Let's connect!
Enjoy Mill Valley
  • HOME
  • EVENTS & GUIDES
    • 2020-21 EMV Guide
    • 2020 Mill Valley Wine, Beer & Gourmet Food Tasting
    • Winterfest >
      • Activities, Food & Entertainment
      • About Winterfest
    • Calendar
    • Special Events
  • EAT
  • Stay
  • VISIT
    • Muir Woods
    • PLAY
    • Tour
    • Map
    • PRESS
  • SHOP
    • Enjoy Mill Valley Store
    • Shopping Areas
    • Apparel and Jewelry
    • Automotive
    • Banking & Financial Services
    • Biz, Consumer & Professional Services
    • Beauty & Grooming
    • Fitness & Sports
    • Food & Wine
    • Home & Garden
    • Kids & Pets
    • Health & Wellness
    • Nonprofit Organizations
    • Real Estate
    • Specialty Shops
  • A&E
  • EMV Films
  • BLOG
  • Mill Valley Chamber
  • City of Mill Valley
  • CONTACT US
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise on Enjoy Mill Valley
  • ShopMV

Rock Photographer Bob Minkin Talks His ‘The Music Never Stopped’ Book at Depot Bookstore & Cafe – Dec. 7

11/27/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
A selection of photos by Bob Minkin, clockwise from top left, Jerry Garcia on the SF Embarcadero in 1977, outside the new Sweetwater, Elvis Costello at the Sweetwater, Bob Weir & Jackie Greene, Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks, Wavy Gravy's birthday, Jerry Garcia & Minkin. All photos by Bob Minkin.
PictureBob Minkin. Courtesy image.
Growing up in the largely middle-class Italian and Jewish neighborhood of Carnarsie in Brooklyn, N.Y. in the 1960s and 70s, Bob Minkin was mesmerized, from some 3,000 miles away, by the explosion of music coming from the Bay Area: Jefferson Airplane, John Cipollina and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Janis Joplin, Santana, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and of course, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.

Like many teens and twenty-somethings of that era, he did something about it. More than 40 years later, Minkin is regarded as one of the Bay Area’s preeminent music photographers. On Dec. 7 at the Depot Bookstore & Cafe, Minkin will present a slideshow of his music photos, sit for a discussion and Q&A and have a meet and greet signing of “The Music Never Stopped,” his latest photography book, which is entirely focused on Marin County’s music scene, particularly the unrelenting live music at Bob Weir’s Sweetwater Music Hall, where he serves as the house photographer, as well as Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael.

The book also features written contributions and stories by many musicians, including Jorma Kaukonen, Steve Kimock, and Bill Kreutzmann, each adding an intimate perspective.

Minkin's journey began in the summer of 1977, right after high school graduation, when Minkin found a “Summer of Love” 10-year anniversary pull-out map of San Francisco within Rolling Stone magazine, complete with locations where the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane had lived in the Haight-Ashbury area. Minkin was geeked to see it all in person, and he somehow convinced his father to book him a cheap round-trip flight to San Francisco.

“I just said to myself, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it anymore, I gotta get out there,” Minkin says. 

He did just that, without any place to stay or a hotel reservation. Upon his arrival, a patient cab driver took him to a few hotels until he found one in the Marina district. He set off for Haight Street, found the Dead’s house on Ashbury, walked around Golden Gate Park and eventually spotted a flyer on a pole promoting the Jerry Garcia Band’s upcoming show on the Embarcadero, featuring Mill Valley’s Maria Muldaur.

Minkin had long been taking his camera with him to shows in New York and elsewhere, mostly to populate his personal scrapbooks. He did so at the Embarcadero concert as well, and was stunned at the results. “Those pictures I took that day were a monumental moment in my life,” he says.

Minkin reached out to a friend whose boyfriend was the publisher of Relix magazine, which published the photos and continues to publish Minkin’s work 40 years later. Minkin came back to San Francisco for the Grateful Dead’s New Year’s Eve shows at Winterland a few months later, this time with a better camera. Those shots convinced him that his concert photography could be more than just a hobby. Those shots occupy 10 pages of his first photography book, “Live Dead,” which came out in 2014.

Minkin didn’t immediately move to the Bay Area back then, as he attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he met his eventual wife, Anne Minkin, a wine ambassador for the Boissett Collection. They moved to the Bay Area in 1990, and the couple lives in Novato. Minkin has been as rooted in the Marin and Bay Area-wide music scene as any photographer over the past 40 years.

“I have thousands and thousands of photos going back more than 40 years now,” Minkin says. “It’s pretty overwhelming and you need to frame it to put it into context.”

In searching for a way to do so, Minkin kept coming back to those years after Garcia died in 1995, how the other members of the Grateful Dead moved onto other iterations and also spawned a legion of other bands that “didn’t necessarily play exactly like them but played with their same mentality and vibe,” Minkin says.

Minkin also thought hard about the fact that two Grateful Dead legends, Bob Weir and phil Lesh, opened their own music venues in Marin, the Sweetwater Music Hall and Terrapin Crossroads, respectively, around the same time five years ago. Along with an array of other venues, and the post-Garcia bloom of bands inspired by the Dead, Minkin kept coming back to the Grateful Dead song “The Music Never Stopped,” from their 1975 album Blues for Allah.

“The music really never stopped after Jerry’s death, and especially here in Marin,” Minkin says. “So I framed it around geography, and all of the venues in Marin that have hosted so many great concerts over the years.” 

Marin is the thread, and the medium is the onslaught of great concerts from both Bay Area bands and those from all over the country. "It was a fantastic experience going through these thousands of photos – there have just been so many amazing shows here in Marin over the past 40 years,” Minkin says. “It’s just incredible.”

The 411: Rock photographer Bob Minkin brings his latest book, “The Music Never Stopped,” to the Depot Bookstore & Cafe, 87 Throckmorton Ave., on Friday, Dec. 7 at 7pm. Minkin will present a slideshow of his music photos, sit for a discussion and Q&A and have a meet and greet signing of the book. Free. MORE INFO.

​Want to know what's happening around town? Click here to subscribe to the Enjoy Mill Valley Blog by Email!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Subscribe to the free Enjoy Mill Valley Blog

    * required
    Click here to subscribe to the free Enjoy Mill Valley Blog by Email!

    RSS Feed

    Blog Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    142 Throckmorton
    Art
    Arts & Entertainment
    City Council
    City Of Mill Valley
    County Of Marin
    Depot Plaza
    Downtown Mill Valley
    Emergency Preparedness
    First Tuesday Artwalk
    Food & Drink
    Holidays
    Kiddo!
    Live Music
    Local Laws
    Marin Mommies
    Marin Theatre Company
    Miller Avenue
    Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival
    Mill Valley Film Festival
    Mill Valley History
    Mill-valley-in-the-news
    Mill Valley Library
    Mill Valley Market
    Mill Valley School District
    Mount Tamalpais
    MV Chamber Biz Buzz
    Parks & Recreation
    Philanthropy
    Public Restrooms
    Restaurants
    Shopping
    Strawberry Village
    Sweetwater Music Hall
    Tam High
    Tam Junction
    Tam Valley
    The Redwoods
    Volunteerism

Picture
   
85 Throckmorton Avenue
Mill Valley, Callifornia 94941
415.388.9700
info@millvalley.org



Copyright 2018 Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center
All images used with permission and/or source attribution.
Site Design by Linda Rosso Marketing and Communications