R&B and neo-soul artist Cody ChesnuTT
PhotograPhic memory
Ten years of musical portraits at The Grey Eagle Story by Alli Marshall Photos by Sandlin Gaither
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JanuaRY 15 - JanuaRY 21, 2014
mountainx.com
About a decade ago, Sandlin Gaither was tending bar during one of his first shifts at The Grey Eagle. A country act performed. Afterward, the musicians hung out with the venue’s staff. “Six months later, they were on stage with Bon Jovi, playing the Texas Stadium,” says Gaither. The band in question was Sugarland. They’d blown up. “I was like, man, I should get a camera so I can document these people,” Gaither says. He wasn’t a photographer at the time. Gaither had some darkroom experience from a film class in high school. But, as he points out, “I work at the Grey Eagle not because I like beer but because I like music.” So, what started as a personal mission to chronicle the artists passing through that performance space turned into an evolving photography exhibit in the Grey Eagle’s lobby, hallway and bar (between 75 and 80 are on display, the complete collection contains around 175). Not only do those images showcase the progression of a self-taught photographer — Gaither has gone on to shoot for Rolling Stone, Filter and Sony Music Australia — but they also tell the Grey Eagle’s story. “The reason I ended up putting the photos on the wall is not to say, ‘Look what I’ve done,’” says Gaither. “It’s so you see all these great people who’ve played here and what they looked like on the day they were here.” Some of the bands, like Fleet Foxes, went from virtual unknowns to international sensations almost overnight. “Thirty seconds into it, I was like, these dudes are gonna be huge,” says Gaither of what was an opening set in March 2008. “I grabbed them on the way out the door.” Others had a less happy trajectory. “To me, [all of the photos] are special, but it makes it more sentimental when someone has died,” says Gaither. There’s an especially poignant image of singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt, who took his own life in late ’09. A few months before Chesnutt died, he played the Grey Eagle. At the suggestion of the venue’s owner, Jeff Whitworth, Gaither climbed onto the roof to photograph the wheelchair-bound musician surrounded by a sea of gold and brown autumn leaves. After Chesnutt’s passing, the photo went viral. It showed up on blogs and magazine websites, at the Grammy Award ceremony and for sale on eBay.