SoHo Blues is a personal collection of photographs documenting an
exciting but bygone era in New York City. While chief photographer for
the SoHo Weekly News, I covered a wide variety of subjects, ranging
from street performance art to disco decadence at Studio 54. In 1973,
when the paper started publishing, SoHo was nothing like the boutique
and chain-store mall it is today. Bounded by Houston St. on the north -
which is where the acronym “SoHo” for south of Houston comes from -
Broadway on the east, Canal St. on the South, and West Broadway on
the west, SoHo was outwardly a quiet run-down industrial section of
Manhattan. But SoHo was bursting with creative activity in its large loft
spaces behind the somber cast-iron façades, and it would expand in
terms of geography and cultural influence. Art galleries followed the
artists who had pioneered the area with their studios, and they in turn
were followed by a few neighborhood restaurants and bars. It became
home base for the SoHo News, but things were happening all over New
York, and not just in the art world. Economically, New York City was
undergoing a severe financial crisis, and the country was emerging from
the double disasters of Vietnam and Watergate. In terms of lifestyles, the
cultural and political revolution of the 60s ceded to hedonism and
decadence.
Many trends and themes are explored in my photographs in SoHo Blues, especially in the realm of culture. In the art world, pop art gave way to
1 performance art. In music, rock ‘n’ roll succumbed to disco music, then surged back as punk rock. Hanging out in bars like Max’s Kansas City at night was very different from seeing and being seen in glamorous discos like Le Jardin. Public nudity and sex were accepted, commercialized, and even glorified. As certain places and trends were popular, so were certain people, many becoming pop icons like Andy Warhol and John Lennon.
Warhol was an extremely prolific artist, working in painting, graphics, film, photography, and publishing. No wonder he called his studio “The
Factory.” He collaborated with many people, creating his own constellation of “Superstars,” who in turn spun off their own hyperstylized imitators and followers. Andy was always on the scene, both as documentarian and celebrity. Lennon had settled in New York
City after the breakup of The Beatles, finding it a place where he could be himself and be left alone. He too collaborated with other artists, such as downtown protest singer David Peel. Several solo albums and joint efforts with Yoko Ono were recorded in New York. Lennon withdrew almost completely from view after the birth of his son Sean. After five years of seclusion, he emerged in the summer of 1980 bursting with creative energy and enthusiasm. With his tragic assassination, New York City - and the world - lost a big part of its heart and soul. So when Warhol,
Lennon, and many other creative people left the scene, a cultural vacuum ensued which has remained unfilled. Certainly the energy in
New York’s art world, music scene, and nightlife has dissipated greatly
2 since this era. The photos in SoHo Blues remind me, and those I shared
the time with, of the creativity and craziness of the 70’s and early 80’s,
before AIDS, Reagan, and Yuppies took us over. In particular, the very
intimate photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken just before
his death, deepen the meaning of the title SoHo Blues.
On the Ides of March, 1982, I received a phone call to come to the newspaper office right away. I knew immediately what the call meant. I arrived to attend the last staff meeting of the SoHo Weekly News, chaired by John Leese of Associated Newspaper Group of Great Britain. ANG, owner of London’s Daily Mail, had bought SoHo a few years before, installed a clueless editor and publisher, and then run the paper into the ground. Having worked for the paper for over eight years - virtually since its inception - this change represented was a profound disappointment.
All of us on the staff were passionate about our combined effort, so after
Mr. Leese told us the paper would no longer publish, I gave a little speech. Standing on the desk where I was shooting the meeting, I said,
“I have been here since 1973, and I think today is a damn shame.
If you had listened to people who know what’s going on in New York instead of paying inflated salaries to your managers, you would have had something today you could have been proud of. If you (Leese) and ANG
3 are typical of the managerial class in England today, it’s no wonder the sun has set on the British Empire.”
Leese’s already red nose turned a darker shade of beet at this, and I felt a bit better for having expressed the anger many of us were feeling. But an era was suddenly ending.
A year or two after the paper ceased publication, David Bowie asked me for a set of actual SoHo papers, which I delivered on the condition that we could meet and talk face to face about the SoHo News and those times. The meeting occurred much later, but when it finally did take place, he thanked me profusely and commented that for him the papers were like an ”encyclopedia of the 70’s.” When he saw the photographs
I’ve been printing, he had insightful and amusing comments on each of them. I asked him to write for the book, and he enthusiastically said that he would love to.
As a photography book I believe SoHo Blues will appeal to a broad spectrum of the book-buying public, including the following:
• Scene-makers and trendies, especially downtown types who were
around during that era. This is a very large group and exists in many
other cities besides New York.
4 • Fashion designers, advertising creative directors, and graphics
designers looking for ideas and style.
• People intrigued by the new interest in the 70’s, but were too young to
have participated in it and can now only do so vicariously.
• Music fans, especially John Lennon fans, who like music-photo
books.
• Photographers and photo-industry people who appreciate black and
white photography.
• Sophisticated New Yorkers and people who love New York City.
