Forty years ago, The Beatles crashed America’s shores with a force still described in the strongest of terms: Invasion and Mania.
Robert Freeman, the group’s photographer from 1963 to 1966, recalls his first encounter with the band. “When I met the Beatles in August of 1963, I was at the eye of a hurricane and saw myself dragged by its force.”
It’s arguable that Freeman was the eye — calm in the midst of Beatlemania’s tumult, restlessly looking for the next iconic image to shoot.
The proof comes in Freeman’s new book, “The Beatles: A Private View” (Big Tent Entertainment). The 176-page volume contains more than 200 photos, many rare or never published. Also revealed are the techniques and equipment he used to compose his Fab Four photos.
In a phone interview, Freeman (watching the sun set in Seville, Spain, where he now lives) disclosed some stories not detailed in his book.
Here’s how he prepped the band before snapping the album cover for “With The Beatles”: Per his suggestion, they arrived for the shoot wearing black turtleneck pullovers. (A hotel dining room was used, with a maroon curtain the backdrop.)
“I told them to close their eyes for 10 seconds, then open them with their face muscles relaxed,” he recalled. Freeman didn’t think he was fashioning one of rock’s most indelible images. “For me, it was just another job.”
One has to wonder why Freeman didn’t glom onto the band for the whole stretch of its celebrated career. But to hear him tell it, much of the fun had vanished by 1966 — when The Beatles, eager to retreat into the studio, grew tired of the long and grinding road.
“I had the best three years, but it wasn’t as carefree as in the early days.” Nor was it as collaborative; the band rejected Freeman’s daring design for the “Revolver” cover in favor of an illustration by Klaus Voorman, a longtime Beatles friend from the group’s German club days. (Freeman, who held onto his dizzying print, unveils it in “A Private View.”)
What’s more, Freeman had a host of other subjects to shoot. His portfolio includes Miles Davis, Ravi Shankar, Celia Cruz, Andy Warhol, Marianne Faithfull and Sammy Davis Jr. “The Beatles weren’t all the ’60s, they were part of the ’60s,” he said. “Working with them was 1 percent of my work.”
But that 1 percent was a pop cultural catalyst. Freeman’s Beatles images — which would equal just a split second if added frame by frame — still resonate four decades later. They document that rarefied time when a rock quartet stood history on its head.
Further, some of Freeman’s photos are history itself.
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For more on Freeman’s book, visit www.beatlesprivateview.com.
