Delta Haze Corporation Photographic Archive
Delta Haze Corporation maintains a vast collection of classic photographs of blues and jazz artists, primarily from the era between the wars. Combining its recently acquired collection of Memphis' 100-year old African-American Hooks Bros. firm and the music and entertainment work of Mike Gould and Gerrie Blake, with its world-famous collection of historical images, including those acquired from the collections of numerous musicians and entertainers such as Hoyt Bohannon, Clark Dennis, Jack Echols, Harry Geller, Harmonica Frank, Woody Herman, Charles LaVere, E. Lyle Sharpe, Jack & Norma Teagarden, Joe Willie Wilkins, it is rich in blues, jazz and Southern history dating back into the late 1880's, as well as folk music, blues, jazz & sixties rock'n'roll images. Reproductions of some of these photographs may be found on blues and jazz t-shirts by Gear, Ink. and in postcard books and on posters, postcards and bookmarks, designed, created and distributed by Pomegranate Publications. In addition, these photographs are also being used to accent larger works in both print, audio-visual and broadcast media.
The Hooks Brothers Collection
Robert and Henry Hooks bought out an existing black commercial photography concern in 1911 and rapidly became Beale Street's and the Mid-South's leading portrait artists. Henry Hooks' retouching abilities were especially artistic and widely acknowledged as being among the finest. Over the years, the Hooks' photographed Memphis society in full regalia, as well as Southern indignities, and generally utilized their skills in every photographic setting imaginable. They photographed Frank Stokes (the Beale Street Sheik) and Cannon's Jug Stompers for Victor Records in 1928. They were commissioned by Robert Johnson to take the now famous Studio Portrait in 1935. After World War II, they passed their knowledge on to others via their own Hooks Bros. School of Photography and took all the photographs that appear in nearly every black high school annual in Memphis during the 1950's and 1960's.
The Michael A. Gould Collection
Mike Gould went to Austin High School with Eddie Condon, Bud & Arnie Freeman, Jimmy & Dick McPartland and was a member of its school orchestra alongside the legendary clarinetist Frank Teschmacher. He knew his music from the inside out and became one of the most successful song peddlers in the years after WWII. For a short time before the War, he carried a 35 mm rangefinder and preserved many scenes that only a person in musicians' inner circles could: Billie Holiday sitting with friends (pianists Jess Stacy and Gladys Mosier) and performing in a floor show at Cafe Society, Coleman Hawkins lighting up off stage at Kelly's Stables, Bunny Berigan & His Orchestra mid-performance from the wings of a theatre as well as loading up the band bus afterward, Charlie Christian, Teddy Bunn, Slam Stewart & Les Paul all performing on store stock instruments tagged and priced for sale at the New York Band Instrument Company during an instrument demonstration seminar. Dear Mike is gone now, but like his legacy of wonderful photographs, he is well remembered by his many musician friends.
The Gerrie Blake Collection
Miss Gerrie Blake was schooled in art and photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Franscisco at the right time to capture on film the folk music and blues revival of the early and mid-1960's. The hundreds of images with which she walked away from the 1964 and 1965 Newport Folk Festivals are enough to earn her a place of honor in the music photographers hall of fame, were there ever to be such a thing: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the New Lost City Ramblers, Pete & Mike Seeger, Mother Maybelle Carter, Kathy & Carol, the Phipps Family, Mississippi John Hurt, Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin' Hopkins; Sleepy John Estes, Hammie Nixon & Yank Rachell, and so many others. A remarkable eye.