Gary James' Interview With Rock Photographer
Ken Davidoff



Ken Davidoff is a great example of someone who was at the right place, with the right stuff, at the right time. In 1968 he photographed Jimi Hendrix at the Miami Pop Festival. A year later, in 1969, he was given the title of Official Photographer of the First Annual Music And Arts Festival Of Palm Beach, a three day festival referred to as "Woodstock South". Ken Davidoff shared his story of what it was like being a Rock photographer in the late 1960s.

Q - Ken, are you going to many concerts these days?

A - I haven't been to one in awhile, but I have a friend that's in Firefall and I think they're coming down this way and I might go to photograph them. I'm friends with the bass player, Mark Andes.

Q - I see photography runs in your blood, seeing as how your father was a photographer.

A - That's true.

Q - Your father photographed J.F.K. and family in Palm Beach. Was your father friends with the Kennedy family?

A - Yeah, he did. What happened was he was a photographer in Palm Beach, doing society photography. He had photographed Rose (Kennedy, J.F.K.'s mother) at some big event and she really loved his picture that he took of her. She called the house and thanked him. She invited him to come over to the house and do some pictures. She had just gotten back from Paris, shopping for her wardrobe for the upcoming season. My dad went over there and photographed her in every outfit that he had bought.

Q - That must have been a long shoot!

A - Yeah. As he became more liked by the family, Rose would call the house and tell him where the President was going to be. J.F.K. had a habit of trying to elude all of his Secret Service agents so he could just have some fun time in Paradise here. What happened was the F.B.I. wound up putting a tail on my dad so they'd know where the President was. (laughs)

Q - What did the President do for a fun time in Palm Beach? Swim? Boat? Fish?

A - Yeah, all that stuff. He could be a regular person. It's hard when you're famous, not from a personal point of view, but the one time I met John Lennon I asked him, "What would you change in your life?" He said, "I hate being famous. I don't like being famous. It takes up too much of your time."

Q - Because everywhere you go, people want something from you.

A - Exactly.

Q - It doesn't matter if we're talking about John Lennon or Elvis or Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix. They signed up for something they didn't quite understand what it is they're getting into until it's too late.

A - Yeah.

Q - John thought that being out of The Beatles for ten years would save him, and he remained as popular as ever.

A - Yeah, and fame killed him basically. I met John Lennon the day after they dissolved The Beatles. He had just left Disney World in Orlando. That's where he signed the papers and he came to Palm Beach the very next day. I worked for my dad for almost twenty years. He was always a funny guy. One night he said to me, "Tomorrow we're going to photograph John Lennon." I laughed. I said, "Sure. Okay." And that next day we got up and he said, "C'mon, let's go. We've go to take pictures of John Lennon." And we get there and John is with this beautiful woman with long black hair down to her waist. My dad goes, "Hey! That's not Yoko Ono. Who's that?" It was the very beginning of May Pang and John Lennon hanging out for The Lost Weekend.

Q - Did you ever hear about John and Yoko's This Is Not Here Art Exhibit? John put a pair of his old shoes on a pedestal as if to say this is art. If it hadn't been John Lennon he would never have gotten away with something like that.

A - You know, artists have gotten away with so much, the words won't even come out of my mouth. I mean, c'mon. You took a banana and taped it to a wall and got how much for it? Have you seen that?

Q - No.

A - The Banksy thing. I think he had a canvas and he taped a banana to the canvas with duct tape. I think it sold for millions of dollars.

Q - Art should be something special. If everybody can do it, then it's no longer special.

A - That's true. When Jackson Pollock first came out, everybody used to say a monkey could do that. (laughs) Jackson Pollock's the one who just painted the swirls. He has a giant canvas on the ground and he'll dip the brush and just make swirls all over the place. I studied Art for eight years. It's not easy.

Q - How did taking Art lessons improve your skills as a photographer?

A - Immensely, because I studied color, composition. I was combination of artist and photographer. I got my first camera when I was eight years old. My dad must have been thinking ahead because he didn't just give me a Brownie, one lens, you look through it. He gave me this little, I think it was an Argus, and it was a twin lens, reflex camera. You had to look straight down into it. One lens was for focusing and the other one was the one that took the image. The reason that was important to him was because I started working with him in the studio. I started when I was sixteen years old. He sent me on my first job alone. It was with a 35 Roland, which is a twin lens, reflex camera. So, he started me using a twin reflex camera when I was eight and by the time I was sixteen he hopped me on this chartered Greyhound bus to take pictures at Sea World of this twelve year old's birthday party. There was the heiress to Coca-Cola, her grand-daughter.

