Post by darkstar on Apr 27, 2006 19:57:24 GMT
Greenwich Avenue And The Man Who Shot Jim Morrison
Fairfield County Business News
August 8 2005
By DAVID TOTH
It was almost noon when I took exit 3 from I-95 to the Greenwich business district. It was hot, difficult to breathe, not even the car's air conditioner could compete with the dead, still fog that lay over the town, crowned by a white sun.
I parked and strolled over to Starbucks, where the polite woman behind the counter said she's not allowed to talk to press.
I called the public relations contact and explained my situation. A Starbucks, I said, is like the nerve center of a town, the hub and no one would know better what business people whisper about when they think no one is listening than the grinder behind the counter.
But it wasn't to be. The publicist explained that Starbucks employees are not allowed to talk to press during work hours. "Our customers come first and that would disrupt."
It was too hot to argue. I thanked him and hung up.
I stopped to talk to an old man, and I could tell his eyes were full of suspicion despite the fact that they were hidden by dark glasses.
I kept walking and pondered the situation. I walked past a few stores, but nothing grabbed my fancy. In cases like this, all you have to go on is pure instincts and I wasn't experiencing any vibes.
At least, not until I reached Shoes 'N More. I stopped. There was nothing different about this store: same upbeat décor, colors, and a few customers looking around for shoes on the display racks.
Still, I had to go in. The woman behind the counter had white hair, she was kind and polite, and I thought I had made a mistake.
That is, until she took out the picture of Jim Morrison and said: "My husband, Joel Brodsky took that."
It was the picture that has him looking at the camera, arms outstretched in a Christ-like pose, the self-same picture that adorns the dorm rooms of countless college students. Morrison looks at the camera with seductive and unapologetic eyes in a way that sums up his character, and by extension The Doors, the whole ambiguous era that are the 1960s. Mythic or not, that feeling of opportunities yet to be determined is captured in the photo.
Having had a longtime fascination with the Doors and the era that made their emergence possible, I listened as she wove a tale that began in Westport in the late 1950s and ended (for now) on the "Madison Avenue" of Connecticut - Greenwich Avenue.
Valerie Brodsky grew up in Westport in the late 1950s. You didn't need any money back then, at least not on your person. You walked into the bakery, took the merchandise, they wrote your name down and your family would get the bill at the end of the month.
After graduating from college, she moved to New York City, where, after failing the typing test at Grey Advertising, she started working for a magazine and later became a stylist for an ad agency. When she met Joel Brodsky, she was engaged to be married and he had a girlfriend. The details are hazy on this point, but the end result is that Brodsky and Valerie became best friends and got married.
What's the story behind the Morrison picture? It was the end of the day and Morrison was drunk, which was business as usual. Valerie said her husband maintained that there were few subjects who were an "animal for the camera" the way Morrison was. He was withdrawn and shy in real life, but when he was on stage, his charisma was unrivaled. Once, her husband was shooting them on a stage performance when the union tried to put an end to the show, citing union rules about a midnight deadline.
"Morrison replied 'We're not leaving until we're through,'" Brodsky said, and the union had the choice of letting him finish or facing the wrath of a few hundred Doors fans. "They would have rushed the stage. That's the kind of charisma he had for an audience," she said.
Brodsky shot the Doors five times and has about 600 negatives at home. He has a contract with them, whereby he gets a residual for all merchandise sold bearing Morrison's picture.
The first time he photographed them the Doors was just another band, and Brodsky asked for their music so he could get a sense of how he would photograph them. During his career, Brodsky photographed the likes of Kiss, Van Morrison, Tom Waits and Rod Stewart. He also shot the first cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
It was still hot when I walked back to my car, but I didn't mind. I had what I came for - a good story. s
www.fairfieldcbj.com/current_issue/080805fss02.html
Fairfield County Business News
August 8 2005
By DAVID TOTH
It was almost noon when I took exit 3 from I-95 to the Greenwich business district. It was hot, difficult to breathe, not even the car's air conditioner could compete with the dead, still fog that lay over the town, crowned by a white sun.
I parked and strolled over to Starbucks, where the polite woman behind the counter said she's not allowed to talk to press.
I called the public relations contact and explained my situation. A Starbucks, I said, is like the nerve center of a town, the hub and no one would know better what business people whisper about when they think no one is listening than the grinder behind the counter.
But it wasn't to be. The publicist explained that Starbucks employees are not allowed to talk to press during work hours. "Our customers come first and that would disrupt."
It was too hot to argue. I thanked him and hung up.
I stopped to talk to an old man, and I could tell his eyes were full of suspicion despite the fact that they were hidden by dark glasses.
I kept walking and pondered the situation. I walked past a few stores, but nothing grabbed my fancy. In cases like this, all you have to go on is pure instincts and I wasn't experiencing any vibes.
At least, not until I reached Shoes 'N More. I stopped. There was nothing different about this store: same upbeat décor, colors, and a few customers looking around for shoes on the display racks.
Still, I had to go in. The woman behind the counter had white hair, she was kind and polite, and I thought I had made a mistake.
That is, until she took out the picture of Jim Morrison and said: "My husband, Joel Brodsky took that."
It was the picture that has him looking at the camera, arms outstretched in a Christ-like pose, the self-same picture that adorns the dorm rooms of countless college students. Morrison looks at the camera with seductive and unapologetic eyes in a way that sums up his character, and by extension The Doors, the whole ambiguous era that are the 1960s. Mythic or not, that feeling of opportunities yet to be determined is captured in the photo.
Having had a longtime fascination with the Doors and the era that made their emergence possible, I listened as she wove a tale that began in Westport in the late 1950s and ended (for now) on the "Madison Avenue" of Connecticut - Greenwich Avenue.
Valerie Brodsky grew up in Westport in the late 1950s. You didn't need any money back then, at least not on your person. You walked into the bakery, took the merchandise, they wrote your name down and your family would get the bill at the end of the month.
After graduating from college, she moved to New York City, where, after failing the typing test at Grey Advertising, she started working for a magazine and later became a stylist for an ad agency. When she met Joel Brodsky, she was engaged to be married and he had a girlfriend. The details are hazy on this point, but the end result is that Brodsky and Valerie became best friends and got married.
What's the story behind the Morrison picture? It was the end of the day and Morrison was drunk, which was business as usual. Valerie said her husband maintained that there were few subjects who were an "animal for the camera" the way Morrison was. He was withdrawn and shy in real life, but when he was on stage, his charisma was unrivaled. Once, her husband was shooting them on a stage performance when the union tried to put an end to the show, citing union rules about a midnight deadline.
"Morrison replied 'We're not leaving until we're through,'" Brodsky said, and the union had the choice of letting him finish or facing the wrath of a few hundred Doors fans. "They would have rushed the stage. That's the kind of charisma he had for an audience," she said.
Brodsky shot the Doors five times and has about 600 negatives at home. He has a contract with them, whereby he gets a residual for all merchandise sold bearing Morrison's picture.
The first time he photographed them the Doors was just another band, and Brodsky asked for their music so he could get a sense of how he would photograph them. During his career, Brodsky photographed the likes of Kiss, Van Morrison, Tom Waits and Rod Stewart. He also shot the first cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
It was still hot when I walked back to my car, but I didn't mind. I had what I came for - a good story. s
www.fairfieldcbj.com/current_issue/080805fss02.html