Rolling Stone’s First Chief Photographer, Baron Wolman Captured the Souls of Rock Heroes of the ‘60s With . . . : A Revolutionary Eye

Back in the free-lovin’, free-livin’ ‘60s, when Baron Wolman was Janis Joplin’s neighbor, photographing rock stars was a kinder, gentler proposition.

Wolman repeatedly shot Joplin at her home in San Franciscco’s notorious Haight-Ashbury. And once, she grabbed a few things from her closet, sauntered over to his house for a “formal” portrait and privately serenaded him in a bedroom that had been turned into a studio.

Wolman went on to photograph some of the great acts of the ‘60s as Rolling Stone magazine’s first chief photographer, taking advantage of unprecedented access to his subjects in a world before the mega-agent and the sound bite.

Celebrity images weren’t as carefully calculated as they are today, says Wolman, who recently collected his shots of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison and others for a picture book, “Classic Rock & Other Rollers.”

Back then, he says, the rock press rarely had to navigate around agents, high-powered PR reps, makeup artists, hairdressers, photo stylists and bodyguards. Pictures could be taken without concern for star-approval or contracts specifying that only a flattering picture could be used for a cover. Photographers were given enough time to build trust with their subjects and sometimes became their friends.

“Today, stardom has become such an enormous business,” says Wolman, 55. “Celebrities want total and absolute control over the business of being a star. That includes not only their creativity and what makes them a star in the first place but all sorts of ancillary things.

“Photographers now insinuate themselves into the photos,” he continues. “You see the results of their involvement in their work. I wanted to be a quiet, hidden catalyst for the creative process.”

Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner credits Wolman with being the first to bring studio techniques to rock photography.

“I wanted a classic feel and Baron knew how to do that,” Wenner writes in the preface to Wolman’s book. And by telephone from New York, Wenner adds that until Rolling Stone and Wolman’s photos appeared 25 years ago, rock photography consisted chiefly of backstage snapshots and performance photos.

Wolman’s work is less manipulated and flashy than that of Annie Leibovitz, to whom he passed the light meter when he left Rolling Stone after three years in 1970.

“Baron’s more laid-back and sweeter with his subjects. He’s easier on them than Annie is. For today’s photographers, you (the subject) have to dress, makeup, contort your body into different shapes,” Wenner says.

Wolman has nothing against contortion, he just achieved it in a simpler way. Look at the shot he chose for the cover of his book, a photo of Jimi Hendrix in concert that reveals a performer so absorbed in his music it’s as if Wolman secretly caught him practicing in front of a mirror.

The picture was taken at the Fillmore Auditorium early in 1968 when Wolman was granted a privilege photographers rarely hear about today. He could move almost anywhere on stage with Hendrix, which, he says, allowed him to get in sync with his subject.

“The only way to feel it (the right shot) coming is to be completely in harmony with the person. It was like he would be in a visual moment of ecstasy and I would anticipate it. If you see a shot and then try to take it, it’s totally gone. If it’s in the viewfinder, you’ve missed it,”

Through Wolman’s eyes, you can see a side of early rock stars that often differs from prevailing images. There’s Joplin before she got into heavy drugs, a time when she looked positively innocent. Jeff Beck sleeping with his guitar by his side (“He spent more time with his guitar than he did with groupies”). Baby-faced Rick Nelson with his young twin sons.

Says Wolman of Matthew and Gunnar, now better known as the rock duo Nelson, “Their long blond hair is now longer than they were tall.”

Eric Clapton is seen with long locks and a mustache, James Brown without processed hair and Tina Turner when she played tiny clubs with Ike.

After leaving Rolling Stone, Wolman founded Rags, a newsprint magazine that gained a reputation as “the Rolling Stone of fashion.”

Rags was known for its irreverent, user-friendly approach. As Wolman, who still dresses in jeans and denim shirts, describes it, “For us, what people were wearing was more significant than what the magazines said they should wear.”

After Rags went out of business in 1971, in part, Wolman says, because of the recession, he moved from the Haight to Marin County, free-lanced for magazines such as Vogue and Esquire and began publishing wildly eclectic books of his own photos. Among them: “Vans: A Book of Rolling Rooms”; “Ragtops” (when convertibles were an endangered species); “California From the Air” and “Fast-Lane Summer,” in which he traveled the country’s racing circuit with Indianapolis 500 winner Danny Sullivan.

Wolman’s company, Squarebooks, has published about 20 books, including several by other authors and photographers. One he’s particularly fond of is a collection of poems by a 90-year-old retirement home resident that he had set in large-print type so it would be easy to read.

As for why he just now decided to publish his pictures from the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, Wolman says it’s because the country is as stress-ridden and polarized as it was then.

“The people who experienced that time want to relive it. And the people who weren’t there want to know about it,” he says.

“I think there’s a yearning not for the simplicity of the ‘60s but for the hope. People feel pretty hopeless now.”

These days, Wolman lives in Santa Rosa, not far from the offices of Squarebooks. Burned out on celebrity shoots, he has adopted a radically different photo specialty.

He explains the choice on the final pages of “Classic Rock,” in an essay titled “No Regrets”:. . .in the mid-’70s, I bought a little airplane, learned to fly and began to look down upon our planet. I started making non-people pictures, aerial landscapes, for I am dazzled by nature’s ultimate perfection, intrigued by civilizations in motion, disturbed by an environment in danger and worried about the ultimate effect of the hand of man upon the land.”

In the hands of Wolman, subjects--whether they’re people or planets--get an interesting deal, but it’s never spelled out in a contract.

“I respected the people and their music so much,” he says of the subjects he chose for the book. “They added so much beauty to my life. With the photos, I was really trying to find out who these people were. I wanted them to trust me enough to reveal the truth about themselves.”