Episode 17: Seeing rock history through photographer Ethan Russell’s lens

Everything Fab Four

Ethan Russell is one of rock’s most influential photographers — and the only one to shoot album covers for the Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones, whose work he also chronicled as the band’s primary photographer from 1968-72, including their ill-fated Altamont show. Pete Townshend once called him “the civilized eye of an uncivilized art form — rock and roll.” Through his camera, Russell has had a front-row seat to many of rock’s great historical moments, including shooting the Beatles’ “Let It Be” cover and the band’s final photo session. But his life could have gone in an entirely different direction. “If Cambridge had accepted me, I never would have done the cover for ‘Let It Be,’” Russell tells our host, Ken Womack during their wide-ranging conversation about his career and experiences in documenting so many iconic moments in rock.

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