The Story Behind the Photos
Part 3: The Eddy Street photo shoot
Later that week, after arranging the time and date with Wolf, I gave some excuse to my employer about a dental appointment or something… and drove to the Eddy Street Hotel and Motel, where Wolf had been put up. I took along a rented 4x5 view camera, my tripod, and I managed to borrow the bank’s Nikon SLR. I think I somehow had even arranged to use my parents car for the day!
So then…there we were, in the sleaziest place I’d ever been in (up until then, that is, I’ve lived in much worse since, but will save that for my novel.) This was not just a funky and old building in a funkier-yet part of town one of San Francisco’s two black ghettos at the time, but centrally located, thus since-gentrified) but there was actually one (the ONLY) chair, a semi-easy type chair, with wooden arms, that sported a huge sharp very dangerous coil spring that poked way up from the middle of where the cushion used to be. Like a bad joke! I could not believe it would even be in the room! What was the point? (no pun intended.) Wolf had to sit on the arm of that chair for some shots, when not standing or sitting on the bed.
We then further discussed the logistics and I set up and took some photos (mostly the 4x5 shots) inside his room there and later, outside in the back carport area – there were no cars there – hence the numbers 12 & 13 on the background’s brick wall in some of the photos, denoting designated parking spaces.
The broken windows, un-maintained structures, bottles, barbed wire and broken glass in the background of a few other shots is “neighborhood ambiance” (but perhaps, in some regards, somewhat of a slight step up from the West Side of Chicago where the next year I spent some time with Wolf at his club, Key Largo, on West Roosevelt.)
When ABC Booking later illegally copied my photos, they cropped the ambience out of that iconic photo of Wolf howling with guitar (along with my photocredit and copyright indication!) This then cost me a lot of time and revenue, as well as artistic recognition, although finally at this much later date it’s (just about) corrected in all countries where I’ve found it being used commercially.During the Eddy Street shoot, I also got some great close-up portraits of Cassell Burroughs because I thought his face was remarkable and photogenic – and I know I sent him some through Wolf, eventually, and the same for other members I’d photographed in concert and at the next shoot, except I’m not sure that then-local resident BB Jones ever saw his, although I also got some cool performance type poses of him. I believe I had his address (and still may, somewhere) at the time, and may have sent him some c/o his father.
Cassell himself took a few pictures of me with Wolf, too, and although the focus was not that sharp on any of them (though I’d attempted to pre-focus them in advance) it’s clear enough to show Wolf’s and my great sense of camaraderie, and my total sense of joy and gratitude to be a part of such moments. I stood precariously on a “parking bumpstop” in some of those shot of us so as to better get more parity of height with The Wolf.
We concluded the photo session, which took at least 3 hours, having put lots of detailed attention into it, and with each of us having used ideas about how Wolf would be photographed in those many shots. We took some pictures of Wolf with a number of “products” on hand there, as well, as we both wanted to see his image used for advertising and marketing.
We worked very well together, having what I believe was a very special connection, and we were each again “in the zone,” as you will no doubt decide yourself from the results, which are in all humbleness without a doubt among the finest and most intimate portraits of the Wolf ever taken.
Only after his death was Wolf to be seen in conjunction with my photo being used on a product advertisement (The Gap’s “Howlin’ Wolf Wore Khakis” campaign) other than his own material. But, if you know of any other such uses, ever PLEASE get back to me about with information.
