Shooting the Blues

The blues, and the musicians who practice the art, attract a wide melange of folk who range from rabid fans, earnest record collectors, dancers and simply those who appreciate a good tune performed with feeling and passion.

Some of these aficionados further their interests by learning to play an instrument and find themselves migrating from the dance floor to the bandstand. Others develop a passion for writing about the music and its players, and contribute to one or more of the vast number of magazines and websites devoted to the genre.

And a few, those with an eye to the moment and that moment's place in time, haul a camera around with them to shows, to attempt to capture, in the words of the late Alan Lomax, that instance when the artist ‘is spinning at the apex of creation’.

Just such a fellow is Joseph A. Rosen, known simply as Joe by those of us lucky enough to call him a friend.

I first ran into him in early 1981, when he was in the process of moving to New York City from Pittsbugh, PA, and he shot several performances of Roy Brown fronting Roomful of Blues during their March and April tour of New England.

Roy Brown

Although Joe had been making a living from photography for several years, and had been shooting musicians during his stay in Pittsburgh, his move to New York signalled a decision to expand his career from being a regional player to working for one of the country’s premier PR firms. And of course, it didn’t hurt that New York City was, and is, a major entertainment center hosting countless clubs and theaters.

For many years, Joe was the ‘first call’ photographer for those times when Roomful needed a new PR shot, and we became very good friends. I watched his career develop with interest - he shot the album covers for our two Grammy-nominated Muse Records with Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson and Big Joe Turner - and by the end of the decade, he was,  it seemed, ‘first call’ for many acts and labels, his work appearing in a multitude of magazines and on record covers.

Now 45 years later it is simultaneously gratifying, amazing and breathtaking to see just what that decision to move to the Big Apple has parlayed itself into. He has quite possibly done more to document the blues scene since the late 70s than anyone else. 

Big Mama Thornton

Just as the sixties had seen the careers of many old blues musicians from the twenties and thirties revitalized, so the decades of the eighties and nineties saw a resurgence of interest in the blues stylings of the forties and fifties, and artists from those periods found themselves in demand again. 

And Joe has been around to document it all. In clubs, theaters, at festivals, on board cruise ships catering to blues fans - he is a true blues traveler. He and his camera have been everywhere.

Dave Bartholomew

His latest book, ‘Inside the Moment’ (Schiffer Publishing) is a collection of around 125 ‘moments’ … each one capturing its subject in a moment that is quintessentially ‘theirs’, each shot immortalizes that point in time when the artist and setting transcend time and space to ascend a state of, if not grace, certainly the very essence of their art and of their being. 

It is a collection of photos that seamlessly morph the act of creating music with the art of creating a picture; one that creates visual impact from sonic impact - the alchemy of the lens.

Percy Sledge

And it is all here in the most glorious black and white. Joe has covered it all - the chapters include ‘Modern Blues Founders’, ‘Soul’, Jazz’, ‘Louisiana Riches’, ‘Rhythm And Blues’, ‘Blues Moving Forward’,  ‘Mississippi Blues’, and ‘Rock & Roll’. Most of the genres stars are here as would be expected, B. B. King, Aretha Franklin, Muddy Waters, Fats Domino etc, but Joe’s deep knowledge and love of the music comes through with cameos of the more unsung characters, vis-a-vis Andre Williams, Bobby Parker, Homesick James and Henry Townsend.

Ike Turner

The photos are interspersed with pen portraits by luminaries such as Dick Shurman, Ben Sandmel, Tony Outhwaite, Billy Price, Bill Dahl and other heavyweights, plus there are historical and anecdotal thumbnail sketches in the back of the book about the artists and photographs written by Joe and his colleague/co-author Gary Hill.

Signed copies of INSIDE THE MOMENT can be obtained at https://josepharosen.com/inside-the-moment/  and unsigned copies from major booksellers.

Little Richard