Bob Gruen (New York, 1945) is one of the most iconic Rock & Roll photographers of the 20th century. Glued to a camera since he was eight years old and with Rock & Roll always present in his personality, Tina Turner opened the doors to the world of music that he has immortalized for more than half a century. He has exhibited some of his most iconic photographs for the first time in Spain in the Walter Benjamin room in conjunction with the Contrast Ibiza festival.
—You have exhibited your photos in Spain for the first time in Ibiza, did you know the island?
—It’s my first time in Ibiza and I’m loving it. I had heard about Ibiza for many years. I was a hippie, but a neighborhood hippie, one of those who couldn’t finance a trip to tour Europe. Later Ibiza became famous for its nightclubs and I’m not a ‘disco dancer’, I’m a ‘rockandroller’, so I didn’t have much interest in going to Ibiza then either.
—Since when have you been a ‘rockandroller’?
—Since I was born (laughs). Rock and Roll is freedom. The freedom to express yourself forcefully and in public. It’s a way to escape from everyday reality, while you’re screaming you don’t think about paying the rent. I grew up in the 50s hallucinating Elvis Presley in front of the television. It had nothing to do with Frank Sinatra or the other crooners we were used to then. Later I discovered people like Bo Didley, Chuk Berry or Buddy Holly who brought rock and the freedom that it means to the whole world.
—Are you also a musician?
-No. I tried to learn to play a few times when I was young, but it didn’t take me long to realize that photography was more my thing than playing an instrument.
—When did you discover your passion for photography?
—Since I was a child. My mother was fond of photography and developed her own photos. When I was only four or five years old, she put me in the laboratory and I learned to develop alongside her. I loved it. When I was eight years old, my parents gave me my first camera and I immediately became the family photographer. It was a good learning experience, because I learned how to make a bunch of dysfunctional people look normal for a split second, which is what I’ve been doing the rest of my life photographing rock bands (laughs).
—When were you able to make a living with photography?
—When I was 11 years old I took the camera to a camp and started taking photographs of everything we did. My mother developed the photos and we sold them at the camp. I have been selling my photographs since I was 11 years old.
—When did you combine your passion for rock and roll and your passion for photography?
—After high school I started accompanying some friends who had a rock band, taking photos of them. Somehow I knew this would be my life. For a short time and by chance I met Ike and Tina Turner at one of the concerts to which I took my camera to take photos of whoever it was. I took photos of them without even knowing them, but they were truly amazing and I went to see them a few more times. It was my friends, when they saw the photos I took of them, who pushed me to show them to them. When Tina looked at them in the dressing room and told me how much she liked them, I couldn’t even breathe! From there a great friendship was born with Tina and I began to accompany her on her tours, taking photos and videos of her. In fact, the first album cover I did was for Tina Turner a year later.
—You worked for other bands.
-That’s how it is. Tina introduced me to a multitude of publicists and record company directors. Every time we went somewhere she met more and more people from the music world. It was a kind of snowball that kept getting bigger and bigger and that still continues to grow today. I was lucky to always be in the right place at the perfect time, and to know how to do what I had to do at all times. In fact, that’s the name of my biography ‘Right place, right time’.
—Regarding the time and place you refer to, you are talking about New York in the 60s, 70s and 80s, how do you remember that time?
—In the late 60s and early 70s, science discovered contraceptives, kids discovered marijuana, abortion was legalized and there was a very beautiful time of ‘free love’. Then the 80s arrived with venereal diseases, AIDS and so on that ended the era of ‘free love’. They were very disconcerting years, no one could imagine that sleeping with someone could be harmful to your health. We discovered the need for certain norms for society.
—Regarding music, you have also seen its evolution from within. How do you evaluate this evolution?
—After the revolution that rock and roll brought about, came the revolution that The Beatles brought about. Now everyone is used to their songs, which are played everywhere. But the arrival of The Beatles at the time was as revolutionary or more so than that of the Sex Pistols. They gave a 180 degree turn to the panorama of the musical culture of the moment. In the context of that time, The Beatles were brutally different from the idea of a neat, suited band that we have today. They had a cynical humor that they did not hesitate to show on television, making jokes and jokes with the press. That had never been seen before. I discovered them one night in the 60s, when I went to dinner with my high school friends at a hotel where there was a black and white television where you could see a lot of people screaming and dancing. We all approached to see what that was and we were amazed. Since the arrival of MTV, everything became highly commercialized and the industry began to outweigh creativity. Rock concerts went from being held in bars to being held in theaters and then in large stadiums. I was always lucky to work with very authentic artists. People like Tina Turner, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper… they were all authentic and incomparable. No matter how much they try to compare Beyonce to Tina Turner, Tina was always incomparable and original.
—You ended up taking some of the most iconic photos of John Lenon, how did that relationship come about?
—It was following the first rock photography book, ‘Rock & Roll Photography’, on which I worked. The person who was interviewing John Lenon and Yoko Ono asked me to take photos of the interview. When they saw my work and we had a conversation, they asked me to ‘come see them more often’, and there began a friendship that I still maintain today with Yoko. She is one of my best friends and advisors.
—We could fill pages about your experiences with stars from the rock world, but I can’t resist asking you about Led Zeppelin and their wild tours, what have you seen on those tours?
—(Laughs) Luckily, I worked with Led Zeppelin only on one tour and when they already had their own plane. They perfectly represented the excesses of the 70’s, they were people who looked like they couldn’t buy a t-shirt but had their own plane. When I went with them they were accompanied by lawyers and people from the record company and they behaved relatively well. I missed their famous wild parties, maybe that’s why I’m still alive and healthy (laughs). That said, I had a blast with them. I’ve also had a lot of fun on the bus, going on tour throughout America with bands like The Clash, Sex Pistols… you can read it all in my book.
—Of the thousands of photographs you have taken in your career, would you be able to choose one?
—Perhaps the session I did with John Lenon was the most important. It was one of the few photos that I had planned in advance, most of my work is spontaneous. But after moving to New York, the government was trying to discredit John to kick him out of the country, so I thought of making a kind of welcome symbol and suggested the place and the t-shirt. After his death, that photo became more relevant, becoming a kind of symbol of the freedom that John Lenon symbolized and that I have claimed throughout my life.
