The Lost Rock & Roll Negatives of Michael Friedman and the Stories Behind Them
After 50 years buried at the bottom of a file cabinet, Michael Friedman’s never-before-seen collection of photos from his time in the music industry was discovered by his wife, Donna Vita. This time capsule of the images and behind-the-scenes stories offers a front-row seat to music history. Music Manager and Producer Michael Friedman launched his career in the mid-1960s working with folk, blues, and rock & roll musicians who became legends. As an avid photographer with Pentax camera in hand, he kept a visual record of the artists he worked with and their performances, but he lost track of the negatives before he had a chance to print them. His book, EXPOSED: The Lost Negatives and Untold Stories of Michael Friedman by Michael Friedman and Donna Vita features 200 never-before-published photos of the best musicians of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Among them are Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, The Band, Levon Helm, Todd Rundgren, Kris Kristofferson, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, James Cotton, Ian & Sylvia, Johnny Winter, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Rush, Rita Coolidge, and Albert Grossman. Other stories from inside the music business feature Bob Dylan, Bob Neuwirth, Clive Davis and George Harrison. Many of the photos in this book were featured at exhibitions at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019-2020 and California Heritage Museum in 2018. Michael will take us through his photographic history and insider’s stories.
Michael Friedman’s career in the music industry began in the early 60’s while in college at the University of Arizona where he started Borchetta/Friedman Productions & Coastline Records. In 1966 he worked in promotion and publicity for The Mamas and the Papas, Herman’s Hermits, The Turtles, The Hollies, Glen Campbell, and the Bee Gees. He transitioned to management when he signed and produced an unknown band from Philadelphia called Nazz, whose leader was Todd Rundgren.
In 1968 Friedman joined Albert Grossman, one of the most influential personal managers in the music industry. As Grossman’s assistant and later partner he worked with Bob Dylan, The Band, Janis Joplin, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Odetta, Ian & Sylvia, Ritchie Havens, Gordon Lightfoot, and Peter, Paul and Mary. In Woodstock Michael helped Grossman create Bearsville Studios and produced some of the first albums for Bearsville Records.
In 1972 Friedman joined Bert Block managing Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge. Friedman later joined Clive Davis as his Executive Assistant and Director of Associated Labels at Arista Records, where he also headed up the formation of Arista’s music video department where he worked with Time-Life Films to release the industry’s first video concerts for both The Kinks and Dionne Warwick.
In addition to music, Friedman’s other interests included antiques and design, and in 1983 he opened Friedman Gallery in Westport with a wide range of antiques including early American, folk art, art deco, native American and western antiques. His book Cowboy Culture; The Last Frontier of American Antiques was published in 1992. Friedman also founded Artafax, a European design store in Westport, the Ash Creek Saloons in Fairfield and Norwalk, and The Goose American Bistro in Darien.
Speaker Summary
Mike regaled us with behind-the-scenes stories from his years in the music industry that gave him a unique perspective on many music stars he got to know on a very personal level. He told the stories through the lens of the candid photographs he took over the years thanks to his access to these stars and the on-and-off-stage moments he shared with them, and how these photos and stories come to life in his book.
Mike began with becoming interested in music when he took up the drums while attending Staples High School in Westport, CT. That led to his first opportunity and exposure to the world of professional music when he sat in for the “incapacitated” drummer for Harvey and the Moonglows, which further fed his passion for music. He jumped forward to starting his first record label while in college and subsequently getting his real start in the industry when he got a job promoting several leading groups and, ultimately, producing Todd Rundgren’s first big hit, “Hello, It’s Me”. The untimely death of the head of the management company he was working for led to an opportunity to work with iconic industry manager Albert Grossman, which connected him with most of the musicians featured in his photos and enabled the relationships and friendships that provided the unfettered access to these stars and their performances that are the subject of these images. Working with Grossman also took him to Woodstock, before and after the ground-breaking music festival there in 1969, and the creation of the Bearsville Studio and Record label.
He shared some extraordinary photos of Janis Joplin, with whom he enjoyed a particularly close personal relationship, and who he described as wonderful, funny and very complicated. A series of these photos were used on her “Keep On Rockin” songbook and this montage is featured in his book. Mike told the story of attending the greatest rock concert he ever saw at Madison Square Garden accompanying Janis who wanted to see a young newcomer to the industry – Tina Turner – who was opening for The Rolling Stones along with BB King. This led to an impromptu invitation by Tina to have Janis join her on-stage to perform together. His picture of the young Turner was stunning. And his pictures of the Stones performing on the tiny, largely unprotected stage gave insight to his unusual access to the talent featured in his book.
Mike then moved on to discuss his relationship with Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson (“the most amazing guy I ever worked with”) and an especially entertaining story of how he and Kris influenced their performance on The Dean Martin Show. As with the others, his stunning behind-the-scenes photos of Kris and Rita helped bring his story to life.
Mike closed with a long, amusing story of a meeting he attended between Bob Dylan and film producer Otto Preminger that led to Dylan duping Preminger into “hosting” a dinner for Dylan and his wife where Preminger was not allowed to attend so Dylan could show his wife some aspects of Preminger’s NY home that he found potentially inspirational for the redesign of their brownstone. No photos were shared but the story was a fitting close to a talk about someone who had a unique inside view of the professional and personal worlds of many music icons of the 60‘s and 70’s.