by Simon Warner
LK Interesting that you mention that, yeah. There were some actors there as well. Many actors showed up. Garry Goodrow, for instance, from The Committee, the improv group. He’s there.
SW Oh right? So there were some actors there as well?
LK A lot of people showed up. There were a lot of press.
SW OK, let’s start off by trying to establish why – you were young, still a teenager were you, then?
LK I’d just turned 21.
SW You were 21, OK. Just tell me a little bit about how you became involved in this extraordinary series of pictures. Why were you the person to photograph it?
LK I was doing a book about my school because at art school you had no real projects to work on, you know. I did some portfolio work to try and get some real jobs, doing posters, album covers and books. So we also did a book about the school.
SW Which school were you at?
LK California College of Arts and Crafts. CCAC. And I wanted to be there because my parents thought it was bad news me being there. They wanted me in a more traditional environment, and I didn’t wanna do that. So I went in another direction basically.
SW Was there any tradition of taking photographs in your family?
LK Not at all. My aunt’s a pretty good artist, my mom’s a pretty good artist, but that’s it, you know. My dad’s brother’s still alive, he’s good at art.
SW So you went to college and photography became your main pursuit?
LK I was actually an interior design major of all things. The only way I could get to art school was if I majored in interior design. My parents had disinherited me and didn’t know what to do with me, so I had to major in interior design.
SW So, interior design …
LK Yeah, interior design, arts and crafts. Then of course, I wanted to be a photographer once I got there, so I took photo classes. But to be honest, I did all my photography on the side actually. I brought my portfolio into school and they taught me design, basically.
SW So, had you graduated by the time the 1965 photographs were taken, or were you coming close to graduation?
LK I was coming close to graduation. In 1966, I graduated, but I went back for two more years to be a teacher. I was there for six years altogether.
SW So what was the background to the City Lights shoot?
LK The college project came about the previous year. One of my teachers had a meeting and asked if I wanted to take some pictures of his friends, and I was, ‘Who are your friends?’ and he said, ‘Well, you can come and meet my friends, basically’. And you know, I said, right! The friends were Allen Ginsberg, and all this, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ken Kesey, Bruce Conner and I was ‘Oh my god, this is great!’ One of my friends said, ‘Going up?’, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going up!’ So then I started working with Michael [McClure], and everybody, and it was great.
SW So Michael McClure was one of your teachers?
LK Yes he was my teacher for a couple of years. I met him on our project. He was one of the few people who were poets who’d published any books that worked at our school. He had a lot of poetry experience. He’d published a lot of poetry books and he knew how to publish a book. He was the faculty adviser. He’s advised me ever since. He’s a great man, a wonderful writer, actually, terrific.
SW I see. So was this earlier in 1965 that you had taken these first pictures?
LK It was 1964 that McClure asked me if I wanted to work with him on this project. We met at his house in the Haight. My friend Dale Smith and I started shooting – we’d go to this place every Saturday. And we had a full-on call around to see who was available and we’d go and shoot them all day long and come back. There was a lot of stuff that got done. And back at school, we had a little contest, we had a little contest together, Dale and I, to see who was a better photographer. It was a tricky business, fun. It was neat.
SW So, in December 1965 Michael McClure said to you, we’ve got this gathering happening, could you come and take some pictures?
LK No, no, no. Lawrence Ferlinghetti [of City Lights bookshop in San Francisco] actually called that morning you know and I could do it. And Ginsberg was there and I met Dylan, too.
SW So you’d already brushed shoulders with some of these subjects before? This was not the first time you’d photographed this group of people?
LK I’d photographed a lot of them individually before. Michael and Allen, for example.
SW Why did Lawrence Ferlinghetti organise this gathering at City Lights, I wonder?
LK He wanted like a French photo of these nineteenth-century poets hanging out in France like at the Grand Guignol Theatre, with all these umbrellas in the rain. If you opened the umbrella up, it was great if you could catch it at the right time. All the main photographers were posted there that day. Tons of them. There were like 25 or 30 photographers there, too.
SW Oh, so there were more photographers there than just you!
LK Oh yeah, I only saw one of their shots and it was the one that was in the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s the only one I’ve ever seen from it, so I don’t know if they got money from it. I’m not certain, but my photos were all over the place, that’s for sure. Dale was there too, but I didn’t see any of his other stuff either. Yeah, it almost looks like a funeral, kind of real so sad looking. Then a fire truck came, a great big bright thing, Allen and McClure and everyone are all looking over, and it’s because there’s a fire truck coming.
SW Oh, I see.
LK Yeah, it was amazing. I think Ferlinghetti had called the fire drill himself. He pulled the alarm, but it was against the law, and they were ‘You know it’s against the law, don’t you?’ Of course he did.
SW But why did he want to that?
LK It was so dour. The whole thing was so dour he wanted to lighten the thing up.
SW OK!
LK Yeah, and then some tourists started showing up, some sailors, all these people. They wondered what was going on there. And Dylan shows up, and he knew me and Michael and Allen, and we all went down the basement. And then the fans tried to break in the basement, so we all jumped out the window and ran down the alley.
SW In what was then Adler Place but what is now Jack Kerouac Alley?
LK Yeah, right.
SW So why do you think Bob Dylan turned up? What was going on?
LK He wanted to be with Allen – he wanted to be with the Beats. He wanted to have a photo for the album cover of Blonde on Blonde. We thought we could get a great cover.
SW Why didn’t they use those photos?
LK Because so many people were taking those pictures, and then the crowd started threatening Dylan, he didn’t know our names, he didn’t know it was us. He didn’t know what was going on. So he called the whole project off. But we were devastated that we couldn’t include it in one way or another. I think it was Jim Marshall, he was there with photos, but someone said ‘No-one take any photos, it’s just these two guys’ – Dale and I.
SW So was there a chance, then, that the Keenan photos might have appeared on Blonde on Blonde?
LK No, he didn’t know who we were. He didn’t know our names, or anything. He told Allen, Dylan said, ‘I can’t tell who these guys are.’ So he just dropped the whole thing, which was really disappointing. Except they did appear in some of those Dylan books and stuff, and on some albums that’ve appeared anyway.
SW Which other albums might they have appeared on, then?
LK Biograph’s one of them.
SW How many photographs did you think you took that day? How many shots did you take?
LK Well, it’s a very long story. Well, you know, I photographed Dylan right. My girlfriend at the time was visiting. I realised that I’d forgotten to put film in the camera and the whole time I was taking pictures there was no film in the camera! I was so pissed I couldn’t believe it. I was devastated, I thought I’d lost the pictures of Dylan and all the people in those photographs. I’d spent all this time aligning these shots and there was nothing in
the camera at all. I couldn’t believe it.
SW But there were shots you took on another film?
LK Yeah, another camera had film in it, yes!
SW So one of the cameras didn’t work, but the other did?
LK Right. I was so excited about Dylan being there and everyone, that I didn’t see there wasn’t any film in. And Dylan said afterwards, ‘Were you one of the guys taking my picture?’ You know, I was there photographing him for like 20 minutes, and I said, ‘Yeah, I was one of the guys taking your picture’. And it was like he didn’t recognise me. But that’s the kind of guy he was, that’s OK, so that’s alright. I understand it too, you know.
SW So he could be quite a difficult subject?
LK Oh yeah, yeah. But for this you know he showed up on time, he was nice with us, posing, he’d do any kind of pose you want, wonderful. Really good. Dale and I – Dale got good photos of that day actually.
SW And it’s interesting that the picture you normally see – I mean, obviously I’ve seen the famous picture outside City Lights – it’s in a kind of portrait shape. And it’s quite tight shot.
LK Is that the horizontal version?
SW Yeah, there’s a horizontal version …
LK Yeah, see how dour it looked, it looks so sad? Yeah. That’s why I never show it.
SW Oh, I see.
LK Yeah, all the people are looking down, they all look kind of disappointed, like a bad bus stop, you know, it’s terrible, so I never show it.
SW I see. So, who was on this side of the picture who got cut off? Can you remember who was …?
LK David Meltzer’s in there, probably. I’ve probably got a better shot with him in there.
SW Yes, I think Meltzer is actually hidden behind someone in the horizontal shot.
LK Yeah.
SW So, in essence then, Ferlinghetti wanted to do this Parisian sort of shot of poets and bohemians.
LK It was a last gathering too. It was a last gathering. He definitely told me it was going to be a last gathering.
SW He told you that?
LK Yeah. He’ll deny it, because he always forgets stuff. But my mind was like a sponge in those days, it’s so crystal, it’s right, right, right! Anything out of the ordinary I just sucked up and never forgot. That’s why I’ve got such good detail of stuff.
SW So this project was the last gathering? The Last Gathering of the Beats which is what’s it come to be known as?
LK Sure it was. Otherwise what would be the point of everybody being there, you know? It was the last gathering.
SW And has Ferlinghetti since denied that’s what it was?
LK Well, he’s said, ‘Why do you do that?’ and I said, ‘Well that’s what you said it was’. And he looked at me like – uhhh, Jesus. He burned me. Course I know, you know, I was there too, you know. The whole thing – everybody was dying, people were going to jail and stuff, and they wanted to be able to gather in one last photo because there were these new changes coming in.
SW I see.
LK The whole culture changed, everybody wanted to get the last photo before it all changed and they ran out of time.
