User:Davidmichaelrich/sandbox

Peter Simon, photojournalist

Peter Richard Simon (January 26, 1947 - November 18, 2018) was a photojournalist, author, publisher, music historian, and entrepreneur. His photojournalism has been published in national newspapers and magazines including, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Time, Newsweek, People,  Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, New York Magazine, Boston Magazine, and Cape Code Life magazine. He was contributing photographer for the Vineyard Gazette for nearly forty years, and the Martha’s Vineyard Times for twenty. Peter authored or edited 13 books. His work ranged in focus across rock & roll, reggae music, 60s counter culture, nudism, communes, civil rights, the New York Mets, and both the scenic vistas and people (celebrity and non-celebrity) of the Island of Martha’s Vineyard where he lived for most of his adult life. He was also a radio disc jockey, music producer, and gallery owner.

Childhood
Peter was born in New York City, the youngest of four children of the late Richard L. Simon, co-founder with Max Schuster of publishing firm Simon & Schuster, and the late  Andrea Heinemann Simon. Simon’s father was the first person to publish a paperback book, a cross word puzzle book, a cook book, a children’s book, and a photography book. He also published his own book on miniature photography.

Peter’s siblings were well-known singer songwriter, Carly Simon; former opera singer Joanna Simon (Joey); and Broadway composer and lyricist Lucy Simon. He was the brother-in-law of singer James Taylor.

His first professionally published article (photo and editorial) at the age of 14, was one for Popular Photography. The publication of the article was also the basis for his appearance on the then popular network TV program To Tell the Truth where he was highlighted as “the fourteen-year-old photographer who wrote for Popular Photography.”

Continuing with the Riverdale Press while still in high school, his work expanded from covering charity events to news and social issues. For instance, Simon had a photo of Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for the senate published on the front page of his local paper when he was 17. Peter graduated Riverdale in 1965.

Education and Career
Heavily influenced by the death of his father Richard in 1960 when Peter was 13 years old, the strongest point of connection between them having been the instruction he received in how to shoot and develop pictures, which set him on his career path of photojournalism. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in major league baseball and was a family friend, became a surrogate father figure for Peter after his own father’s death.

Peter attended Boston University starting in 1965 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970, coinciding with the rise of the counter culture of the late 60s, which he would go on to document in his photojournalism work. Simon worked with Ray Mungo and Stephen Davis  at The BU News starting in 1966, the first radical student newspaper in the country featuring stories about anti-Vietnam war demonstrations on campus.

Peter’s photojournalism covered the full range of counter culture happenings and symbols from 1965 through the 70s: While still a student at BU, Simon photographed then US Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, at Harvard being confronted by students following a speech on the Vietnam War. Peter also photographed and had published pictures of luminaries of the time such as his Professor, noted author Howard Zinn, Senator Edward Kennedy, “Yippie” Abbie Hoffman, anti-war proponent Dr. Benjamin Spock, and anti-war presidential candidate, Senator Eugene McCarthy, who at the time was one of the few “establishment” figures to denounce the war.

An avowed, “peacenik,” opponent of the war, and anti-war protestor himself, Peter turned in his draft card and was interviewed by the CIA. By 1969 he had become the photo editor of the Cambridge Phoenix which later became the Boston Phoenix, a paper that developed into the model for alternative weeklies across the nation. Peter’s 1970 photo of Jennifer Thomas -- a woman whose neck was broken from beingclubbed by police for wearing the American flag from her Vietnam veteran father’s burial at an anti-war protest -- made the inside cover of Rolling Stone magazine, his first national counter-culture press credit, launching his national reputation and photojournalism career.

Simon captured draft card burnings, student strikes, early second wave feminist protests, and civil rights protests from Washington DC to the northeast at both the steps of the United Nations headquarters in New York, and the campus of Boston University. There he captured the speech by contraception rights activist Bill Baird that culminated in Baird’s arrest for giving out contraceptives, and the subsequent successful 1972 Supreme Court case which struck down states restrictive contraception laws, guaranteeing all citizens the right to birth control access and establishing the right of privacy on which the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion is based.

After graduation, Peter continued working for the Boston Phoenix. His best-known covers were that of a well-known anti-war demonstration in Washington DC (Moratorium Day), and the Rolling Stone’s first concert at Boston Garden in 1969.

The Nudist Movement
Simon was part of the naturist movement of the early 70s that promoted nudity in everyday life, something that was a feature of the commune he hosted in Vermont, as well as his continued summer visits to the Vineyard. He first covered the phenomenon on assignment for the Cambridge Phoenix in 1970, with is story  about “The Lewd Commune,” a household of working professionals including lawyers and writers who were arrested for living without clothes inside their Cambridge, MA townhouse.

