CUATL Ep. 13: Colorado's Premiere Rock 'n' Roll Photographer

Megan Friedel: “So Dan, old friend, I have a lot of questions for you, so let's get started. Are you ready?”

Dan Fong: “I'm ready.” 

MF: “I would love for you to tell us a little bit about how you got into photography.”

DF: “I started taking pictures when I was real young, maybe 9 - 10 years old. My uncle gave me an Argus 35mm camera. Back at that time, most of the cameras were roll film, we're talking about large negatives. I started processing pictures in the basement and stuff. 

“Then I became the school photographer for the junior high school newspaper and at 14, my first assignment was with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1962, I met Eisenhower at the private airport, Combs Aviation, which is what it was called. Since I was a little kid, I got to stand in front of all the other photographers. The fact that I was able to stand right next to Eisenhower and take photographs is pretty crazy.”

MF: “Those photos are really exceptional, I know I've said that to you before! Also, I have to ask, were you short because it looks like you're looking up at him.”

DF: “That's the thing, if you look down in the twin lens reflex camera, I'm looking down in the camera and I'm short. So that's the perspective, because I was short. I didn't see these photographs and intensely look at them until I found them at my mother's house when she died in 2016. I was pretty amazed that they were so good. It was a lot to clean up the negatives because I had just thrown them in a cardboard box and that's where they stayed for 50 years. So, not knowing it, that's where my destiny was.” 

MF: “They are really stunning photographs for somebody who was that young. And I think you're right, that was in you from the beginning. I've known you for a while now. And I think everywhere I've ever seen you, you have a camera somewhere on your body. At any moment you could just whip it out and start taking pictures.

“Was that kind of how you were back then too?”

DF: “I was taking photographs of a lot of things. When you look at my work, you're looking at my life. It's what I was experiencing and what I saw at the time.”

MF: “You starting to take photos of music was just you walking around with your camera strapped on your body and you said, well, I'm here now. I might as well take a picture. Is that how it all started?”

DF: “Yeah. If you're looking at something and you’re in awe and you're going, wow, you better be taking pictures.”

MF: “I love what you just said about being in awe. That was just an extraordinary time for music. That was the era when all these national touring bands are starting to come into Colorado. So, it seems like you were perfectly positioned to be the person who was in the thick of things taking photos.” 

DF: “It's weird how that thing with The Who thing came around. I became really good friends with them and I met a photographer who painted those big paintings of album covers they used to have at record stores and at the Fillmore West and the Fillmore East. He knew The Who and they wanted him to do some original paintings. So I went with him, met The Who and did a lot of photographs that he could use for his paintings. But, my relationship with The Who continued on, and I did a lot of stuff with them.”

MF: “In the late 60s and 70s, when you were shooting a lot of music in Colorado, I'm just curious, is there a most memorable show for you from that period?” 

DF: “Well, probably The Who at Mammoth Gardens. They played a show there in 1970 and they said that that show is probably one of the best they’d done in their entire career.”

MF: “What would you say was the most challenging show you shot from that period?”

DF: “Well, I think back then it was a lot less challenging because there were restrictions, obviously, but they were easy to get around. For example, The Who, it was the first time I'd ever been mobbed by a crowd in a limousine. It was the first time that you got to the venue and people are clawing at the cars. I had never experienced that before. When I got on the stage at Cobo Hall in Detroit, I was on the stage. It was the first time that I was on stage at a concert where it was sold out and the kids were going crazy. I thought, wow, I want more of this.

“So, it was interesting because I really started at the top. I didn't do this whole crawl up the ladder to try to get there. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. And all of a sudden I'm sitting in the back of the limousine with The Who.”

MF: “You have told me over the years a lot of behind the scenes stories. We're hearing a couple right now. But, I would love for you to share at least one that sums up the environment that you were working in during this time in the late 60s and 70s and Colorado's music scene.”

DF: “Well, I think one of the big environments are the concerts that were on the field at Norlin Library. I don't know how many that field holds, but if you see the photographs, I mean, it's from the steps of the library all the way to those back trees. That's a lot of people.” 

MF: “You're talking about this show with Mountain on the steps of Norlin Library.”

DF: “Mountain and Zephyr. No security, free show, just a totally different attitude in terms of people enjoying the music. It was different, not like it is now.”