Q - I take it the pictures turned out fine.

A - They did, although I've had a few mess-ups. (laughs) When I first started working for him I shot this job and I came back and I had to develop the film and then we would make proof sheets, but I got the containers mixed up in the darkroom and I put the film in the wrong chemical first and when I was done there was nothing on my film. He goes, "Go back to that job and see if they're still there. You've got to shoot some more photos." (laughs) I did and they were, thank goodness.

Q - Would you say taking Art classes should be a requirement in order to be a good photographer?

A - I don't know if it should be a requirement, but boy it definitely helps! If you're thinking of being a photographer then I would suggest you might want to take a few Art classes first.

Q - I did an interview with a photographer a few years back who told me these days anybody with a cell phone that has a camera in it can take a photo equal to a professional photograph. What do you think of that?

A - You know, these days cameras are so advanced and they shoot in such low light levels. My phone will shoot in such low light level, I can't even open my lens up and get an exposure unless the camera would be on a tripod to capture the light these camera do on the phones. It's crazy. But I do think camera these days make it very easy to get a good image.

Q - In other words, they're reviling what you have spent your whole life doing.

A - Right, and that started as soon as digital cameras came out. People thought that they could take pictures. Immediately work dropped off I'm sure for professional photographers. I know it did here. Then when cell phones started getting really nice cameras in 'em, you can hardly go anywhere without seeing if something is happening, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty people... if you go to a concert, forget about it because you have to really be tall because everybody's got their arm in the air, shooting video with their cell camera in their cell phone.

Q - How many photos would you say you have in your collection?. I would imagine thousands.

A - Maybe hundreds of thousands. It's not that I just did concerts. I went to the launch of Apollo 11. I photographed seven Presidents. I photographed Kings and Queens, especially Queens in Palm Beach. No, I'm just kidding. I went to not only the Democratic an Republican conventions, but there are just so many events that happen in Palm Beach during the season. The season is usually from Thanksgiving to Mother's Day. When I first started working for my dad, one of the first things he did was to get me a tuxedo because in Palm Beach there's like two or three Black Tie affairs each week. So, by the time I was sixteen, every Monday night I had to be at the opening of The Playhouse, which put a damper on a class I wanted to take. It was called Painting 3. It was on Monday nights, so that screwed that up. (laughs) But, every Monday night I was in my tuxedo and the next day I was back in Art class in a t-shirt and jeans.

Q - You were the original Sharp Dressed Man.

A - Yeah. (laughs) Never thought of that.

Q - You took some color slides of John Lennon and they were lost? What happened to those color slides?

A - I have no idea exactly what happened to them. I just know they are missing in action.

Q - Maybe someone has them?

A - No, I don't think so, but maybe. The house was robbed once and I don't know exactly everything that was taken. Back in the '90s my brother had this friend who was a Beatles fan and I showed her my slides and she ordered a print and I didn't think much of it. Then I started talking to her on Facebook and she was terminally ill and she was always masked up when she would come over. I just know that she was terminally ill and I had a hard time making contact with her, but the whole time I was trying to get her to give me that framed image so that I could take the frame apart, scan that image and at least have one for my collection, for my archive, because by then everything was gone. I couldn't find anything else. So, what happened was she passed away and I was never able to do that. I always thought maybe I should try and get in touch with somebody in the family. I'm sure they saved that picture. But I don't have any images that I actually took.

Q - I've seen your photos in books that show John and May Pang.

A - I think May is coming out with a book too. She said she was working on a project.

Q - A photo book?

A - Yeah, a photo book. She has a lot of photographs of John. I became friends with her about 2008.

Q - I should've asked you this question earlier. Did you ever meet President Kennedy?

A - My father took me to the airport several times when John Kennedy was coming into Palm Beach and I got to sit in the car and watch him in action, my dad taking pictures of the President. But, I didn't start working for my dad until 1966. So, John Kennedy had passed away.

Q - Did you ever photograph Robert Kennedy?

A - Oh, I photographed Bobby and I photographed Jackie. I photographed Jackie and my dad. I photographed everybody else in the Kennedy family except John.

