nothing to say after watching this!

And The Zippers (the band is unearthed) RIP the 3 members who are dancing in space and hello to the one member, Daniella, wherever she is in Portugal —

Single: He’s a Rebel / You’re So Strange

For more info on the Zippers (produced by Ray Manzanek, no less) (((open link)))

But can’t leave you here

Last but not least —- we will NEVER FORGET and we will keep RESISTING

or sold a print from that shoot, I could tell folks, “well, I’m not exactly sure —it was sometime in 1976. I know I shot them at the Roxy…” but I was still not sure. When I looked at the stage, the backdrop didn’t make sense. “Squeeze…” I’d google Squeeze/ LA/ Patti Smith, but it got me nowhere.

Finally, today, while printing a different photo, I tried once more. And sure enough I came up with the goods. Facebook had a post on a random Riverside, CA. page about a place on Main Street in Riverside, CA. called Squeezes Place. Here it is:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RiversidePicturesPastPresentAndFuture

Looking deeper into posts on the above FB page, I found a photo that showed the stage and backdrop. BAM! Same letters, same design. That’s it! At last. An answer.

Patti played Squeezes Place before her multi-night gig to open the Horses Tour in LA started at the Roxy on January 30th, 1976. I guess it was a way for the band to do a practice! Since I also had photos of her at the Roxy, now I knew what picture went with which venue.

I’ll never forget that night. I got into position right next to the stage where I could shoot Patti and the band perfectly. It was a small venue and the sound system wasn’t great. The memory from that night happened early in the set, and it stayed etched in me as an example of what a badass someone with nothing to lose and guts for miles is like — Patti suddenly stopped the show dead, looked up to where the sound guy was, grabbed her crotch, yanked on it and yelled into the mic, “Turn it up, fucker -- I want to get off, too!”

My mouth dropped! Fuck, I thought. Pow! Man, she was tough. I was still too shy to be that bold, but I learned that night that one could! The line up that night was:

• Lenny Kaye – Guitar

• Ivan Kral – Bass / Guitar

• Jay Dee Daugherty – Drums

• Richard Sohl – Keyboards

Now, I wanted to Nancy Drew who was the opening band that night at Squeezes Place because I had photos of them, too. So, again I consulted google and FB, and found the FB page: Inland Empire Musicians Hall of Fame - IEMHOF. So, I posted on their page, asking if anyone knew the people in this photo below?

Sure enough, someone named Armando Castro wrote back, “… The Zippers.” This led me to another page called, I went to the Starwood in the 70s and 80s and there, I found this post:

Formed around 1977, The Zippers were Bob Willingham, Danielle Faye, Bill Willett and Lewis Ray Cammarata.

And a post that contained good sleuthing info: Lewis Ray Cammarata wrote: "I was the guitar player in the Zippers. Sadly, our fearless leader, main writer, and singer Bob Willingham, as well as our drummer Billy Willett are no longer with us. It's just Danielle and me, along with Bob's widow Sally."

Bob Willingham is the dude in the photos I took that night. Sad he’s no longer alive, but his widow, Sally, is — she might like this photo… what a cutie. Amazing, I didn’t try to hook up with him that night!

I mean, it was the years of “love the one you’re with, baby.” What can I say, 1966-1970 + a tad was Paris in the 1920s… The Moveable Feast!

Anyway, I posted these photos and hope that they make Daniela Pimentel and Lewis Ray Cammarata happy! I’m sure I was the only one taking photos that night. I was just home from France, where I’d been living since after the Cocker Tour, and back hanging with my Fanny friends and a whole lot of getting into good trouble.

So that’s my R&R story for today!

All this detective work came about only because I had to print this shot for a guy who won it in the Camp Winnarainbow auction and I really wanted to give him a secure answer as to where I’d taken it. The Roxy! Probably, January 20th, 1976 or the following night.

OH, dear, I just googled Lewis Ray Cammarata — a Lewis Ray Cammarata died recently.

I’m inspired not only by my daughter’s love of life, and her delicious music, Heather Wolf (Midnight Hour) but besides her devotion to music, she has inspired all of us — her family, her young nephew, Wilder, and a motley crew of many colleagues, friends and friends of friends, and best buds, including Cosmo Sheldrake, who credits her and Sean for inspiring him and his brother to begin brewing when they were teenagers and she was his camp counselor at the Power of Hope.

Even this morning, she’s done it again —I’m about to get up and put my on my galoshes and trudge through our forest picking young Spring nettles to brew up a tea and make a hair wash.

Watch this, and I’ll bet you’ll be inspired to get to the woods yourselves.

Here’s the link. Read and watch the video …. NETTLES NETTLES NETTLES - Heather Wolf

PS The first 10 people who sign up for her Patreon are getting a 90 True Voice session with Heather. I was the first to sign up! And not because she’s my girl. But because, I have already had a session, I want another one! Click on the photo …

Hi Friends,

Happy to announce the Tacoma Art Museum 2026 group show of Sola Awardees. I received mine in 2023. It was a great honor and is a great honor to be among this gathering of women artists. More about this as the summer approaches. Love linda

Linda Wolf: 2023 recipient of the SOLA Award

Opens July 18, 2026

This exhibition marks SOLA’s 10th Anniversary and will celebrate the creative legacies of ten years of SOLA Award recipients — mature women artists whose vision, mastery, and resilience continue to shape Washington’s cultural landscape.

“This exhibition is a tribute to the extraordinary women visual artists across Washington selected by their peers as SOLA Awardees — and to Marge Levy, whose support and dedication makes their greater recognition possible,” said Nichole DeMent, Executive Director of SOLA.

The SOLA (Support of Old Lady Artists) Award is an annual grant program established in 2016 by artist Ginny Ruffner. Managed in partnership with Artist Trust, the award specifically recognizes female visual artists living in Washington State who are over the age of 60 and have maintained a professional art practice for at least 25 years. Wolf’s selection for the 2023 SOLA Award honors her extensive career as a humanistic photographer, author, and activist whose work has spanned over 50 years, documenting everything from rock ‘n’ roll icons to humanitarian social justice projects.

Key Details of the Award

• Purpose: To provide financial support, professional development, and recognition to accomplished women artists for their lifelong dedication to their craft.

• Grant Type: It is a cash award (grant) intended to support the artist’s continued work.

• Eligibility: Artists must be 60+ years old, female-identifying, and residents of Washington State.

Apply for the next Sola Award: https://artisttrust.org/grants/sola-awards/

I wanted to marry Ringo. Not Paul, John, or George. Ringo. But, then that same year, a darker force came through. “I’m a King Bee.” Biology hit under the covers. MICK. I wanted MICK. I was destined to know Mick, and I made it happen. Sneaking backstage at the TAMI show. There he was. And that was the beginning.

When I met Mick Jagger I was 13, barely 14. And bam, just like that, a parallel world opened for me, in me, around me. My path, at first only intuited by a barely conscious but forceful will in me, led me. With my privilege normalized by my growing upper-middle-class upbringing, and my slightly spoiled attitude of getting what I wanted, I believed I could achieve what I could barely articulate…some kind of life worth living, certainly so much better than the one I was steeped in, in the San Fernando Valley school I went to, with the popular girls whose only horizon was to cheerlead and get the captain of the football team. Not me, Not that life. My heart and soul and understanding of the world were coming through my ears — sounds that made sense, that replicated my feelings, words that had meaning, music that fed me. The early songs of Bob Dylan, really, give me a break… — Maggie’s Farm, Masters of War, Tangled Up in Blue… how could I not be moved by lyrics like “…I must admit I felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the lace of my shoes…”

That’s what I want, I thought at 15, barely 16. I want to feel that way — have that power — have that agency — have that love.

