Exclusive Interview with Terry Manning: the Producer and the Photographer
Americana Lady
Posted On October 5, 2015
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Not many of you may have heard of world-renowned producer, Terry Manning, but you certainly have heard of several of the artists he has worked with. Manning has produced or engineered albums for hundreds of legendary artists, including George Thorogood, Joe Cocker, Otis Redding, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin as well as pop icons Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Lenny Kravitz and many others. His career spans over five decades and continues to thrive. What is also amazing is that Manning has another creative passion that he has kept quietly on the back burner since the 1960s: photography. It wasn’t until August 2015 that he finally unveiled some of his original photos in a world premiere exhibit at the Boston Cyberarts Gallery. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Mr. Manning for an interview about both his producing and photography work throughout his lifetime. Read on about the fascinating life of this man behind the sound board and the camera!
Americana Lady: First, it’s an honor to do this interview with you. Thank you for sitting down with me today.
Terry Manning: Hi, and thanks, it’s my pleasure!
AL: You have an impressive roster of artists you have worked with over the past five decades. Was there any particular artist that you enjoyed working with the most?
TM: That’s a tough one, to pick just one artist! I’ve been so fortunate to have worked with many great artists, and I have enjoyed so many great days in the studio! But to give an answer, I can pick a few. Certainly recording The Staple Singers was a wonderful experience…they were so joyful, so excited to be recording, and so full of explosive talent! Mavis was just amazing to work with! And of course, Led Zeppelin was tremendous…Jimmy Page had been a friend already for a number of years, and we communicated very well together; he was so much in control, so intelligent with his ideas. Then ZZ Top was always a blast. Billy Gibbons also was, and still is, a friend of many years. He’s another who was just full of creativity. And I must mention Lenny Kravitz! We are very close, and it’s always so much like “family” when we get together, for work or for fun. But…I’m still leaving out a LOT of great, creative people!
AL: Congratulations on your world premiere photo exhibit in Boston this past August! How did you finally come to decide to officially exhibit your photography to the public? And why didn’t it happen sooner?
TM: Thanks! The photography side of my life was something I had intended to do for a long time. In fact, I’ve done serious photography just as long as serious music. My close friend starting years ago was/is William Eggleston, and we would often share each others’ darkrooms, swap chemicals, talk about cameras, etc…seems like a while ago! But for me, music suddenly started “paying the bills” more than my photography jobs were at the time, so I leaned more and more in that direction. But I never stopped shooting photos, doing darkroom work, etc. For Bill…who was also a very talented musician, btw…it was the photography that started pulling him in that direction.
What finally “got me going” on this was a friend in Boston, Chris Clepper, who at the time was working in the photography department at MIT. He kept “bugging me” to get my photos out, get them edited and printed, and actually do something with them. I kept putting it off because I was so busy with music…lots of sessions, bands, singers, records to be made. Finally he basically said “Hey, do it, or forget it!” And that finally made me get myself in gear!
AL: Being both a music producer/engineer and a photographer, did you find that the two professions complemented each other? Or did you find yourself spending more time and energy focusing on one over the other?
TM: In my mind, music and photography are definitely two parts of the same general ethos (and/or pathos): capturing something that you appreciate, for others to also participate in…whether hearing, or seeing. So to me they certainly do complement each other. However, I find that it’s hard for me to do both at once. If my mind is deeply engaged in composing music, or recording or mixing a record, I find that I can’t “see” the same way photographically as I can when I am concentrating deeply with the visual side of my brain. So I try to make certain days to “just shoot photos” without even thinking about music, or conversely, to “just do music,” without worrying about what I am seeing. I hope this makes sense!
AL: Do you have a particular subject or type of subject that you enjoy photographing the most?
TM: Hmm, really it’s just…in simple terms, “whatever I see that I think should be preserved.” But in more complex terms, I try to capture things that, the beauty of which, even though it may be seen by many others, might often be overlooked. This might be something very ordinary, something that hundreds walk right past every day without noticing…but if you do stop, and take the time to look carefully, there is a certain form, or a combination of colours, or something striking about it. “Art” is everywhere, but we are often just too damned busy to notice it! It’s like the music that might come from traffic sounds, or boat horns, or birds, or a combination of all of these or many other things. It’s musical, if we stop and pay attention to it! Similarly, something as common as a store window may really be a collage of layers of beautiful reflections and images.
