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"PoPsie" 1920-1978
Reelin' and Rockin' in the Streets of New York:
A Quarter Century of Music & High Times in the photographs
of
William "PoPsie" Randolph
Broadway's most famous Jazz and Rock Photographer
Chartwell Booksellers and
Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group
invite you for an opening reception celebrating
the photographs and publication of:
Popular Music
Through the Camera Lens of
William “PoPsie” Randolph
By Michael Randolph
Foreword by Quincy Jones
At Chartwell Booksellers
55 East 52 Street
In the Arcade of the Park Avenue Plaza building
Between Park & Madison Avenues
New York City
212-308-0643
In a long and prolific career spent haunting the recording studios, jam sessions, concert halls and nightclubs of New York City, Randolph chronicled the raucous postwar transformation of American Music -- from swing and jazz to rhythm & blues and rock & roll -- more vividly and more avidly, than any photographer of his era. The 100,000 negatives left behind after his death in 1978 span the giddy, glitzy heyday of swing in the Forties, the hot and cool jazz subsequently spawned in the clubs of Fifty-Second Street, the rumbling emergence of black R&B and doo-wop and the sudden explosion of rock & roll in the late Fifties, the rise of Brill Building pop and the British invasion of the Sixties, and the growth of rock into a multibillion-dollar industry by the Seventies.
“PoPsie” - as he was known even to his children - had the advantage of being a musical insider: Born William Sezenias to Greek immigrant parents in Manhattan in 1920, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade and, scuffling for money during the depression, worked first as a “towel boy” at a midtown bordello frequented by musicians, later as a shoeshine boy - by then attracted to musicians as much as by his love of their art and high-stepping lifestyle as by the big tips they always gave him. Caught up in the excitement of the music scene, he became a manager, working first with Ina Ray Hutton and her All-Girl Band. Then Woody Herman’s herd. And finally, his idol, Benny Goodman.
Touring the country on one-night stands with these groups, he got to know the music business - and most of the major musicians - intimately. He had long been fascinated by photography; Goodman gave him his first camera, and in 1945, “PoPsie” settled in New York with his new bride, a chorus girl from the George White's "Scandals," and started shooting. He was fast and reliable, and record companies and magazines kept him busy with publicity photo sessions, parties, concerts and club dates. The nightlife never ended, and to keep up he sometimes lived in his studio for weeks at a time, often going days with no time to change his clothes, and subsisting largely on cheap hamburgers and pure adrenaline. He was a quintessential New York hustler, hard-nosed and endlessly aggressive. He loved real talent, but he also loved the tinsel and the hype endemic to the music business. More than anything, he loved the fast lane, and in the end it killed him.
PoPsie's photographs capture the buzz and roar of modern urban music in furious flux, as well as the dawn of the new age we now inhabit. His showbiz obsessions somehow yielded a recognizable style.
And what's a more appropriate tag for it than “PoPsie” ?
Michael Randolph - Executor to the Estate of William "PoPsie" Randolph
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For inquiries concerning sales and licensing of "PoPsie" photos please contact:
Michael Randolph (609) 645-2713 email: PoPsie-photos (at) att.net
Cliff Malloy (570) 417-4037 email: musicchef (at) gmail.com
This site is maintained by Cliff Malloy
visits since July, 2003