All the nascent desire I was growing at 13, barely 14, which translated into “All I want is to fall in love, get married, have children, and live happily together until we die. No wonder my first love, Jay, and my song was by the Turtles, Happy Together. I can see us now, me 16, him 18, it’s night, we’re in his car, he’s driving over Laurel Canyon, we’ve just passed the Country Store, coming up to Sunset Blvd, sitting close together, singing our love for each other, along with the radio at the top of our lungs…He was my rock star. He worked at the Troubadour; his best friend was Tim Buckley. He played guitar. He lived at the Gentle Soul House. He was my first love. He was my first making love. He was my first acid.

All that Rimbaud I’d soaked up, all those heart pangs of loneliness, all that never fitting in — we were creating a parallel generation. MY Generation, peace, love, meditation — eating brown rice with chopsticks — out of the box —the dividing line between me and my parents distinct -I was living outside the lines drawn for me by a culture I couldn’t abide by, a culture of war, sleeze, unconsciousness.

I write this with a sense of longing and some poetry running through this morning… the kind of feelings that come when I’ve woken up at 5 am, realizing… when lighting a candle as the darkness outside my kitchen window begins to allow forms of branches against the coming blue sky, and my black cat, Ivy, is roaming looking for a pet, and my tea water is cooling, awaiting the Earl Grey. All this while my beloveds sleep in the quiet of a house lulled by the sound of the heater and everything plugged in, all this while I try to keep my vibrations calm so as not to disturb their dreams.

It all started in 1963. Invisible push pins at the nodal points on my map of being. And now at 75, going on 76, so much becomes clear in retrospect. I was drawn to the music and the music makers. My young years spent as a valued tag-along, the photographer for the bands, capturing the source through the people making it, roaming rehearsal rooms like a hunter, and candle-lit houses where mostly boys & then men jammed in their bedrooms, living rooms, garages…going along with the band to recording studios, sitting in control booths, watching the engineers, listening to playback through great speakers, listening the sound of the reel to reel stopping, many takes and the tape being rolled back and forth, splicing — long before digital capture. I know those sounds. I was there. In Capital, A&M, Columbia. With Fanny, Jackson, the Band, the Doors, Sting, Rod Stewart, watching Henry Lewy, Richard Perry, Bruce Botnick on the board - thinking if I wasn’t a photographer, I’d have loved being a sound engineer. I felt the gravity and the uplifting forces of being on stage with the bands, given the freedom to do what I wanted, in front of large audiences, adjacent to the drums, sidelined on the stage, my camera pointing to find the light and shadow that best captured feel. I drew in the energy of the music, the musicians, the audience, all of us together as one aural resonation, thrumming, vibrating, gathering all this into my lens, through the glass, onto the silver film, making photography for my soul of what I so deeply longed for, what called me to be married to the ineffable.

I wrote this flowery write this morning out of a dream state — a dream of lovers swimming out to each other like sea birds. This is not the practical, rational, play by play of a girl, now an older woman, almost an old woman, my hair grey with so little brown left, who still feels like a young woman, who had a life not as a scientist, not as an astronaut, not as a biologist… but as all of them as a rock and roll photographer. Yet, that title doesn’t capture any of the reality of being an artist, which I am—that moniker which sums up my early professional years in elevator pitch style doesn’t even encompass what to call the world I was part of or the music. We call it R&R, but it was and is so much more. .

This substack, Behind the Seen, I set it up because all my life, no matter what else I did in photography, no matter if I was having my eyes examined by an ophthalmologist, or my rotator cuffs x-rayed by a surgeon offering to spin my blood and shoot it back into my shoulders to heal them, the top questions I get are always, “did you meet the Beatles?” The most important thing they want to discuss was what it was like being on the road with rock and roll bands. They’re as hungry to live through what I lived through as I was to live through those who were inside the music. Because inside the music — call it rock and roll, the blues, jazz, folk, opera, classical, world, hip hop, spoken word, dap, you name it — inside wherever the voice lives lives what we most desire, and what we most want... We want it so much. Love.

I’m writing this quickly, just to get something out because I want you to know that this month you can watch both the 1970 documentary and the 2015 Tribute documentary for free on Youtube. Here are the links.

Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen 1970

From the first moment I walked into the A&M Soundstage and saw the first rehearsal going on, I knew I wanted to be part of whatever this was and was going to make it happen. And sure enough, I was invited to come along as a documentary photographer in the circus… I had a job to do and I was going to do it but I was also going to belong! Because the way Leon set it up, we were all part of the show! I would be on stage without restrictions - I could sit underneath Joe on stage, if I wanted to. And I basically did sometimes! What freedom!

Here I am shooting Leon at rehearsal during the first performance in Detroit

Flash forward to 2015!

So, there I was washing dishes and living life, when the phone rang! It was Rita Coolidge’s manager, Nelly Nebin, who I’d been talking to months earlier about some photos of Rita. Hey, she said, there are plans in the works for a Tribute Concert to the Mad Dogs tour, and went on to explain that the Tedeschi Trucks Band was making this happen. She said, “I’ve given your phone number to Dave Frey, the director of the Lockn’ Festival. He is going to call you; wants to get contacts from you for Claudia Lennear, Pamela Polland, and anyone else you are in touch with from the tour. They want to invite all y’all to come be part of the Tribute. They want all the alumni on stage with the TTB band, and you to come reprieve your roll as the official photographer.” Wow!!! I said something like, “GREAT!” A few weeks later, Dave called. I told him I was honored, gave him all the contact info I had for my alumni friends and said, “But I’d have to be the official photographer and be able to be on stage and do photos like I did on the original tour.” He said that was what they all expected! And so, there is was— freedom to express — freedom to be — freedom to be part of it all! Plus, Dave told me I could bring my whole family, they would cover my air fare, lodging, etc, and pay me! And that is what happened! And all this was captured by Jesse Lauter and his crew for another off the charts, iconic film —

Learning to Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen

After the call with Dave, I was beyond excited… and I got to work preparing seriously for the show, which would culminate the Lockn’ Festival. I pulled out all my negatives and proof sheets from the Mad Dogs tour and began printing, and created a soft-back memory book — a kind of high-school year-book — to give out to everyone, alumni and TTB members, their staff, roadies, plus anyone involved with Lockn’. I gave these out at the first rehearsal. You should have seen everyone in both bands, they were like kids, going up to each other asking for people to sign their books. I also printed a lot of photos to sell in a special booth Lockn’ Fest was gifting me (side note - after my daughters and I set up the booth prior to the start of the festival, in over 100 degree heat mind you. Just after we were through setting it all up with photos and books and went to the rehearsal, a freak storm blew in and the festival grounds were ruined…In about 30 minutes flat, rain pelted everything and lifted all the canvas booths up in the air like kites, some hung in trees — the storm rent the enormous cloth backdrop on stage in half, and we heard people had to hold on to anything solidly planted on earth for fear they’d blow away — the festival grounds were pure mud, a foot deep — the festival crew had to have truckloads and truckloads of straw brought in for people who were going to glamp in tents! and the thousands who would be standing in front of the stage… it was choas for the producers…)

Here’s a video of a moment in rehearsal:

To say the rehearsals were better than the actual show, which everyone who ever attended a Lockn’ Festival in the past said was the great show they’d ever seen there, is an understatement. Those rehearsals were the high point of the whole 3 days we all spent together. Most of us had not seen each other in 45 years. Even Leon (Russell) was heard to say about the Tedeschi Trucks Band members after the first rehearsal “wow, they really like me.” What a vulnerable thing for Leon to say. We were all over the top as though we had known each other since birth — I mean the members of our 1970 tour and the members of TTB. To this day, I still text to Susan, Derek and many of the other members and there is so much love between us.

