Blog
February 4, 2013
It's Mardi Gras time!! Dr. John, sometimes called Dr. John the Night Tripper, brought a little Mardi Gras to Milwaukee's Summerfest in July of 1972.
Being a New Orleans native, Dr. John brings the Mardi Gras with him wherever he goes. In these photographs you can just see the party atmosphere he brings with the glitter on his face and his great hat!
His band with two drummers and a nice chorus was excellent and we all had a good time. Such a good time that after Summerfest that night we continued to party at a bar near Marquette Unversity 'til early in the morning. I can still see Dr. John coming out of a dressing room in his sunglasses at that club and it was filled with incense smoke!
If you look in the background on one of my photographs here you can see some cranes off to the right side. That's when they were constructing Milwaukee's famous Hoan Bridge. The bridge is getting old now and parts of it are falling to the ground at Summerfest. It needs some repair work. The view from the bridge of a sunrise or of the Summerfest crowd is amazing, but another blog story.
Nothing like a little Mardi Gras in July to have a fun night!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
January 28, 2013
Richie Havens had a birthday last week. He is a young 72 years old!
My first meeting with Richie was at the Wisconsin Music Festival in 1972 in his dressing room. I remember that he was so nice to me that night. I was just a young 18 year old photographer wandering around a bunch of rock stars!
Every time I saw Richie he was singing, playing guitar and practicing. He was having fun with Kris Kristofferson, Linda Ronstadt, Ramblin Jack Elliott and others.
Enjoy a few photographs from 1972 and Happy Birthday Richie.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
January 21, 2013
In June of 1990, the CART Indy Cars came to the Milwaukee Mile for their traditional visit the weekend after the Indy 500. The cars in 1990 were full of horsepower and had a sexier look compared to those of today. The helmets were also very different back then and this was before the now manditory HANS device for neck support. Back then, drivers simply used a foam donut collar for support!!
Emerson Fittipaldi was, and still is, my favorite race car driver. In 1990 he had the number 1 on his car after winning the Indy Car Championship the year before. He had won in Formula One cars, retired and then came back in winning form with Roger Penske's racing team. Emerson raced for a few more years and even tried being an Indy car team owner with Tiago Montiero as a driver for a year. I miss seeing Emerson drive these days because he really had determination to win whenever he was in the race car.
Attached are a few photographs from the race at the Milwaukee Mile in 1990 and a photo of the qualifying speeds on the board that was used that day. This was still a time when we just had a board instead of computer screens everywhere with information for us all to see!!
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Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann