Photographer Henry Diltz: Rock’s Living History | Rock Cellar Magazine

Buffalo Springfield
Photo by Henry Diltz
(Click photo to enlarge)

A very extensive interview with legendary rock photographer Henry Diltz in Rock Cellar Magazine by Jeff Cazanov.

Rock Cellar Magazine: Lore has it the first photo you actually sold was of the Buffalo Springfield? In front of a mural?

Henry Diltz: Yes – a club called The Psychic Eye in Redondo Beach.

In ’66, our last tour across the country, I get this camera, start photographing my friends, and then one day Stephen Stills– he’d been a fan of ours since ’63 when we played The Village Gate in New York, a jazz club. He would come down to see us. He was a young kid, like 19. So we were old friends by the time ’67 came around and I was here.

So in Laurel Canyon one day, I heard music coming out of a house while I was walking by. I knew the person who lived there and I knocked on the door, and Stephen was in there playing. He said, “hey, Henry, later today we’re going down to this folk club to do a soundcheck, do you want to come along?”

I said yeah ‘cause I wanted to photograph people on the beach for my slide show. I hadn’t made the connection yet to being a music photographer. I just wanted photos to excite my friends, anything trippy.

That one day when I went with Stephen down to the Redondo Beach sound check, they were in there rehearsing– Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and I’m out on the beach photographing and when I walk back to the club there’s a big mural on the back wall, a painted, pink mural that I thought would look great in the slide show.

So I’m shooting the mural and out the back door comes the group, done with their sound check. So I said, “hey you guys, just stand there a minute,” because I wanted to show the scale. You couldn’t tell how big this thing was. I still didn’t think, Eureka! I’m gonna be a music photographer!

The funny thing was that they did an interview with Teen Set Magazine and they needed a picture. They said, “Our friend Henry took some.” So I get a call: “Henry, we hear you have a picture of the Buffalo Springfield, we’ll pay you $100 to run it.”

More of interview with legendary rock photographer Henry Diltz and photo gallery in Rock Cellar Magazine by Jeff Cazanov.

(Thanks Scott & RW!)