SW So, I mean, my theory then that this is the fulcrum of those changes, if you like …
LK Sure it is. Yeah, yeah.
SW Could be argued that Ferlinghetti has been, in more recent times, less keen to see it as this?
LK Yeah, but that’s Ferlinghetti. Ginsberg and McClure had the most sense of history, that’s why. They just had the best sense of history of all. They wanted everyone to do this project, basically. Ferlinghetti called me, and he’d spoken to Dylan, Ginsberg and McClure about it too, and wanted it then because they knew it was changing and they wanted a little documentation of it, and it was great, you know. Sure. It was great for me, actually. A great shot.
SW Do you think in some ways then, that the keys to the cultural castle, if you like, were passed over on this day? The Beats were passing the legacy to Dylan.
LK I wouldn’t go that far, no. Dylan was really there, Dylan was there and he was blown out of his mind. He didn’t want to pose with them at all. Dylan and McClure and Ginsberg were real buddies, and he was doing it for them, I think, personally.
SW I see. He did it for McClure and Ginsberg as friends?
LK Yeah, yeah.
SW And he didn’t care too much about the other guys that were there?
LK No, the other guys were just there but he didn’t really care. He didn’t want to be photographed with them for Blonde on Blonde, he wanted to be just with those two guys and also Robbie Robertson. I called Robbie out, Robbie just didn’t look like he belonged there, so I took a separate shot, with all three of them, all four of them actually, together.
SW So, Dylan wanted to be photographed with his friends, but he didn’t of course take part in the large group shot.
LK Not at all. They begged him. ‘Come on, Bob! Come on Bob! Come on, come on, come on’. ‘No, no, no’. He walked away. Good for you, man. It would have ruined this scene, because it was all about them, it wasn’t about him anyway.
SW So there was some tensions going on there?
LK Well, there was a little tension, I thought. They were kinda pissed he wouldn’t pose with them, but if he’d posed with them, it wouldn’t have been about them. It would be about him, all the time, you know. He knew about that. It was a real smart move from him, actually, in that respect.
SW Right.
LK And after this gig, we went over next door to Vesuvio’s which was another interesting thing that was going on. There was a huge table by the window, with about twelve of us sitting round the table. Everyone was ordering hard drinks, until it got to Dylan. Dylan ordered tea. Then everybody else ordered the tea. Anyway yeah, that was pretty funny, I thought, ‘Oh my God, everyone’s ordering tea, what a bunch of creeps’. I was so embarrassed for them – ‘I’ll have my booze too!’, you know?
SW Yeah!
LK Everybody wanted to be Dylan so bad, it was amazing. Look at that photo over there of McClure and Dylan and Ginsberg. They all wanted to be Dylan so hard in that photo, it’s incredible, you know?
SW I was talking to Michael [McClure] and asking him, ‘How did you feel about these rock gods appearing, were they straying on your territory, were they stealing some of your thunder?’ And Michael’s very clear, he didn’t feel this was happening at all. He liked the idea.
LK They put him in shows. Yeah, it was a good boost for him, actually. He got to be in things that he’d never been in before because they liked him. See, he didn’t hang back and wait for it to happen, you gotta be there too, and he was there all the time. That’s why he had the luck. He was the right guy, that’s for sure.
SW But, these shots that you took on that day in December 1965, they’ve become iconic, they’ve become world-famous. But clearly your body of work, even in the 60s, extends much more widely than that.
LK Oh, certainly. You can only see them when I publish, most of it you’ll never even notice, you know. I print them myself in the end.
SW The great pictures you took of rock artists in the later 1960s in various settings, how did that happen? What’s happened – did your career suddenly go into overdrive? What happened to you as result of those City Lights pictures?
LK I got shooting Beats after that up until the next year, then the next year I went to Europe, in the summer of 1966. Before I went to Europe, for about five years or a little more, I was working with some rock groups of friends of mine, to get a lot of rock shots. With the popular guys, there were always too many cops around for that. It was too creepy, you know what I mean? I got too paranoid. I was teaching at a high school and, at the end of the day, if I’d had a drug bust that’d be the end of my career.
SW Who did you enjoy photographing through that time? What are your memorable moments there?
LK I was working for Frank Werber who managed the Kingston Trio. They named him ‘the Dragon’ – that was his nickname. When I met him, I thought,
‘Oh my God! He is a dragon!’ He had a meeting with Bill Champlin, of the Sons of Champlin, who Werber managed. He wanted to change the sound. There were five of them. He said to two people, ‘You’d better leave now, we’re gonna get another two and you’d better be gone’. Just ’cause he wanted to change the sound. That’s the Dragon, man, that’s heavy duty. These guys were like 19, 20 years old and that was really heavy, you know.