Peter was arrested with nine others including well-known folk singer Tom Rush in 1970 for being nude on a Martha’s Vineyard stretch of beach now owned by the Onassis/Kennedy estate. The group was thrown in jail where they were entertained by Rush’s private performance of Joni Mitchell’s“The Circle Game,” “Both Sides Now,” and “Urge for Going,” the first and third of which he was the first to have released hits with before Mitchell’s later releases of them. When Simon became chief photographer of Naturist magazine he documented the burgeoning movement that entailed spas, resorts, nude retreats and conferences around the world. He authored a book about the movement “Decent Exposures” in 1974.

New Age Movement
Peter was an associated, close friend and follower of Ram Dass, the former Richard Alpert, author of the well-known book “Be Here Now” and follower of Neem Karoli Baba. His photo documentation of the New Age movement which focused on the quest for spiritual enlightenment including the “Evenings with God” programs held by Dass in Berkeley, California. Peter’s 1974 interview of Dass appeared in New Age Journal, the magazine of record for the movement. Other counter-culture movement seekers and leaders Simon crossed paths with and published photographs of during this time, include beat poet Allen Ginsburg,  Wavy Gravy, Ken Kesey, and Timothy Leary, the latter two most famous for promoting LSD while teaching at Harvard.

Baseball
Simon began following and photographing the New York Mets when the Dodgers left the city for Los Angeles. His interest in the sport was cemented by the family’s friendship with Jackie Robinson, the first major league baseball player to break the color barrier. The Simon and Robinson families were close, with the baseball player and his family living with the Simons when they were having a house built in Connecticut. Robinson became a surrogate father figure for him after his own father passed away. Peter’s documentation of the game is contained in the book The New York Mets: 25 Years of Baseball Magic.

Music Photojournalist and Historian
Simon muggled his camera into Shea Stadium for the appearance of the Beatles in the summer of 1965 at age 17, beginning a life-long career focus in which he captured some of the most iconic musicians of the genre.

While at Boston University he documented and published photos of such then up and comers and eventual legends as Jim Morrison and The Doors, folk artist Tom Rush, blues artist Bonnie Raitt, The Byrds, Rod Stewart, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Carlos Santana, Gordon Lightfoot, Muddy Waters, Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, Phoebe Snow, and The Grateful Dead. The shots were published in all the leading media covering these emerging scenes at the time including Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, The Village Voice, Broadside, and the Cambridge Phoenix even before it became the famous “Boston Phoenix.” He also photographed Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie and Peter Seeger, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens, Mick Jagger, Miles Davis, and Sting and The Police, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan (and the entire legendary Rolling Thunder Review) and Bruce Springsteen at the 1979 No Nukes Festival at Madison Square Garden. This work led to album cover assignments including some for his sister Carly Simon, her then husband James Taylor, and magazine cover story shots including Paul Simon, Carly and James’ honeymoon (1972), and Arlo Guthrie and Alice Brock (of famed “Alice’s Restaurant”) for Rolling Stone (1975).

Peter’s week-long assignment travelling with Led Zeppelin in the 70s led to a full circle moment in 2016. On their first tour of the US, Simon had famously captured Zeppelin’s lead singer Robert Plant standing on a hotel balcony on the Sunset Strip as he admired the billboard promoting their album across the street and exclaiming with outstretched hands ‘I am a golden god.’ This created both the most requested image in Peter’s vast collection of photographs and served as the basis for the famous scene in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous. In 2016 while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, Plant read Simon’s retrospective counter-culture coffee table book “I and Eye: Pictures of My Generation” (Bulfinch Press – Little Brown, 2001) and, remembering their interaction almost 50 years prior, visited the Island gallery the photographer and his wife ran to effect a reunion more than 40 years later. After a brief hello and with Plant declaring the book “the best of the books on the boomer generation I’ve ever seen,” the two adjourned to the Island’s well-known “Black Dog” restaurant where they reminisced and celebrated the highs and lows of those earlier times.

The Grateful Dead
As a senior at BU, Peter discovered the Grateful Dead well before they became widely known, via an appearance in a small Kenmore Square (Boston) club with just 100 people attending. In May of 1970 he photographed the band at a free concert at MIT given to support a student strike. Simon became a trusted photographer of the band, documenting their tours, often on assignment for Rolling Stone. He shared his knowledge of the band on his WMVY (Martha’s Vineyard) radio show Private Collections on which he played bootlegged concert tapes for which the band is known. It also gave rise to his book about the Dead, “Playing in the Band” (1983.)

