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May 5 - 12, 2000

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Linda McCartney's '60s behind the scenes

by Louis Despres

LINDA McCARTNEY'S SIXTIES: PORTRAIT OF AN ERA
At Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, through July 2.

The '60s really started on February 9, 1964. Sure, we had watched John Glenn orbit the Earth in 1963, mourned the death of President John F. Kennedy, and celebrated as Martin Luther King Jr. stormed Birmingham. But a year later, on this particular Sunday night, the new era began: the Beatles made their Stateside debut on The Ed Sullivan show. An

estimated 73 million people, nearly 60 percent of the US television audience, were watching their Philcos and Zeniths while "All My Loving" blasted from their crude monaural speakers. Everything would be different now.

In Arizona, a young transplanted New Yorker, Linda Eastman, was one of those viewers. A fine-arts major at the University of Arizona, Eastman was developing a love for photography. Though she had to borrow a camera, her teacher told her she had a good eye. He urged her to keep shooting.

From this prodding Eastman (later McCartney after her marriage to a certain famous bass player) would emerge one of the most sought-after music photographers. Her ability to catch rock stars in their most natural, comfortable, and intimate moments was unparalleled. She had unprecedented access to musicians in a world where only men were allowed. On May 6, the Worcester Art Museum offers "Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era." The 51 color and black-and-white photographs recall a time when everything was new, bold, and slightly out of control. In the pictures, you will see old friends, people you forgot, some you'll remember, and others who'll have you asking "who's that?" But all are displayed with an astonishing freshness -- made more astonishing considering they were shot over 30 years ago.

In 1964, like many photo amateurs, Eastman was taking pictures of her newborn daughter, nature, and anything that caught her eye. She moved back to New York in 1965 and got an office job at Town & Country magazine. And one day, while opening the mail, she saw an invitation to a press reception for the Rolling Stones to be held on a boat sailing down the Hudson River. She took it, and, as luck had it, she was the only photographer allowed on board. She shot as an amateur would in the days before auto everything: focus and click and guessing at exposure. (She ruined all her color shots from the trip by forgetting to adjust the ASA from black and white). She would never use a flash, preferring natural light to the artificial. Anyway, how could you take an unobtrusive shot of Mick Jagger with an annoying and definitely noticeable flash going off every few seconds? She may have missed many photos; but the fast film she used and a very steady hand made up for it.

Once the boat docked, Eastman was besieged by the press who wanted photographs. True to her naiveté, she gave her pictures away (for free!). But this "assignment" established her as a professional photographer, and Linda started to earn a living by it.

In 1966, she met and photographed the Doors on their first trip to New York. Eastman took the band to Chinatown, out book shopping, and showed them why New York was the city that never sleeps. She got along well with singer and ex-film-student Jim Morrison; they spent hours talking about filmmaking and photography. Morrison looked through Eastman's work but was hesitant to let her shoot photos of him because, he told her, she captured the true characters of her subjects. The still-shy-at-heart "Lizard King" didn't want anyone peering into his soul. He relented, though, and Eastman's live shots, blurred slightly, display the energy and the power of the band. A color photograph at WAM shows a young and vital Morrison and guitarist Robbie Krieger as they rocked the Fillmore East in 1968.

As her photography career took off, she met more bands who epitomized what the '60s were about musically: the Mamas and Papas, shown in their hotel room prior to their break up, the weariness of the road written all over Papa John's face; and Cream, with bearded drummer Ginger Baker sitting in a hotel waiting to talk to a reporter, hand on his forehead, revealing that stardom is not always fun and exciting. There's a bespectacled Bob Dylan -- in what may be the most visually stunning piece at WAM -- sitting, face slightly askew from the camera, the black background enveloping him, his right arm in the air, scratching his ear. He's totally off guard. There's Frank Zappa, holding his young daughter Moon Unit in his hands. A 19-year-old Tim Buckley is captured looking wide-eyed and hopeful. Janis Joplin, the fun-loving Queen of San Francisco rock, looks fragile, her sad eyes almost predicting her death. And, of course, there's the master of the six-string, Jimi Hendrix.