MF: “Yeah, it's crazy to see in those photos just people sitting literally right at the feet of Felix Pappalardi and Leslie West, they are right there! There are people sitting on the amps. I can't imagine that the sound quality was very good. It's all stone stones steps.”

DF: “Actually, it was pretty good because there was a sound guy whose name was David Hadler, and he provided the sound for a lot of these gigs. And it was good. It was really good. 

“As a matter of fact, when I was talking to the dean of the library, Robert McDonald, he was telling me that when he first got here, he was walking to the library and there was another person who had gone to school during that period of time. And that person said, “When I was a freshman, the first thing I heard was Mountain for free on the front of the Norlin Library. And I'm thinking, man, I came to the right place to go to college!”

MF: “No kidding. That's incredible. What was that 1970, 1971?”

DF: “Something like that.”

MF: “So, what was unique about photographing music on CU Boulder’s campus during that period?”

DF: “Well, there were no restrictions, you know, for one. And that's the way I shoot. What makes my photographs unique is they're most of the time on stage.

“I think that's what was cool about it, I knew enough people that I was on stage. For instance, when the Stones played in 1972 at the Denver Coliseum, I was the only photographer that was allowed to shoot. And the reason why was, I knew all the security guys and they kept all the other photographers out. They just kicked them out.

“And I was doing the catering backstage, taking care of the group. And once you're backstage, and this has been kind of my formula, once you meet the performers and you get to know them. Then, all of a sudden, you’re outside on stage or around and taking photographs. It's a lot different. You're accepted into the family there doing the show. So, it's a totally different thing. When I was working for Barry, I had access to all these groups, doing the food for them and taking care of the backstage. But, I still had a camera, like you said all the time. I've got a camera taking pictures.”

MF: “I have to ask you, Dan, the Grateful Dead have had a really long association with you. I got to ask you if you've got any good backstage stories about Dead at Folsom.”

DF: “Not a ton.”

MF: “Wait, really?!”

DF: “But one of the biggest stories was Owsley Stanley, the Father of LSD, had just gotten out of jail. You know, he's the one that did LSD for Timothy Leary, The Dead, all these people that were professing all the great things about LSD, Owsley was the one that made it.

“I have a photograph in the collection of him at CU. He was still posing as a roadie because he'd just gotten out of jail and I don't think he was supposed to travel out of California. He was on parole. So, he came to Colorado and all the crew had Owsley acid. They had Murine eye-drop bottles was Owsley acid in them. So, they go around and dose all the fruit, food and, the Oasis water bottles. And you could always ask for some. So, I looked at it, said, ‘Well, this is probably the best acid in the world, and I’ll probably never get another chance to see what that's like.’”

MF: “Yeah, you've got that great photo that you shot of him from backstage looking down at the Dead playing. He's got this little impish grin on his face and it is just so great. It's not a photo of Jerry [Garcia]. It's not a photo of the rest of the band. It's a photo of Owsley. It’s a really interesting window into that backstage life that the Dead had at Folsom.”

DF: “What happened at that concert is there were some Boulder drug dealers that had smuggled in 40 pounds of pot in the speakers they used to amplify. They have all the pot wrapped up in little baggies, there was enough for maybe two or three joints. They had papers in there and stick matches. It was like little packages. During the concert, somebody ran out into the audience with these big grocery sacks of these little packages and they threw them into the audience. The cops followed me home after that concert.”

MF: “I bet they did!”

“I want to change direction just a little bit. You have shared with me your experiences about being a Chinese American student at CU Boulder. I wonder if you feel comfortable talking about that and how that affected you.”

DF: “By the time I got to see you and was president of my class. I had gone to Thailand, experienced the Vietnam War. So, one of the things that stands out in my mind is doing fraternity rush before my freshman year. There were probably about five of us minority students. I can remember an African-American kid, me, and I can't quite remember what the other kids were like. But, there was this little group of us and we went to do the rush thing at the fraternities, they would take us and stick us in a room and have us sit there for a while. It was really racist. I was really blown out. The other kids kind of went, ‘Oh.’ And I'm going, ‘This is terrible!’ I didn't have a really good attitude towards the fraternities and sororities at that time. 

“During that period of time, my cousin, who went to CU Boulder, married the president of the Pi Phi House, and they just were upside down over it because this Chinese person was going to marry this blonde Pi Phi. She was the president of the house, too.”

