The music director she had hired with six figure salary who was supposed to be so great, turned out to not have a degree in music or any degree at all. The director of the Metro Arts program who was hired because she lived in the inner city, moved into the prestigious apartments of Lafayette Towers and bought a brand new Cadillac. That would require all three signatures to withdraw any funds from that account.īut that’s when things began to go sour. Bailey cut the check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the money was deposited into a three party bank account. Bailey to purchase a defunct and abandoned motel off of Woodward for the purpose of setting up an artist commune. KISS played Cobo numerous times in the 1970s, including a sold-out three-night stand in 1976.Īs part of his New Detroit program, Jimmy Samuels, Bill Riser and I were successful in obtaining a grant from Mr. Cobo Arena was the setting for one of The Doors’ best complete concert performance recording on May 8, 1970. Thin Lizzy and Queen performed in 1977 for $7.50 a seat. Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen all played shows at the arena. The idea being to gather promising young Black artists, musicians, and dancers, train them and have them give performances at the very popular Cobo Hall Arena.īuilt in 1960, Cobo became a must-stop venue for the biggest and wildest rock-and-roll bands of the ’60s and ’70s not to mention the temporary home for the Detroit Pistons. Lee Bailey, the famous lawyer and attorney had created his program of “New Detroit”, part of which was to take the fine arts into the inner city neighborhoods through a program he financed called “Metro Arts”. That, with the paycheck from Hudson’s was more than adequate to provide for a pretty decent lifestyle, even the purchase of a bright red 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Monza and a Hasselblad camera.į. Bill and receiving a extra stipend for housing since I had a dependent (my daughter Angela), but I lived at home with my mom and didn’t need to pay rent. In my personal life, I was going to college under the G. I sold several paintings while at the gallery and I sometimes wonder where they are now. Jimmy even brought his girlfriend into the gallery as our book keeper, but she spent more time partying with Jimmy than keeping our books. Jimmy was a sweet talker and a con artist who should have been an used car salesman. The gallery was made possible with a single government grant. This was called an opportunity for Blacks in the neighborhood to see real Black artists at work and to purchase good artwork and paintings done by Black artists. Jimmy got the idea to open up a little storefront art gallery on Woodward Avenue, and my friend Bill Riser and I jumped right in and we started the “Gallery of Imo”. I would get proposals that only wanted use of my name, but I saw that as being unethical and maybe illegal. But besides that, I was a pretty good artist also who picked up a few jobs doing pastel portraits at the state fair. Hudson company as their first Black photographer in heir hundred year history. I had already established myself as being a decent photographer when I was hired by the J. I was a veteran, I was Black, I spoke good English and was fairly well educated as well as being congenial. A White Vietnam vet could get one amount to start a small business, but that amount would quadruple if he partnered with a Black Vietnam veteran. Not only in the area of education under the GI bill, but also in grants and small business loans. Veterans from the war in Vietnam were returning at a record rate and government money was flowing like maple syrup over buttermilk pancakes. Then one day I ran into a real New York Times reporter who had just retired and was living in Detroit. Even if the concert was affordable, the press pass allowed me backstage access. I used that badge to get me into a couple of Rolling Stones concerts, a James Brown concert, and several other venues. So basic that once I even used my counterfeiting skills to produce a fake New York Times press badge, complete with the New York Times seal trademark. Music concerts were relatively cheap and security at music concerts was pretty basic. And you had to have a basic knowledge of photography to use a film camera. Poster art was big and companies were looking for new poster art material as well as music companies looking for record album cover material. You could make a good amount of cash in freelance photography. It may be hard for anyone living in the rich commercialism of today to understand the climate of the late sixties and early seventies. Commercial Freelance Photography in the 1960s
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