Having fun

Another of Brian Smith’s great images. But for once is NOT shown in the Brain Smith Blues Photo Book! Why you may ask? Well, when we first began investigating Brian’s material it quickly became clear that his archive fell into two distinct phases. There was the collection of black and white blues photographs made up to around 1966. Then there was his second phase of work which began after a period away from photography, when he moved into colour in the 1970s. This was also very extensive and covers a longer period as well. So we decided to tackle the mono work first and if there is enough interest, and we feel there might be, a follow up of the colour work might be on the cards. But in the meantime, Brian continues to work with blues labels on their reissues and this striking new CD sleeve is from JSP Records uses Brian’s colour photos on the front and back inlays, and the booklet inside. So we thought we’d show it off here anyway! It’s a scary thought that while we sort of looked upon this material as modern when deciding on the book contents, these shots are already over thirty years old. What was it Cher sang about turning back time? Thanks to Brian and JSP for the artwork scans.

Spencer Davis Group

Another of Brian Smith’s great images. This is an early appearance of Spencer Davis on the stage of The Twisted Wheel in 1965, with Stevie Winwood on the right. It has been used for the sleeve of a new collection of Spencer Davis BBC archive sessions by the 1960s Records lab and works quite well we think. They have used other shots from Brian in the past. The original shot is shown in the Brain Smith Blues Photo Book.

Blues views

We have published our first promotion video about Brian Smith’s Blues Photo Book “Boom Boom Boom Boom on the Easy Books YouTube channel. You can check this out using the link (the video should show here on most browsers).

Do pass the word around! We used to boycott YouTube as it was a largely pirate operation but in recent years efforts have been made to clear copyrights properly so rights owners do get some sort of payment, albeit tiny! So for example this promo uses a music clip from the track of the same name, and YouTube checked this before allowing it to be posted.

Brian and myself are trying to arrange our Covid safe final meet up to go through his final amendments then we should be good to go. Do’t forget that if you subscribe to the Blues Book newsletter, you will have already had this news. You join by checking the forthcoming page for the title.

Vintage Rock

Vintage Rock magazine have given Brian Smith‘s upcoming blues photo book Boom Boom Boom Boom a nice plug in their current issue (September), majoring on his Little Richard photographs in tribute to the singer. It is currently on the news-stands if you are venturing out to the shops, or can be ordered direct from the publishers using the links below. Thanks to Steve Harnell for the scan. Brian has now finished his detailed proofing of the book layout so we are getting all this sorted out now. We have also had a really nice foreword for the book done by a famous British blues singer and will be revealing details of that very soon. If you have not yet read about the book, you can do so on the site.

Buy direct and get an issue delivered to your door: bit.ly/32UxeIP

Find the mag in shops with the store locator: bit.ly/2FYBUVc

On screen

on screen

A quick snap of our designer’s computer screens during work on the Boom Boom Blues Book, as it is alliteratively referred to in the office! Most of the earlier design work has been done on the laptop but as we reach the more detailed final page layout, a split screen process is employed. The actual pages are shown on the larger monitor, with all the software windows, tools and options held on the laptop screen, along with the book pages menu which allows us to zip about the book more quickly. This enables us to see the pages at a much larger size and spot things which might otherwise be missed and do more precise adjustments. Though it does call for nifty hand eye co-ordination or the cursor disappears into who knows where! As you can see there is still room for the old fashioned skills of print-outs and a couple of pencils. Quite what the 1964 packet of Shreddies is doing on the desk though we’re not sure.

Little Richard

Just a few days on from bemoaning the death of Millie, a proper pop star, than another of the acts Brian Smith photographed in the Sixties passes away, this time a proper rock and roll trailblazer, Little Richard.  Brian was lucky enough to catch a performance at one of Manchester’s most famous venues of the time, The Oasis Club, in 1964.  Just seeing his pictures makes you jealous, as Richard seems in amazing form while the crowd are in awe judging by some of their expressions. Local group The Dakotas got to back him, all under the shadow of a huge Beatles mural decorating the back of the stage.  Which is a tad ironic given how much they owed to Richard amongst others!  Brian also caught the filming of Little Richard by Granada TV for one of their highly regarded pop specials of the time.

