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Dylan Comes to Stax!

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DYLAN COMES TO STAX!

New exhibition premiering at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music features rare photographs of the young Bob Dylan by Daniel Kramer


(Memphis, Tennessee)—One of the most distinctive and poetic voices in the history of popular music, Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota) is a key figure in 20th-century American culture. To mark the fortieth anniversary of his seminal 1965 albums, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, sixty of Daniel Kramer’s extraordinary photographs of the young Bob Dylan have been brought together in this major new exhibition. Bob Dylan: The Photographs of Daniel Kramer, 1964-1965 premieres at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and is on public view from May 13, 2005 through July 26, 2005. The exhibition is organized and circulated by Crossroads Traveling Exhibitions, Atlanta, Georgia, and Matrix Exhibitions & Publication, Washington, D.C.

Daniel Kramer shot these photographs during the transitional years when Bob Dylan turned from acclaimed folk poet to experimental rock artist, and he gives us a stunning, candid and indelible portrait of both the notoriously private man and the influential public figure. We see the musician posing in Kramer’s New York studio as well as in more impromptu images taken at Dylan’s home in Woodstock, New York, on the streets of Greenwich Village and Philadelphia, in key recording sessions at Columbia Records, and
backstage and in key performances. The exhibition features not only iconic images have been hailed by many as “the best pictures of Bob Dylan ever made” but photographs from Daniel Kramer’s archives that are seen for the very first time.

The young Daniel Kramer first saw Bob Dylan perform his song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll on TV in 1963 and this event was to forever change his life. As Kramer wrote in his 1967 book Bob Dylan, the first major work about the performer/songwriter:
“Hours later, when Dylan was no longer on the TV screen, I was still aware of his tapping on my shoulder. I was completely taken by what this man had done and how he had done it. His performance was perfect. With simple, basic tools–his voice, a guitar, and a harmonica–he drove his message deep into my mind. I felt that what he had done by telling me about this corruption of justice was not only perceptive but brave. This slight young man was doing what many of us feel we should be doing—speaking out. No one else that I was aware of was dealing with such material in this way. More than that, I was impressed by his performance: his face, his physical appearance, the total effect he produced. I was aware that I was seeing a very important talent.”
In August 1964, Daniel Kramer finally arranged to meet Bob Dylan at the home of his manager Albert Grossman in Woodstock, New York. The young photographer soon developed a relationship with Bob Dylan and accompanied him to various recording sessions and performances around the country. Their friendship continues to this day.

Daniel Kramer has commented that “photography has brought me into contact with many notable people, including three Presidents of the United States, and I have happily had the opportunity to meet and talk with prominent people in all walks of life. Although many of these encounters were memorable, my association with Dylan has a special meaning.”

Daniel Kramer’s photographs were first collected in his 1967 book Bob Dylan (reprinted as Bob Dylan: A Portrait of the Artist’s Early Years, Plexus Publishing, 2001, paperback, 160 pages). They were also used on the album covers for Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Biograph (1985) and Bringing It All Back Home (1965), which was nominated for a Grammy and selected by Rolling Stone as one of the “100 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.” A number of rare and previously unpublished pictures by Kramer also appear in the 52-page booklet and packaging that accompanies Bob Dylan’s
Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall -- The Bootleg Series Volume 6 (2004), a two-CD set documenting the all-acoustic, October 31, 1964, Halloween-night concert by Bob Dylan at Philharmonic Hall in New York City.

A New York-based award-winning photographer and film director, Daniel Kramer received a Music Journalism Awards nomination for his photographs of Bob Dylan. His pictures have been published throughout the world and exhibited or collected by such museums as the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art and International Center of Photography, New York City; Experience Music Project, Seattle; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland.
NOTES TO EDITORS: Daniel Kramer is available for interviews. For further information, please contact Tim Sampson, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, at 901-946-2535 or by email at tim@soulsvilleusa.com.