There may not be a more frequently explored topic in popular music lyrics than love.  Good or bad, brief or long lasting, love and romance have been mainstays as subject matter for six decades:  “Love Reign O’er Me.”  “Love is the Drug.”  “Love Will Keep Us Together.”  “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”  “Love in an Elevator.”  “Love is Like Oxygen.”  “Love You Inside Out.”  “Love Stinks.”

Songs about weddings and marriage, though, are less plentiful, perhaps because the music industry isn’t exactly overflowing with examples of life-long relationships.  Still, year in and year out, music lovers everywhere continue to give the institution of marriage a go, and who doesn’t enjoy the warm, festive nature of a great wedding ceremony and reception?

As with other important milestones in life, weddings need a soundtrack, and popular music once again comes through with enough songs to build a decent set list.  I’ve selected a baker’s dozen tunes to examine below, via Spotify, along with another 15 “honorable mentions” that also focus on weddings.  For the brides and grooms out there, and all those who celebrate their union, this blog’s for you! Read More

When I first started attending rock concerts in my teens around 1970, I sometimes took my little Instamatic point-and-shoot along, hoping I might get a photo of the band in action.  Fat chance.  What I got were snapshots of the guy’s head in the row in front of me.

Even after I invested in a decent SLR camera a few years later, I still couldn’t get the kind of results I was hoping for — capturing the band close up, like in the photos Rolling Stone and other magazines published — because I was usually still too far from the stage to get a decent shot.  I looked with great envy at the pros with their press credentials that gave them access to the lip of the stage, or even backstage.

As a profession, rock concert photography, like almost every other facet of the rock music scene, got its start with the emergence of The Beatles, The Stones, and the San Francisco bands of the late ’60s.  Posters and other memorabilia sold well, and some photographers started specializing in shooting concerts, making a fairly good living at it. Read More