Reggae Music
Peter was an early promoter of Reggae music before its widespread popularity and has been recognized by the Reggae community in Jamaica for his championing of the genre which he did in radio shows, books, photojournalism, and lectures.

As a radio DJ three of his four shows either featured it or focused solely on it:

Good Vibrations – WVOI – 1974 - 1976

Reggae Bloodlines – WBRU, WCAS 1977 – 1981

Reggae International – WGBH 1981 – 1982

He started his late-night show on WVOI (later renamed WMVY) the 5,000-watt radio station on the Vineyard in 1974. Inspired by 1973’s film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, Peter began collecting – and spinning for his listeners – all the leading exponents of reggae at the time: Cliff, Toots and the Maytalls, Burning Spear, Bob Marley, and others well before the genre was popular in the states. A free form show in which he played a little bit of everything, reggae, then new to his audiences, sparked the most phone calls to the station. Simon collaborated with his friend, the writer Stephen Davis in travelling to Jamaica to author an article about the genre for the New York Times. This led to their book “Reggae Bloodlines.” Simon befriended and wrote and broadcasted about most of the main lights of reggae resulting in being recognized in Jamaica for his unstinting support of reggae music and culture. Peter’s photograph of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Peter Tosh sharing a joint backstage while getting ready for their historic 1976 appearance on Saturday Night Live is one of the most requested shots in his archive.

Martha’s Vineyard
Peter started taking pictures on the Island in 1962, around the time his sisters Lucy and Carly began singing professionally as The Simon Sisters. He photographed them at the Mooncusser, the legendary Oak Bluffs folk music venue, in 1964, one of pop star Carly Simon’s first professional performances. He began publishing his scenic black-and-white pictures of the island in The Vineyard Gazette, the Island’s venerable newspaper, whose broadsheet format was a vital local showcase for his work.

Peter celebrated his love of his home of nearly 50 years, Martha’s Vineyard, in hundreds of landscape images that have been published in local island newspapers and magazines, in his annual calendars sold through his gallery, and in a series of books in which the images are matched with essays from other well-known residents starting with “On the Vineyard” (Doubleday) and running through three subsequent self-published editions. In 2017, his magnum opus photo homage to MV, “To Everything There is A Season” was published. It was his last book.

Celebrity Photographer
The intersections made by his family’s life, his many friendships with musicians, writers and athletes, his work for major publications and his full-time life on an Island that attracts its fair share of celebrities both as year-round and summer-only residents, brought him into photographic assignment with a who’s who cast of well-known cultural figures of the 20th and 21st centuries, including: Mike Wallace, Art Buchwald, William Styron, Diane Sawyer, John Belushi, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Mia Farrow, Richie Havens, Susan Tedeschi, Chuck Berry, John Varvatos, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Levon Helm, The Band, Paul Newman, Morgan Freeman, Stephen Gyllenhall, Bill Baird, Alan Dershowitz, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Walter Cronkite, Larry David, Michael J. Fox, Lady Gaga,  Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Barbara Mowad, Mick Jagger, Peter Tosh, Toots Hipperd, Jackie Onassis, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Sting, Winston Rodney of Burning Spear, Richie Spice, Sizzla, Tarrus Riley, and many others.

Publisher
In 1988, while still publishing some of his works through New York publishing firms, Simon founded his own imprint, The Simon Press. Peter also began producing The Vineyard Calendar, which has been revised and published consistently every year since. A posthumous edition is being published in May, 2019.

Peter’s follow on editions to the original Doubleday published “On the Vineyard” are also published by his press, On The Vineyard II (37 writers, 1990) and On The Vineyard III (39 writers, 2000). Island-related photographs are also featured in Peter’s 2001 autobiography Eye And I: Pictures of My Generation (Little Brown Publishers).

Contributors to the various volumes of “On the Vineyard” include: Nancy Aronie, Barbara Lazear Ascher, Susan Branch, Robert Brustein, Art Buchwald, Philip Craig, Walter Cronkite, Ram Dass, Larry David, Stephen Davis, Alan Dershowitz, Tom Dunlop, Jib Ellis, Peter Feibelman, Perry Garfinkel, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jason Gay, Ralph Graves, Spalding Gray, Lisa Grunwald, Judith Hannan, Della Hardman, James Hart, Stan Hart, John Hough, Ward Just, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Jim Kaplan, Richard Lourie, John Maloney, Phyllis Meras, Holly Nadler, Theo Nix, Richard North Patterson, Victor Pisano, Virginia Poole, Robert Post, Arnie Reisman, Cynthia Riggs, Dionis Coffin Riggs, Jay Sapir, Christopher Scott, Nelson Sigelman, Anne Simon, Carly Simon, Richard Skidmore, Rose Styron, William Styron, John Updike, Mike Wallace, Harvey Wasserman, Arlan Wise, and Joel Zoss, to name just a few.

