A rare
concert by a blues legend inspired Midnight Son: A Tribute to John Lee Hooker,
released by the UT Press on April 17. UT Press commemorated the release with a
signing party in the Plant Hall Grand Salon.
Photographer Timothy
Kennedy, a professor of communication, captured John Lee Hooker’s summer
solstice concert on June 21, 1975, in Anchorage, AK, a “land of the midnight
sun” that time of year, from an unusual vantage point — onstage with the
performer. Hooker had established a tradition of performing on the summer
solstice every year.
Five years ago, Kennedy rediscovered his negatives
of that memorable 1975 performance. He decided that the event deserved to be
memorialized in an exhibition. When Kennedy tried to contact Hooker to tell him
of the exhibition, he learned that the legend had died on June 21, 2001, the
summer solstice and anniversary of the concert.
With the release of
Midnight Son, 16 duotone plates from the exhibition became available to the
public in a limited, signed, cloth-bound edition.
Contact Dr. Richard
Mathews or Sean Donnelly at x 6266 or
utpress@ut.edu to purchase a copy. The book
also can be ordered from the UT Press online catalog at
http://utpress.ut.edu.