While John Cohen is maybe best known to many as a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, he’s also an incredible filmmaker and photographer. Next month sees the publication of a new work from Cohen via Powerhouse Books – Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road subtitled When Old Time Music Met Bluegrass.
His biography states that he’s been taking photographs since 1954 (age 22), a time before galleries gave photographers the exposure they deserved (before photography was even considered an art). Making a living capturing your passion on film was not easy, so this often meant a photographer needed to take on commercial assignments (resulting in less time to follow their chosen path). Even the likes of the now world-famous Sebastião Salgado had to work on news assignments before his work came to wider attention. Instead of following this route, Cohen’s photographic journey continued to be self-driven by his own vision, thanks to which we’ve been able to enjoy some great documenting works from this early period of his life.
It was a few years ago now that I first came across Cohen’s The High & Lonesome Sound: The Legacy of Roscoe Holcomb, a weighty tome which documents the time he spent with the American singer, banjo and guitar player Holcomb. He not only captured Holcomb touring and appearing in public but also with his family and friends. Throughout the book, he also documents the East Kentucky community around them, from miners to church-goers. The book came with two discs containing film and audio recordings, making it not just a great living document but also a much more immersive experience for the reader.
Like Salgado’s images, I find many of Cohen’s photos deeply moving. Sometimes it’s like he has become invisible – I don’t know what camera Cohen used, but I would guess it was a rangefinder like a Leica – as used by Robert Frank, these were not only unobtrusive but also a lot quieter to operate than the SLRs available at the time. That said, in many of his photos there is a candid honesty to them, like the subjects have forgotten he’s actually there in the room with them. The same can be said of his early photography from1954 to 1964 when he photographed the black churches of East New York (Walking in the Light) and from 1957 and 1963 when he captured some incredible images of the New York downtown art scene (Cheap Rents) – his images are rich in depth and feeling. Around this time he also worked with photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank (The Americans) on his film about the Beat Generation – Pull My Daisy (1959).
As the title of his new work suggests (Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road: When Old Time Music Met Bluegrass), the focus is on a period when musicians, in response to the commercialisation and pop began to look to the music of the past for inspiration.
The accompanying press release reads:
Back in 1961 it was still possible to know a few of America’s original country musicians from the ’20s and ’30s. Renowned and celebrated musician and artist John Cohen came of age at the confluence of old time and early bluegrass music, the historic intersection of traditional and folk music. Cohen traveled the country playing music, recording, and documenting what was to be a generation of musicians who would influence American music and culture for decades to come.
Traveling between the Union Grove fiddlers’ convention to the Grand Ole Opry to a coal celebration in Hazard, Kentucky, Cohen made historic photographs of performers like Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, the country’s very first all-bluegrass show, and a bluegrass bar in Baltimore, among much more. Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road presents old time music as the root of country music.
As you’d expect there are some well-known faces throughout the book including Flatt & Scruggs, fiddler “Eck” Robertson, Doc Watson, bluegrass fiddler “Tex” Logan, the Stanley Brothers, Sara and Maybelle of the Carter Family, Cousin Emmy and more.
It’s not just Cohen’s photographs that are so incredible, it’s also his approach. How a photographer approaches his art and how they gain trust in documentary work is something that’s often overlooked. It’s everything leading up to that click of the button that makes Cohen’s work stand out. After all, the camera is just a box with a hole in it to capture light, the eye behind it is the artist.
If you’ve yet to discover Cohen’s work, now’s a good time to start with this new book.
Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road is published on 22nd August (224 pages, Hardback).
“Like a good country song, John Cohen’s photos tell a powerful story—illuminating the emotions and experiences of Americans who too often felt left out and looked down upon. This is photography as documentary, and photography as art.”
—Ken Burns Director/producer, Country Music, 2019