One special friend I made at the Tribute Concert is Warren Haynes. I’d never heard of him before. I’d lived in France during the hay day of the Allman Brothers. The minute I read about Warren before going to Lockn’ I knew I wanted to meet him. Since then, we’ve hung out each time he comes to Seattle. The fun thing is, once again, I get to pick up my camera and have that same freedom to be part of the music, to be on stage, to do my thing without restrictions. Here is a clip of me at the Moore, with Warren.

There’s so much to share about all my youthful days being rock star adjacent, and having a taste of Rock Royalty.

More soon.

Good morning, Good Day, Sweet night -

When I was young, all I wanted was to fall in love, get married, have children, and live happily for the rest of my life. Children have that kind of innocent imagination that allows them to believe life could be that simple, that perfect. Little do we realize until later that our greatest teachers are often failures, pain, struggle, and strife — through them, we develop courage, resilience, and unlimited creative responses to life.

Maya Angelou has said that courage is our greatest virtue. We sure need courage, every day. And more these days, it seems.

It took great courage, over and over again, and great longing, grace and love for my daughter, Heather Wolf, to become the Midnight Hour Wolf Woman who gives herself the right to BE. It is universal for us all — this permission to be ourselves, this courage to speak our truth, to put ourselves out there in the world, to share our inner selves, our longings, our minds, our hearts, our souls. It takes courage because there is so much judgment out there. Breaking through all that judgment to offer something creative, honest, beautiful, painful, real is not easy, and then to have it fly through the world takes so much sharing. Please share Heather’s music with your local NPR radio station - with any folk music program they have. Here’s a link to her spotify.

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently“. She argued that while one might be kind, fair, or generous occasionally, it is courage that allows one to consistently act with these virtues over time.”

It is such a sweet feeling to be back in touch after so long, and I’m looking forward to hearing back from Jackson how he responds to the album.

From Susan Tedeschi “Heather’s voice takes me back through the centuries to an ancient place. Her voice is pure and honest and stirs a beautiful and melancholy feeling in the soul.”

From Taj: “Heather has and is in possession of magnificent ancient and creative soul coupled with a beautiful,clear and sparkling voice that can communicate every sung lyric in real time💕” — Taj Mahal, 7/8/25 (Quote me⚡️👀) —Taj

LOVE to you Linda

Camera and a Calling
I was nineteen when Sandy Konikoff—my recent but now old boyfriend—called one evening and said he needed a ride to the A&M Soundstage; rehearsals were starting for what would very soon become the Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour. Sandy didn’t drive. I was living at Fanny Hill at the time, documenting the all-girl rock band, Fanny. Sandy said he needed to be there at 3 pm. I said, “Sure.” Leon Russell was putting the band together for Joe, who needed to fulfill a tour that was scheduled to start in a little over a week, or he’d be sued, kicked out of the US, and probably banned from returning. Joe had just fired his British band, was exhausted from his last tour, had arrived in LA and gone to Leon’s to stay, was sick of his New York mafia-type manager, and didn’t give a shit about fulfilling his responsibility. Leon was saving his ass by doing this. He’d been asked by Denny Cordell, Joe’s record producer to help Joe out of this fix by putting together the band. Leon got going immediately. He went to Jerry Moss, the M of A&M, Joe’s label, told him of the emergency and got Jerry’s permission to use the A&M Soundstage for rehearsals which began the following day, would go on for a week, before the band and crew, including girlfriends, photographers, film makers, a pregnant dog and Denny’s children would make up the 43 people who would take off for two months in a private plane, with Cocker Power written on the side— a traveling circus, soon to sell out 54 shows in 48 cities across the US.

When I walked into the A&M Soundstage, the vibe inside hit me like a strong wind. It rang with high excitement. It was the first night of rehearsals, so only about a fourth of the crowd and musicians who would come increasingly each night for the next week were there. Leon and about 9 musicians and singers were up on a make-shift stage in the middle of the room. Everyone else was milling around or sitting in chairs strewn around. The sound coming out of the speakers made the hairs on my arms stand up. Looking around, I saw two cool-looking, older girls ladling out rice and beans from huge trash cans by the side of a long table strewn with paper plates, bowls, cups, and bottles of various kinds of whiskey and bourbon, cans of beer, and sodas. The whole scene felt exactly what I wanted to be part of, what I’d always wanted to be part of ever since 1964, when I was fourteen and snuck backstage at the legendary 1964 T.A.M.I Show and met my idol, Mick Jagger. I hadn’t known it back then, but Leon was a pianist in the house band that provided musical accompaniment for many of the show’s performers, including Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and the Supremes.

In the middle of the room, I saw a couple of men in suits casually standing talking with a handsome, older man. Sandy went directly up to him, and I followed along. The men were big shots at A&M. One turned out to be Jerry Moss, the M. of A&M. I just listened. I soon understood the man was Denny Cordell. He had such a calm demeanor, British accent, and was clearly the mastermind, along with Leon, of putting the tour together. When Sandy moved on, I was left standing next to Denny Cordell, introduced myself, and told him in no uncertain terms, “I wanna go on this tour.” He turned his attention to me now seriously and asked curiously, “What can you do?” I replied that I was the documentary photographer for Fanny, the first all-girl rock band. He said, “Show me something.” Another guy was listening to us talk, someone I didn’t know and had never seen before. I hadn’t brought my camera with me because I thought I was only driving Sandy there and coming back to Fanny Hill. The guy next to me said, “I have a darkroom, we can go there and develop the film tonight.” I looked around and saw another guy with a camera slung around his shoulder. I recognized him as the drummer, excused myself, ran over to him, and asked if I could borrow his camera. Turned out he was Jim Gordon. He said, “Sure.” I went back to Denny and said, “I’ll have proofs to show you tonight.” Whatever happened to those rehearsal photos, I have no idea, but that guy took me to his darkroom, we processed the roll of film I took over the next couple of hours, and I came back with still moist proof sheets, handed them to Denny, and he said, “OK, you can go.” I was elated. That night, or rather early morning of the next day, we all went back to Leon’s house to sleep, and I was officially “on the bus.”

The following day, I went home and told my parents, “I’m going on a two-month Rock & Roll Tour as a photographer. I had just turned twenty. For the next week, I was at every rehearsal with my camera. Again, I have no idea what happened to those negatives. Every night, the rehearsals spilled over into late-night jam sessions at Leon’s house on Skyhill Drive. I slept wherever I found a bed – once with Chris Stainton, English keyboardist for Joe, on a mattress in an empty walk-in closet, once with Bobby Jones, a background singer, in a king-size bed next to another woman and her young daughter, and once under Leon’s piano as he played into the wee hours of the morning. People were having sex all over the house, some in threesomes. I was still so young, but was going along with everything- the pot, acid, pills, lines of coke. Much later, Chris reminded me we made love, but I have no memory of it! I was just starting to have a crush on Joe, who slept on the floor next to a pretty blond girl.

