Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959)

Portrait of singer Billie Holiday. Printed on front: “Billie Holiday. Associated Booking Corp. Joe Glaser, president. Squibb Bldg. 745, 5th Ave., N.Y.”

Courtesy of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

Margaret Bonds (March 3, 1913 – April 26, 1972)

American composer and pianist. One of the first black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. (Wikipedia)

View of composer Margaret Bonds and singer Eartha Kitt posing with Kitt’s record album, “Bad but beautiful.” Stamped on back: “Please credit D'Arlene Studio, The Plaza, New York 19, N.Y. Plaza 5-4320.” Typed on back: “Margaret Bonds (left) with Eartha Kitt.” Handwritten on back: “Margaret Bonds, Eartha Kitt.”

Courtesy of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

Frank Zappa and The Mothers performing at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles, December 1973.

Lizzo by Luke Gilford for Allure

Ella Fitzgerald signing autographs after a concert, 1954

LIZZO Juice

David Bowie: Let’s Dance Promo photos. 1982.  © Greg Gorman

Recording The Basement Tapes at Big Pink near Woodstock, NY, 1967: Bob Dylan at the piano as The Band’s Richard Manuel looks on, and TINY TIM STARES IN THE WINDOW

“You’ll notice that my most famous pictures are very simple. You’re not going to find lot of props in them, it’ll all be done by lighting, attitude, angle, energy and focus. These are all the important things for me.”

Syd Barrett - The Macap Laughs photo session - London, 1969

‘’Your head will collapse

If there’s nothing in it

And you’ll ask yourself;

Where is my mind?’’

“Watch out for music. It should come with a health warning. It can be dangerous. It can make you feel so alive, so connected to the people around you, and connected to what you really are inside. And it can make you think that the world should, and could, be a much better place. And just occasionally, it can make you very, very happy.”

“I grew up in Colombia.  There wasn’t much to watch on television back then because we only had a few channels.  Everything was black-and-white.  But every night there was a famous music show.  All the big bands came on that show: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin.  Always my nose would be stuck to the TV.  I went completely crazy.  My parents could not understand.  Sometimes I’d get so excited that I’d cry.  I grew my hair long.  I told myself: ‘One day I will be in a band.  I do not know how.  But I will do it.’  A few years later my father got the opportunity to manage a dairy farm in Spain.  From there I was able to get a visa to London.  I was nineteen years old, and London was almost too much for me.  It was so exciting.  All the time I was crying.  I worked as a dishwasher and started going to all the nightclubs.  I fell in love with punk music: Sid Vicious, Billy Idol, The Clash.  They made me dance like a crazy.  So many times I cried.  But I especially wanted to be on the stage.  So I found two guys and started a band.  We were called The Ridiculous.  For two months we played on the street outside the club.  But it was harder than I thought.  We never were invited inside.  Our drummer found another band.  Then the guitarist found another band.  And then it was just me.  That was forty years ago, but I’m still keeping the punk alive.  One day I will try again.”

“In the ‘50s, critics used to say I had a ‘dangerous’ act. But you don’t have to hit anybody on the head to be sexy. A lot can be said with just a look, or the way the body moves. Each song is a different character, so each song takes on a different movement of the body, and the body has to go with the subject and the attitude that you have toward that subject. I have a great need for affection from an audience. I don’t know whether this is because I had such a tough life when I was a child. I’m an orphan. But the public has adopted me and that has been my only family. The biggest family in the world is my fans. The audience has always been my best director.” Eartha Kitt performs the song C’est ci bon in Oslo. Norway in 1968.