Right Place, Right Time by Bob Gruen

Author:Bob Gruen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2020-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT

John Lennon and New York City T-shirt photos • Elton John Madison Square Garden • The New York Dolls • KISS

John called just after I got back from Japan to ask whether I would come over to shoot the cover for his Walls and Bridges album. The art director had an interesting, but somewhat unconventional concept, a series of pictures, all of John’s face, all the same size, but each with a different expression. They would then cut the pictures into a series of foldable flaps, so people could rearrange them into different faces and expressions, like a toy.

They wanted him to go to a studio to get the photos taken, but he didn’t want to deal with the whole formal process, which would entail makeup and styling and various assistants fussing; it could take a day or two out of his schedule. Instead, he asked me to do the whole series myself in a quick and simple way.

I loved the sound of it, and we arranged a time for me to go over to the penthouse in a couple of days. And, in the interim, John saw a flying saucer.

He was in his living room the evening of August 23, 1974, when he saw colored lights reflecting on the penthouse window. He looked up at the sky and there it was. May Pang was with him, and she’d taken some photos. John called me, asking if I would develop the pictures immediately.

I was already planning to develop some of my own films that evening. I picked up their film and got to work. Weird thing, though. My film came out perfectly, but May’s was entirely blank. She had used a good, ultra-high-speed film that I’d recommended, and it should have worked well in low light. But there was not a single picture on the entire roll.

I brought the film back to show them and asked if he’d called anybody. He said, “I can’t call the newspapers, say I’m John Lennon, and I just saw a flying saucer.”

I said, “Well, I can.” I called the Daily News, asked if anyone had reported a UFO last night. They said yes. “On the East Side, one or two people.” The police said they had no reports, and the New York Times simply hung up on me.

The photo session with John, on August 29, went perfectly. I took dozens of photos of John wearing different eyeglasses, and at one point he ended up putting all the glasses on at once. I also took a shot of him pointing up to the sky, where he saw the flying saucer (he mentions it on the album sleeve). Then he suggested that we take more pictures, so we would have the publicity kit ready when the album was released.

We were on the roof, John in his black jacket with the entire Manhattan skyline visible behind him. I had an idea to play on the New York City theme, and suggested he put on the New York City T-shirt that I’d given him about a year before.

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