To be continued: PS if you want the whole story from the point of view of the majority of us on the tour, go to www.cockerpowerbook.com

Heather is opening for Cosmo Sheldrake on his West Coast Tour. Find the dates and more on Heather’s website: Heatherwolf.love You can imagine how much eric and I want to be at her performances. HOWEVER, an even greater priority is to be with Genevieve while she gives birth to her 2nd son. Both Heather’s tour and Gen’s due date are at the same time! This will be interesting!

Here’s a recent photo of the delicious Wilder: photo by his dad…OH, he was awake! He’s so precious, just letting his dad take his photo. He must be getting used to being photographed and to photography. He often sits on my lap while I work in Photoshop! Look at that hair!!!

I love this boy more than words can express. And from what he says and does it is mutual. When I show up to pick him up from pre-school, he drags a kids chair over for me to the goodbye circle. Just makes my heart ache with the amount of love I have for him. Eric and I are ecstatic to be grandparents and after 4 years we’ve gotten into the swing of it.

And here’s a new image I did yesterday to express myself…STAY WOKE… Don’t let them gaslight you… Stay awake and conscious of what is happening, even though it is impossible to grasp how horrible it is in places like Gaza, we still need to face it. Just not too much, which circles me back to Heather’s song — because we need the balance and frankly we need a lot of rest and nature’s beauty to be able to take what we are experiencing right now.

We must enjoy life…find what uplifts us, focus on what uplifts us, loosen our mind’s grip, allow ourselves to create new neural pathways…it is good for you, your family, your community, and the planet to care for yourselves, be yourselves — laugh, play, cry.

For the image below, I used red to symbolize MAGA & Republicans and the flag's colors to symbolize all Americans. The flag upside down symbolizes emergency…

And here’s something from Merlin about here’s the book: Entangled Life. Get the audio version if you can… It’s on Audible… but maybe you can find it on Libby, the free library… it’s mind-expanding.

Love to you all, linda

Live Video Replay

Click Live Video Replay above to watch and hear Linda, Dave, Jim, Claudia, Peter, Pamela, Bobby, and others speak about their time on the JC Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. The live stream was done on April 16th 2020 and is iconic music history/herstory…totally unique and a precious account from those who were there!

Enjoy…

Also, the incredible website created by Kyle Holmstead and Cassandra Holden is back up. It was Kyle and Cassandra who created the above video - another labor of love from all of us who loved Joe Cocker.

https://cockerpowerbook.com

Love Linda

At 75 years old, which I just turned on March 17th, I am now at the age where sleep is more important than sex, and affection is more important than…well…sex, again! Perhaps sleep has always been, but nature didn’t plan it that way. Our youthful bodies are so ravenous to fuck that we can stay up all night and the following day if we’re getting lucky! I know! But that’s a different story. Fortunately for me, at sixteen, when I told my mother that I planned to make love with my first boyfriend, Jay, who I was sure I was going to marry, have children with, and live with for the rest of my life, she was wise enough to get me on the pill.

I was still in high school during the 6 months Jay and I were together. Today, 6 months seems like the tiniest amount of time, but back then, 6 months was an eternity. I met him in a darkened living room, at a friend’s party, a girl I went to summer camp with who lived in Hollywood, her parents were part of the movie industry. He was making out with a girl on a couch and I was stoned on Romilar Cough Syrup! His afro blew my mind. I’d never seen one. I sat next to them on the couch and played with his hair. That’s how we met. He must have given me his phone number because the next scene I remember is sitting next to his bed while he was cleaning a lid of pot, separating out the seeds in the top of a shoe box. That night we made out but I insisted we couldn’t go any farther unless we were going steady! What a naive and sweet girl I was! It took 3 of the six months we were together before I went all the way with him in one of the double garages of the Gentle Soul House, which he’s just moved into and made into his bedroom. A member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band lived in the other side.

The Gentle Soul house was a mansion on Marmont Lane, across the street from the Château Marmont, one of the most famous and iconic hotels in Hollywood. I’ve driven by it over the years, and it looks the same, but smaller than in my memories. It had been rented for the Gentle Soul band by Columbia Records. They were in the process of making a record with Terry Melcher, their producer. The mansion was large, two-stories with a sunken living room where hippie kids and those of us living or staying there would often lay around on the floor at night, stoned, listening to records. The front door opened onto a view of the Chateau Marmont. At all hours of the day or night, we could hear, when we could hear anything over the music pouring out of our own house, someone playing the grand piano from the great room of the Chateau. I remember my mother and grandmother coming to that front door to implore me to come home. They were so worried about me. Rightly, so. I was having fun!

Inside the Gentle Soul House slept all the musicians from the Gentle Soul Band, each in a different room. Then there was Jackson Browne, a 17-year-old musician who slept in the den, my boyfriend, Jay, and the Nitty Gritty guy in the renovated garages, a fabulous gay guy named Wendy slept with whom and wherever he wanted, and there were always other musician friends, girlfriends, and a woman named Bobbie, a super tall, thin, black woman with a shaved head who I remember for being so mysterious. And there was Pamela Polland, leader of the band and the reigning Queen of the house. I’ve written how witnessing her standing at night in her silk kimono in the kitchen, eating a bowl of her perfectly cooked brown rice with chopsticks, is one of my most embossed memories of my teen years, when I slept overnight there with Jay.

It was in the Gentle Soul House that I took my first acid trip and made love for the first time, and had my heart broken for the first time, and stayed up all night on the foot of Jackson’s bed, who years later would make an album of all the songs he was practicing that night, and who would be a lover of mine in those days of “love the one you’re with.”

But, to get back to the point of this post — and to explain why I felt compelled to write about sleep… when I woke up this morning, I thought about Jackson, whom I recently had lunch with, and had just texted last night. I was remembering back to those few years after Jay, when I was sleeping around with guys I was dating or just guys I hooked up with. I have to admit there weren’t that many, but the ones I remember were pretty amazing musicians. Sadly, I do not remember much about the sex, except that I really wanted it. I wanted to be wanted. But mostly I don’t recall what sex felt like. It usually happened so fast. I recall some great encounters, like when Jackson and I made love at the top of the fire escape at the Santa Monica Civic, while the Mad Dogs were on stage below us. This was one of the best times. I must preferred making love in unusual places, like closets, or showers, when we’d get back to having a day or night together, doing something else, not in bed, about to go to sleep.

Mostly, what I remember about sex from my youth was that if I spent all night with someone, I would lie awake for hours afterwards. I couldn’t just fall asleep after it was over. The guys never had trouble. They’d fall asleep immediately after cumming, those rascals — but me, I would just lay there almost unable to breath normally, my breath so shallow, my heart pounding, not wanting to move. I lay there longing for the urgency those boys had to have me to melt into affection afterwards, but they were dead to the world. It was as if I owned them until they climaxed… They seemed desperate, then they were done. I had the worst night’s sleep with those lovers, like they were mine and then suddenly not, fast as a shot from a gun. I would be left feeling lost at sea. I’m sure I didn’t orgasm with any of them, or if I did, I don’t remember it. I remember good feelings, but not the full meal deal. I’m sure they didn’t know anything about the clitoris. I did. For sure. I’d been masturbating since I was 13 with a vibrator and knew exactly where the pressure would be relieved, and how good it felt. It was like secret fuel. I’d give myself dozens of orgasms alone in my own bed. But with the guys, I was too shy to tell them what to do, where to touch, or ask them for anything. Why? I don’t know ——well, that’s blatantly not true, I do know why, now, but I didn’t know back then.

