The Manchester legend who captured iconic images of Joy Division, The Stone Roses, Morrissey, among others, is bringing a selection of his favourite photographs back to his hometown.
Kevin Cummins’ Manchester Reigns exhibition opens today at the Royal Exchange Theatre where he plans to display handpicked samples of his era-defining work.
The men he photographed, Ian Curtis, Morrissey, Ian Brown, Shaune and Bez, defined the sound of Manchester, and Cummins defined their image.
Kevin, 60, chatted to MM about the icons he immortalised, how he married his loves of music and photography and his beloved Manchester City.
“Everyone can take a picture but not everyone can take a photograph”, said Kevin ahead of his retrospective exhibition.
Even if they don’t know the man, the photographs he took are likely an integral part of how many music fans remember the city’s great bands.
“I didn’t go to meet these guys expecting the images to have an enduring or career-defining quality to them.”
MUCKY PUPS! Paint-drenched members of The Stone Roses (© Kevin Cummins)
Fortunately for the man who started by borrowing cameras from his college in Salford and snapping images at punk gigs, they did.
Paint-drenched members of the Stone Roses, Ian Curtis wistfully-engaged in smoking a cigarette and The Smiths frontman Morrissey perched at the riverside.
Tasked with capturing images of bands who shared the same hometown, but little in the way of style or sensibility, Kevin told MM how he adapted to each shoot.
“A large part of my job was waiting around. With The Happy Mondays I’d get onto the phone to the label and they would promise me they would all be here for 12pm.
“In the end they’d come in in ones and twos and not all be here until about 8 or 9 at night.”
“There was a big difference to how you’d approach shooting them compared to how you would approach a Morrissey.
Kevin’s interactions with the Bigmouth himself were typically Moz-esque.
“I sent him the regular 10×8 print that we did back then and in typical Morrissey style he actually wrote me a postcard asking if I could do him bigger one.
“I sent him a 20×16 but he still wasn’t happy, I think we had to end up getting one delivered in a van before he was happy with the size.
“I just had visions of him in his room with blown-up pictures of himself all around his bed.”
Tragic Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis was, according to the man who helped visually cement his image as a stoic and tormented observer of humanity, a ‘pretty normal lad’.
“Those pictures and their music probably tell you a different story to reality of a man who was isolated and liked to be alone.
CAREER DEFINING: Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis (© Kevin Cummins)
“Everyone wants to think of Ian on the back of a bus reading William Burroughs in his spare time but they were normal boys who liked football, drinking, going out and girls.
“In some of those photos where he’s sat looking forlorn the other members of the band were sat around cracking jokes and making him laugh seconds earlier.”
Kevin is currently working on a Manic Street Preachers book for publication soon, a New Order monograph and a major retrospective in Buenos Aires in March.
When asked about how the era of Twitter and Instagram affected music photography Kevin was fairly non-plussed.
“It’s changed massively. I don’t want to just say it was better in my day, it is more democratic but there are no boundaries anymore and no mystique.
“A band might have a video for a single that hasn’t even been released on YouTube yet.
“They’ll put a gig on where six people turn up and five of them are tweeting about it uploading photos, it’s harder for bands to define their own careers.”
ICONIC: The man behind the lens (© Kevin Cummins)
As well as travelling from London to his home city for exhibitions like the one at the Royal Exchange Cummins still attends every home game of his beloved Manchester City.
When MM asked him how their season so far was going he said: “Great! They’re playing the best football in the country.”
“It’s a lot more enjoyable coming up north for games than back in the day when we’d be losing to Lincoln or something and it’s take three hours to get there because the trains were dodgy.”
Kevin Cummins’ Manchester Reigns runs from January 24 to February 22 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, entry is free.
Pictures courtesy of Kevin Cummins, with thanks
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