All Access: Our Interview with Ken Regan

I am a sucker for rock photography.

I'm not talking about the finely-managed images of Lady Gaga or Coldplay that get sprayed across the Internet as if from a fire hose. I'm talking about images of the titans of music, at the height of their powers, that defined what rock and roll meant to a generation. Imagine Freddie Mercury with arm raised before the crowds at Live Aid. Or Jimmy Page, hair flopping across his face, channeling primal sounds from his fingertips. Or four boyish lads from Liverpool grinning into the cameras upon their first arrival in America. Those are the images that still stick in our collective consciousness as the essence of youth, music, and the our own teenage memories of AM radio blasting through tinny speakers in our parents' cars.

And Ken Regan was there. He is an award-winning photojournalist who has taken some of the most memorable photos of the last 50 years, ranging from sports icons to war zones. And he's also had the good fortune to have traveled with, photographed, and becomes friends with the legends of rock and roll. He has just published a new retrospective, All Access: The Rock 'N' Roll Photography Of Ken Regan, which showcases his decades of work capturing the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and virtually everyone else of significance at their most intimate and accessible. It's a must have for any fan of rock, and I had the pleasure of speaking with him at length about it.

Your career has spanned decades and spans so many subjects. Why a retrospective on rock and roll, and why now?
Yeah, I started out as a sports photographer then I started doing music, then I started doing politics, then I did wars and then I did food and fashion. I've done a little bit of everything, and I've always wanted—when I got into photography—not to be pigeonholed as a rock photographer or a sports photographer, but to be someone who is diversified and can walk into all different elements of life and have the pleasure of photographing them.

I had done a book with the publisher, Insight Editions, about four years ago that was a retrospective of boxing, and they wanted to do another book with me. I wanted to do a full retrospective, but they felt we'd be better off doing a music book since I'd done so much music over the years. We were supposed to do it two years ago, but the recession hit and the publisher felt like the timing wasn't good to put out a big expensive holiday book. So here we are.

The Symmetry Of Spoons

Desirer Walks The Streets
by Andy Summers

Normally when worlds collide, people die. But when Rock 'N' Roll and photography knock boots and produce offspring, magic happens.

I'm fresh off of seeing Andy Summers at National Geographic Grovsner Auditorium where he showed fifty random photographs and later had a sit down and Q&A session with Mark Seliger and the audience.

Because I am a lifelong Police fan, it would be unfair of me to pretend that I'm even slightly objective about this. I will say, however, that his black and white images were well chosen, thought provoking, and beautifully shot. They really captured something you can't get if photography is not in your blood.

His royal blondness emerged from the wings after a lengthy introduction, in a fetching green and black ensemble and proceeded to lead us on a journey around the world, spinning a yarn about every shot that flashed up behind him.

Because I was having a hard time concentrating, I kept repeatedly pinching my left forearm to remind myself NOT to make the very easy leap from my chair onto the stage like the aged groupie I am. I ended up fidgeting with my too complicated scarf and trying not to make mewing noises to distract him.

All in all, a fantastic experience that explicitly asked for NO PHOTOGRAPHY under threat of bodily take down.

I wish Andy would make more of these kind of appearances as he is such a hoot to listen to, but I guess my husband summed it up best as we waited for a cab home in the frigid DC air, "what a life on that guy."