If rock and roll has been the soundtrack of your life, then photojournalist Janet Macoska has probably provided the visuals. Janet grew up with a transistor radio glued to the side of her head, listening to rock and roll on Cleveland Top 40 radio station.The Beatles were responsible for this love and obsession with rock music. At ten years old she had already begun to photograph the family dog and neighbours using her parents, Kodak twin-lens reflex. This led her to realise photography would be her free pass to getting closer to the music she loved and musicians she idolized.
At the age of 12 she was hanging out at WKYC Radio, in the DJ's lounge, answering fan mail for disc jockeys Jerry G. and Big Jack Armstrong. They rewarded her with boxes of 45s'. When rockstars came by to appear on their TV or radio shows Janet was there with her camera. Her first published rock and roll photograph was a shot of Sony and Cher taken in 1966 as they answered calls in the studios of WKYC Radio, which was published in Teen Screen Magazine when Janet was 13.
On her first trip to England in 1977, friend and mentor Alex Harvey (of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band) introduced her to the top British rock photographers, helping her to find an agent for her work. At the age of 23, Janet had become one in a small group of photographers on the planet who made their living capturing rock and roll on film.
Now, over 25 years later, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum is hosting a show of some of her favourite photographs. She is a Rock fan who has succeeded in capturing the energy and spirit of Rock in a sixteenth-of-a-second moment. If rock and roll is the sound track of your life....these are the visuals.
"A good many of these images come from concerts that took place right here in my home town of Cleveland, Ohio. Many of you probably attended the same shows. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. My gift to you." - Janet Macoska, November, 2003.