The 1970s brought the dawning of the next level of feminist liberation. I began to frequent the Women’s Building, in LA, meeting women like Kate Millet and Judy Chicago… It took me moving to France for most of the 70s before I had built up the knowledge imparted by these women and so many others as to the story of sexism. It took reading authors and meeting strong women who taught me to strengthen my voice and insist on my agency in matters of the body and the heart. What my girlhood missed was feeling loved.

Oh, I did know love from Jay, and I knew a kind of love from Jackson, enough for us to still remember each other with love, but mostly my soft heart longed for something so much more, something that later, as I grew up, I insisted on. But those teen years, those 1960s years— they were wild and free, and I would not change what I got to live through, do and be, for anything in the world.

Jaimeo's view of the world is one of togetherness. His life, like his work, is a patchwork of people, cultures and examples of the great human potential for acceptance and integration.

I love Jaimeo Brown’s two albums, Transcendence. I’ve never been religious… I say, I’m spiritual and that is God’s truth!

God to me is a power beyond definition that sets the stars and planets in motion and makes my heart and your heart beat. God is for me the living world — nature, of which we are one. I wish my prayers to this ineffable movement could change human behavior, could end suffering, could save us from the perils we face… I don’t believe this is possible, but that won’t keep me from praying that life will continue to flower, that we will be together and stand for the soul of this planet, and all life forces to flourish, and for good to win-out, like tender grasses pushing up through concrete paved over the living soil that feeds us.

When I listen to transcendence, I am reminded that I, too, have that same dream, MLK. And I pray for this…but I also activate for this dream in every way I can.

Watch and love… and dream… and act… it is going to take all our courage to keep facing the dual monsters of racism and hate.

Jaimeo Brown: Transcendence

Jaimeo Brown (pronounced jah-mayo) began his drum career at age 16 with his father bassist Dartanyan Brown and mother pianist and woodwind specialist, Marcia Miget, and drum teacher, Sly Randolph, himself a Bernard Purdie protégé from Harlem. In the last 20 years, he has worked with a range of musicians including Stevie Wonder, Carlos Santana, Q-Tip, Carl Craig, Bobby Hutcherson, Greg Osby, Joe Locke, David Murray, and several other New York-based musicians. He gained extensive experience performing and educating various audiences worldwide as an ambassador for the US State Department. In addition to onstage work, Jaimeo contributed program material for the Oscar and Grammy award-winning documentary 'Twenty Feet From Stardom' and the PBS original production of Ralph Ellison's 'King of the Bingo Game.' As the Director of Transcending Arts, Jaimeo is a passionate educator. He has given countless hours in community service in urban NJ and NY giving lessons to kids through programs such as NJPAC, and New City Kids.

Jaimeo Brown has found his voice in struggle and hope. Sung with fire, healed with love, his words are the songs of the unknown labourer; the jailhouse; the coal miner, gandy dancer, and stonemason - yesterday, and tomorrow. His notes are the echoes of protest and his rhythms are the universal beat of freedom and solidarity; at once ancient and modern.

#wearethefabric

As a child he spent early of his life living on a Native American reservation in Arlee, Montana: a community in which the Native American voice was very present; very much a part of the social dialogue. When you experience this kind of natural sensitivity, he explains, it sheds light on the rest of the society. “Where, he asks, is the Native American voice when we speak of immigration”? Life has made Jaimeo see things differently...

#hope is in abundance

Examples of light and liberation permeate Jaimeo's growing up. Amidst the aimless youth and gang culture of the Bay Area, he discovered multiculturalism within a West Coast hiphop culture shared and celebrated by a broad group of minorities. Inspired equally by the beats and samples of J Dilla, Dr. Dre and DJ Premier, and the raw eloquence of Coltrane, Miles Davis and Art Blakey, he found shelter in practice: playing music was to be the epicentre of his spiritual awakening.

#off the map, musically and spiritually

When recordings of Gees Bend quilters, an isolated African American community on the Alabama river found their way into Jaimeo's life, they instantly became some of the most important music in his life; more 'spiritual nourishment' than art. The songs of this small group of quilters became the substance of Jaimeo's meditation, medication and inspiration.

A decade later, after 14 turbulent years of New York life, Jaimeo's own search for creative and spirtual healing lead him to experiment with weaving samples of the Gees Bend into his own music. In doing so, he discovered a sound that “immediately gave me a life's worth of work” - and that was to become the source of his definitive project, Transcendence.

Jaimeo reached out to producer, guitarist & longtime friend Chris Sholar to achieve what he heard in his soul. With the mantra 'not to think of it as a regular gig', and an MPC salvaged from the garbage, they began to program. Together they discovered a tapestry where a digital future meets a hand-stitched past; the logic of a language waiting to be spoken

The samples of Gees Bend are a microcosm of the story of Transcendence: music reflecting a greater social and historical picture, and galvanising the bonds between those who share in the struggle, and the art. Albums of love and fire, Transcendence brings focus to the ways in which the contemporary moment reflects - and indeed is a continuation of – a historical struggle.

Jaimeo Brown is an educator, activist and artist whose work is a call to transcend: transcend traditional limits of creativity; transcend oppression; transcend from one to all - via artistic, technological and historical exploration, and the essential humanity that unites us.

CONTRIBUTORS / COLLABORATORS:

Stevie Wonder || Carlos Santana || Q-Tip || Carl Craig || Kenny Garrett || Geri Allen || Greg Osby || Joe Locke || Pharoah Sanders || Bobby Hutcherson |

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There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

Trigger Warning to anyone for whom this word is just too much to bear, no matter where it exists and even if it is just being referred to. I love you and I mean no injury to anyone. I write this to face myself and heal myself. What I can not write about today is what happened when I voiced this word out loud in a group of people yesterday, sharing how racism shows up inside us.

If I hesitate to post this, trying to make it better writing, I might never post it — while I can not encapsulate what is in my heart to say today, I can, at least, point in the direction.

There is some good in the worst of us, and evil in the best of us. Facing the “evil” inside is brutal, but in facing it, we are less prone to hate ourselves and more prone to healing, not only ourselves but our world.

I said out loud last night what is possibly the ugliest word in the English language yesterday. I was admitting that the word exists in my mind from time to time, rarely, and completely unbidden, completely out of the blue (which it is not). It is a word of unparalleled vitriol in which 400 years of rape, violence, dehumanization, and societal consequences live. This word has had the power to deeply and permanently traumatize and retraumatize, like a bomb going off and off again and again. This word has decimated and destroyed lives, given rise to murders, maiming, and justified horrific behaviors and unthinkable brutalities. It has been inflicted within and without. It has caused self-inflicted injuries uncountable and continuing. It plagues us. It existed before we were born. It is the sickness inside humanity. Encapsulated in this one word is the history of our country, slavery, and hatred. This word is very much alive in gross and in subtle, everyday, seemingly innocuous ways, in how people choose to fit into the status quo, families, and friendships. It exists in the great literature, which some think should now be banned, and in books to educate our children, which some believe should burned— Each side wanting to shoo it away, like a dirty fly from our dinner plate. But it is a word that doesn’t shoo or flush down the toilet along with the bile it produces. It is a word too important to kill because it is a word that can be the key to unlocking truth and transformation. We must not cover our eyes and ears; close our minds, ignore or erase the truth. We have to face it. We have to look at it, deal with what it has wrought, and what it still builds. We must talk about its causes and effects.

