Bryan Makes Others Smile
Rock star Bryan Adams was off his normal beat this week, squeezing in a visit to a National Trust property between arena gigs in Glasgow and Manchester.Here was the famously vegan save-the-whaler chatting affably in a house festooned with hunting prints, tiger skins and the baleful heads of antelopes.
The pictures on the walls of Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire, vying for attention with the faded big game trophies, are the usual stately home fare: patrician fellows in periwigs; pink children in arcadian settings; primitive photos of gentry in tweeds.
Not forgetting, of course, those cartoons of hunting folk falling off horses.
One of the attics, pressed into service as a gallery with white walls and low beams, is the place to see the first UK exhibition of a body of Bryan Adams’s photographic work.
The Canadian rocker, who had a mega-hit in 1991 with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, has twin creative careers running in parallel with each other.
To find out how he shapes up on stage, you will have to be at Wembley Arena tonight THURS> or tomorrow, Sheffield Hallam FM Arena on Saturday or Murrayfield, Edinburgh, on July 21.
But to see the Adams photographs you must pop to Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley. From central Newcastle, it’s about 100 minutes down the A19 to Thirsk and along the A170 as far as Sproxton where you take the B1257. It’s a lovely run and the hall is a wonderful destination, not so much a stately home as a modern oasis of tranquillity, of manageable proportions and with plenty of historical interest.
The peacocks strolling on the lawn and the bridge over the slow-running River Rye are what you might expect. Bryan Adams, frankly, isn’t; but NT property manager Simon Lee spotted an earlier showing of his work at Canada House in London, failed to get in and then thought: Well, why not have a show at Nunnington?
Perfectly illustrating the maxim “shy bairns get nowt”, Simon contacted Adams’s people and secured the only UK showing of this body of work, called Portfolio, which has been released by the German magazine Stern.
Previously it has been seen in Rome and Slovenia; after the UK it goes to Budapest.
Different isn’t it?” smiled Adams, surveying surroundings a world away from the previous night’s gig in Glasgow when he was snapped by a sea of mobile phone cameras.
A slight figure - much shorter than you might imagine from his rock guitarist posturings - Adams confirmed: “This collection has never been shown anywhere in the UK before although this is just a small part of it. I was approached by Stern who said, `We’d like to do a real portfolio of your work for one whole issue of the magazine’. It was the first time I’d ever gone into my archive and put things together.
“It was very difficult to do, a lot of work, but we made a final selection and then I was approached by two or three places in Germany and other parts of Europe to put on an exhibition.”
Adams, born in Ontario in 1959 to English parents, said he had never really taken his photography that seriously.
On my very first tour I bought a camera to document the work and the exploits of fellow musicians in hotel rooms.
“We won’t (laughter) be publishing those photographs.
“It was towards the end of the 1990s, when I decided I didn’t want to spend my entire time on tour in my hotel room, that I started to take photographs of other things. I really love working as a photographer and I love working as a musician. When you do jobs you love, you never work a day in your life.”
Now even professional photographers admire Adams’s portraits and landscapes. Mickey Rourke, Ray Charles, Helena Bonham-Carter, Keith Richards and Pink, the punk, have all been subjects, as have Tony Blair, the Pope, Barbara Cartland and the Queen.
It is the Queen you will see first at Nunnington Hall, mischievously hung next to a topless Pink. Adams photographed her for her Golden Jubilee in 2002, capturing the monarch in a moment of genuine hilarity. What was she laughing at?
“I think it was something to do with the boots,” said Adams. Not his boots but the row of royal wellies she posed beside at Buckingham Palace.
But Adams said one of his favourite pictures was the one of Ray Charles, taken shortly before the American soul legend died in 2004.
You can only see half of his face but you can see that he was laughing too.
“The guy is my idol,” confided Adams. “I love Ray Charles, I genuinely do. I didn’t have tickets to see his last show but I went down there and rang on the back door and said to the security, `Is there any chance I could get in?’ He let me in and I said, `Do you think there’s any chance I could meet Ray?’”
The portrait you will see is the proof that fame can indeed open doors.
But we all benefit. As a photographer, Bryan Adams puts a smile on people’s faces.
The Nunnington Hall exhibition runs until June 10 and is on during normal opening hours. For further details tel. (01439) 748283 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Source: http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk
Filed under: General News
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May 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am
NOT ONLY DOES HE PUT A SMILE ON MY FACE, HE ALSO PUTS A SPRING IN MY STEP!!!!!
May 19th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Well Bryan not only puts a smile on my face but he lights up my very world. Love you sweetie and hope you have a nice time in Europe!
May 19th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Bryan! Is there anything that you cant do! Whishing you all the best on your tour! I went to see you when you were in dublin on the 4th may and you were amazing! I hope you come back to play for us real soon ya hear!
May 21st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
BYe bye . And I Wish you the Best.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I rang to enquire if Bryan would be attending his exhibition and spoke to Simon Lee who kindly invited me to attend the private reception for him. I travelled up from the Midlands, a long journey, but truly worthwhile. Bryan was charming and polite and it was a real honour to meet him and be allowed to take part in such a special day. Bryan kindly allowed me to a have a photo taken with him - you can see this on ‘my space - susan barnwell’. The concert in Sheffield was also amazing. Hats off to Simon Lee for pulling it all together and to Bryan for taking time out of such a busy schedule to visit the exhibition.