{"id":24930,"date":"2024-05-13T22:37:53","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T02:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=24930"},"modified":"2024-05-13T23:37:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T03:37:35","slug":"charles-daniels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/05\/13\/charles-daniels\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Rock History And Vintage Views Of Local Streets In Charles Daniels\u2019s Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Charles Daniels always had one or more cameras with him\u2014when he was strolling local streets; when he was emcee at Boston Tea Party rock club in the late 1960s and early \u201870s as Faces, The Who and Led Zeppelin passed through on their way to stardom; when he accompanied his longtime friend Peter Wolf, of The Hallucinations and later the J. Geils Band, on Wolf\u2019s overnight DJing at rock station WBCN-FM. Wolf nicknamed Daniels \u201cMaster Blaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI considered myself a street photographer,” Daniels told The Boston Globe in 2022. \u201cAt some point I realized I had an advantage to do stuff that no one else was doing. That’s when I started photographing the bands more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Jeff Beck Group at Logan Airport.” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Daniels, who had been getting treatment for a rare form of leukemia over the past couple years, died from pneumonia on Jan. 22, 2024, at age 81. The Somerville artist is remembered in the exhibition \u201cTo Be Continued: Photographs by Charles Daniels\u201d<\/a> at Nave Gallery, 155 Powder House Blvd, Somerville, from May 4 to June 2, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels was born on Nov. 30, 1942, in rural Luverne, Alabama. His family moved to Boston\u2019s Roxbury neighborhood in the early 1950s, when he was about 11, and he began photographing with a Brownie camera that he found in his parents\u2019 closet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis kind, easy and open manner welcomed people to him,\u201d the gallery writes<\/a>. Daniels befriended rock stars Rod Stewart and Ron Wood when they performed in Boston before they quit the Jeff Beck Group to form Faces in 1969. Daniels danced and played tambourine on stage with them\u2014and toured with them on their Lear jet. When Wood joined The Rolling Stones, Daniels accompanied that band on their 1975 tour. \u201cWe all hung out together,\u201d Daniels told the Guardian in 2022<\/a>. \u201cSo I had an intimacy with the bands no one else had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Peter Wolf at WBCN.” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The show offers behind-the-scenes glimpses of Rod Stewart wearing headphones inside an airplane, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones in a parking lot, members of the Jeff Beck Group getting off a plane at Boston’s Logan Airport. Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones sings at the edge of a stage. Men and women play backgammon on what looks like a hotel bed (members of The Rolling Stones (?) are seen through a door). Peter Wolf smiles in sunglasses and headphones at WBCN. The show also showcases Daniels\u2019s street photography: American Legion men holding flags as if waiting for a parade, a man smiling next to a car, nuns walking in front of a cathedral. In another image, a woman sits on a bed with dots painted on her forehead and arms. There\u2019s a photo of Yippie activist Jerry Rubin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosting at the Boston Tea Party, Boston Music Hall (now the Boch Center’s Wang Theatre), the Orpheum Theatre, the old Boston Garden, and the Cambridge Common, gave Daniels access to photograph Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, the Pointer Sisters, Aerosmith, The Cars. Later Daniels also shot dance and fitness videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Berstler, Daniels\u2019s life partner of some 35 years, runs Nave Gallery. The exhibition there is the fruit of a project funded by a Somerville Arts Council grant and then a GoFundMe campaign launched in January 2022 to develop Daniels\u2019s archive of 3,400 rolls of film\u2014often in unlabeled canisters, some stored in his refrigerator, others “stuffed in drawers, boxes and closets,\u201d as the campaign notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn’t need to see the final result,\u201d Daniels told the Globe in 2022, \u201cas much as I just thought I needed to pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u201cTo
\u201cTo Be Continued: Photographs by Charles Daniels\u201d at Nave Gallery, Somerville, May 2024. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Peculiar Daniel, Charles’s Mother” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Two Women.” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Gabrielle Staiger, Trummerfrauen, Performed in Prague.” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Charles
Charles Daniels, “Mud.” (Courtesy Nave Gallery)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\u201cTo
\u201cTo Be Continued: Photographs by Charles Daniels\u201d at Nave Gallery, Somerville, May 2024. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Daniels always had one or more cameras with him\u2014when he was strolling local streets; when he was emcee at Boston Tea Party rock club in the late 1960s and early \u201870s as Faces, The Who and Led Zeppelin passed through on their way to stardom; when he accompanied his longtime friend Peter Wolf, of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,101],"tags":[1251,608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24930"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24978,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24930\/revisions\/24978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}