stroke of luck,” becoming a photographer in London in the 1960s. He’d just moved to England from his hometown of San Francisco and dreamed of being a writer, but instead landed a job taking photos for some of the most famous bands of all time.
“The story is every bit as important to me as the images,” Russell said. “This kid that lived in San Francisco .. got on a plane and went to England with no goal whatsoever in mind… when a friend of a friend saw I had a couple of pictures that I had left over from college and asked me if I wanted to photograph his next interview.”
“‘Sure,’ I said, ‘Who is it?” and he said ‘Mick Jagger,’” Russell said.
Slowly, the photographer watched the music industry evolve into a hyper-visual industry, and saw the rise of creative control over musicians.
“When television takes over, it becomes about image,” Russell said. “So for this period of time, I was able to take pictures that weren’t about making musicians look like a product.”
He went on the Stones’ 1969 “Let it Bleed” tour with a team of just 16 people and was given access to photograph the band behind the scenes. Now, rock photographers are given five minutes to get their shot, and the record companies own the photos.
“Then the picture that you get is not real,” Russell said. “You pay a big price for that, and we’re paying for it.”
Tickets for “The Best Seat in the House” are $48-$52 at https://my.montalvoarts.org.