By Greg Cielec
When you head down to the Rock Hall to see the Grateful Dead exhibit, make sure you save time to go down to the lower level to the Patty, Jay and Kizzie Baker Gallery and check out the exhibit “Can’t Get Enough: The Photography of Robert Alford.”
Alford is a Detroit-based music photographer who has covered the national rock scene since the late Seventies, doing a lot of work for Creem Magazine. The exhibit, put together by curator Howard Baker, features portraits and on stage shots of artists as diverse as the Clash, Morris Day, the GoGos, and John Mellencamp. Music fans will recognize often used portraits of Mellencamp and Boy George; a shot of the Clash in front of the original Motown Records building in Detroit; and pictures of Z.Z. Top in all their ’80s glory. Other photos include great images of Cheap Trick, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Big Country.
Alford attended a media event last week to preview the exhibit to the local media, and he was quite affable and informative. He did make some insightful comments on the demise of his profession as a concert photographer. “Now they give everyone in the audience a three song window to take pictures,” he said. “And that’s it. No one, including me, gets access like we used to.”
“Can’t Get Enough: The Photography of Robert Alford” exhibit will be at the Rock Hall through the winter. The Grateful Dead exhibit will be there until December.
For more information on either exhibit, and all the other great stuff going on at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, go to http://www.RockHall.com.
[Pictured: Photographer Robert Alford (left) and Rock Hall Curator Howard Baker]
Greg Cielec is a local writer who covers mostly music and sports for a variety of publications and websites. He is also a full time English and creative writing teacher at Streetsboro High School; an adjunct professor at BGSU Firelands College and Lakeland Community College; and a football coach at John Carroll University. He has published two books of fiction, My Cleveland Story (1998) and Home and Away Games (2006), and the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Michael Heaton has called him “the Mark Twain of Cleveland.” Check out his website and blog at http://www.GregCielec.com.
1100 Rock and Roll Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44114