The Ferlaina Archive and the extraordinary discovery of unrealised TEB photos at Hyde Park! - part three.

This is the third part of the story... 

(first part here, second part here).

 

3.

"So I engage in the sale of photographs, especially from the 1970s - things like Living Teathre... - and art books and catalogs. At home I have particular books, for example on Conceptual Art.... which I have 'fed' on over the years, but they didn't sell much, it was almost like an exchange of stickers between enthusiasts ... but the photos, those did sell well. I used to buy them on eBay, for example, for 50-60 euros and resell them for 100, you didn't have a huge margin but it worked..."

 

Ferlaina during the interview.

At some point Ferlaina had the intuition to broaden the commercial discourse to music, his great passion, and began to frequent antique markets as a buyer, finding very interesting material without worrying about copyrights and agencies. One day he happened to go there early in the morning, at five o'clock, and came across a stall with boxes...

"I asked the people selling them if they would give me first refusal to see them before the others.... 'How many are you selling them for,' I asked him? 'Five euros each, but if you get some I'll make even less. I selected an initial bundle and went home in seventh heaven. I saw that the name of an agency was printed behind the photos and, not knowing anything about it, I inquired, worried about the possible legal consequences (embezzlement...). I found out that the agency no longer existed--but who was the photographer? I would have liked to involve him in some initiative, like organizing an exhibition. At that time I had organized an exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of Novegro (Milan), on "Photography and otherness", and I had become interested in the work of an Italian stage photographer, Franco Cattarinich, a great master of technique."

Ferlaina meets the photographer and discovers that the latter, having started his own agency in 1980, has a basement full of old photos purchased from other photographers that he never marketed. Ferlaina asks to see something and makes an offer, but hesitates. He insists, peeks through the envelopes at the words "Rolling Stones London," and decides to offer a cash sum. He ticks it off. It's the beginning of a long negotiation that will lead him to acquire as many as 21 boxes of photos and negatives totaling thousands of pieces (as of today still to be cataloged).

 

Ferlaina Archive in Milan.

As he began to delve into what he had purchased, he came across the nearly 150 shots of the Stones' Hyde Park concert. But who is the photographer? - I asked him. "On the photo envelopes was this name, Callá," he says. "I did some research and found out that he was the director of "Colpo Grosso" ["Big Shot", a trivial broadcast of the 1970s, ed.] and "Disco Ring" [a music broadcast of the same era, ed.] Pino Callà, a RAI director who has been living in New York for years. In the late 1960s he was a freelance in London. Now he lives in Milan." 

In fact a Callà's Wikipedia page does exist here as a Facebook's one here. 

 

(end of part three - to be continued)

A group of Hell's Angels.

 

 

 

 

The audience.

The Third Ear Band playing on stage.

Paul Minns with Paul Buckmaster on stage.

 no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first)

Can you believe that in a photo studio in Milan I found 26 unreleased photos of the Third Ear Band?

1.

It was a classic stroke of luck, sort of like when an occasional customer at a junk store comes across a dusty Van Gogh, hidden in a corner of the store under cheap prints and a lamp from the 1960s.
A dear friend of mine, an excellent electric guitar/bass player, in a flea market buys a portfolio of four unpublished black-and-white photos of Led Zeppelin, taken at the ill-fated but legendary Vigorelli Velodrome gig (in Milan) in 1971: all happy and proud about this find, he tells me that it was a photographer from Milan, a certain Ferlaina, who sold them to him.
He also tells me that the photographer has a Web site at  http://www.archivioferraina.com/ 

He days: "Drop by and you will see that he has interesting things."

I go in there and am immediately heartbroken when I realize that in his archive there are over 200 shots from the legendary concert that the Rolling Stones played in Hyde Park on July 1969. A concert that unfortunately, by the naïve logics of the time, was filmed extensively only to document the commemoration the Rolling did of their founder genius Brian Jones, but no footage was devoted to the other groups involved by Blackhill Enterprises - King Crimson, Alexis Korner & the Blues Incorporated and the Third Ear Band (read more HERE). 

It doesn't take me long to call the studio and talk to Mr Ferlaina who, very kindly, explains that yes, in addition to the Rolling Stones, "there seem to be pictures of other musicians." I jump in my chair and ask him to send me some examples: after a few minutes shots of Alexis Korner, Robert Fripp, and... Of Glen Sweeney playing on stage with Richard Coff! Then shots taken backstage where Glen is hugging Carolyn Looker and Paul  Minns is with first wife Mary Haynes and Tristan, their first son!
Even of Edgar Broughton that day in the audience with Lauren Loz, his wife...

(1- to be continued)

Edgar Broughton with his wife Laurie. 

 no©2022 LucaChinoFerrari (unless you intend to make a profit. In which case, ask first.