Once upon a time, the photos and artwork on albums told as much of a story as the music itself. Recall, for example, the entranced gaze of the young William Miller in Almost Famous as he traces his finger over the glossy, kaleidoscopic covers of albums by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. It’s a revelatory moment, unveiling the deep emotional and physical connectivity in music and art.
Great music photographers have visions: they see the interplay of spaces and shadows and light that convey in a photograph the emotional stillness or chaos of a moment. Over almost four decades, Chicago photographer Jim Newberry (who now resides in Los Angeles) chronicled the rise of a vibrant Chicago music scene, providing crisply vivid images for the Reader, the city’s indie paper, and shooting album covers and press photos for labels including Touch and Go, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey. Now, in a gorgeous book, Chicago Music, Seen: 100 Portraits, he has drawn from his deep archive to offer a collection of images—28 color photos and 79 black-and-white photos—that reveal the depth and diversity of the city’s music scene.
In his introduction, Newberry writes: “In selecting the 100 portraits for this book, my goal was not to present an exhaustive overview of Chicago music; nor was it a priority to present the ‘best’ or most famous Chicagoans I’ve shot. My two main criteria were: first, to select images that were most compelling photographically; and second, to select images that would complement the others, to form a harmonized collection.” The subjects of his portraits include Mavis Staples and Buddy Guy, Frankie Knuckles and Liz Phair, Robbie Fulks and Jeff Tweedy, among many others.
