Joe Stevens, who has died aged 87, was an outstanding rock’n’roll photographer, notably for New Musical Express during the 1970s.
Born in New York and self-taught, Stevens, who was influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s realistic style, took important pictures of Paul McCartney. Thanks to a friendship with Linda McCartney begun in New York, he became the photographer for the Wings Over Europe tour in 1972, McCartney’s first major post-Beatles tour.
In Gothenburg he photographed McCartney being arrested for marijuana possession. “Paul is grimacing a lot, but he’s also mugging for the camera – he’s definitely working the whole thing for the maximum publicity,” Stevens said of the picture.
Paul and Linda MCcartney being arrested for marijuana possession in Gothenburg in 1972: ‘Paul is definitely working the whole thing for the maximum publicity,’ said Stevens – Joe Stevens
Every significant star seemed to be in Stevens’s portfolio: David Bowie, with whom he was friends; Peter Gabriel, shot in Stevens’s London bathtub; Bryan Ferry, a London neighbour; Grace Jones (a beautiful colour portrait, one of his own favourites); Bob Marley; and Prince, among countless others.
At post-gig parties he was a seasoned unobtrusive hand, the photographer you went to if you wanted a picture of Elton John picking his nose.
“Before Joe few people were taking rock’n’roll pictures in the UK,” observed his fellow music photographer Adrian Boot, who also noted: “He was very friendly, and extremely helpful to young people starting taking pictures.”
Joe Stevens documented punk on both sides of the Atlantic – aptly, as, like that spiky movement, he could be crabby and awkward, although also very funny, often at the same time.
David Bowie on stage: he and Stevens were good friends – Joe Stevens
“Joe got the shots that told a story and was in the right place to take them,” recalled the Sex Pistols’ biographer Jon Savage, who interviewed him for his book England’s Dreaming. “I was a visual person,” Stevens told Savage. “Give me a good visual subject, and I’m happy. The Pistols were a fantastic subject.” Famously, Stevens photographed a fight the Sex Pistols had with audience members in 1976.
In his black leather jacket and black jeans, with his slinky, purposeful stride and his intelligent humour, Joe Stevens could fit with ease into complex social situations. But although he appeared to be outgoing on the surface, his second wife, Sue Cummings, observed that “he was also an enigma who kept a lot of himself hidden”.
Joseph Patrick Grady was born in the Bronx on July 25 1938 into an impoverished background, his Irish father having broken up with his Scottish mother. He later changed his surname, somewhat mysteriously, to “Stevens”; his ex-wife suggested that he found Grady “too working-class Irish”.
Sid Vicious engages with the audience at a Sex Pistols gig – Joe Stevens
After a spell in the US tour-managing both the Lovin’ Spoonful and Miriam Makeba, Stevens managed the Playhouse, a Greenwich Village coffee house. One of his patrons was Jim Marshall, legendary for his album covers. In charge of photographers’ passes for Woodstock, Marshall gave one to Stevens, his rock’n’roll photography baptism of fire. Stevens also worked as a street photographer, documenting New York’s spirit of rebellion for the underground paper East Village Other.
He had married in the mid-1960s, but, as he recalled, “[my wife] didn’t care for hanging out in recording studios and bars, and nightclubs, and soon I vanished.” Moving to London at the beginning of the 1970s, Stevens hooked up with underground publications such as International Times and Frendz. Not having a work permit, he billed himself as Captain Snaps.
He was briefly interned in Belfast after he decided to document some of the activities of the Irish arms smuggler James McCann. His US congresswoman secured his release.
Debbie Harry on stage with Blondie in New York – Joe Stevens
He began to work for the NME, becoming one of its two principal photographers along with Pennie Smith. During this period he connected with Kate Simon, a photographer for the rival music paper Sounds; they lived together in London.
In 1977 Stevens moved back to New York. He “was really the bridge between New York and London”, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore recalled in 2015. “He was really significant in the whole history that was developing in new music at that time.”
Stevens took early pictures of the Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads at CBGB, the New York punk club. In January 1978 he accompanied the US Sex Pistols tour. When those shows ended, Johnny Rotten flew with him to New York to stay at his apartment.
Later, Stevens lent the same bed to the Pistols’ former manager, Malcolm McLaren, who was attempting to help Sid Vicious following the death of Nancy Spungen. And he introduced the Clash’s Joe Strummer to a downtown bodega, the “candy-store”, which sold $10 marijuana bags.
Stevens’s portrait of Grace Jones was one of his personal favourites in his portfolio – Joe Stevens
The break-up in 1986 with his second wife, Sue Cummings, a star writer with the new Spin magazine, hit him hard. He moved with his photo files to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and lived there for the rest of his life. “He spent a lot of time not doing much but drinking coffee and doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, but he really enjoyed sailing with friends, regaling the kids in the coffee shops with his rock’n’roll stories, and doing photo local shows and talks,” said Jane Tyska, a long-time friend and mentee who was with Stevens when he died.
In the 1990s his work was part of The Cool and the Crazy, a show co-curated by his fellow photographer Roberta Bayley, which exhibited in Connecticut, at Earl McGrath’s Gallery on 57th Street, and at Washington DC’s Govinda Gallery. In 2012 Stevens’s pictures formed part of a retrospective of rock photography at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.
On his hospital deathbed, Joe Stevens showed that neither his intelligence nor his humour were diminished. “I’m a big-shot rock’n’roll photographer,” he informed his nurse. “But I don’t want to be a braggart.”
Joe Stevens, born July 25 1938, died August 26 2025
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
