Roberta Bayley is a photographer, best known for her photographs of the New York punk scene of the 70s.

Life

Bayley was born in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

and grew up in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. She attended

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

for three years before dropping out in 1971. She moved to London where she lived for three years, before moving to New York in the spring of 1974. Bayley met musician and poet

Richard Hell Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television and T ...

, and soon began working the door at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

s at the request of Terry Ork, the manager of Hell's band

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

. In 1978 Bayley went to work for Blondie in the office of Peter Leeds, the manager of the band at the time. While Bayley had taken a few photography classes in high school in the 60s, it wasn't until November 1975 that she bought a camera to document what she saw going on in New York's downtown music scene. In 1976, she went to work for John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil at

Punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

magazine. She photographed the

Ramones The Ramones were an American punk rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first true punk rock group. Despite achieving a limited commercial appeal in the United ...

for the third issue in February 1976. Her image from that session became the cover of the band's first album. Apparently the record label had initially hired a different photographer, but the band rejected those photos and instead selected Bayley's image. Bayley served as chief photographer for Punk Magazine from the second issue until its demise. In addition to her images of the Ramones, Bayley is known for her pictures of

Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981. Born in ...

of Blondie, Richard Hell,

Johnny Thunders John Anthony Genzale (July 15, 1952 – April 23, 1991), known professionally as Johnny Thunders, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of the New York Dolls. He later played with ...

of the Heartbreakers,

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of ...

The Sex Pistols ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

The Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...

, The Damned,

Nick Lowe Nicholas Drain Lowe (born 24 March 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in power pop and new wave,Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in ...

X-Ray Spex X-Ray Spex were an English punk rock band formed in 1976 in London. During their first incarnation (1976–1979), X-Ray Spex released five singles and one album. Their 1977 single " Oh Bondage Up Yours!" and 1978 debut album '' Germfree Adol ...

Billy Idol William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is a British-American singer, songwriter, and musician. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer o ...

, and many, many others. Bayley still lives in New York's East Village. In addition to several monographs of her work, her photographs have been published in seminal histories of punk, including ''Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk'' (1997) and ''Blank Generation Revisited: The Early Days of Punk''. She was co-author on ''The Unauthorized Biography of Patti Smith'' (1996, Simon & Schuster) and her Blondie book ''Blondie Unseen'' (2006, Plexus) is still available.

References

External links

* http://www.robertabayley.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Bayley, Roberta San Francisco State University alumni American women photographers Artists from Pasadena, California Photographers from New York City Photographers from California People from the East Village, Manhattan Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women