This word, I am told I should never say, this word that invades my mind, every once in a great while, for no good reason, against no one in particular, when I am alone in my car simply driving to the grocery store, when suddenly like a shot from a gun, like a reminder to stay vigilant, to keep speaking up, to keep facing, appears and shocks me back to reality. I know where it comes from, the collective hivemind of humanity, like any other word. But, still, I am shocked it appears out of nowhere, out of everywhere. And with all the power of the love I have for human beings, I, too, shoo it back down into the incinerator located somewhere near my anus, knowing it will crawl out and be born over and over again because it will not die... It must not die until it has transformed all of us. I defend myself and calm myself when it appears in me, this “evil” Martin Luther King has identified in even the best of us. And I, like you, inherited it when we arrived naked and innocent into the dire beauty of this world. How can I not tell the truth that it exists in me, this word made up of simple letters? I first heard it yelled in the playground of a drive-in theater when I was little. I knew because I felt its effect that it was a terrible thing to call the boy it was hurled at. I ran back to my father at the car and repeated it, asking what it meant. He couldn’t explain more to a 6-year-old unable to put the letters together, but I must never say it, he said. It was a bad, bad word. But, of course, it became stamped on me, implanted inside my innocent little girl self as it will sadly be implanted in my small grandson on the first day he sees it written on a wall, the first day he becomes aware the world is not all-loving, the first day he feels the power of it rush through the cells of his body. Because we are awash in this word and the hurt it continues to inflict. It is a word we hear all the time… from a hip-hop song blaring from the car next to us at a stop light, or from a character in a movie, or a comedian, or on the street between friends as they use it to defuse it, take control of it, say it in jest and camaraderie, and in circles I'm not invited into, and would never be allowed to say even if I was allowed in.

I was taught by my parents never to say this word. I can imagine being slapped across my face by my mother if I ever said it out loud about anyone — something she never did and something I never did or would have ever done.

I was taught by my parents that all people matter, that I am not better than anyone else, that it is an unfair world, and that terrible horrors have happened to our people in a different, horrific way... I learned the horrible history of our country and what it did to people. I learned the history in school and through the few personal friendships between people who shared with me how it landed on them and their ancestors. I read books. I grew up knowing what happened, and I saw how the viper of its power infiltrated all aspects of human society —in every business, every community, every corporation, in every leader of every corporation, in every human mind and every human being, no matter what tone of skin color. It is the big, black, ugly word hidden in all of us; silenced in our families, whispered in a joke, and we are told over and over by our elders, and by those who stand up and speak out, “Do not, under any circumstances say that word.” It bespeaks the fatal flaw in humanity. It is our county’s fatal flaw. It is the wound that continues to fester, no matter how we evolve. Its reach goes backward and forwards. It is here now and it shows up in us all, no matter who we are. And we must look at it clearly in the light of day because it has the power to heal us, to mend us. It contains the poison and also the medicine that must be delivered straight to our hearts which is the only place from which it can grow outwards and heal our collective race, the human race.

A fellow writer in Unmute asked me to expand upon a piece of writing I posted to our group. She wanted to know why I wrote the following

“One of the only times I am 100% within myself consistently is upon awakening.”

She responded, “…Very interesting concept. I would love to know more about who the narrator sees during the day and what breaks this spell.

So, I answered…

Tash, To answer your question: Just being in a room, a part of my consciousness is often aware that I am entertaining someone else’s consciousness. The times I lose myself are when I’m focused creatively — in writing, photographing, playing piano, daydreaming, reading, watching movies, masturbating, drunk (but I don’t drink!) etc — then I naturally climb back inside myself fully, just forgetting anyone else exists. There is an aspect of being able to thrive or push myself further when I think people are watching me. There’s a feeling of performance about it - it pushes me to succeed. When I was young, I wanted to be an actress. I studied with professional teachers and did some acting, but I couldn’t forget myself on stage. My family is in show business in various forms, and growing up in the Hollywood aura it was the industry to aspire to, but I was an over-eater, insecure, and had no confidence that I looked good enough, especially compared to my mother, whose looks ticked off all the boxes while mine would have had I lived in Europe! … I performed at home, at family dinner parties where I could take all the attention without worry. On stage, I was too self-aware. When I discovered what it felt like to be behind the camera, I found myself to be gifted with a natural talent. It all just clicked. And, It suited me to be star adjacent. I could feel the heat of the limelight without all the responsibility to be good in it. I could within the aura my friends shinned in, and that was enough…until now.

Linda Wolf documentaryHere is the whole piece I wrote:

Hello Myself, My Artist Self.

Photographer/Author/ (www.lindawolf.net) (beingahuman.substack.com)

I lay there upon awakening, welcoming in all my ancestors. One by one, I named as many as came to mind: Mama Barbara, Grandma Carrie, Great-Grandma Sarah, Great-Great-Grandmother Esther Chemaine; Great Great Great Grandmother Rubinstein; Grandma Frieda; and all the Grandfathers, and my Father – I welcomed them into me. I ask them, “What do you want me to do for you that you cannot do for yourselves any longer? What are your greatest wishes and hopes for me to be and do for myself?” I go on this way until I think map out my steps once I get up – The first thing to remember – take my Probiotic. I ask myself, “What do you feel like drinking this morning?” I tell myself, “If you get up now, you can go swimming and get back before Unmute, if you get up now and leave the house by 7:15.” Rarely, do I make it out the door once I have my tea and look at email. Twice a week I am being successful and that’s good. I made it out the door today by 7:20.

One of the only times I am 100% within myself consistently is upon awakening. It is when no one is watching me, looking at me, curious about me, observing me, witnessing me – or more accurately one of the only times I’m 100% not dividing myself into being aware that someone else is, or maybe is not, but in my mind is, looking at me. Otherwise, I’m not all here, inside me, focused on experiencing whatever I’m experiencing by myself.

Being an only child is the cause for this. Being entertainment, joy, concern for two people who are so in love with me, who focused so much attention on me for so long is the reason.

I got all the attention and I’m used to it. So, I expect it. And I’m different. I’m an artist. I live my existence unpredictably therefore, I’m a conundrum to people...a puzzle. They can’t pigeonhole me. I’m slippery.

I’ve tried to fit into boxes. Even as an artist. I’ve tried for iconic. These days, I want to capture what my eyes see more widely, enlarge the picture. Iconic is great- it is simple, it provides an immediate bang to the brain. Larger life is more complex. It requires deeper introspection.

So, as I drove to the pool this morning, the sky called me. From my windshield, with the radio on, passing the neighbor’s houses, the trees beyond which Puget Sound lies placid, I shot the moment with my iPhone. It is not iconic, yet in a sense, in its complexity, it is, somewhat, if you give it time...

At the pool, I wear a bikini or two-piece. I have done this all my life, inspired to do so by Italian women I saw on the beaches in my 20s – even heavy women, with drooping bellies, and large bottoms. Their freedom to let their bodies feel as much sun as possible while they walked with swaggers gave me life-long permission that I could do it as I aged, too.

At my age, 74, I’m still in relatively good shape. I have a belly, and I have wrinkles, and pocked thighs but I don’t care. I still feel like I’m 20, or 40 or even 65. The lifeguard this morning was a beautiful young man. In the old days, he’d be called “strapping,” which I’m unsure what it means. I should look it up on Google. He eyed me, as men do at the pool.