Album Covers
Simon shot the covers of dozens of record albums for top-selling artists in genres ranging from pop to reggae including:

1. Carly Simon, “Carly Simon”

2. Carly Simon, “Anticipation”

3. James Taylor, “One Man Dog”

4. Mighty Diamonds, “Right Time Comes”

5. Meditations, “Running from Jamaica”

6. Big Youth, “Higher Grounds”

7. Carly Simon, “Christmas Is Almost Here”

Disc Jockey[edit]

Good Vibrations – WVOI – 1974 - 1976

Reggae Bloodlines – WBRU, WCAS 1977 – 1981

Reggae International – WGBH 1981 – 1982

Private Collection – WMVY – 1998 - 2004

Music Producer
Peter produced a series of CDs featuring compilations of work from artists who are Martha’s Vineyard based, or have ties to the island, or who simply reflect elements of the island lifestyle and culture. They range from little-known to well established hit makers.

The Vineyard Sound 1 (Critique, 1994)

Featured artists: Jonathan Edwards, Entrain, Jemima James, Orleans, Sam Bisbee, Joel Zoss, Michael Johnson, Tom Rush, Fred Molin, Der Kunsder Drum, Maynard Silva, Heather Goff, Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish, Rick O’Gorman, Michael Benjamin, Cindy Stevenson, Nancy Jephcote, Quansoo, Carly Simon, and Kallet, Epstein and Cicone.

The Vineyard Sound 2 (Critique, 1995)

Featured artists: Jonathan Edwards, Mischief, Tom Rush, Orleans, Michael Benjamin, Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish, Sam Bisbee, Julie Simon, The Minnesingers, Fred Molin, Dillon Bustin, Maynard Silva, Michael Johnson, Entrain, 2nd Power, Peter Halperin, Cindy Stevenson, Judy Collins, and Carly Simon.

The Vineyard Sound 3

Featured artists: Richie Havens, Carly Simon, Mischief, Entrain, Susan Tedeschi, Maynard Silva, John Hall, Jonathan Edwards, Toots Hibbert, Jemima James, Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish, Evan Dando, Seth Parker, 2nd Power, Ben Swift, Martin Sexton, Dana Edelman, Michael Johnson

Back to the Island (Rounder Records, 2001)

Featured artists: Winston Grennan, Carly Simon, Judd Fuller, Susan Tedeschi, Emily Furlong, Jonathan Edwards, David Mallet, Michael Benjamin, Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish, Toots Hibbert, Heather Goff, Der Kunsder Drum, Joel Zoss, Entrain, I-Tones, Mischief, Rita Glassman

The Best of the Vineyard Sound (Rhino Records, 2007)

Featured artists: Richie Havens, Mischief, The Itals, Willy Mason, David Mallet, Tom Rush, Johnny Hoy & the Bluefish, Maynard Silva with Susan Tedeschi, Nancy Jephcote, Miguel de Braganca, Toots Hibbert, Ben Taylor, Kate Taylor, Carly Simon, Joanne Cassidy, Winston Grennan, Entrain, Jonathan Edwards, Lucy Vincent, Michael Benjamin, John Hall, Der Kunsder Drum, Nina Violet, Jemima James, Joe Keenan, Jennifer Kish, Livingston Taylor, Rita Glassman, Judy Collins.

Exhibits
Peter’s work has been featured in exhibitions including at the former Nikon Gallery in New York City, at Boston University, and is on permanent display in John Varvatos stores in Boston and around the world.

Author
Peter was the author, co-author or editor of 13 books:

1. Moving On, Holding Still, (Grossman Publishers, 1972) Peter’s photos and Ray Mungo’s text about searching for peace in Vermont on a commune.

2. Decent Exposures  (Wingbow Press, 1974) celebrating commune life, especially the clothing optional lifestyle at Tree Frog Farm, from 1970 to 1972. It made Peter the first photojournalist to publish a book on nude living.

3. Carly Simon Complete (Knopf, 1975) An extended interview with the singer, augmented by over 40 of her songs and 60 images, with all but one taken by her father or Peter.

4. Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica ((Doubleday, 1976) with Stephen Davis, translated into four languages including Japanese. It’s the first book to tell the story of the music of the Jamaican people and their spiritual nationality, the Brotherhood of Rastafari. Includes interviews with musicians and political leaders, offering definitive portrait of a struggling nation and its musical heritage at the crucial turning point of decolonization.

5. On the Vineyard (Doubleday, 1980) the first of a series featuring photographs of the Island Peter has called home full time since 1988. The photos are paired with essays by summer and year-round residents, many of whom are well known. Essay authors include: actors Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, newsmen Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and James Reston;  authors Douglas A. Cabral, Stephen Davis, John Updike, William Styron, Rose Styron, Art Buchwald, Marianne Wiggins, Evelyn Ames, Robert Brustein, Nelson Bryant, Stanley Burnshaw,, Peter Barry Chowka, Robert Crichton, Nicholas Delbanco, Maitland Edey, Stan Hart, Henry Beetle Hough, Maria Katzenbach, Daniel Lang, Phyllis Meras, John B. Oakes, Vance Packard, Dionis Coffin Riggs, Wenonah V. Silva, and the author’s mother, Anne W. Simon, and sister, singer-songwriter Carly Simon.

6. Playing in the Band (St. Martin's Press, 1983) with David Gans about the Grateful Dead, and weaving the band member’s own words from interviews with photos by Peter Simon.

7. Reggae International with Stephen Davis (R&B, 1983) An anthology of interviews with photos.

8. The New York Mets: 25 Years of Baseball Magic (Henry Holt, 1987) A collection of photos, stats, and previously untold anecdotes.

9. On the Vineyard II (Simon Press, 1990)

10. On the Vineyard III (Simon Press, 2000)

11. I and Eye (Bulfinch Press - Little Brown, 2001) a comprehensive retrospective of Peter Simon’s life work, both written and photographed as a handsome coffee table book.

12. Reggae Scrapbook Roger Steffens and Peter Simon (Insight Editions, 2008) The world’s premier reggae archivist and collector of reggae memorabilia and brings the best of his in-depth interviews with reggae legends, accented by numerous reproductions of artifacts and photos by Peter Simon.

13. To Everything There is a Season (Simon Press, 2017) with text by Geraldine Brooks. An extensive coffee table book capturing the many glories of Martha’s Vineyard in all four seasons.

Gallery Owner
Simon and his wife Ronni ran the Simon Gallery in Vineyard Haven featuring Peter’s books and photography, Ronni’s jewelry and sculptures, and the works of other island artists. It was taken over by long time associate Robin Canha shortly after Peter’s death.

Personal Life
Peter married Ronni Berman Goldman Simon on July 9th, 1977, in a ceremony at his Island home officiated by spiritual guru and author, Ram Das. They have a son William “Willie” Simon, is an urban planning student at Boston University.

Peter was a recovering alcoholic. Peter saw his alcoholism arise out of a bout of severe depression spurred by a chain reaction starting with the terrorist attack of 9-11 (September 11, 2001). He said that he spiraled downward from a combination of the sheer fright and terror of that tragedy accompanied by his disappointment that a substantial schedule of media appearances announcing the book featuring his life’s work “I and Eye” published on that day, were all cancelled, never to be rescheduled. After 4 arrests for driving under the influence and a six-week stint in the Island jail, he was permitted to enter a 6-month rehab through which he got sober.

Peter was also a lung cancer survivor. He was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in June 2014 and was told he had six months to live. After undergoing two rounds of a conventional chemotherapy, doctors advised that the type of cancer he had -- which was a rare, ALK mutation -- could be treated with a more experimental and “targeted” chemotherapy. He responded well and lived cancer free for a few years before dying of cardiac arrest on November 18, 2018 at the age of 71 on Martha’s Vineyard. A memorial service is being held on Monday, May 27, 2019, from 1:30 to 3 at the Chilmark Community Center, Martha's Vineyard.

Legacy
Peter’s entire photographic archive is being preserved. The Credo Archive at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has purchased his entire photographic output which it is digitizing and making available for research and education use. In Jamaica, his reggae portfolio is on permanent display at PULSE in Kingston. Peter’s vintage music photos are represented by two different prestigious firms; the online enterprise Rock Paper Photo, and Getty Images, as well as his own website (petersimon.com) and several galleries in addition to his own; Mr. Music Head Gallery on Sunset BLVD in LA, and Morrison Hotel Galleries in New York, Maui, and online.