MF: “You know, as you started taking more photographs and you're talking about all the access that you got and that you were the one that Fey Line Production, Barry Fey’s company, chose to use as their photographer. Did you experience any discrimination from other photographers for you being a minority and a mostly white world?”

DF: “I would say there were some people, not very many. One of them was Willie Nelson, of course, that didn't like people like me, but there weren't very many, actually.

“And that whole thing with Barry, I'll give you an example, what happened to my life after I graduated college. This is one of those things that I was in the right place at the right time, just like my entire life has been. So, I graduated from college with a degree in business, marketing and real estate secondary. And the only reason I graduated from the CU like that is because I could not afford, my family, couldn’t afford, to send me someplace else to go to photography school. There's really no photography program in Colorado at the time. So, I went to business school. It cost me $242 a semester and for up to 18 hours. That’s pretty expensive, you know?”

“When I graduated from college, I had a job lined up to be a broker and an insurance salesman. That's what a guy with a business degree does. And I said, man, I can't do that!

“So, I opened up a photo studio that was only three blocks from the first underground radio station in Colorado, KFML. I went down there and made a deal with them that I would take photographs of all the bands that came in to do interviews in exchange for advertising on the radio. That really worked out! Then, all of a sudden, Barry Fey comes along with The Rolling Stones and the station decides they're going to throw a party for the Stones. And I was the one that was going to cook for it!

“I did this big 13 course, Luau dinner for Mick Jagger behind Barry Fey's house and from that point on, I was working for Barry. I think the first thing I did, catering-wise, in the rock and roll world was Warner Bros. had a big party up in the Matterhorn restaurant, which used to be on the hill on Highway 93 overlooking Boulder. 

“Everybody met at Mile High Stadium, got in buses, went up to Boulder for this party, and then they brought everybody back down. I catered wine and orders on the buses up to this party. And the people that were on the buses were, Cheech & Chong, John Denver, Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary. There is a group called Redbone, an Native American/Mexican American group.”

“In ‘69, when the Stones played Fort Collins as a practice show before that tour, they got cold cuts and white bread backstage. You know what I'm saying? As a matter of fact, I got famous for taking care of the groups backstage. There was a magazine called Viva that was published by Penthouse, and it was for women, but it had a lot of articles in it. One of the articles was, ‘Where do rock and roll stars eat?’ And there was a big article on me on the road, Levon Helm from The Band actually talked about me in the article about how they'd be in some crazy place playing, and I would have lobster backstage or some other crazy thing like that. They definitely remember me for that.

“And Bob Dylan was a trip. I mean, the only thing he would eat was steamed spinach. I had this wok that I would make steamed spinach for him. And he did this crazy thing where he wanted the chess set, from every show. Part of the rider was he got a free chest set, that was crazy too.”

MF: “So your photos are recently featured on the new HBO special for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony.”

DF: “I think I've been really instrumental. I was basically doing my old job that I used to do for The Doobie Brothers, because their new manager has only been with them for four years and there was really nobody for the producer to talk to. When the producers started talking to people about getting footage and photographs, everybody kept saying, well, you need to talk to Dan Fong, you need to talk to Dan Fong! 

“So he finally had one of his production assistants trace me down. And that's when the first time I talked to him was August the 17th. So, since then, I've been the historian, telling them what was going on, circumstances, providing them photographs for that.”

MF: “Yeah, and you've also got your photos in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, correct, for The Doobie Brothers?”

DF: “And so a lot of my work will be in the museum display and stuff…”

MF: “So exciting! Well, Dan, I think it might be the point in the interview where you get to ask me some questions.”

DF: “What made you decide that you wanted this collection from me?”

MF: “Oh, that was a no-brainer for me! I'll never forget when I first met you. I got this out-of-the-blue invitation, in 2014, to come see this photographer's rock and roll exhibit down at a gallery in Cherry Creek. And, I thought, hey, why not. I didn't know much about you. I didn't know anything about your work. And I walk into the room and it's a who's who of Colorado rock and folk music celebrity. There's Harry Tuft from the Denver Folklore Center. There was Richie Furay, Freddi from Freddi & Henchi, Jock Bartley. Already my jaw has dropped and then I start looking at the photos. And there is the behind-the-scenes photos that you took with The Who and the Stones. Just beautiful, beautiful photography of Colorado musicians who are lesser known. I'm walking around and I'm thinking, exactly what you just said, this guy just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

“I've never seen an archive that encapsulates this really crucial moment in Colorado's music history. Which, I think, is a history that is not as well-known as it needs to be in the United States. Because Denver was the place, it was the stopover. You’ve played your show in Chicago, where you're going to go next? You're going to Denver before you go to L.A. and Barry Fey is at the center of everything, bringing all that music to Colorado.