Eastman first met Hendrix in England in 1967 when she was taking photos for Rock and Other Four Letter Words. Hendrix was an absolute unknown at this time in America, and he was afraid to return. Eastman photographed him many times, and the two became close friends. She liked his shyness, and Jimi admired her for her straightforward and intelligent manner. Eastman's photo of Hendrix performing live in Central Park may be the definitive shot of the Stratocaster King in concert. A single spotlight focuses on him right after he brings his left hand across the strings, hitting a power cord; the reverberations echo and the force grips his body, winding up as an open-mouth expression of ecstasy. THIS is the power of rock and roll, baby! Other shots show Hendrix in a more subdued, relaxed light, letting us know he was a tender and warm person.

McCartney and Hendrix conversed infrequently after Linda met Paul McCartney, but, in 1969, they reunited at a party for folkie Mary Hopkins (Paul discovered and produced her first album). They promised to see each other soon, but they never did: 18 months later, on September 18, 1970, Hendrix died.

McCartney was not just a rock photographer, though she was the first hired by Rolling Stone. She also shot actors, models, and soul musicians. One of these, a photograph of model Twiggy, reveals how Linda could make a simple photograph look extraordinary. Sans makeup and pretension, Twiggy looks like any other teenager popping over to the house for a visit -- but she happens to be the most famous model at the time. The unplanned and totally spontaneous atmosphere beams just as Twiggy's smile and childish adolescence endears us to her.

Linda's trip to England in 1967 to work also put her in touch with the man who was to change her life and career forever, Paul McCartney. The two bands she wanted to photograph during her stay in the UK were Steve Winwood's Traffic and the Beatles. Having already shot the first photographs of the newly formed Traffic in southern England, Eastman brought her portfolio to the offices of the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, hoping she'd have access to the Fabs. While waiting for Epstein's answer, Linda bumped into Paul McCartney at a nightclub, as she's told it, the two fell instantly in love. The next day, as she was photographing British rockers the Move, Epstein called to invite Eastman to a press reception at his apartment to preview the new Beatles album Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. She went to the press conference, documenting the party with her camera, and talked to Paul all evening. They remained in touch with phone calls and infrequent weekends together. In September 1968, Paul called Linda and asked her to come over to London to stay with him. She did and ended up taking excellent pictures of the Beatles during the White Album and Abbey Road sessions. One memorable shot has the "bored with it all" Beatles (a few months before breaking up) sitting on the steps outside EMI, each slump-shouldered Beatle gazing his own way, foreshadowing the inevitable.

Throughout the following years, Linda would often turn her lens on her favorite subject: it's in these pictures of Paul we see him in his most relaxed and comfortable state. During a visit to Paul's hometown of Liverpool in 1970, Linda shot the most uncharacteristic and wonderful pose of her love. A fully bearded McCartney -- dressed in a suit, a dress shirt buttoned up to his neck, hands thrust in pockets, standing against a brick wall -- looks like one of the toughs the Liverpool docks spit out in droves. Paul gives us a stern look, chest puffed up, imaginary muscles bulging underneath the tweed jacket; it's easy to get the impression "the cute Beatle" may be ready to jump out at you and give you a beating just for the hell of it. In this one photo, we supposedly see McCartney as he is with no stage makeup, a man who was the product of a seaport town, still having fun with that image of Liverpool, his tongue firmly stuck in his cheek.

In 1969, Paul proposed to Linda and the last bachelor Beatle was no more. They married on March 12, 1969, and Linda's career as a music photographer was essentially over. She would continue to photograph throughout the years but usually for her own pleasure. The newlyweds lived in London for a few months before the official announcement the Beatles had broken up. Even though it was April 10, 1969, and the next decade had already started -- emotionally, at least -- the '60s and the music and cultural revolution it spawned were officially over.

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