It’s the morning after the 2020 election and I’ve spent the last half hour trying to think of who to call for a pep talk. I thought of Glena, but her family suffered a tragedy on Monday. I thought of Shelley, but she spent yesterday working the polls and I know she’ll be sick of talking about the election. Being Glena’s sister, she also suffered the same tragedy. So those grade school friends are out.
I thought of another friend, but she’s on the other side of the aisle politically, so no hope of commiseration there. I thought of a dozen other friends, but I want a pep talk, not a bitch session. We are so tired of this presidential campaign. And I’m so tired of bitching in general. I’m ready for some good news.
To make things worse (much worse), I just heard that my neighbor and friend, Baron Wolman, died on Monday. Baron is famous for being the first photographer for Rolling Stone magazine.
I can just imagine Baron in 1967, meeting with Jann Wenner, the magazine’s founder, in Oakland for the first time. He was thirty years old, Jann was twenty-one. In the preface of Baron’s book Classic Rock & Other Rollers (available on Amazon), Wenner says, “Baron Wolman is one of the unsung heroes of the early days of Rolling Stone. As the magazine’s first photographer, he helped set its visual style and paved the way for those who followed him. . .With all the fame and glamour accrued to Rolling Stone in recent years. . .we should not overlook (this) one individual who paved the way for rock and roll photography.”
Baron told me that the magazine initially couldn’t afford to pay him for his photos, so he did the shooting for free as long as he was allowed to keep the rights to his images. All these years later, those iconic photos of Jimi Hendrix and Janis and the Grateful Dead and the Stones belong to Baron. Now to his estate.
His first Rolling Stone assignment was photographing the Grateful Dead right after a “marijuana raid” on their Haight-Ashbury house. Baron laughed at that, saying he had no idea then what was beginning, but he knew he was excited. I imagine him waiting backstage at the Fillmore in 1968, catching candid shots of Jimi Hendrix. He said it was no big deal in those days to get access to musicians like Jimi; they were all playing in San Francisco and it seemed to be easy for him to be invited into their circles.
He talked about Johnny Cash, how he found him to be preoccupied and a bit morose when he first photographed him in 1967 backstage at the Circle Star Theatre in Redwood City. He said Cash spent the majority of the time staring at the floor and that he took this shot in a moment when someone behind the camera called Cash’s name.
Baron shot all the music icons: B.B. King, The Who, Eric Clapton, Jim Morrison, Neil Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, James Brown, Kris Kristofferson, Creedence. If you conjure up your favorite photo of your favorite artist, he probably took it. His list of subjects reads like a Who’s Who in the international music scene. Peter Frampton, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar. Even William Burroughs. He was at Woodstock, taking the photos you remember, of which he said,” So much went right; suddenly dreams seemed attainable.”
You can find Baron’s library of photos here.
He was a dear sweet man to me, and just a tiny bit flirtatious, a neighbor who laughed about whether he slept with Janis Joplin (he’d never tell, he said). We met at the first party at my and Toby’s new house not so long ago, and afterward we went to lunch to talk about him donating something to the Cancer Foundation for New Mexico. He had suffered through his own bout with cancer, so he supported our mission to help get local patients to treatment. We sat at a table at Harry’s Roadhouse, Wes Studi at a table behind us, and he laughed again, this time about the celebrities we all run into in Santa Fe.
“They’re everywhere,” he said, “and no one bothers them. I should have thought about creating a hideout here for the ones I knew, except that they wouldn’t have to hide out, would they? No one seems to even notice that they’re here.” That’s when he told my husband and me that when he traveled to England, he stayed with his pal, Robert Plant. I kicked Toby under the table. We were having lunch with a guy who was the house guest of Robert Plant? Amazing!
Baron was generous with local charities. He gave to the Cancer Foundation several times, offering signed prints and books in past years. When I asked for a donation for our 2020 gala, he offered a celebrity dinner for twelve at my house. We conferred over several months about how to accommodate the lucky bidders after his doctor said he couldn’t appear due to his advancing ALS.
He graciously offered two signed prints and several signed books instead. Being in public during COVID with ALS just wasn’t going to work for him after all. He was regretful.
I didn’t see Baron after that. We shared a few emails, but the virus kept us all apart. No more parties at my house. No more lunches at Harry’s.
I had him on my list to call this week for another donation, this time a signed book and a virtual coffee date for the 2021 event. I’m sorry I didn’t make the call sooner, just to say hello. I wanted to reassure him that he wouldn’t have to be in a crowd and to let him know that bidders were still anxious to spend time with him and hear his stories, even if it had to be by Zoom.
I’m sad about a lot of things this morning. Sad that our country is widely divided and that we don’t seem to be any closer to a resolution of those differences. Sad about the virus and the toll it’s taking on all of us. Sad that my friends have suffered a terrible tragedy this week. And really sad that we lost Baron Wolman.
But I’m grateful for the path that brought him into my life. Or rather, me into his. If I had never had stage 4 cancer, if I had never gotten involved with the Cancer Foundation, if we had never found this house. . .if all those events hadn’t occurred, I never would have had the extreme privilege of meeting Baron.
In all my New Mexico small town days, I never dreamed I’d get the chance to meet someone who so successfully captured an era and had such an impact. My hope is that we all strive to have that sort of incredible influence on something we love in our lifetimes.
And that we all remain grateful every day for the people our paths lead us to.
By the way, Classic Rock & Other Rollers includes Baron’s narrative about his years working in the industry. “For me, the camera was the instrument and I was the player,” he wrote. “I’m still on a natural high, the memories persist, and this truth remains: Life would have a whole lot tougher without rock and roll.”
Rest in peace, Baron. We’ll miss you.