I stayed aware of his eyes on me because I don’t swim anymore like a normal lap swimmer. It is because of my torn rotator cuffs. I swim unpredictably, using my arms in various positions to strengthen other muscles and not worsen my condition. I even swim backwards. I even float on my back and kick. I am like a porpoise or a whale. I glide and duck and breast stroke with one arm stronger than the other. I don’t even do the same thing for the whole length of the pool. I dance in the pool as I swim, shimmy, stretch my head backwards on my back and look upside down under the water at all the bodies in the pool in other lanes. I must look crazy to the lifeguards as they watch me. It takes effort not to be aware of them as I relish being buoyed by the water, feeling the silkiness of it, feeling my leg bend like a ballet dancer and my toe touch down gentle. If people look at me from the back, they might see the shiny silver box hanging from the back of my suit, notice how the white cord plugged into it slips up my neck into my ears. They might realize I’m listening to music, they might understand I’m having an ecstatic time, being the only one in the big hot tub, in my own little world in the big hot-tub, floating on my back, my eyes closed, my face in repose, my left hand positioned to protect my head should the whirlpools swish me too close to a side.

As I climbed the steps of the hot-tub, put on my flip flops, and walked away to the showers, I passed the lifeguard, who I knew had been watching me. We smiled at each other.

For more understanding of my life as a photographer, here is an 8 minute video for your entertainment!

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I hated being photographed by my father when I was a pre-teen. I wanted to be Gidget or Annette Funicello. Cute, pretty, small, wanted by the boys. Instead, I was too much of a tom-boy or a hothouse flower, strong-bodied, but thin-skinned. In all but a few photos my dad took of me as a pre-teen girl, I thought I looked like a chubby dork. My father was an avid amateur photographer. He was always photographing me and I hated it.

One Thanksgiving, when I was around sixteen, I got so defensive when my father lifted his camera to take a picture of me, I shot negative energy through my eyes so forcefully at him that the camera flew out of his hands and crashed on the floor. We both looked shocked. What had I done? I knew I’d grown some serious energy agency, but I didn’t know I was that think powerful!

That same year, with my boyfriend, Jay, I had done LSD for the first time, as well as made love for the first time and I felt like my mind had the power of a quantum physicist or Uri Geller, the spoon bender! On Acid, I found out or at least I thought I found out, that I could manifest a lot just from the acts of intention and envisioning. I experienced that I could change my mind by simply changing my thoughts, and I could change the way things were happening in the room with my energy. This was how I changed a bad trip if I was heading towards one – by force of will.

On LSD, I found a multitude of inner voices as well as something like an over-voice – like an over-soul. It was the strongest voice in my head. It had always been there vying for attention, but my thoughts and all the other voices crowded it out. On Acid, I saw thinking as holistic and malleable. Everything was interconnected. There was No Thing – every “thing” was alive. It was mind-bending, and mind-expanding, which is why Acid was called a mind-expanding drug as well as a dangerous substance. It could cause you to believe you could fly and I knew at least one person who tried doing just that and died. I loved 90% of my Acid trips and I vividly recall that at the end of each trip, I’d try my best to cling to the ecstatic state of consciousness I was in. Coming down felt like a descent back into the flat dimension of “normal” reality and limited consciousness. But one cannot live life high on an Acid trip. You’d go nuts!

These years, though, I don’t even drink much wine, let alone take mild-altering drugs. The most I do is micro-dose on psilocybin for periods and consume a snippet of a THC CBD gummy for sleep. Even my libido is a closed-up shop doing inventory, shutters down, doors locked except for a staffer who might come in late. Men-o-pause is the perfect name for this time of my elderish womanhood life. Sleep is more important than a good fuck! My vagina, these days simply desires rest! She’s put out a lot in her lifetime.

Menopause was the first time I took a big break , but I did have a fabulous flare-up of hot desire after I went through it. This was probably normal, but also due to getting back into being a Rock & Roll photographer again. Being on stage photographing as well as singing at sixty-six years old was an unexpected fluke, which turned into going on the road with Tedeschi Trucks Band, documenting their West Coast tour. I felt like I was twenty again for a couple of months! Rock and Roll will keep you ageless! But, having been through one end of the R&R world as a teenager and out of the other end as a mother with two children to bring up, I wasn’t about to leave my husband for the advances of one or two of the musicians, who remembered me as the beautiful Linda Wolf from the documentary movie, Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Back then, I do remember feeling beautiful. It was the time when my libido ran wild, fermenting everyone in my path with a perfume of get-it-on pheromones.

Anyway, Thanksgiving time is here again, and lots of picture-taking opportunities: the gatherings, the family, the baby, you know, that kind of thing. I think of my father every Thanksgiving because at one of the family dinners, I made my father’s camera crashing to the floor. That was about the time I’d just started becoming a photographer myself. It was my dad who taught me to use the camera.

I loved my father. He and I had our battles when I became a full-fledged teenager. But, during my little girl years, he was my rock of Gibraltar. Best friends. We’d spend Saturdays at the Beach. He’d take me horseback riding at Griffith Park on Sundays or boating at MacArthur Park, after which we’d go to the Big-as-a-Dinner-Plate pancake stand. He filled me with a sense of stability while my mother was increasingly falling apart from a lack of juju and a shortage of depth. She had a poet’s sensitivity, and he was a jock, had been the center of the USC Trojans and a stuntman in his youth. She lured him into a more elevated world, which he loved. They studied Italian and took yearly trips to Greece and Italy to see art before their marriage dissolved as my mother fell in love with a well-known writer from a New York publishing family and our little triad was destroyed. But I was out of the house by then, hanging out in Hollywood, being a Rock and Roll photographer, and as far away from them as possible.

Now, as an elder myself, I owe the most gratitude to them. Barbara and Joseph, my flawed but very beautiful parents; my mother, who gave me an artist’s education, and my father, who gave me his cameras.

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Had it not been for Lockn' 2015 and the TTB invitation for the Mad Dogs & Englishmen alumni to come reprieve our roles for the Tribute concert, I might never have discovered Warren. Living in France during the height of the Allman Bros is my excuse. What an exceptional human being Warren is. We only catch him when he's in Seattle, but it's a highlight of any year! I get to experience my creativity freely, which the music industry no longer allows. In the old days before money and marketing was running the show, when we danced to bands on an open floor -- long before Spotify and packaging. Warren is one of those who remembers the joy and continues to spread it. Behind a great musician lives a human being. The measure of greatness is a great human being first and foremost; as you all know, is Warren. (me at Soundcheck)

A couple weeks ago, we were able to hang with Derek & Susan. The love that was thick at Lockn’ bonded so many of us so deeply — that one weekend created many life-long friendships. Why? Each of us has times when life is just so full of love and respect, excitement, and joy that it becomes a life highlight. Lockn’ Tribute concert for MD&E was one of those times.

I love these people - my gratitude for who they are and their kindness and hearts is deep, wide, and life-long. These are the kinds of people who make life joyful for others. These people are exceptional. I’ve never met many people who have as much pressure from fame as these three do and who have the kind of positivity, emotional range and courage to show it, and share it —people who exude kindness as a first priority.

I’m grateful to my sisters in Fanny for inviting me to begin my career by moving into Fanny Hill to be their documentary photographer. I’m grateful to Sandy Konikoff for asking me to drive him to the A&M Soundstage for the first rehearsal of JCMD&E. I’m grateful to Denny Cordell for inviting me to be a documentary photographer on the Mad Dogs circus. I’m grateful to each of these people; they were the ones who ushered me through the doors to become a professional photographer, and last but not least to myself for not giving up!