Q - Did you ever get to speak with Bobby?

A - No. Mostly, "Stand here. Do this. Look this way. Get closer together." Just posing people, which is kind of cool when you're a photographer. You get to boss people around a little bit. They have to listen. (laughs) That's the whole purpose of me being there, 'cause they want some sort of image. We used to be the hotel photographers at the Breakers Hotel. We had our studio in the basement at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. They started doing all this convention work. Like 7:30 in the morning I had to be at the hotel to cover this convention. They would have a breakfast speaker and different speakers all throughout the day. There were some really cool conventions. There was a convention of all the different drug stores in the United States. Different companies. So, they spent tons of money. But I also had to take pictures of a convention of these casket makers. Talk about boring.

Q - And here I thought sports would have been boring compared to Rock 'n' Roll, but I guess not.

A - No. I loved sports. I'm a huge baseball fan. I shot for major league baseball for many year. I thought I was in Heaven every day. Going back to bossing people around at these conventions, there could be two, three, four, five hundred people and they want a group shot. So, that takes a lot of planning and a lot of logistics. The Breakers Hotel had this giant courtyard in the middle of the hotel. It was like built around the courtyard and that's where we used to do these group shots. You'd get everybody all set up and all of a sudden some clown would say, "Wait! Wait for me!" You could never get a thousand people's attention all at one time. That was almost impossible. I'd be like standing on some giant ladder, a ten foot ladder, looking down on this crowd, yelling, "Okay everybody, look this way on the count of three." Then you'd have to do it three or four of those.

Q - Did you say, "On the count of three, smile!"

A - Yeah, or "Say money!" Something stupid. Those were tough shots.

Q - You were at this 1968 Miami Pop Festival where Jimi Hendrix was.

A - Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Q - I stand corrected. We can't forget about Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.

A - Right. The real band.

Q - Did you ever get to talk to Jimi Hendrix?

A - You know, I never actually talked to Jimi. What happened was, that Miami Pop Festival happens to be the very first Rock Festival on the East Coast of the United States. There were two promoters, Rick O'Barry, who is a dolphin activist who was living in Cocoa Grove with his buddy Michael Lang, and Rick was the trainer for Flipper, the TV show. He trained all the dolphins. He and Michael and Fred Neal all used to hang out together and hang out with the dolphins and take acid and play songs for the dolphins. One day in 1970, I think on the very first Earth Day, a dolphin died in Rick's arms and he thought that the dolphin committed suicide and he started this Rescue Dolphins. Dolphins are captured in Japan and then they're sold all over the world to all these different places where they charge people to look at them, basically is how Rick looks at it. Now, if you gave a key to Sea World to Rick he'd unlock the whole thing and let all the dolphins out. He is actually in Japan doing undercover military actions against the fishermen who are trying to capture all these dolphins. He's probably been arrested a thousand times in Japan. But he and Michael started this Miami Pop Festival. At first they were trying to do it at the Indian Reservation, but it took too much time to pull it together and they had a certain time line they thought it was going to happen, and so they got hooked up with this guy, Marshall Brevitz, who owned Thee Image, which was a club in Miami. The house bands were like Spirit, Blues Image, Grateful Dead. So, Marshall Brevitz hooked Michael and Rick up with the entertainment, with all the acts, and it was Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention, Chuck Berry with NRBQ, Blue Cheer and John Lee Hooker. And another band called These Vizitors who happen to be friends of mine now. I didn't even know them then. I have this photograph of John Lee Hooker backstage and somehow their father, who was the band manager, happened to be in the picture. These Visitors morphed into Neil Young's band Crazy Horse when Neil Young didn't tour.

Q - Strange name for a band, but there's been a lot of strange band names.

A - Yeah. It turns out that these guys wrote "Southern Cross" and a song that was covered by Fleetwood Mac, "Blue Letter". They had their own album. It was called "Crazy Horse at Crooked Lake" and it was sans Neil Young, but I think they've done rather well, The Curtis Brothers.

Q - Who's buying prints of your photos?

