Joe Stevens

Joe Stevens (born July 25, 1938 in New York City) is an American photographer known for photographing 1970s and 1980s rock musicians and bands, notably David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, and The Clash.[1][2] In the 1960s he managed the Playhouse, a New York City coffee house where he took publicity photos of musicians booked to perform.[3] He was encouraged to pursue photography as a career by rock photographer Jim Marshall.[4] Stevens did not have formal training in photography and worked as road manager for Miriam Makeba and The Lovin' Spoonful. He met Marshall again at the 1969 Woodstock festival and decided that he "had an eye" for photography.[5]

Moving to England in the early 1970s, Stevens was identified in the International Times by the photo credit "Captain Snaps" because he did not have a work permit. "Captain Snaps" became a nickname. One of his first employers was Paul McCartney, who hired him to photograph the Wings Over Europe tour on the recommendation of his wife Linda McCartney.[6] Stevens worked several years for the New Musical Express before returning to New York City, where he photographed musicians performing at the club CBGB, including Debbie Harry and the Ramones.

Several of his images are considered iconic.[7][8] One is of Paul McCartney hiding in Linda's arms during the couple's arrest for marijuana possession following a Wings concert in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Aug. 10, 1972.[9] Others are John Lennon wearing shoe bags on his hands as he and Yoko Ono marched to protest the 1971 obscenity trial of Oz magazine editors; Peter Gabriel covered with soap bubbles circa 1974 in the bathtub of Stevens's flat on Finborough Road in London S.W. 10;[10] and the 1976 fight between the Sex Pistols and audience at London's Nashville Rooms. The Gabriel photo was one of many by Stevens to appear on the cover of the New Musical Express.

In January 1978, Stevens photographed the Sex Pistols on their American tour. When the group broke up in San Francisco, he helped lead singer Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) fly to New York City, where Rotten stayed in the photographer's apartment before returning to London.[11] In 2011, Stevens told an entertainment publication that he saw himself as a chronicler of history.[12] In 2015, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth told a reporter that Stevens "was really the bridge between New York and London... He was really significant in the whole history that was developing in new music at that time."[13] In 2018, his photographs were used in a new biography of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page[14] and the autobiography of British-American journalist and media executive Les Hinton.[15]