A book like this demands one thing. Research.
Neil has often being called Sherlock, by many music industry execs, but thankfully he doesn’t have the hat. But he does have the dogged determination to track things down. Ask Jess Roden.
So he started to look for a way of getting to the many music photographers that Island records used between 1959 and 1968. He wanted to hear the stories behind the photoshoots. Some funny stories, some unusual comments, but all fascinating.
Luckily, and so very thankfully, we have had amazing positive responses to the #IBoR book from these photographers, and we are so very proud to announce there will be previously unpublished pictures from album shoots.
John Benton Harris – who photographed the Fantasy album has kindly let us have remarkable pictures of Paul Medcalf (Mr Fantasy) never before seen, capturing the creative madness of the day. Also John has kindly let us have pictures he took of the band practising inside the cottage and around fields of the famous Cottage. I’m sure you’d all love to see them, but as you all know, there’s this thing called copyright. Yes we’d love to put these pictures up on the website, but not our copyright. Nor anyone elses.
Dick Polak, also responsible for photoshoots of Traffic albums has given us some outtakes. Wonderful stuff. Takes your breath away. He also given us a great picture of Ian Anderson in Jethro Tull. Very creative trousers.
Not forgetting Gered Mankowitz, who opened up his archive, and gave us privileged access his contact sheets – which really told the story of the sessions. Crikey, he must have had the patience of a saint with some of these rockstars. He’s allowed us to reprint a wonderful Spooky Tooth picture, once considered for an album cover, but a picture covered in vaseline was chosen instead.
Its very memorable stuff, that takes your breath away, and printed in a big vinyl-sized book, makes these pictures even more memorable than looking at a work of art the size of a stamp on a smart phone.
