GUY WEBSTER

One of the early innovators of rock-and-roll photography, renowned photographer Guy Webster has spanned the worlds of music, film and politics in a stellar 40-year career. While shooting album covers and billboards for groups that include The Rolling Stones, The Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel and Chicago, he also photographed such film legends as Rita Hayworth, Dean Martin and Natalie Wood.

A California native like the Beach Boys Guy Webster started to photograph the Beach Boys in the late summer of 1966 as they recorded their best-selling single Good Vibrations. This was the start of a photographic collaboration that would last more than a decade and developed a deep bond between the members of the band and Guy. During 1966 and 1967 he shot the group a number of times for possible use in the forthcoming Smile album. His famous pictures with them in a tent at Brian Wilson’s Bellagio Road house, with Banana (Brian’s beagle) on top of the pile are favorites. Guy also photographed the band reportage style in nature (as he did with the Rolling Stones, the Mamas & the Papas and others) to evoke that Southern California vibe including a famous shoot ironically in the snowy hills of Idyllwild, California and one among a grove of palm trees capture them at their playful best.