California Dreamin’ with Diltz

Hale Milgrim is arguably better equipped than the average fan to wax quixotic about music back in the day when LPs were actually referred to as “wax.” The former President and CEO of Capitol Records – who got his start as a clerk in an Isla Vista record store – created Quips & Clips to share archival film and still footage from his personal library, and to broker the audience’s connection to the artists and music they love. These treasured evenings have entertained thousands at the Lobero over the years. 

But Quips & Clips in a condensed version will merely be the opening act for Milgrim’s colleague from decades past. Photographer Henry Diltz will offer a special edition of Behind the Lens – California Dreamin’ on Saturday, May 31. The touring visual feast – a music fan’s dream melange of music photography + stories – bursts with anecdotes from the legendary lensman. The now legendary Diltz was touring as the banjo player with his Warner Brothers-signed ‘60s band Modern Folk Quartet when he picked up his first camera.

“I’m kind of glad that we never got a hit, because then I’d be one of those Where are They Now? guys,” Diltz said last weekend. 

Good thing for us, too, or the world wouldn’t have the debut album cover shot of Crosby, Stills and Nash (not necessarily in that order) on a couch fronting an old house in a rural valley north of L.A., or the piercing blue eyes of James Taylor for the cover of Sweet Baby James, or the Doors hanging out in the lobby of the eponymous inn for Morrison Hotel – to name just a few of Diltz’ famous photos. 

Still snapping away at 86, Diltz, who has served as videographer for every one of the intimate Tales for the Tavern concerts in Santa Ynez over the last two decades, can dish the details with the best of them. Which is why this interview has been drastically edited. (Milgrim and Diltz will conduct a joint Q&A from the Lobero stage following their presentations.) 

Q. You were actually on tour yourself when you got your first camera. You’re like an accidental photographer. 

A. Yeah, we had gone to a secondhand store and one of the guys in the group walked in ahead of me and grabbed a camera off a table. I was right behind him and without even stopping I reached out and picked one up too without even thinking about it. I still don’t know why. I hadn’t ever thought about being a photographer. 

I didn’t even realize we were using slide film (transparencies). But when we got home and got them developed, we had a slideshow with all of our stoned hippie friends. When I saw these pictures eight feet wide glowing in the dark on the wall, I was amazed. That’s when I became a photographer. I just started taking pictures of all my friends up in Laurel Canyon so we could have more slideshows. But I only knew musicians, so my friends were Stephen Stills and Mama Cass Elliot and Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, the guys in The Turtles. 

Then I started doing album covers, but I still wasn’t a real photographer. I didn’t have a studio where they posed for me. We’d go out and spend the night in the desert and eat peyote buttons and shoot pictures all day the next day, or ride horseback to an Indian reservation or go up to Big Sur… It was always about getting the band out of town, away from their girlfriends and managers and telephones. Then we’d just shoot. I think that’s the reason I got to photograph so many groups because I wasn’t a pushy photographer. I was more of a fly on the wall, just taking pictures of the things I could see.

Beyond the famous album covers, you’ve taken some of the most iconic photos in rock music history. Why do you think they’ve been so enduring?

I’m very interested in people and life, and I wanted to see what it was really like to just be with them and see what they were actually doing… I didn’t walk in and start snapping away. I’d go hang out for a while, and then they wouldn’t even notice I was taking pictures. 

I know you’re going to tell the stories behind the photos at your show. But can you share the one with David Crosby smoking a joint while holding a fake gun decorated as an American flag to his head? 

I’m looking at it right now on my bulletin board. It looks like something we might have posed, but what happened is I was on the road with CSNY on their first tour, and Crosby was just sitting on his bed in his hotel room. He was smoking a joint while on the phone talking to Bob Dylan, and suddenly the door opens and Graham Nash throws the toy pistol on the bed that some fan had made for Crosby. He picked it up and held it to his forehead. And I went, click, click, click. That’s the same story with most of them.