This great shot from the Oasis shows Little Richard working the crowd at the height of his set, and would have made the final selection for the book of Brian’s pics we’re wrapping up – except some of the others are even better!

Richard leaves a musical legacy only a few could equal even back in the Sixties, but his contributions to rock music’s development are unlikely ever to be surpassed in the future.

Millie

A real shame to hear today of Millie’s death at the age of 73.  Our previous post on this site was to talk about working on photographs of her for Brian’s Blues photo book, and how it was so hard to pick the best.  So here is another of the shots which didn’t make the final selection to remember her by; stood beaming for Brian’s camera at the Twisted Wheel Club in May 1964.  The band are rocking away in the shadows on the left of the scene, but it’s her irrepressible grin which makes the shot.  She would even leave the band to get on with it while she signed autographs mid-set… a proper star.

Millie at the Twisted Wheel

Our designer was working on the Millie Small photographs for the Boom Boom Blues Photo book the other day (and researching her backing group). As he has a home office anyway, the self isolating issue has not been too hard a chore so far. “I love little more than digging through old photographs, who needs the real world! These are some of my favourites from Brian Smith’s book. Millie was a real natural anyway but seems to have hit it off with Brian, who was taking the photos up in the legendary Twisted Wheel club offices. He and Roger Eagle, who was the resident DJ there, were given the rather nice job of looking after Millie for the afternoon. It was probably a bit risky trying to walk around Manchester given that her hit single was so massive, so they passed away the time until the show just taking a few pictures and chatting. I bet a few of us would love to rifle through all the paper ephemera on the shelves too, there looks to be piles of tickets for future gigs in one corner.
During the show itself Brian tried to take a few more shots, but the teenage crowd were just going mad, you can hardly see Millie’s band and she was signing album covers during the set itself!
All the photos have a certain amount of dust and marks on them after 56 years but they have cleaned up nicely for the book. As this one isn’t in, it has not had any treatment!”
We’ve got the best of the photos in the forthcoming book which we’re pushing on with, but thought we’d show this one which hasn’t made the final edit as it is so full of life. You can read more about the book on the site.  There is a post about the book’s cover below.
Obviously the current health crisis has thrown all our plans in the air as it has everybody, so we aim to crack on with projects where we can do so safely and then hopefully pick up the pieces later.

Boom boom

There is an interesting feature on the design of our forthcoming book Boom Boom, Boom Boom, which brings together hundreds of archive photographs of visiting black blues artists playing in Manchester taken by a young teenage fan, Brain Smith, over on the designer’s website. It shows the way he has developed the cover and arrived at the final artwork.

 

Release dates

There have been quite a few emails coming in this last week or so asking why, if another website is busy announcing a new release date for one of our next titles, do we not have that information here?  The answer is simple, we did not know about this!  The website did not bother to contact us to check.  So rest assured, as soon as we have a reliable production date for each of our next three titles it will appear here BEFORE anywhere else! Likewise if you order direct from us (once pre-orders go live) you will get the book BEFORE anyone else (that includes you know who) has stock.

Our next three titles are now close to production and will be the DEEP PURPLE BARRY PLUMMER PHOTO BOOK, The Deep Purple MACHINE HEAD biography FIRE IN THE SKY and the BOOM BOOM BRIAN SMITH BLUES PHOTO collection.

And just to prove things are happening, here’s a peek at a chunk of the Fire In The Sky page layouts (generated from within the layout software) which are being proofed and photo cleared at present. Our designer has added a colour coding to each section to make navigating what is becoming an increasingly complex document (there are over 700 images) a little easier!