Available now for the first time on news stands, the third anniversary edition of Jocks & Nerds features the monumental undertaking that was the group photo of (some of) our gang. We were paid a trio of great compliments - first, that the magazine should want to include us; secondly, that they should reference us in the same frame as the famous photograph, "A Great Day in Harlem", when all the great jazz musos of the day were captured in a perfect storm group shot, so iconic it has its own Wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Great_Day_in_Harlem_(picture)
and thirdly, that they should book legendary lens woman Jill Furmanovsky for the gig. Jill is to music portraiture what Annie Leibovitz is to Hollywood fashion. She has taken everyone from Duke Ellington to Bob Marley and, indeed, got possibly Nile Rodger's favourite ever photograph of himself and Bernard with the Chic ladies at Hammersmith in 1979, and this Rock-God in action shot of Rodger Daltrey at the Rainbow Theatre in '67:
While we were disappointed that neither of those gentleman could join us in the end (Nile wrote: "Hey Mark, unfortunately it's absolutely impossible for me to be there, and it's a shame because that really is one of the best photos of CHIC ever!.. and I'd love to be there to be with you and the genius who took that shot...N"), we were honoured by a fine turn out of clients / friends including Andrew Roachford, Jake Arnott, Soweto Kinch, family and even two horses from the Vauxhall City Farm. The next blog to be posted will cover the day in detail but meanwhile, check out Jill's work here: http://www.rockarchive.com/jill-furmanovsky-prints.html ; and buy the mag!