UPFRONT/LISTEN
Stars on Film
A rock photographer dishes about some of her famous subjects
FOR HALF A CENTURY, Lynn Goldsmith has photographed some of the biggest names in music for magazines including Newsweek, Rolling Stone and People. Her latest book, Music in the ’80s, offers a look at a decade that produced countless new stars and also gave new life to those who had hit it big in prior decades. Here are a few of Goldsmith’s behind-the-scenes stories.
KEITH RICHARDS “One of my favorite pictures in the book is a double-page spread of him. We were walking down 36th Street in New York, and this older woman obviously thought he might be somebody because I was taking his picture, but she had no idea. He’s just a gentleman and a lovely person.”
THE GO-GO’S “The Go-Go’s were new, and they were a bunch of girls all helping each other with their makeup. And then I’d gone to see them perform, and I thought that they were the worst band I’d ever heard! People get better as they continue to play. U2 wasn’t very good in the beginning either.”
BOB MARLEY “There’s a picture of him looking really happy. At that time, he had cancer. It was inspiring to see him not only go out there and perform, but the way that he was with people. He was just open and positive and didn’t show the pain that he must have been going through.”
CHRISSIE HYNDE “She didn’t want any makeup. In those days—particularly before MTV really took hold and people cared more about what they looked like on film—you often had to break the barrier of artists who felt that what you were doing wasn’t authentic.” —Whitney Matheson