A - It's mostly licensing. I have a few that are collectors that want to buy. I had to establish an auction price. I put a 12 x 18 photograph numbered print and signed by me in Heritage Auctions. It went for $500. My buddy and I started this Old Rock Photo and we were trying to figure out how much should I charge for a photograph of a certain size. It's not easy. You start looking around at all the other famous photographers, and you have to say I'm not a famous photographers, but I have pictures of the same people they took. So, it's not easy to start out and price yourself in the right way. So I decided to start an auction price, so to speak. Every time I would try and get into a gallery they would want to know these things. I've been trying since 2008 probably to get into Morrison Hotel in New York. I've always wanted to be in Morrison Hotel. I'm friends with Michael Lang, and he told me, "I can get you into Morrison Hotel." It didn't happen. A couple of other famous people have told me the same thing. One night I approached Morrison Hotel and they said, "Have you had gallery shows?" "Yeah. I've had gallery shows." "Have you ever had a show in a museum?" No. But in 2018 I did have a show in a museum and that was an ordeal. I contacted the museum in 2016 and proposed this idea because the 50th Anniversary of the Miami Pop Festival was just two years away. They liked the idea. We had to go through all kinds of red tape before committees and the end result is they did want to do this exhibit. It was well planned and well thought out and for opening night I invited Leon Hendrix to play, and he did. We had about 1.000 people show up for an opening night. It was May 18th, 2018. The museum made three foot by three foot prints and they matted and framed 'em. Put 'em up and there were over fifty. My guest of honor was Chief Dan Oceola. At that time he was the second in command of the Seminole tribe. At the age of 30 he was the youngest Chief to serve the Seminoles. He used to take us around Hard Rock. We were treated like kings.

Q - On your website, Jack Connell writes, "The publication of this website is not the end of Ken's photographic career, it's just the beginning!" How can you possibly top what you've already done?

A - Well see, when we wrote that I think it was around 2008 is when Jack and I first started doing this. I was basically just working retail and I was selling sports memorabilia because in 1985 I became a baseball card dealer. (laughs) Between my love of baseball and my love or Rock 'n' Roll it's sort of a hard balancing act. I still collect baseball cards pre-1972. I went to Jack and said, "What can we do?" At first we started out with mostly sports memorabilia and called it Ken's One Of A Kind because I wasn't just selling baseball cards, I was selling pictures that I took that were autographed by the baseball players. So, Jack said to me, "I was at that concert with The Rolling Stones at the Palm Beach Racetrack. You were there, right?" I go, "Yeah. I was there. Sure. I was the official photographer." Jack goes, "Every time I tell my friends I saw The Rolling Stones at Palm Beach, they laugh at me. We have to put some of those Rock 'n' Roll pictures up." So, we put up the pictures of the Palm Beach Pop Festival. He goes, "You've got Jimi Hendrix too?" "Yeah." So, we put up the pictures of the Miami Pop Festival. Jack and I start researching the Miami Pop Festival and Jack finds a contact for Eddie Kramer, who was Jimi's engineer, and we show Eddie Kramer the pictures and then he shows them to the Hendrix Estate and he also shows them to Michael Lang. Michael Lang calls on the phone and we were so impressed that Michael Lang calls us. He said, "Thanks Ken for keeping the history of the Miami Pop Festival alive on your website. I'm writing a book on Woodstock and I'd like to license some pictures for this book." That was probably the first licensing deal that we got. Then after that we did a licensing deal with the Hendrix Estate. So, I have five pictures in Michael's book, The Road To Woodstock, and I've been friends with him ever since. I even visited his office in New York City. I was on vacation in 2011. I went up and got to meet him at his office and he took some pictures. We've had a couple of interesting ideas that we worked on together. In 2012 at Gulfstream Racetrack they did a historical marker. Michael and Rick were supposed to be there, but at the last minute Michael couldn't make it. But Rick was there. Leon Hendrix was there. Jack and I were there. We unveiled this historical marker with this wonderful statement Michael Lang came up with about the Miami Pop Festival: This Is Where The Seeds Of Woodstock Were Sewn. Pretty poetic, huh?

Q - Yes, it is.

A - So we use that all the time. And I wrote a book about the Miami Pop Festival. SONY Records came out with a double album of the Miami Pop Festival. It was a double vinyl, numbered album and every picture on the album, including the cover and the back cover and the inside and a twenty page book that comes with the album, all my photographs. That was my first album cover. So, Jack and I working together, Jack realized yeah, this is just the beginning because now we've done photo licensing and I've done shows for the Palm Beach Historical Society about the Palm Beach Festival. Jack and I even tried to do a documentary 'cause Jack used to work in film.

Official Website: OldRockPhoto.com

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