Original contacts from the first 1969 TEB photo session taken by Ray Stevenson.

Here below you can watch the really precious original two contacts of the very first TEB photo session taken by Ray Stevenson at London Kensell Green cemetery presumably in the Spring 1969.

As documented elsewhere on this Archive (read here here and here) Glen Sweeney, Paul Minns and Richard Coff (with Carolyn Looker) was photographed at the cemetery for selecting some takes to put on "Alchemy" cover: only one photo was chosen later for the album and few other takes was published through the years on magazines, books and Internet...

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

Ray Stevenson's memories on Kensal Green cemetery TEB's photo session.

Ray Stevenson is a sort of obscure cult hero for many of us. It was him who took the first proper photo session of the Third Ear Band at Kensal Green cemetery (read at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/01/teb-first-photo-session-by-ray_30.html), then obscure icons in popular music; years later (1976), after having photographed rock legends as Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Who, Fairport Convention..., he 'discovered' the Sex Pistols before they become "The Sex Pistols" and took some now historical pictures of them.

Having tried for many years to find him through the Web (http://www.raystevenson.co.uk/ his official Web site), few days ago, very surprisingly, he replied me and we had the brief conversation you can read below. He conscious that "as they say "if you can remember the 60's, you weren't there!", and this seems to be true for me"...

How old was you in 1969 when you shot the session with the TEB at Kensal Green cemetery? 

"I was 20 in 1969". 

When/how/where you met the band for the first time?

"I can't remember our first meeting. Glen, Carolyn and I would be at the same clubs [one of them was Les Cousins] and events and we gradually got to know each other."

Maybe at Les Cousins? They played there some gigs regurarly with Davy Graham...
"They played Cousins??? I really have no recollection of that, and I was there most nights. A visitor once looked at my Album collection and commented "You've got 3 of every genre!" I would say that they were the best of each genre... Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, Hendrix, Stones, Pink Floyd, Peer Gynt Suite, My Fair Lady Soundtrack, Burundi Drummers, Gregorian Chant, Segovia, but it is Roy Harper that I am still returning to, but in digital form."

Who decided and contacted you to ask you to take the photos for the band?  

"I don't remember getting a commission for the session, most likely would be a random meeting and being asked 'Do you want to do a session?' That was how thing were back then."

Why was chosen just the Kensal Green cemetery? Did yoy recall something about that event? (when there was the session? which kind of camera you used for it?...)

"Kensal Green Cemetery was the bands decision. Probably because Hyde Park was featureless, there were very few suitable locations. Back then I had a Nikon-F and a Nikkormat, with 28mm and 135mm lenses, more importantly TRI-X Pan film."

Had you involved into the artwork of the "Alchemy" cover? 

"I had no involvement in the artwork of the Alchemy cover, but was delighted with the end product."

Later you took some photos of the band at the Isle of Wight festival (August 1969): do you remember anything about it? 

"Isle of Wight... So many bands, so many people, so many friends, so many years ago, I can't remember anything significant."

What happened to the photographs you took? Why some agencies (i.e. Rex Features) put on sale just some pictures (read at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2017/05/found-four-never-seen-before-pictures.html)? Have you still got that old picture? Are you selling them?
"I still have (very nearly) all of my negatives from 1966 onward, my agency Rex/Shutterstock are digital, and have scans of my more useable images." 

Have you met the band later? 
"The last time I saw Glen and Carolyn was in Portobello Road, they had sailed their little boat from England, through the French canals, then sunk when they got to the Mediteranian. Very sad."

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

Found four never seen before pictures of the TEB!

These below are four never seen before shots of the band taken by Ray Stevenson - two at the London Kensal Green cemetery, where there was one of the first photo sessions for the "Alchemy"'s cover, and two on stage at the Isle of Wight festival (August 1969).

Now these b/w pictures are on sale at Rex Web site (go here).

 

As we know (read on this Archive at http://ghettoraga.blogspot.it/2010/01/teb-first-photo-session-by-ray_30.html), also Carolyn Looker (Glen's missus) was involved at the Kensal Green session: you can see her arm just behind the tomb...!
Other pictures of the band at the Isle of Wight festival was taken by Barry Plummer (read here), Derek Halsall and Karen Francis (read here).

no©2017 Luca Chino Ferrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)   

TEB first photo session by Ray Stevenson.

Ray Stevenson, probably the main photographer of the Third Ear Band in the Sixties, got a complete photo session of the group at Kensal Green Cemetery of London (see at http://www.kensalgreencemetery.com/index.html), one of the oldest cemetery in the world (first funeral made in 1883), placed in North London, near Harrow Road.

The session, kept sometimes in 1969, was managed to obtain  some photos for "Alchemy" cover, the first album.

Stevenson got some b/w and colour shots of Sweeney, Coff, Minns and Carolyn (Glen's partner) around tombs and small paths.

Finally, the photo selected for the inner cover had taken at the monument of Spencer Ricketts (1788-1867), "a naval commander who had served under Nelson and married an heiress, as "an atrociously rich Gothic shrine'. . ." (from the cemetery Web site). 

The monument (see here two beautiful photos taken by Jacqueline Banerjee in 2007), characterized by "a raised sarcophagus, decorated with shields, is enclosed by eight red Peterhead granite colonnettes and rests on stubby colonnettes of green Cornish serpentine;

the canopy sports cusped arches, gargoyles, crockets and finials galore"(quoted as above).

As journalist Chris Blackford  writes on 2004 "Alchemy" CD booklet, the shot for the cover it's a real group trademark, with Sweeney, Minns and Coff "pouring out from under the cusped arches", and "that mysterious arm reaching for the abandoned violin".

The shot printed on the original cover.

A different shot from the session.

Another shot from (with a well visible Carolyn)  was published on "I.T." n. 63 (29-08-1969)

Because that "mysterious arm" was her's, I  have asked Carolyn the meaning of it, but she doesn't remember anything about. So, no particular meanings or deep  mistery in it... "Just happened", she said me candidly, and the arm was captured in the shot...

Some years later, Ray Stevenson would be become famous as one of the best Sex Pistols photographers. From the beginning of his career at London Cousins Club, on 1966, he made books and exhibitions (read at http://www.raystevenson.co.uk/). 

He stated on November 2009: "In 1966 I was working in a professional darkroom when I heard Buffy St. Marie on the radio singing “Until it's Time For You to Go.” Something in the song and her voice made me want to meet/photograph her. My youthful naivete allowed me to make phone-calls resulting in me getting invited to her press reception and to her gigs. It was all so easy.I liked those folk people and started going to the Marquee Club on folk-night where I met Sandy Denny who introduced me to many other musicians and Cousins Folk Club. I in turn made Fairport Convention aware of Sandy! In 1969 I wound up sharing a house with Sandy and her husband.

All my best pictures are of people that I really liked, either musically or personally. You can easily tell from my books of contact sheets who it was I didn't like" (words taken from http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=185398013543).

no©2010 Luca Ferrari

(updated on August 7th, 2011)