Watch a short documentary of The Richard Hambleton Retrospective featuring the photography of Hank O'Neal at Phillips de Pury , New York City from September 9 through the 13th, 2011 presented by Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Andy Valmorbida in collaboration with Phillips De Pury & Giorgio Armani.  Click here   Hank's photographs of Richard Hambleton as featured in the June issue of Bliss Magazine.  Download the PDF here: Bliss article   Hank's latest show: Portraits 1970-2010 at The Lancaster Museum of Fine Art. This one man photographic exhibition features noted portraits Hank has taken over the last four decades.  The show will run through February 27th.  For more information please visit the museums web site here: http://www.lmapa.org/exh.html Hank's Portrait of Robert Indiana during his reception at the Four Season's Restaurant in New York City, featured in Art in America: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2011-01-26/robert-indiana-hope-four-seasons/ Hank's Photographs of Richard Hambleton's Shadow Men on display @ The Dairy, London:  http://arrestedmotion.com/2010/12/viewpoints-openings-richard-hambleton-pop-up-show-the-dairy-london/img_3876_p-nguyen/   Hank's photography graced the facade of the AMFAR pavillion, Cap D'Atibes France, May 20, 2010 C-Span July 2010 —The American Association of University Professors, features The Ghosts Of Harlem American Edition as one of it's choices for The "Best of The Best" University Editions. "The Best of The Bests" Program program, offers librarians the opportunity to share advice and recommendations with their colleagues, and recognizes the valuable contribution that university press books can make to both public and secondary school libraries. (note:The Ghosts of Harlem feature begins at 11:40 and ends at 14:40) :Please Have a look at the video here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/294474-1 Jazz Times Interview June 2010 — Hank O’Neal: Chasing Ghosts ArtNews Article, March 2010, Friendships In Focus - Berenice Abbott, PDF Hank O'Neal's Lower East Side Project Featured On Swiss T.V. Seventh Man Magazine - "Richard Hambleton — New York" in Milan Featured Artist on Valmorbida.com Artists We Love, Featured Photographs of Richard Hambleton Street Art Swide, Hank O'Neal's Portraits of Richard Hambleton, showing in Milan oneartworld.com - Featuring Hank O'Neal's Richard Hambleton Related Prints for Sale Abitare - Richard Hambleton in Milan featuring a portrait by Hank O'Neal

I’ve supervised a lot of recording sessions over the years and produceda bunch of records and CDs but I never had to furnish a bucket at anyof them. There was, however, a bucket on hand at Electric Ladyland onDecember 14, 1981, when The Clash was finishing up Combat Rock, whatwould turn out to be the last album they made together. This is why I wasthere and what happened.

In June 1981 The Clash had their legendary run at Bond’s on TimeSquare. Allen Ginsberg went to one of the performances, went backstage,everybody became pals, Allen performed a bit with the group and whenit came time to work on an album later in the year, Allen hooked up withthe group again, helped with the lyrics on some of the songs and evenappeared on the track Ghetto Defendant.

Concurrently, I was working on an album with Allen that was later releasedas First Blues and we were in touch a great deal. He was very enthusiasticabout The Clash; we went to one of their shows that was presented on a Hudson River pier and it was obvious the guys in the band were just asenthusiastic about him. I took some enthusiastic pictures, as did Allen,who was just getting into increasingly serious photo mode with his tiny Olympus camera.

Time passed and in December Allen telephoned and said he was meetingwith Mick Jones and Joe Strummer at Electric Ladyland later that night.He said he thought I should come by and bring the camera. The onlyreason I hesitated was because I had a bad cold but he said not to worry, Icould sit on the other side of the room.

For the first hour or so it was all about Chinese carry-in and Allen readingsome poetry. I took some pictures. As it neared midnight it came time forJoe to do some vocal overdubs, which he did, alone in the studio witha microphone and a bucket at his feet. He had a cold as well and as heworked into the morning trying to get the track just right, he was glad hisbucket didn’t have a hole in it.

A few weeks later, Allen came back and recorded Ghetto Defendant with Joe. If I hadn’t been called to London there might be a few more Clashpictures in the file, and maybe Futura 2000, who appeared on one trackas well. Allen told me he was at the studio multiple times, all night longand he’s only on one track. The group had block-booked the room for acouple of months and had a production budget of a few hundred thousand dollars. There would have been a lot of good photo opportunities thatdidn’t turn up in London.

When I got back to New York I had a pile of call messages. One looked unusual, at least the name of the caller was unusual, Tymon Dogg. Wegot in touch and he came by the office. I asked him why he had soughtme out, I was a jazz guy, and Tymon’s music was anything but jazz.He said Joe Strummer had some of my jazz records and based on theconversations we’d had, he thought I’ve give him a listen, which I did.To this day I have no idea which of my records were in Joe’s collection,but Tymon mentioned Earl Hines, which I though was a stretch, but howwould I know?Tymon’s music was wonderful. He could do things with a violin and a $100 Casio keyboard that were simply astounding. He was also on CombatRock, playing piano on Death Is A Star, my favorite track. He gave me ademo tape and I tried my best with the CBS guys in London the next time I was there but it didn’t work. Wish it had and wish I taken his picture. Youalways wish you’d taken more.