As Years Go By

To paraphrase Camper Van Beethoven’s earworm-y chorus, “take the Rolling Stones bowling, take them bowling.” One of the eye-catching and unexpected images in the new exhibition of vintage Beatles and Stones tour life at the Tamsen Gallery finds Mick Jagger in a state of suspended animation, having just lobbed a bowling ball and eagerly awaiting its fate. It’s not your standard rock ‘n’ roll portrait of the Stones’s singer, he was caught during a bit of R&R between performing for the T.A.M.I. (Teenage Awards Music International) concert film project at the Santa Monica Civic, circa 1964.

The bowling snap is one of the small treasures to be found at the Tamsen Gallery exhibition Before They Were Legends: Photographs of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones 1964-66, comprised of photography taken by then tour manager Bob Bonis. This is a show not so much about art or polished professional photography but about the passion of a beholding bystander with a backstage pass. It’s more content than style, but for the Beatles/Stones fans among us, what content!

Bonis, who passed away in 1992, kept his massive archives of photography in private, as a personal memory bank and archive. His son Alex began archiving and unearthing the image trove and has presented this starry slice of the archive, capturing two towering British bands in a pivotal American tour moment, as an exhibition, now having landed in Santa Barbara, and well worth a look.

For this presentation, the gallery is aptly fitted with a vintage-appropriate soundtrack of songs by the bands, as well as a loosely related central three-dimensional artwork: Artist Victoria White’s blue-painted grand piano is duly outfitted with the line “and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” — the penultimate lyric of the Beatles discography, from Abbey Road.

Bonis, with his trusty Leica M3 at the ready, had unusually intimate and behind-the-scenes proximity to fast-rising rock royalty, which makes for a fascinating and even slightly voyeuristic viewing experience. 

With such oft-photographed icons, the most alluring images offer us a fresh perspective and human-scaled views, such as the bowling Mick pic. And there he is in another image, another town, asleep in a Chicago hotel room, with an image of him performing on TV’s Red Skelton Hour on a bulbous vintage television. Apparently, the show put the road-exhausted rocker to sleep. And in a more music-based capture, Mick is seen in the studio, with a blue harp stuffed in his mouth and arms jokingly folded — title: “Look No Hands.” Do stop by the Tamsen’s bathroom, to see “Keith the Barber,” a shot of Richards giving drummer Charlie Watts a trim, before the 1966 Ed Sullivan Show taping.

“Ringo the Cowboy” is a cheeky portrait steeped in Ringo Starr’s natural goofball humor, as he spins a pistol, poolside at the hotel. A casual snap of Jagger and James Brown, titled “Mind If I Borrow Your Moves” — again at the T.A.M.I filming — shows the American funk godfather in friendly cahoots with a British blues-and-soul protégé.

In another image hinting at the larger pop cultural context of the day, “Who’s on the Back Cover” is a telling title of an image of Paul McCartney and Starr on a chartered plane, gazing with interest at a music magazine, with the Who on its back cover. 

Details about the setting of each image — place and date, background and trivial factoids — add to the historical patina of the show. With the image titled “The Pose,” for instance, captures Jagger in classical stage pose, at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in 1965. But it gains some gravitas with the knowledge that, later in the show, Keith Richards was mildly electrocuted by an ungrounded microphone and briefly went unconscious that night.

Uncommon visuals in this selection of Bonis’s work include the privileged backstage view and action shot of the Beatles in concert at Municipal Stadium, in Kansas City, Missouri, circa September 17, 1964. Then again, insider humor is always around the corner on tour, as in “Thumbs Up,” with George Harrison turning towards the wings and flashing Bonis’s Leica a grin and a thumbs-up.

Given the vintage, when black and white photography ruled the day, it is intriguing to find a few color images, in the case of a tight two-shot of Paul and John in “Cincinnati Serenade” and more live color frames from the T.A.M.I.

Fittingly, that Stones concert shot hangs next to a very different color photo, a full body shot of Mick at the hotel pool in Clearwater, Florida in 1965, all pale English skin, dark shades, and his famous pouty red lips, close to the shade of his snug swimsuit. 

Rock stars are people, too, in need of poolside chill time.

Before They Were Legends is a nostalgic blast of a show, a chronicle of legends at work and at play. And the twain thereof. See it at the Tamsen Gallery, 1309 State Street, through September 17. See tamsengallery.com.