It’s wonderful for me to watch people seeing this collection for the first time. They laugh, or shake their heads in disbelief, or give a knowing smile at a lost memory triggered by an image. The few existing books about this period focus on only single facets of New York life such as disco or performance art. SoHo Blues paints a complete and unadorned portrait of this era within a political and sociological context. These were the years of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan,
Abe Beame, and Ed Koch. The Arab Oil Embargo was affecting the economy, and the Vietnam War was eroding respect for government.
Despite the uptown glamour and downtown attitude, there were many social ills and there was much political rebellion. The SoHo News covered these areas as well as the trendy ones. It is the irony of combining an image such as a nude performance artist with one of Ed Koch and Bess
5 Myerson backstage on election night that gives SoHo Blues credibility as
a total document. It is this irony that gives the book its wry humor.
The prints to be used in the book are of very high quality and for the
most part they are printing-press ready. There is a current surge of
interest in this era, and since this book project was begun, many events
involving these photos have happened or will happen to enhance its
visibility. For example:
• A multimedia Internet Website at TIME Online entitled “Funkytown -
New York City in the 1970’s” with SoHo Blues photos, music, and an
interview with Allan Tannenbaum.
• A photograph in the exhibit entitled “The Last Dance - Nightworld in
Photographs” at the Serge Sorokko galleries in SoHo and San
Francisco.
• A nightlife issue of American Photo (July-August 1997) featuring
Studio 54 photos by Allan Tannenbaum and an interview with him.
• An exhibition of 50 of the photographs at the 9th Annual Visa Pour
L’Image, the big photo festival in Perpignon, France in September
1997.
I have asked Peter Occhiogrosso to write the text for my book and he has agreed to do so. He was the music editor at SoHo Weekly News, my
6 closest collaborator there, and of course a successful author in his own right. Among the books he has published are The Real Frank Zappa Book and Inside Spinal Tap.
Besides taking a look at the culture and the style of the times, there are two other aspects that enhance the content of SoHo Blues. They are emotions rather than concepts; a sense of fun and a sense of loss. Every photo is either funny, strange, or a reminder of freer times. Seeing some of our favorite people so much younger or even just seeing them alive shows us how deep our loss really is, inviting an ineffable sadness and pang of nostalgia - the blues. What was then once new and exciting is now just a pile of yellowing and crumbling newspapers. But I want this collection of images will reawaken our sense of the recent but quickly receding past. And like good blues music, the images make us feel good.
Chapter 1. SoHo – Mondo Art
This section of photos represents the original raison d’etre of the SoHo
Weekly News. Performance artists like Stephen Varble were regular features of SoHo street life, and the gallery scene was happening. Also included are portraits of artists such as Larry Rivers in their studios with their most recent work.
7
Chapter 2. Man and God and Law
The title for this section comes from a Bob Dylan song and encompasses the political and societal milieu which was the background for the creativity flourishing at the time. It provides a context for the excesses of the SoHo era. Ed Koch and Bess Myerson, Jimmy Carter and Cardinal
Cooke, devotees of Hare Krishna and followers of Veronica Lueken, and the Arab Oil Embargo were all part of post-Watergate society.
Chapter 3. There’s No Biz Like…
…Show Biz. At the SoHo News we gave extensive coverage to entertainment and the performing arts. (Because of the volume of material, I’m putting music into its own section.) I had very good access to theater and movie stars, and photographed people like Jack
Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, and Sigourney Weaver in exclusive sessions. However, not only the big movie stars made it into the paper.
Characters like cable TV smut-meister Ugly George received their 15 minutes (or one week) of fame as well.
Chapter 4. The Music Scene - From Disco to Punk
8 Many things about working for the SoHo News made it the best job in
New York City. Foremost among them was going to concerts and clubs to see, hear, and meet many of my favorite jazz and rock musicians. This section contains exclusive photos of Mick Jagger, Blondie, Devo, Sun Ra,
Bob Marley, and many others. There are also concert photos capturing exciting moments of live performance by David Bowie, The Clash, and others.
Chapter 5. John Lennon and Yoko Ono - The Dream Is Over
John Lennon emerged from five years of seclusion in 1980 with a new album entitled “Double Fantasy,” recorded with his wife, Yoko Ono. They had granted interviews to The New York Times, Newsweek, Playboy,
Rolling Stone, and thanks to the efforts of myself and Peter Occhiogrosso,
The SoHo Weekly News. Two photo sessions with Lennon and Ono yielded some very intimate and touching photos taken just ten days before Lennon’s untimely death. The issue on the newsstands that week featured by strange coincidence the cover line “Yoko Only.” The following week a memorial issue appeared.
Chapter 6. I Love The Nightlife - Studio 54, The Mudd Club, Beyond
Nothing exceeds like excess. Many clubs and discos came and went in the 70’s and 80’s, some of them in the vanguard of the decadence
9 movement, others pushed the envelope of conceptual art. The 82 Club and Le Jardin were the grandparents of Studio 54 and the Mudd Club.
Jerry Brandt’s Erotic Circus and the Copacabana flashed in the pan, but faded fast. These and other nightspots, such as the Hellfire Club, allowed me to photograph situations that I imagine would be hard to find today.
Other chapters, such as Fashion and Lifestyles, will probably be added.
10