V!P's International Art Galleries Rotterdam presents:SIXTIES ROCK LEGENDS - ON STAGE BACK STAGE
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Millions of words have been written about the sixties – the groups, the singers and the scene - but nothing captures the magic quite like brilliant photography. It was a time when music was not burdened with the labels that have since become commonplace. Pop music was…well it was pop music. Music marketing hadn’t been invented and while image was everything it wasn’t manipulated and managed like it is today. Music was either in the Pop, Jazz or Classical sections of record shops and Pop was everything from The Mothers of Invention and Jimi Hendrix to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Tich. Unique is an over used word, but Bent Rej’s photographs really do provide just such an insight into a crazy world. His pictures are like ‘time-pieces’ from that magical time when music was testing its boundaries, when radical change was not merely a dream but fast becoming a reality. Crucially Bent’s pictures are not just images of the artists - he has stories and insights to go with his pictures and the exact date when each and every one was shot. Bent was one of a handful of photographers who became part of the scene.
“These people were not stars to us, they were our friends.” Bent Rej “In 1960, aged twenty, I started working for one of Denmark’s leading newspapers taking sport, showbiz and crime pictures; back then you had to be an all rounder. After two years I went freelance and went into fashion photography, as well as taking celebrity pictures and photographs of the Danish royal family. In June 1964 I began taking pictures of pop stars visiting Copenhagen - my first subjects were The Beatles, although Ringo was ill and they used Jimmy Nicol as a stand-in drummer. In the spring of 1965 I found myself in the right place at the right time when The Rolling Stones first visited Denmark. I quickly developed a close relationship with the band and especially Brian Jones, the Stones founder, who became a close friend to my wife and I. He would spend time with us in Copenhagen where he could recover and enjoy good home cooking. It was as often as not Brian who told me which bands were worth taking pictures of, who was ‘in’ and who was not. I was one of a few photographers around the same age as the bands and this, along with my friendship with Brian, gave me access to the artists that my contemporaries didn’t have. When I was staying with Brian in London we would often go to the Ad-Lib or The Scotch of St. James - private members clubs that were the places to be, and where London’s rock aristocracy met. We would arrive around midnight, pay our guinea entrance that included our first Scotch and coke, and immediately we’d be chatting with friends, bands, models and others who were a part of what in May ‘66 the New York Times dubbed ‘Swinging London’. Often, around 3 a.m., we would go to Tara (who ‘blew his mind out in a car’) Browne’s place for a nightcap – a joint and another whisky and coke. There would usually be about a dozen of us; George Harrison and Paul McCartney were often there. The bands I met at the clubs made it easy to fix up photo sessions, without the hassle of going through managers and publicists. One band I got to know that way were The Animals and Chas Chandler, their bass player, in particular. In late 1966 Chas brought Jimi Hendrix over to London and was managing him. When the Jimi Hendrix Experience came to Denmark in May 1967 Chas called me and asked me if I’d like to do some photographs with Jimi, Noel Redding and
“When I was taking these pictures things were a bit crazy but great and a lot of fun. Bent’s unique access and the fact that he was taking pictures in London and Denmark, as well as around Europe, is what makes these photographs so special. Bob Dylan at Elsinore Castle and on stage offers a look at the legend that few other photographers were able to effect. Tom Jones on horseback, before he had even recorded ‘It’s Not Unusual’ (Tom and his manager were hard up and so Bent had to rent the horse). Cream and Eric Clapton at the height of their success, a duck walking Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones – at home and on the road, Van Morrison and Them, and the legendary Ray Charles are all included in what are amongst the very best photographic archive from these amazing times. Bent was there at the end of the three-minute pop song, capturing the moment when Pop became Rock, a time when musicians were beginning to think they might just last a little longer than the 15 minutes that had been allotted to them. It soon became a revolution! No more wearing what your manager told you, smiling for the cameras or jumping off walls to show how happy you were for just being a pop star. Bands were starting to think! Often what they thought was not the sort of thing that your mother would know, and if she did she certainly wouldn’t approve, which was precisely what made rock stars even more appealing. Then the most amazing thing of all happened, us fans started to grow older with our favorite artists. Bent’s photographs preserve a unique time in our cultural history, when the times really were a-changin. Click on the link below to watch the interview with Bent Rej on Belgium television: Catalog available:
V!P's INTERNATIONAL ART GALLERIES ROTTERDAM |
