Golden Years -- Allan Tannenbaum’s “New York in the 70’s” a must see for anyone who remembers that decade fondly

Golden Years

Allan Tannenbaum’s “New York in the 70’s” a must see for anyone who remembers that decade fondly

By Jeff Slate

New York, May 28, 2009 – “Look how happy they were. They were so in love,” said John Lennon’s one-time personal assistant Fred Seaman as he entered the Not Fade Away Gallery last night.

The gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of photographer Allan Tannenbaum’s work, entitled “New York in the 70’s”. The show, a mix of Tannenbaum’s work for the legendary but no-defunct Soho News and from his personal collection, runs through June 25th.

Seaman was looking at the large, prominently displayed headshot of John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken by photographer Allan Tannenbaum that is one of the most iconic shots of the former Beatle from the last year of his life. Lennon and Ono are both smiling and looking directly at the camera.

“I was there for some of Allan’s shoots with John and Yoko,” Seaman continued. “It was an amazing time.”

“It was only two days that I shot with them,” Tannenbaum later told me. “”It was incredibly exciting to be allowed into their inner sanctum.”

The show includes only a few shots of Lennon, but about 50 more that recall a golden time in New York City. Shots of David Bowie, Bob Marley, the Rolling Stones and the Clash onstage are mixed in with arresting shots of the Clash’s Joe Strummer hanging out of a taxi cab window, Stevie Wonder serenading the patrons of a Harlem restaurant and Frank Zappa licking a belly dancer at his 1974 birthday party. There’re also shots of Studio 54, Sid Vicious’ arrest, Andy Warhol and even O.J. Simpson dressed as a Conehead on the set of Saturday Night Live as well as some beautiful, artistic shots of New York City as it was, now over 30 years ago.

“It was great to be given the freedom to include anything I wanted,” Tannenbaum said as a packed house vied to see his work. “That’s an incredible honor. There were some shots that I knew so well I just knew I had to use them. But I went back and looked through everything I could find and every time I opened a file I would say to myself ‘Oh man, I’ve gotta use this!’”

Asked to pick out his three favorite shots, Tannenbaum didn’t hesitate. “John and Yoko in front of the Dakota (in November 1980), the Anti-nuclear rally in Battery Park (from 1979) and that shot of Patti Smith,” Tannenbaum said, gesturing to a shot of the proto-punk, rocking out in 1974.

The shots each tell a story, both about a New York that no longer exists and the photographer himself. Tannenbaum’s shots – most taken while simply on assignment – show an empathy and immediacy often missing in this digital age.

Not Fade Away Gallery (www.nfagallery.com) is located at 12 East 20th Street, 2nd Floor. Allan Tannenbaum has a new, companion book out, also called “New York in the 70’s”.

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John Lennon Returns To New York

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Annex exhibit opens May 12, 2009

Yoko Ono and Jim Henke meet the press

By Jeff Slate

New York, May 11, 2009 – Yoko Ono choked up visibly when recalling her late husband John Lennon and their time in New York City at the opening of the exhibit on his time here that opens tomorrow at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Annex in SoHo.

“John loved New York City,” Ono said. “Because to him, this was the center of the universe.”
The exhibit, which opens to the public tomorrow after a gala tonight that Ono, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and actor Tom Hanks are all expected to attend, celebrates the period from 1971 when Lennon and Ono moved into a small Bank Street apartment and joined the Greenwich Village political scene until 1980 when Lennon was shot dead in front of the couple’s Dakota apartment building. It was a time that photographer and Lennon friend Bob Gruen recalled fondly.

“I’m glad this exhibit exists, because it will show just how productive John was during his solo years here in New York. When people think of John in the 70’s they usually think of some drunken time in Los Angeles. But John made some great records in the 70’s; most of them in New York. “Sometime In New York City” is a great record. It’s overlooked.”

Gruen beamed while talking about Lennon while he toured the exhibit and recalled the times they spent in New York together. When I asked him what his quintessential Lennon/New York City moment was, he didn’t hesitate: “The trip to the Statue of Liberty,” he said, referring to the iconic photograph that greets visitors as they enter the exhibit and its all-white carpeted floor. “John and I took the ferry, just like any other tourists. It was really cool. There were about 40 German kids – students – and they started screaming like it was Beatlemania when they recognized John. But he calmed them down and signed autographs for them all and then we went on our way. It was a great day.”

That photo, and hundreds more of Lennon’s time in New York (many by Gruen, in fact), adorn the walls, while Lennon’s piano – complete with multiple cigarette burns – many of his original lyric sheets and production notes and his clothes, including his infamous “New York City” t-shirt and green army surplus shirt, sit behind glass while visitors listen through headsets to a guided tour of the exhibit featuring Lennon’s voice and music and the audio for 4 large video projections.

But the most arresting part of the exhibit comes near the end. A large poster of the cover of Ono’s “Season Of Glass” album cover depicting the blood-stained glasses Lennon was wearing when he was killed (with a smaller photo of her actually snapping that image) and the headline “932,000 people have been killed with handguns since John Lennon was killed”, followed by the bag Ono received from the morgue with Lennon’s personal effects not long after his death. On a card next to the bag Ono writes “John was the ‘King of the World’ but he came back to me in a brown paper bag.” An open petition that visitors touring the exhibit can sign follows the part of the exhibit featuring the poster and the bag of effects. It will be presented to President Obama in the hope that he will affect more stringent gun laws.

“That’s the part of the exhibit that really struck me,” said Mark Lapidos, the founder of the Fest For Beatles Fans (formerly BeatlesFest). “It’s amazing and saddening. John is gone. I hope it makes people think.”

But at the very end, Ono has placed one of her trademark mischievous art installation pieces. It’s a simple white phone that she says she will call “when I think of it.” She will talk to whomever picks up. After all the joy and sadness of the exhibit, you have to think Lennon would have loved that part the best.

The exhibit may be small, but it packs a punch and humanizes Lennon and what we lost nearly 29 years ago with his death.

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