We have added another page of previews of Brian Smith’s Boom Boom Boom Blues Photos book to this site. Some of these spreads have been up here before but are now replaced by updated and higher resolution versions. The images below show Chuck Berry warming his fingers up in the dressing room, and Sonny Boy Williamson relaxing back at Roger Eagle‘s Manchester flat before heading back into town for the show that night. The story behind those shots is worth the price of the book alone, trust us!
Snapped at the designer’s (1960s Ercol) worktop a few weeks ago: “I often use a split screen set-up for the design and layout but here preferred to work on the laptop; on a final run through like this any changes are likely to be very minimal, most of the heavy work has – hopefully – been done..!” Each page of the Boom Boom Blues Photo Book is here being signed off via a monochrome laser print prior to preparing the PDF for the printer. The page on screen shows Buddy Guy in action at The Twisted Wheel Club, one of a series of terrific live shots Brian got on the night. Amazingly Buddy’s backing band for the first show were delayed getting there, and a local Manchester group were called in with zero rehearsal time. Buddy almost brought the house down, smashing his guitar into the Wheel club ceiling at the end! We did try a few times to get Buddy to write us a few words for the book but his useless manager rudely ignored all our emails.
Well clearly just the publishers having a bit of fun, with Willy Dixon pointing up the forthcoming book of Brian Smith’s blues photographs. This great shot was taken backstage by Brian and at the time Willy was chatting with Twisted Wheel promoter Roger Eagle. Roger had managed to get Willy to hold up a couple of copies of his ground-breaking blues magazine R’n B Scene (and the original photo is of course in the new book in the original monochrome). The publishers will be sending out a newsletter with updates on the book later this week and you can join that dedicated mailing list at any time.
Another of Brian Smith’s great images. But for once is NOT shown in the Brain Smith Blues Photo Book! Why you may ask? Well, when we first began investigating Brian’s material it quickly became clear that his archive fell into two distinct phases. There was the collection of black and white blues photographs made up to around 1966. Then there was his second phase of work which began after a period away from photography, when he moved into colour in the 1970s. This was also very extensive and covers a longer period as well. So we decided to tackle the mono work first and if there is enough interest, and we feel there might be, a follow up of the colour work might be on the cards. But in the meantime, Brian continues to work with blues labels on their reissues and this striking new CD sleeve is from JSP Records uses Brian’s colour photos on the front and back inlays, and the booklet inside. So we thought we’d show it off here anyway! It’s a scary thought that while we sort of looked upon this material as modern when deciding on the book contents, these shots are already over thirty years old. What was it Cher sang about turning back time? Thanks to Brian and JSP for the artwork scans.
Another of Brian Smith’s great images. This is an early appearance of Spencer Davis on the stage of The Twisted Wheel in 1965, with Stevie Winwood on the right. It has been used for the sleeve of a new collection of Spencer Davis BBC archive sessions by the 1960s Records lab and works quite well we think. They have used other shots from Brian in the past. The original shot is shown in the Brain Smith Blues Photo Book.
Vintage Rock magazine have given Brian Smith‘s upcoming blues photo book Boom Boom Boom Boom a nice plug in their current issue (September), majoring on his Little Richard photographs in tribute to the singer. It is currently on the news-stands if you are venturing out to the shops, or can be ordered direct from the publishers using the links below. Thanks to Steve Harnell for the scan. Brian has now finished his detailed proofing of the book layout so we are getting all this sorted out now. We have also had a really nice foreword for the book done by a famous British blues singer and will be revealing details of that very soon. If you have not yet read about the book, you can do so on the site.
Buy direct and get an issue delivered to your door: bit.ly/32UxeIP
Find the mag in shops with the store locator: bit.ly/2FYBUVc
A quick snap of our designer’s computer screens during work on the Boom Boom Blues Book, as it is alliteratively referred to in the office! Most of the earlier design work has been done on the laptop but as we reach the more detailed final page layout, a split screen process is employed. The actual pages are shown on the larger monitor, with all the software windows, tools and options held on the laptop screen, along with the book pages menu which allows us to zip about the book more quickly. This enables us to see the pages at a much larger size and spot things which might otherwise be missed and do more precise adjustments. Though it does call for nifty hand eye co-ordination or the cursor disappears into who knows where! As you can see there is still room for the old fashioned skills of print-outs and a couple of pencils. Quite what the 1964 packet of Shreddies is doing on the desk though we’re not sure.
We’ve posted another eight pages from the upcoming Blues Photos of Brian Smith title on the site, which give you a good idea of how this is shaping up. Our designer is busy correcting the spreads right now: “I design each page as a single sheet, this allows me to focus on how it looks. Then once the bulk of the pages are laid out, it’s time to turn them into ‘spreads’, so you can see how the left and right hand pages interact with one another visually when they face each other. This then throws up some clashes and you need to love a few elements around, and make it all work visually across the spread. I use two screens for this as you need plenty of digital ‘desk’ space! But the Blues book is coming together nicely, even if I did discover some image duplication today which meant a fair bit of work to correct. But I hope to be done very shortly then it will go out to Brian for proofing and feedback.” The spread below is from the section on Chuck Berry.
Just a few days on from bemoaning the death of Millie, a proper pop star, than another of the acts Brian Smith photographed in the Sixties passes away, this time a proper rock and roll trailblazer, Little Richard. Brian was lucky enough to catch a performance at one of Manchester’s most famous venues of the time, The Oasis Club, in 1964. Just seeing his pictures makes you jealous, as Richard seems in amazing form while the crowd are in awe judging by some of their expressions. Local group The Dakotas got to back him, all under the shadow of a huge Beatles mural decorating the back of the stage. Which is a tad ironic given how much they owed to Richard amongst others! Brian also caught the filming of Little Richard by Granada TV for one of their highly regarded pop specials of the time.
This great shot from the Oasis shows Little Richard working the crowd at the height of his set, and would have made the final selection for the book of Brian’s pics we’re wrapping up – except some of the others are even better!
Richard leaves a musical legacy only a few could equal even back in the Sixties, but his contributions to rock music’s development are unlikely ever to be surpassed in the future.
A real shame to hear today of Millie’s death at the age of 73. Our previous post on this site was to talk about working on photographs of her for Brian’s Blues photo book, and how it was so hard to pick the best. So here is another of the shots which didn’t make the final selection to remember her by; stood beaming for Brian’s camera at the Twisted Wheel Club in May 1964. The band are rocking away in the shadows on the left of the scene, but it’s her irrepressible grin which makes the shot. She would even leave the band to get on with it while she signed autographs mid-set… a proper star.
easy on the eye books 