Bob Minkin’s Best Photos of New York Music in the Seventies and Eighties

Bob Minkin’s Personal Concert List

“Those are concerts that I attended. I started the list with my very first show, Eric Clapton at Roosevelt Stadium in 1974. I got home from seeing Frank Zappa at the Palladium, and I duly wrote it down. Show number 73, and it’s a godsend because I can tell you the truth, a lot of those shows on there I have no recollection of.”

Albert Collins, Lone Star Cafe, NYC Dec. 5, 1982

“That’s Albert Collins sitting there on top of a car outside of the Lone Star Cafe. I loved him, he was known as the Iceman or the Master of the Telecaster. He would famously wade into the audience, come off the stage and walk through the crowd. in this case though, he actually walked out the front door of a packed place. He’s playing the guitar and one of the guys was trailing his cord out. A bunch of people followed him out the door, including me.”

Allman Brothers Band, Beacon Theatre, NYC Sept. 29, 1989

“Every year, the Allman Brothers play a multi-night run at the Beacon Theatre. his was the first time the Allman Brothers Band played at the Beacon. I heard they had a new guitar player, this guy named Warren Haynes. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Man, that guy’s got some big shoes to fill.’ As we know, he filled them quite well.”

Brent Mydland, Go Ahead, The Ritz, NYC Sept. 26, 1986

“This was the Grateful Dead’s Brent Mydland’s side band, Go Ahead. For me, seeing a Grateful Dead band member coming to New York at a relatively small venue  was exciting for anybody who was into the Dead to see the band members out of character, not at the Brendan Byrne Arena. The drummers and keyboard player got to shine.”

Bruce Springsteen, Palladium, NYC Sept. 17, 1978

“I really had no idea of the power of a Bruce Springsteen show [until I attended this show]. People ask me today a lot of times, they know I’ve been to thousands of concerts. ‘What was the best show you ever saw?’ And I said, ‘Well, I can’t really say the best show, but I could tell you one of the best shows I ever saw out of any band was the first time I saw Bruce Springsteen.’ Because he played like his life depended on it, like if he didn’t deliver a good show, he would’ve been tortured to death or something. He played like his foot was on the pedal to the floor. Turn it up, nevermind 11, turn it up to 15.”

Buddy Guy, Lone Star Cafe, NYC Nov. 14, 1984

“The shot here of Buddy Guy is taken with a flash because the Lone Star Cafe lighting was not always good. I had to be judicious about shooting because I could I get thrown out of there. But here’s Buddy in a real action pose, and that’s the thing you got to wait for – those moments. I was right in his face with the flash, but it didn’t matter because didn’t bother him. But still, you had to be careful.”

Buddy Cage, Lone Star Cafe, NYC March 20, 1984

“So that’s Buddy Cage, the pedal steel guitar player in the New Riders of the Purple Sage.  Buddy, he doesn’t normally do that, that’s not part of his routine. So these things happen in a split second, and if I’m just daydreaming or talking to somebody or going to the bathroom [I might miss it]. You had to be ready.”

Dr. Pepper Music Festival,Wollman Rink, Central Park Aug. 18, 1978

“So the thing about the Central Park shows were that if you couldn’t get in or if they were sold out, you could listen to it from the surrounding hills around there. Or like this enterprising group of kids did, you can climb up in a tree and then actually watch the show. I just love all their expressions. I think maybe one of them notices me.”

Frank Zappa, The Ritz, NYC Nov. 17, 1981

“I love Frank Zappa and this was in ’81, one of the last times I saw him play. Zappa was he was big in my neighborhood [in Canarsie,Brooklyn]. Some of the music was a little far out [for me] as a young teenager. But since all the people who I thought were cool loved Zappa, that means I had to like Zappa too. At the Ritz show here, part of his show is he’s a director. He doesn’t always just up there playing guitar and singing. He has a big band and he directs them, and he talks and tells stories and stuff.”

Guitar Greats, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ Nov. 3, 1984

“I can’t believe a show like this even happened. I had access for it, a photo to be upfront. I didn’t have backstage. Boy, I wish I had backstage for this show. Just to see David Gilmour playing with Johnny Winter.  This was at the end when they all came out at the end to play, but each of them had their own segment, Dickey Betts playing Blue Sky, the Steve Cropper segment doing Green Onions, the Neil Schon segment doing some Journey song, whatever. They had a house band, drummer or bass player, so they would come on and off. Guitar Greats, that’s the least superlative way you can call this thing.”

Pictured (L to R): Dave Edmunds,Johnny Winter, Brian Setzer, Dickey Betts, Steve Cropper and Neil Schon. (Link Wray and David Gilmour are hidden).

Jerry Garcia Band, Palladium, NYC Nov. 27, 1977

“I was 18 years old when I took this shot. I still was using what’s called a Konica Rangefinder camera — a very affordable, cheap camera back then that a kid like me could have, but you could still take a great photo with it. You’re looking through basically a hole in the camera that has no relation to the lens. The funny thing at this show was I only had like one negative strip from it because I think I went to the show with only one roll of film that was mostly used up. So I only have a handful of shots from this show.”

Johnny and Edgar Winter, The Bottom Line, NYC Sept. 5, 1978

“This was billed as a Johnny Winter (left) concert and his brother, Edgar surprised the crowd, performing with his brother for the second half of the show.”

Jorma Kaukonen and Jaco Pastorius, My Father’s Place, Old Roslyn, NY Jan 4, 1985

“This photo is of Jorma Kaukonen, from Hot Tuna and Jaco Pastorius, world-renowned bass player, he was in Weather Report. It was crazy music, just avant-garde type stuff. To get a picture like this back then, you could only do this with a flash, and it’s experimental. You don’t really know how it’s going to come out. So what you do is you got to shoot at a slow shutter speed, capture movement. When you fire the flash, that freezes some of the action so everything’s not just a blur. And then I had a zoom lens, so I zoomed the lens during the long exposure. That’s why the trails are coming out.”

Jorma Kaukonen and Jaco Pastorius, My Father’s Place, Old Roslyn, NY 1-4-85

Jorma Kaukonen, Lone Star Cafe, NYC Oct 1, 1985

“That’s Jorma Kaukonen at the Lone Star. He played there all the time. For a San Francisco music freak like me, seeing him in my hometown all the time was just great because he moved to the area. He wasn’t in San Francisco anymore. This is from one of his hundred million nights at the Lone Star Cafe. As you could see, I’m shooting him in the dressing room, and it’s a friendly situation because we know each other. So he’s giving me a nice smile.”

Ramones, Bond’s International Casino, NYC Feb.20, 1981

“In Times Square, there was this big clothing store that used to be there called Bonds. When clothing store went out of business, somebody came up with the idea to make it into a venue. I can’t really remember what got me to go to this show, but I’m glad it did, because the crowd was packed, and it was mellow.”

Robert Hunter and Comfort, Other End, NYC May 12, 1978

“Robert Hunter was kind of the invisible guy in the Grateful Dead. As far as I was concerned, I just saw his name on an album that said, ‘Hunter-Garcia,’ and I really didn’t know what that meant. Who’s Hunter? There was nothing about him because back then you couldn’t look things up. So it was like, Hunter, who is he? And there’s no pictures of him, there was nothing about him anywhere. And then I found out he was going to actually be playing and touring with band was called Comfort. So there he was in the flesh and at The Bitter End.”

New York Rocked!

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