“So I've always loved this era and just the vibrancy of what was happening here and the fact that you had this incredible archive. I've known you for five, six years now, I think I've probably seen maybe two percent of what you actually have in your archive. And that two percent is really astounding. I’ve always thought one of the biggest holes in archival collections in our area is nobody is really trying to document that moment in time and create a collection that encapsulates that and also touches on all the social change. And you've got photos in your collection of the Kent State protests in Denver. You've got incredible photos that I love living up in the mountains near Nederland. You've got photos of the counterculture community in that area. So to me, it was this natural gap.

“At CU Boulder, in our archives, we manage the American Music Research Center collections, which document the history of American music. What would be a better fit than to have you be part of those collections and also the cornerstone for building a better collection that documents Rocky Mountain music in particular, social change and the counterculture. So, I'm just thrilled!”

DF: “I definitely want to thank you because you're one of the few people that really believed in my work. Without you, I wouldn't be there.”

MF: “Oh, thanks! You know, goes both ways, man. You do incredible stuff.”

DF: “And the thing about it is, meeting you, that's another example of being in the right place at the right time for me. I hadn't planned that. It is just one of those things that happened in my life.”

MF: “Do you want to ask me your other question?”

DF: “Which photograph do you like the most in the collection?”

MF: “I would have given anything to be in that crowd in front of Norlin watching Zephyr play. I think too few people even in Colorado know who Zephyr was. You know, Candy Givens was the Janis Joplin of the Rockies. And that was the era that Tommy Bolin was playing with Zephyr, too. So you have this, what was he, 18, 19 year old, absolutely virtuoso guitarist. And then probably the wildest, most intense voice outside of Janis. And it's on the steps of our library in Norlin. I would have loved to have been there. So, that's just the show that I would have loved to have seen that you've documented.

“I love the photo that you took of Joni Mitchell in the Field House at CU Boulder. You took it from behind her and she's got the stage lights in front of her. The lights are coming through her hair and her arms are outstretched. She must have just finished a show. It's this absolutely ethereal photo, just absolutely beautiful. You don't see Joni’s face. You might not even be able to tell that it's her, other than the caption that's that you put on the photo. I feel like it captures this magic that Joni had about her during that time.

“My other favorite is the photo that you took of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band at Folsom. You have this absolutely intense action shot where everybody on the stage is just so into the music. You've got the drummer leaning forward and he's got this great crazy look on his face. Bob Seger is intensely focused on the crowd. And you see the whole crowd behind them.

“I think it's hard for people, today, to understand, without seeing photos like yours, the amount of energy that was in their shows at Folsom with the stadium just completely packed. That photo just completely captures it and captures just the energy of that time.”

DF: “You know, it's like I say, what I've learned doing photographs in the music business, you never know how much time you have to take photographs. You have to be ready to take photographs as soon as you get out of your car. You don't know what you're going to see. You don't know what's going to happen. The reason I have a lot of photographs backstage was because I could get backstage. But, there are many times groups wouldn't let you onstage.

“So a lot of the great photographs I have are the ones for backstage where nobody gets to go. I've learned that you take as many photographs as you can, not knowing where the end point is going to be. It's just like The Who, when I was in the dressing room, I was loading film as fast as I could, I would just start taking pictures, loading, film, loading, film, loading, film.

“And really, you had a better idea of what I actually had than I did. Making me go into my archive to complete this collection was a really good idea because I found a lot of stuff. I worked on this collection for, I think, about eight months. It could be so much bigger!”

MF: “I know. Well, I want to thank you as a friend, as a music lover, the Colorado music lover in particular, and as head of archives at CU. I just want to thank you so much for donating your collection to CU and for talking with me today and sharing more of your story. You are a true legend in all senses of the word, and it's been an absolute pleasure.”

DF: “Thank you. I really appreciate you and what you did for me and probably you and what you've done for the community in terms of getting this work out there.”