IMMORTALIZED AND SIMONIZED

SIOUXSIE SIOUX London, 1976

This isn’t a posed photo; in fact, I doubt Siouxsie Sioux even knew I took it. [Ed.; She didn’t! Siouxsie Sioux posted on Simon’s Instagram 84 weeks ago: “Can you comment on my photo?”] I didn’t know her, so there’s not really a backstory. She was around, and I photographed her with the band and stuff. But here I saw her on the street, on Lad broke Grove in London, in 1976. You kind of couldn’t miss her, either. She was really photogenic. I love the picture, the colors are so warm. It’s a beautiful exposure.

As glamorous and audacious as her famous subjects, photographer Kate Simon has taken photos of some of the most recognizable faces in music, art, and culture, capturing images— and even pieces of the soul—from our biggest thinkers, art mavens, best-selling authors and poets, and the kinds of musicians who reside on Olympus. Luminaries from David Bowie to Jimmy Page to Madonna to Debbie Harry to William Burroughs to Patti Smith and more. She was at the inception of punk, shot the first Clash album cover, and has had some of her most iconic photos of Joe Strummer turned into posters and silkscreens by artist Shepard Fairey.

But of all the luminaries Simon has shot, perhaps the closest, most intimate study was Bob Marley—who trusted her enough to let her see behind the dreads, to view the man before the fame. But he wasn’t the only one. Simon has an uncanny ability to break down barriers and quietly insist that her subjects throw off their masks, their psychic disguises, and show their true essence. Her eye is so keen, you almost feel like you can read her subjects’ thoughts. What strikes me the most is that very few of Simon’s subjects are smiling. Ruminating, yes, in repose, sometimes, caught in the middle of an a ha moment, sure, but always showing a face that is rarely seen anywhere else. For our classic rock issue, we chose to showcase Simon—who has photographs in the Smithsonian permanent collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art —because she is a true classic herself. An artist, a legend, and a mirror for a generation. Prints available at the Fort Works Art gallery in Fort Worth, Texas.

BETTY DAVIS London, 1975

I was living in London at the time and on assignment as the staff photographer for Sounds. Island Records had just put out her record Nasty Girl, I believe. Anyway, she was magnificent. I love that photograph of her and she was really easy to shoot. I shot a lot that day so she must have been great.

BOB MARLEY WITH A BANDAGE ON HIS FOOT European Exodus tour, 1977

I was on the European Exodus tour with Bob. In 1977, he was playing soccer and he hurt his foot at the beginning of the tour in Paris. He was wounded, but you couldn’t tell because he danced magnificently and was constantly playing soccer and riding his bike: He was a compulsive exerciser. So he might’ve hurt his toe then. It was from this injury to his toe that it was assessed that he had cancer, and the beginning of his being ill from cancer. Despite that, it was thrilling to be able to photograph him.

JIMMY PAGE, SWAN SONG OFFICES Kings Road, London, 1976

Back when I was living in London, photographing Led Zeppelin was a big impossibility for everyone. They were really not available for offstage photographs. There was always this big mystery around them. One of my best friends, Anna Capaldi—her husband, Jim Capaldi, founded the band Traffic—was really tight with them. They had invited Anna to the Swan Song offices on the Kings Road, and she said to Jimmy, “I'll come if I can bring my friend Kate with me.” If there hadn’t been that connection, I don’t think I would have gotten these photos. I know he liked the pictures I took of him because he used them in his book. He was a great subject. I liked him.

OZZY OSBOURNE Newcastle, U.K., 1975

I seemed to shoot people before they became famous, and this was one of those times. I was on the road with Black Sabbath for Sounds magazine when I shot this picture of Ozzy. It was before the show and he wanted to show me his tattoos. He had given them to himself while he was in prison as a teenager. He was really nice.

GRACE JONES ON A ROOFTOP Union Square, New York City, 1978

I love shooting Grace. I have a lot of pictures of her. She’s an incredible photo subject. I shot this on the roof of her boyfriend Jean-Paul Goude’s studio, which was in Union Square. She was always turned out when I saw her, but not in a way that was fashion-y. She didn’t seem like somebody who was, like, spending a lot of time in front of the mirror, not even slightly. To give voice to the obvious, she is just a natural beauty. She was so mesomorphic. I remember walking down Seventh Avenue with her and she’s like, “Oh, I gotta leave, I gotta go work out.” I’m like, what the fuck is this chick talking about? What the fuck, working out? I mean, okay, she’s working out. She was the first person that I met who worked out. This was back before anyone really did.

