A Lifetime of Photographing Music, with Jay Blakesberg

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In this interview, I speak with veteran music photographer, filmmaker, and public speaker Jay Blakesberg. Over the past several decades, Jay has had the opportunity to photograph a veritable whos-who in the music industry.

We talk about his latest book chronicling a lifetime of music. The book, assembled by his daughter, is a retrospective of never-before-seen images of the superstars that created the soundtracks of many of our childhoods.

Jay is a San Francisco-based photographer, filmmaker, and public speaker whose work has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Relix, and numerous other magazines. He has worked with countless musical artists, including Neil Young, Radiohead, Phish, Joni Mitchell, The Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, the Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana, and the Grateful Dead, to name just a few. Blakesberg first started documenting life with a camera in 1978 at age 16. RetroBlakesberg is his 16th coffee table book.

Check out @Retroblakesberg – the Instagram account Jay's daughter, Ricki, curated that uses Jay's work to form a compelling story of how rock ‘n’ roll, fashion, and cultural trends have evolved– as well as the looks and concepts that have remained popular as we move farther and farther away from the analog existence of Jay’s youth, and into the high-tech interconnectedness of Ricki’s generation.

Jay's book: https://www.blakesberg.com
Jay on Instagram: @Retroblakesberg