And from 2015 Lockn’ Tribute to MD&E

What a great honor to have been able to photograph on stage at the Lockn’ Tribute with TTB and my JCMD&E alumni nine years ago. So much has happened since then as we all know. Pre-Covid, pre-Trump, pre-so many wars we wish were not happening.

Enjoy this clip I put together with Derek’s interview:

It’s great how much attention Joe Cocker is getting these days. A new biographic feature film is in production. A recent PR piece just released recently:

The estate of legendary British singer Joe Cocker has entered into an agreement with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group to acquire and develop the singer’s five-decade catalog. The acquisition includes the singer’s music intellectual property assets, including his interest in his sound recordings, compositions, and his name, image and likeness; further terms were not disclosed.

After working as a singer through the early 1960s, Cocker burst into the mainstream in 1969 with his electrifying cover of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which topped the British charts and sparked a major U.S. following, thanks in large part to his show-stopping performance at the Woodstock festival (and subsequent film). With his powerful and unmistakable soul-blues voice and explosive stage presence, Cocker’s popularity grew with the “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour, live album and film, which featured an all-star band helmed by Leon Russell.

As you can hear, Derek is one of the kindest, warmest human beings. Working with him and Susan as well as the whole band, including Kebi (so miss him), Warren Haynes, Chris Robinson, Doyle Bramhall, Dave Mason, and my friends Rita, Claudia, Pamela, The Moore Bros, Bobby Jones, and Bobby Torres was a great high point - plus having Heather, Gen and Talina with me on stage was the ultimate high.

Quick Summary: When I was invited to come to Lockn’ Festival 2015, to reprieve my role as on-stage photographer — part of the circus of MD&E — by the Tedeschi Trucks Band for their tribute concert to Mad Dogs & Englishmen, I researched the many other musicians I did not know, who would be part of the show. One of them was Warren Haynes. I had not been exposed to many of the Allman Brothers shows simply because I had been living in Europe in a tiny village in the South of France between 1970 - 1975. I suppose that is not a great excuse! Anyway, when I read about Warren, I was struck with how he had grown up without his mother in the home.

When I met Warren at Lockn’ I asked him if I could interview him for the organization I founded, Teen Talking Circles. I wanted to ask him many questions, including how it was to grow up with his father being the only parent in the house. He said yes immediately, and we did a couple hours of taping a few years ago, which you can see here: Part1:

Part 2:

So, Warren and I became friends. Every time he comes to Seattle, I go see him and we hang out for a while in the bus, then I’m invited to do photos during soundcheck. What an honor to be on stage while the band is rehearsing and be surrounded by their music. Of course, now I am a big fan.

In Feb. Warren and Gov’t Mule was in town and I thought you would like a little clip

Click Here to watch: Warren Haynes Sound check

The world is in its usual chaos, only seems more ramped up again… I just want to give a shout out to PEACE and human caring for all. My greatest wish is that we could all do what we sang about both in JCMD&E every night, and also the TTB are doing in their shows — LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER — because all these wars and violent protests and the horrors going on both by Hamas and Israel could be 100% different, if we only could work together on creating a healthy planet for all. That is my prayer for humanity.

Sending love to each of you. Linda

Rick Rubin: The Art of Creativity... the current "IT" self-help book. After I listen to a few of his 1-minute inspirational guidance clips, thinking, 'hmm, that's good advice' yet he goes on and on I get to the point of feeling like throwing my phone in the toilet. OH MY GOD, ENOUGH PLATITUDES WE'VE HEARD FOR OUR ENTIRE LIVES, RICK. STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.

I'm listening to it on Audible. It was recommended by someone I feel has so much more wisdom in her little finger than yet again another rich white man from NYC via Malibu who has just discovered Matcha. Sure, there are some things I can cull from Rick's endless Tibetan bell punctuations after his "wisdom downloads" to remind me of better ways to live but the platitudes are so many and take up so much of his advice (which he calls just his thoughts) that I just want to throw up my hands and say STOPPPPPPPP!

Sorry to all of you who LOVE this book or get a lot out of it. But, please, unless you have never heard any of this before because you have just been born, YOU ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS!

Rick Rubin is probably a really nice, really good producer (that's what he's proven) and a wonderful family man and neighbor, an inspiring human being, and good for whoever he works with - I'm sure he's most likely a great mentor -- but for goodness sake, take his "thinking" with a grain of thought and know you know this already. Peeps, let's not gild his lily, ok. One thing... Please do not just go to the bookstore, as he advises, after your doctor tells you you need to have your appendix out and open a book to any page, run your fingers down it, and read whatever sentence you land on to advise you as to whether or not to do it? Get a 2nd or 3rd opinion and use your brain and your doctor's experience, this is dangerous to advise (Rick, you should know better) -- Also, one last thing. Rick would love this "review" of his new book I'm doing here. He says to go against the grain and be courageous enough to be yourself and do it your way. Well, Rick, I'm going against your current guru's popular book and say, OH MY GOD enough already! All this said, if you LOVE this book and have gotten a whole lot out of it, I have complete respect for you and appreciate that you are making a better you out of you... and more power to that. This is just my experience. And Rick, I groove with your philosophy, it's just that it's too hard to bear to listen to you sounding like NOW YOU HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER AND IT IS SO EASY TO DO, JUST DO IT LIKE I'M SAYING AND ALL WILL BE WELL. OHHHHHH, one thing... I thought Rick Rubin was amazing when he interviewed Paul McCartney.

NOW HOLD ON. I'm not through yet. IF I'm going to out Rick Rubin, let me out myself as well. If you're at all like me or even if you're only a little like me, you've been through or may still be (I am) in talk therapy, have been to Mexico for women's retreats, have done Ayahuasca or Peyote, or pot, or whatever (some multiple times) and had epiphanies of being one with the Universe, been vegan for a spell or still are, have done grief rituals, sweat lodges, fasts, compassionate listening/non-violent communication workshops, volunteered at food banks, protested the end of war, BLM, LGBGTQRSTUVW, meditated, chanted, dunked in freezing cold waters, shaved your head, worn love beads, whatever-- and I'm NOT putting this down, I'm just saying, and here's where I will out myself, I"M STILL INSECURE! I still don't have the foggiest idea what we're all doing here and why, I still have days when I hate myself (ok hours now, because - well- this advice Rick Rubin is regurgitating IS good and I have practiced it) but what I'm trying to say is I'm still working through the childhood traumas or the teenage traumas or the adult traumas and I saw my own mother at 97 years old, )the one who still had all her marbles and was in the middle of reading Harari when she died) still worried about whether the women in the assisted living building like her and if her hair looked good enough to make her worthy of their approval. And I'm the same... no matter how much wisdom I have, it takes daily, hourly, minute-by-minute self-talk to keep remembering I AM WORTH EVERYTHING -- but no matter how I try to prove it, I still come back to the mirror and have to look into it and treat myself to a smile and a loving comment about how I matter.

So, read or listen to Rick Rubin, if you want. But, please, don't think he is the greatest thing since learning to bake sourdough bread -- he's just a human being saying the same things to himself that we all need to say to ourselves (except the bit about not listening to your doctor) and KNOW IN THE CELLS OF YOUR BEING THAT YOU MATTER.

PPS If you really want to piss off the Universe go ahead, buy the T-shirt, it’s only $70, and you, too, can believe you rule supreme.