Chrissie Hynde and rock photographer Jill Furmanovsky regaled an audience with stories of English punk rock’s glory days during a lecture Thursday night at the Akron Art Museum.
Furmanovsky, an award-winning music photographer and founder of rockarchive.com, was invited by Hynde to give a lecture and show a portion of her retrospective photo exhibit Chunk of Punk, which opens Friday at the 22 High St. Gallery at Uncorked Wine Bar in downtown Akron.
The two met in the mid-1970s.
Hynde — wearing a jacket, Elvis T-shirt, striped pants and a pair of very rock ’n’ roll white bucks, and billed as a “special guest” — introduced Furmanovsky with a few anecdotes about their adventures over the years and a shout-out to Akron, which the Pretenders founder said “looks to be in very good shape at the moment.”
While Hynde lounged in one of the chairs onstage, Furmanovsky took the near-full lecture hall on a chronological slide-show trip through 1970s rock and punk in Britain.
Furmanovsky took her very first rock photo of Paul McCartney and entourage leaving Abbey Road studios when she was 14.
Throughout the slide show, Furmanovsky shared anecdotes of shooting rock bands, including Led Zeppelin and the Who, and touring with Oasis and Pink Floyd.
“I was madly in love with [Pink Floyd guitarist] David Gilmour,” Furmanovsky said.
During the punk portion, Hynde occasionally chimed in with a few of her own anecdotes and added context from her view inside the 1970s London punk scene.
As an early photo of the Police was displayed, Furmanovsky said, “They kind of jumped on the punk bandwagon.” Her comment drew a derisive chortle from Hynde, who answered, “They jumped on the reggae bandwagon.”
“Well, they were quite good at it,” Furmanovsky offered.
“I didn’t like it very much,” Hynde snorted.
During a series of slides from the 1980s, a photo of Hynde and late singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley appeared on screen.
“He was madly in love with you,” Furmanovsky told her friend.
“I wish I had known that at the time,” Hynde answered slowly, drawing a big laugh from the crowd.
Following the slide show and a showing of the unreleased video for the Pretenders tune Dragway 42, named for “Ohio’s place to race,” both artists answered questions from the audience.
Afterward, Hynde, Furmanovsky and lecture listeners went to the soft opening of the Chunk of Punk exhibit at 22 High Street Gallery.
Akron singer, songwriter and guitarist Jeri Sapronetti, whose band Time Cat is playing at Friday’s grand opening, was impressed.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Sapronetti said. “This woman has photographed everybody who has made rock ’n’ roll what it is. Everybody I love. Everybody that’s awesome.”
Fairlawn resident Jack Bishop, a self-proclaimed “huge fan of rock ’n’ roll,” enjoyed the photos and the stories.
“I’m a huge fan of rock ’n’ roll and it was really enlightening to see somebody who was there, because I wasn’t born at that time,” Bishop said. “So just hearing somebody talk about being in that area at that time, I wish I could’ve been a part of it but that’s the closest I’m going to get.”
The official grand opening of Chunk of Punk happens from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday at 22 High Street Gallery at Uncorked, located at 22 High St. in downtown Akron.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, like him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1lNgxml and/or follow him on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ.