Knight of the Guitar Photos

McGarvey, Gooch, Sanchez, and Whitford tore it up at the Las Vegas Hilton! They only had about an hour, hour and a half to rehearse before the show, but you’d never know by the way they locked in and played as if they’d been playing together for years.




Ranging in age from 17 to 23, the guys played with a maturity well beyond their years. Each young man wears his passion for music on his sleeve. It’s evident in every note.







Another highlight of the evening was meeting Robert Knight, whose work I’ve admired for years. You’ve seen his photos. You just have. Especially if you’ve ever visited Guitar Center and seen the RockWalk. Knight’s photography transcends the mere visual recording of musicians in and out of their element — it has heart, it has soul, and it sings, baby! I’d dare say what makes his images so good is the fact that he truly seems to enjoy his subjects as people and not just as a job. And for every photograph he’s ever created, there are probably a thousand more he didn’t take because he respected the performers so much.



One of my favorite Knight images is John Lee Hooker. I walked right up to the photograph in the gallery and it took my breath away. The set of Hooker’s mouth, the tie, the socks, the hands…all absolutely perfect. And then I read the story that accompanied the image and had to laugh when it said something to the effect of “best socks he’d ever seen”. Forgive the fuzzy memory. I’ve yet to go to sleep. Basically, each image in the gallery had a corresponding story and they were all fascinating. Equally fascinating were Maryanne Bilham‘s works.



Brilliant. That’s all I can say.