Jim Cummins' photo of Jimi Hendrix performing at Madison Square Garden in 1969 was used by Life magazine the following year for the guitarist's obituary.
Janis Joplin at Fillmore East in February 1969.
Last week, I heard this program by Andrea Shea on the radio on NPR and wanted to bring it to you Andrea Shea The Forgotten Pictures Of A Music Photography Pioneer. And I must say, Cummings' photos are even more impressive in print than they were on the radio. (Humor alert.)
I encourage you to read Andrea Shea's original article, which is a quick and fun read. Her article is a narrative of sentences which is difficult to summarize, and three very short paragraphs doesn't get you very far. You can then watch the minute long slide show of some of Cumming's photos on his YouTube video, either below our follow her link to YouTube.
Cummins grew up in Harlem and took his first picture when he was 7. By the time the 60s, 70s, and 80s rolled around his photos had been displayed on over 900 album covers. He is 67 now.
Cummins had stashed away 2,500 photos and negatives of his life work and "pretty much forgot about them." He ran across them and took them to Bob Pokress, who restores and digitizes images for Chicago Tribune and the U.S. National Archive.
How difficult is has been to chose just a small section of Shea's narrative to share with you. This section which I believe is describing the negative at the top of this page seems to be the best choice. Bob Pokress picks up the story line:
Pokress reverently pulls a vintage magazine out of protective wrapping.
"One of the moments that I was trembling, just in terms of the significance of it, was when Jim pulled out the original slide behind a photo that was used in the October 1970 issue of Life magazine that Life ran as the obituary photo a few weeks after Jimi Hendrix died," Pokress says.
Cummins says he remembers taking that picture at Madison Square Garden, not long before the guitarist died at age 27. It shows Hendrix from the waist up. The musician is looking down.
"It's an intense picture," Cummins says. "He's just isolated. I think there's one little light. It's a more quiet Jimi, and I wanted to get that and present that in a way — you know, compose it the way I wanted."
Cummins says "his restored collection contains more than 2,500 images" and portions of it are supposed to be available online, but I have only been able to find the YouTube slideshow below.
Andrea Shea closes her segment and her articles by telling us that for the last three decades, Chris Murray has run the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C..
You have to admire Andrea's creativity in pulling off a radio program on photographic show. Can you image sitting in the NPR conference room when then assignments were being handed our for that day's radio programs and she gets handed the opening of a "photographic exhibit"- for a radio show! I think she did a great job - she inspired me to look up here article to see these pictures a whole week later, and write this up. And, now all of you are looking at them too. So, I am going to send a copy of this post so she can see how much she inspired me, and all of us. Thank Andrea. Great work!
Warning - Live Video - Press This Link and you will automatically be in Cummings YouTube video watching a slide show of his pix listening to Jimi Hendrix playing Purple Haze. Or, skip the link and press the triangle.
The Lost Photos of Jimi, Janis and The Greats, at Baboo Gallery
Jimi Hendrix drummer Buddy Miles posts with Jim Cummins at the band's 1970 Madison Square Garden experience.
Jimi Hendrix drummer Buddy Miles poses with Jim Cummins at the band's 1970 Madison Square Garden experience.
Wed May 21, 2014 at 10:19 PM PT: If you enjoyed this post you might some of my other posts from today and late last night. I'm still commenting in all of these.
6:35 AM PT: Thanks to rsmpdx for finding this link when I couldn't, and an amazing find it is. What a good feeling to see jim cummings had found a way to make his amazing achievement of a incredible life's work pay off. I hope this link helps him succeed in some small way by bringing traffic his way. Keep on truckin' Jim! - Keep on Truckin! and keekin on taken these remarkable photos recording America's journey through the ages of Rock Music!
From Jim Cummins Online Collection at www.cumminscolllection.imagefortress.com
Jim Cummins
Jim Cummins is an award-winning American photojournalist whose work is well-known from the many photographs he has taken of legendary rock, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, country/western and gospel performers of the 1960's through the early 1980's. Over 900 music albums from that era, many of which went Gold, Platinum and Diamond, used Jim's photographs as their album covers. Many of his other photographs of legendary performers of that era were published as magazine covers and in feature articles in magazines such as Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Life Magazine. Two of Jim's album covers won Album Cover of The Year awards, and Jim's photograph for the cover of the groundbreaking November, 1967 issue of Newsweek Magazine, devoted to the civil rights issues confronting America during the 1960s, won the National Magazine Award.
Born in 1944 in New York City, Jim attended New York City's High School of Music & Art and studied art, drawing and painting at the New York City's Museum of Modern Art, at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and at the Art Students League of New York.
Jim began his career as a photojournalist working for Newsweek Magazine from 1965 through 1970. During that period, Jim also worked for almost all of the major music labels, including Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, Capitol Records, Mercury Records, Savoy Records, Springboard Records, and London Records. Jim has also been a staff photographer for the NBA, Black Enterprise Magazine, the New York Times and Newsday.
From Jim Cummins Online Collection at www.cumminscolllection.imagefortress.com
Jim Cummins
Jim Cummins is an award-winning American photojournalist whose work is well-known from the many photographs he has taken of legendary rock, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, country/western and gospel performers of the 1960's through the early 1980's. Over 900 music albums from that era, many of which went Gold, Platinum and Diamond, used Jim's photographs as their album covers. Many of his other photographs of legendary performers of that era were published as magazine covers and in feature articles in magazines such as Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Life Magazine. Two of Jim's album covers won Album Cover of The Year awards, and Jim's photograph for the cover of the groundbreaking November, 1967 issue of Newsweek Magazine, devoted to the civil rights issues confronting America during the 1960s, won the National Magazine Award.
Born in 1944 in New York City, Jim attended New York City's High School of Music & Art and studied art, drawing and painting at the New York City's Museum of Modern Art, at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and at the Art Students League of New York.
Jim began his career as a photojournalist working for Newsweek Magazine from 1965 through 1970. During that period, Jim also worked for almost all of the major music labels, including Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, Capitol Records, Mercury Records, Savoy Records, Springboard Records, and London Records. Jim has also been a staff photographer for the NBA, Black Enterprise Magazine, the New York Times and Newsday.
