I Love L.A. (Randy Newman)

Congratulations to Randy Newman on his second Oscar win last night. Though when it comes to Randy Newman songs, it's I Love L.A. and Short People on my iPod. Two of my all-time favorite songs. 

Here's Randy in 1977 when Short People came out. He was performing at Tanglewood, not one of my usual venues, but hey, sometimes you go where the music is. And sometimes the music turns out to be where you are. 

And oh that video for I Love L.A. -- we love it!

Barstool Blues

I've been published a lot over the years, and the number of times (and ways) my name has been misspelled is truly amazing. I use my full name as my photo credit. Back in the day, every print I sent out to a magazine had it stamped on the back, and all the invoices I sent out had it written in big letters at the top. Didn't make the slightest bit of difference. Sherry, Cheri, you name it. 

Neil Young photo credited to Cheri. Really?

Well, whatever. I've even had Lynn spelled Lyn. (And that happened again just recently when PhotoShelter mentioned me on their blog. Oops.) Once, a magazine even put my name as Sheri Baker. (More on that story in a later post.) 

Sheri Lyn Behr's the credit on this photo
 of Rick Derringer in Hard Rock magazine

Closeup of the photo credit.

And of course, sometimes they would forget to put any credit at all. I did like it when they apologized for that. 

But as I would say at the time, as long as I can cash the check…  

Oh, and if you ever meet me face to face or send me an email... I'm Sheri. 

Just Sheri. 

S H E R I

A Big Thank You

Last night I was invited to speak at Take 5ive, a Dada inspired info exchange party where ten professionals each have up to five minutes to talk about a photo-related subject. The theme of the evening was "Press" and it was great to show my rock photos to a roomful of people who really seemed to enjoy the work. I felt like a rockstar myself! And I also got to catch up with some friends, and meet some people in the offline world who I knew through Facebook. A really fun night. Thanks to Chrissy, Hans, and the others from win-initative, and of course, many thanks to Elizabeth Avedon for suggesting that I participate.

And the other speakers were great--Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Elizabeth Barragan, Susan May Tell, Bryan Formhals, Alison Zavos, Ted Sabarese, Sam Friedman, Gabriela Herman (loved her photos of bloggers which were on exhibit at the event) and Gemma Fleming. Check them out. Not rock and roll, but definitely worth a look.

The Boys Are Back In Town (RIP Gary Moore)

Gary Moore, who played with Thin Lizzy, passed away today. I was pretty sure I'd photographed him, since I photographed Thin Lizzy three times. But when I looked at the shots I had printed, and then at the slides that were in sleeves, I couldn't find him. I knew what he looked like because I found pictures on the Internet. I'm pretty good at recognizing some of the members of the bands I shot, but many I know by band name only. I could pick Phil Lynott out of a lineup (that's him on the far left), but he was the only member of Thin Lizzy I could recognize. Phil Lynott might have even been the first performer I photographed to pass away, and I remember being really upset about it when he died in 1986 at the age of 36.

Still, when I checked dates (I really don't know if I'd be able to do this without the Internet) I knew I had to have photographed Gary Moore. I found more slides, still in the original Kodak box (I know I know, I'm trying to finish getting organized) -- and I spent the rest of the day scanning. Not exactly what I had planned to do today. But hey, I'm trying to get this work out, so I did what I had to do.

Phil Lynott, Gary Moore and Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy, September, 1978 

RIP Gary Moore.