Best Photography Books 2024
A round up of the finest coffee table tomes featuring music.
Santeria drummers of Cuba - photo David Corio. As featured in The Black Chord.
I recently reviewed a selection of music books so, for this Yak post, decided to celebrate a selection of photography books with music themes – “a picture says a thousand words” might be a cliche but its one that rings true, especially with music where a startling image can convey more of the artist/experience than words do (and I say this as a writer). There have been several stunning collections issued this year and, if someone close to you is passionate about music/photos, then one of these titles might be the perfect present.
Oh, before anyone mentions it, yes, Robert Frank’s The Americans doesn’t contain images of musicians - but it’s had a huge influence on music culture. While Ernest Cole’s The True America – which shares many qualities with Frank’s seminal photo book – is also not focused on music, but photos from it have been used on album covers as they brilliantly capture the radical spirit of the music being made in Harlem (and other African American communities) in the late 1960s. While Miss Pat came out in 2022 but, as the Yak didn’t exist back then, it deserves to be included here.
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry - photo David Corio. As featured in The Black Chord.
THE BLACK CHORD
David Corio
Hat & Beard Press
David Corio is one of the world’s foremost music photographers – recently his striking shots have featured in both the V&A’s Divas and the British Library’s Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music exhibitions. He’s a fine photographer and a good guy - I interviewed him for the Yak earlier this year (https://garthcartwright.substack.com/p/the-yak-interview-david-corio-photographer).
Corio prefers to shoot in B&W, both informal portraits and the high drama of concert performance, and he has followed his mentor, Val Wilmer, in focusing largely on Black musicians. The Black Chord was originally published in 1999 and, having gone out of print, became a collector’s item. This reprint is welcomed, published as it is on very high quality paper and consisting of over two hundred photos.
It covers Black musicians from across the world – Africa, the Caribbean, Britain and, of course, the USA. There are remarkable shots of musicians in Cuba and Burundi caught up in the trance-like effect of drumming and dancing, but what will ensure The Black Chord ends up on coffee tables is the plethora of photos of feted reggae, soul, rap, jazz and blues performers. Here Corio photographs a very youthful Robert Cray, BB King, Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker and Buddy Guy alongside Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, Nina Simone (+ many other icons). Corio frames his subjects in a manner that gifts them gravitas - his concert shots are dynamic while his portraits are compelling, often capturing the artist’s essence - a very waxy Michael Jackson suggests the awful decline the superstar was locked in. No new images have been added so The Black Chord stands as a time capsule of Black musicians working across the 1980s-90s – many of whom are no longer with us. Essays by Vivien Goldman accompany the book’s different sections but these add little: Corio’s images speak for themselves.
The thrill of it all: Billy Higgins enjoys his job. Photo Val Wilmer as found in American Drummers 1959-1988
AMERICAN DRUMMERS 1959-1988
Val Wilmer
Cafe Royal
Did I just mention Val in the review above? Well, that reminds me she has a new photo collection out. Where the rest of the books reviewed here are hardcover editions that will set you back at least £30, Wilmer’s recent efforts have been published by Cafe Royal, the pioneering, Ainsdale-based photojournalism publisher dedicated to getting a large number of small paperback photo books out (check their website to see the catalogue - www.caferoyalbooks.com) that tend to feature a concise selection of images, no text, and are extremely good value at £6.99 each.
In 2023 Cafe Royal published Val’s Deep Blues 1960-1988, a stunning selection of photos she took of blues musicians at work and play (largely in the US South). In 2024 they published American Drummers 1959-1988, a collection that ranges from drummers playing in a New Orleans street parade to Max Roach (in bowtie and tuxedo) playing at the Berlin Philharmonic. There are drummers here I have never heard of (which doesn’t detract from their worth – just reminds me I still have so much to learn). And then there’s Jimi Hendrix behind the kit. Someone who knows something about drumming suggests Jimi is holding the sticks the correct way so – was he any good as a drummer? Well, considering he played bass superbly on All Along The Watchtower, I imagine he was very capable as a sticks man. I must ask Val - who turned 83 today! Happy birthday! - next time we chat. Here’s a profile I wrote of Wilmer earlier this year on the Yak. She is a living legend! https://garthcartwright.substack.com/p/val-wilmer-on-desert-island-discs
DOWN HOME MUSIC
Joel Selvin with Chris Strachwitz
Chronicle Books
As founder of Arhoolie Records, the late Chris Strachwitz was a record man and talent scout like few others – his remarkable achievements across his long life mark him as a true American hero and the individual who, arguably more than any other, helped ensure that vernacular American music would, from the 1960s on, be recorded, released and championed – unlike most previous record men, Strachwitz wasn’t recording these marginal musicians so to make hit records, no, he wanted to capture the music as they played it in their communities. That we have access to so much fabulous zydeco, tejano, downhome blues, traditional New Orleans jazz, Cajun and other regional music forms is due to Chris being so passionate about letting these musicians be heard unadorned (he often recorded them at home or playing live in a hall with good acoustics - no overdubs ever).