Herb Greene: Brief encounters with the Dead

Herb Greene: Brief encounters with the Dead
Gallery Kayafas
450 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 am - 5:30 pm
www.galleryKayafas.com

No, this isn’t a midnight cinema tribute to Lon Chaney or other masters of the macabre. It’s a black and white photographic love fest at the Gallery Kayafas featuring formal and candids of Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead, and a few other luminaries who shot across the musical and cultural firmament in the revolutionary meteor shower known as the sixties.

Herb Greene, whose career began as a staff photographer for a San Francisco department store, had a passion for folk music. Giving in to the heady mixture of sounds akin to those of Pan, the archetypal piper, Greene followed his ears to the streets, eventually ending up at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in San Francisco photographing the boys who would become “The Grateful Dead”. He gained their trust and snapped photos of them for thirty years. Many of these photos are on display at the Gallery Kayafas in the “SoWa” arcade at 450 Harrison Avenue.

One of Greene’s earliest photos of Garcia reveal him as a pimply faced teenager with doe-like eyes and no hint of the bearded icon he’d soon become. Looking now at the photos of musicians whose music is embedded in the DNA that was our youth, did any of us know where we were headed? And could any of us guess how surprised, perhaps alarmed, we’d feel that age has overtaken us? In the reflection of the glass covering those prints, we can see the faces of the adults we’ve become.

Documented in beautifully developed black and white platinum prints, Greene presents us with flower children dressed in pegged pants, flowing cotton skirts, or nothing at all. Gallery owner Kayafas says, “Kids too young to drive and people using walkers have come to see this show.” Greene’s other photos show Carlos Santana, Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Led Zeppelin. Somehow, sex, drugs, and rock and roll seemed so innocent in the sixties, a decade in which we believed ourselves immortal. I wonder if young music enthusiasts will feel the same way about the music of today when their AARP cards arrive.
And the beat goes on…

Comments

[Karen Moss]

Hi Paul,
I just discovered your blog and was totally impressed with the breadth of your interests and the flow and vitality of your writing. It makes me want to see it all and go where you go.

My husband, Dennis Livingston, a former professor,writer and journalist,is now a cabaret song writer and was also very excited to find your blog.

Our son, Jonah Livingston, was at Pierce when you were teaching there and I regret that we never got to know you during those years. I don't recall what you were teaching in those days.

Jonah is now a touring metal musician and has a day job at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. He also has a his own record label, TDB records.

I have a studio in Brookline Village at 17 Station St., top floor. Currently I have a drawing at Carroll and Sons, on the same row of galleries with Kayafas Gallery.

My brother has a house in Key West for half the year. I've been there but never saw the event you documented.Those photos you took were wild!! KW and New Orleans are certainly different planets from our bean town.

Now we'll know to check out your blog on a regular basis.
Where will you travel next?

Best wishes for the holiday season,
Sincerely,
Karen and Dennis

[Patti Digh]

paul - just a note to tell you I'm enjoying your essays...and to ask The
Question: how's your blog coming along?