AL: Working at the famous Stax Records studio in Memphis enabled you to work next to some pretty heavy-duty artists that are legends today. What was it like seeing those artists you worked with rise to incredible heights of fame?
TM: I know this will sound strange, but at the time, it’s really just another day at work! Sure you’re excited, and sure you know the people you are working with are excellent at what they do, and yes you enjoy seeing the records start selling, and the artists getting acclaim, touring, on TV, etc. But they’re still friends, still workmates; you still have a job to do. You don’t start realising that what you’ve worked on is something historically important for a while afterwards…usually years! And Stax was such a wonderful place to be; it was literally an island of brotherhood isolated in a sea of racial mistrust; and I will always treasure those days, and all of those wonderful people.
AL: What is one thing you would want to change in your music career? or in your photography career?
TM: THAT’S a loaded question, isn’t it! I’m pretty happy with everything in most ways, I have been very lucky. But I guess there’s always something we’d all change. Photographically, I do wish I had started doing the exhibits and books much sooner. Musically, there are a few artists that I had the opportunity to work with that didn’t work out…usually scheduling conflicts, but on a couple of rare occasions, I made a decision not to work with them, and it turned out to have been for reasons that were not valid. I’d rather not say who those artists were though! OK, well, one was Jerry Lee Lewis…I was pretty young, and he had that “Killer” reputation, and I just didn’t accept an opportunity to engineer an album session. That was pretty stupid, because he is one of my all time favourites, and I really wish I’d gotten to work with him!
AL: What advice would you give to aspiring young music producers of today? What would you advise young photographers?
TM: Well, the music industry is probably a tougher environment in which to “make it” today than ever before. But if it’s in your heart and soul, if you just can’t live without doing it, then you have to try. And if you don’t try, you definitely won’t make it! I think you just have to learn as much as you can about music…doing even basic courses in a good university’s music department will definitely be a big help. Lear basic music theory. And hang out at good studios, if you can do so, find good professional people to mentor you, offer to help in exchange for doing some work for them perhaps; all of these things can get things started. Knowing how to properly engineer is very helpful, as is basic human psychology ! But, a lot is going to be “right time, right place” kind of luck or coincidence.
Photographically, I think it’s good to study both great photographers, AND great graphic artists…painters, especially. A great painter is really doing the same thing a photographer is…constructing an image that people will want to look at. Think about their colours; notice their forms; understand the “architectural” composition they place things into. Study Henri Cartier-Bresson especially, who I think is the greatest photographer ever. Read about his concept of “The Decisive Moment.” Look at Eggleston’s books…he took the Cartier-Bresson ethic into the colour world. Then, get a good camera, and shoot shoot shoot. Force yourself to go out and FIND interesting things to capture, perhaps give yourself a time limit: ie, “I want 10 good shots taken in an hour.” Train your “mind’s eye” to be observant!
AL: What is next for Terry Manning the producer and the photographer?
TM: Lots of things, on both counts!
My next scheduled photography exhibit will be starting in March, and this time I am very fortunate to have it in Memphis at The Stax Museum! The exhibit there will run from March 11 through the end of June, and another Memphis gallery will also be simultaneously hosting an exhibit of my CUBA photos! Then we are working on, and almost set for exhibits in, Minneapolis, Berlin, Providence, Seattle, and many other cities all over the world! Plus, in addition to my two books just released (“Scientific Evidence Of Life On Earth During Two Millennia” and “CUBA, Despues Del Tiempo Especial, Antes De Los Americanos,” both available on Amazon), there will be a new book soon by me and Lenny Kravitz called “Living With Lenny.” This will have about 75-80 of my photos of Lenny taken over the years, with text written by Lenny hmself!
Musically, I am just finishing producing an amazing new rock group called “Helforstout.” They are from Iowa, and their album will come out in the first quarter of 2016. Plus I am working on producing tracks for a great female country-blues-rock singer, Ciera Ouellette. Her release should also come pretty early in 2016. And my newest personal effort will be released next March 8th. This will be under a group name, “3@Sea,” and the album is called “PLANETS.” It’s ten of my compositions, each about one of the planets or other objects in our Solar System…it’s sort of jazz, sort of new age, a little bit classical, and a little bit soulful. I am very excited for this to get out there!
Photo credit: Josh Reynolds, The Boston Globe
For more information, go to TerryManning.com