LOU REED AND JOHN CALE IN FRONT OF A HANUKKAH BUSH Christmas Day, 1977

I met John Cale in the U.K. When I was living in NYC, John called me and asked me to meet him at Lou Reed’s place. I think it was in the building where Greta Garbo lived—way over on East 55th Street, as east as you can go. It was really kinda scary. So we went up to his apartment and I took all these great pictures of the two of them. They weren’t supposed to be getting along—at least that’s what I had read or heard—but they seemed to get along that Christmas in 1977.

JOEY RAMONE New York City, 1976

This picture of Joey in bed was taken at Arturo Vega’s loft, which was off the Bowery. Everybody seemed to take the Ramones’ and Joey Ramone’s picture in that loft because you could use Arturo’s art—like fish parts or chicken parts or gum—in the photos. His art was great and so was he. This was Arturo’s bed. I mean, it’s weird, I have so many pictures of people in bed from back then. Joey looks so young in this photo, and I love his dirty socks.

RICHARD HELL IN A BATHTUB New York City, 1976

This is a photo of Richard Hell that I took in his apartment. He lived in this building where Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and poet/art critic Rene Ricard lived. It was the poets’ building down on the Lower East Side. It was one of these apartments where the bathtub is in the kitchen. Compositionally speaking, there’s a lot going on here. You can see the Lucky Strikes, you can see the rotary phone. He put the bubble bath in, but I wasn’t thinking if they were strategically placed. I’m not a fashion photographer, I’m a photojournalist. He just was taking a bath and he lived in one of these apartments on the Lower East Side. I think he still lives there.

CHRISSIE HYNDE AS A PLATINUM BLONDE London, 1976

Chris—along with Judy Nylon, Patti Palladin [from the punk duo Snatch], and me—was part of this cabal of expat women who were living in London around this punk circle, and probably the only American women these young punk guys knew. I took this pic of Chris in 1976 before she was famous.

TERI TOYE WITH A TERI PUPPET New York City, 1984

Named “Girl of the Year" by New York Times fashion columnist John Duka in 1984, although she looks like a Beatle wife, Terri Toye was the first transgender model in the U.S., walking shows for Chanel, Stephen Strouse, and Thierry Mugler long before it became a thing. Teri was a really important person to me as an artist. I photographed her a lot. I took this picture of her in 1984 at the gallery show of Greer Lankton, who made the doll of Teri—even though people thought it was the drummer of the Alice Cooper Band.

JUDY NYLON London, 1976

Judy Nylon is still a good friend of mine. She was in a band with my other good friend Patti Pa II ad in, who I’m still good friends with as well, and their band was called Snatch. Judy worked with John Cale; she was the stylist on his album Helen of Troy, and she sang with him. Judy was just fucking beautiful. I saw her walking into a party with Brian Eno. I never saw anyone as beautiful as Judy. I took this picture of her in bed at her flat in 1976. She’s holding an atomizer. She always had some kind of throat issue—nothin’ bad, she just used it to moisten her throat.

BRIAN ENO London, 1977

I photographed Brian a lot because he was [my friend Judy Nylon’s] boyfriend. He wrote a song about her called “Back in Judy’s Jungle.” I took this at the Paddington Recreation Ground in Maida Vale, across from his flat in London. This is post-Roxy Music. I didn’t know him in Roxy Music, but I photographed him a ton right after Roxy Music, a ton.

DEBBIE HARRY IN A WHITE SATIN MINIDRESS ON THE ROOF New York City, 1977

That picture is good, but I feel like with a person like Debbie Harry, and I’m not being modest, she does all the work. She was a thing. If you can’t take a good picture of her, I mean, how could you miss? I mean, look at her—she’s beautiful. Debbie lived in the apartment above me with Chris Stein for a while. I shot this on the roof of our building. Now people come to see me at my studio and they go, “Can I go up to your roof where you took Debbie Harry and Madonna’s photograph?” It’s like a thing.

IGGY POP Miami, 2007

I hadn’t taken photos of musicians in a while in 2007. It wasn’t like I was averse to shooting music people, but I just wasn’t much. Then I had this idea that I wanted to do shoots with people I had done in the past. I did Patti [Smith] and Debbie [Harry], and I had an idea that I’d like to shoot Iggy Pop again, too. I first photographed him in the '70s when David Bowie was playing the piano on stage with him, and you’d have to be blind, God forbid, not to see what an incredible photo subject this guy was. I photographed him many times in the 70s. I was in Croatia at the time and I got in touch with his people and they said yes, I could shoot him. I flew to Miami, and his assistant picked me up from my hotel and took me over to Iggy’s house in Little Haiti. I didn’t ask him to take his shirt off, it was off. I never tell anybody to do anything, really, I just let them be themselves.