{"id":25654,"date":"2016-07-05T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/picsart.com\/blog\/?p=25654"},"modified":"2022-06-13T06:42:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T13:42:10","slug":"late-night-portraits-with-nashville-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/picsart.com\/blog\/late-night-portraits-with-nashville-legends\/","title":{"rendered":"Late-Night Portraits With Nashville Legends"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Nashville, Tennessee is so closely tied to country music that a lot of people couldn\u2019t tell you anything about the city except what it sounds lik<\/span>e. It\u2019s been like that for almost a century, <\/span>but when photographer Jim McGuire arrived in the 1970s it was a special time, because simply put, <\/span>everybody<\/span><\/i> was there.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first generation of recorded country stars from the 20s were burning up stages alongside younger legends-in-the-making. We\u2019re talking everyone from Bill Monroe and Johnny Cash to Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. They didn\u2019t just all end up in front of Jim\u2019s camera, but his home studio became a late-night headquarters for pickin\u2019 parties (as in guitar picking), where the best\u00a0musicians in Nashville came to let loose and jam with each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Benny
Benny Martin, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Catch our interview with Jim below to read the stories behind his amazing Nashville Portraits.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you form such a strong connection with \u201chillbilly music\u201d growing up in New Jersey?<\/b><\/h5>\n

I graduated high school in the 1950s and grew up in the middle of the state that was largely rural. Many of the kids in my class came off dairy farms. I got hooked on country music from a powerful radio station in Newark…<\/p>\n

I was in Vietnam in 1964-65 and there was a guy in my barracks that was a real-deal hillbilly from West Virginia. He had a guitar and knew hundreds of those old mountain songs and would sit around and sing every night. It was great and I was hooked.<\/p>\n

How did the Nashville Portraits start?<\/b><\/h5>\n

Irving Penn! Penn was one of the premier New York fashion photographers… He worked mostly in B&W and did a series of portraits he called \u201cSmall Trades.\u201d He took everyday working people, plumbers, firemen, butchers, and photographed them on an old canvas backdrop in their work clothes and tools of their trade.<\/p>\n

It was a simple but brilliant idea \u2014 that I stole from the best in the business. So I painted an old canvas backdrop that looked like Penn\u2019s and decided to do B&W portraits of musicians with the tools of their trade.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Highwaymen, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Guy
Guy Clark, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
What portrait was the most fun experience?<\/b><\/h5>\n

I guess one of the best was a very late-night birthday party for my trusty assistant, R.B. Miller on his 40th birthday. He was wearing a very nice tweed sport jacket that his wife had just given him for his birthday. And very late into the night, after lots of drinking, he and Guy Clark got into some pretty serious dart throwing, and (for) the last bet of the night, they were playing for Guy\u2019s cowboy hat against R.B.\u2019s new tweed sport jacket and Guy won.<\/p>\n

That is not the first time I saw Guy hustle someone on the dart board; he was quite good at it. So Guy wore the jacket home that night, but R.B. got so much grief at home he had to call Guy the next day and ask for it back. There\u2019s a portrait of Guy throwing a dart wearing R.B.’s tweed jacket.<\/p>\n

Were there any portraits you told yourself that you absolutely had to capture? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/b><\/h5>\n

I was a huge bluegrass fan from very early on\u2026 but the one I never got a call to shoot was Earl Scruggs. I don\u2019t know why but I have the feeling that I must have rubbed [his wife] Louise the wrong way at some point. But in the end, [his sons] Gary and Randy called me to shoot him for a new project and I was thrilled to finally get him in front of my canvas.<\/p>\n

It was one of the easiest sessions I ever did as he just sat and picked while I shot\u2026 it\u2019s actually one of my favorite portraits. And I was thrilled when after he died the boys called me to ask if they could use that portrait on his gravestone\u2026 quite an honor for me.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"Earle
Earle Scruggs, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Townes
Townes Van Zandt, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I have to be self-indulgent for a second and ask you about one of my favorites, Townes Van Zandt.<\/b><\/h5>\n

I can\u2019t say that I was one of Townes\u2019 best pals, but he was best pals with Guy Clark, who was one of my best pals, so I got to hang with him and Guy quite a bit. He had a strange mind, quirky and unsettling to be around; he was sharp and quick and very funny. I don\u2019t think I was ever [not] around Townes when the first thing he wanted was to flip a coin with you for money, and he always won.<\/p>\n

But those songs, where they came from, nobody knows\u2026not even him. He was always at a loss to explain his songs when people asked him to. You could sense he was a troubled soul by the sheer amount of alcohol he consumed\u2026.it was uncanny, and you knew deep down it was not going to end well.<\/p>\n

Which Nashville portrait evokes the fondest memories?<\/b><\/h5>\n

I guess the Bill Monroe. Every time I look at that image I\u2019m amazed. I had no idea that Bill had been carrying that image in his mind all along. It was shot after a fairly typical portrait<\/a> session ended. As we were packing up, he asked if I would shoot one more portrait, just for him, and he went into that pose holding his mandolin like it was his child.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes. I would later learn that it was right after he got his famous mandolin back from Gibson, after they put it back together after being smashed into a million pieces by an irate woman.<\/p>\n

\"Bill
Bill Monroe, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Emmylou
Emmylou Harris, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chet
Chet Atkins, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Doc
Doc Watson, Copyright Historic Photos of the Opry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before they were legends, they were friends up late playing music together. Share your jam sessions with your pals on PicsArt <\/i><\/b>photo editor<\/i><\/b><\/a> with the hashtag #PickinParty.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nashville, Tennessee is so closely tied to country music that a lot of people couldn\u2019t tell you anything about the city except what it sounds like. It\u2019s been like that for almost a century, but when photographer Jim McGuire arrived in the 1970s it was a special time, because simply put, everybody was there. The … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Late-Night Portraits With Nashville Legends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_title":"Late Night Portraits with Nashville Legends","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Jim McGuire found himself in Nashville during a very special time, and captured portraits of every country music legend from Johnny Cash to Doc 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