He didn't have to cobble together a show when he decided to turn his shoe-repair shop into an art gallery.
All Greg Papazian had to do was reach into a shoe box that, for 35 years, held one-of-a-kind photographic record of Los Angeles in its rock'n'roll heyday.
He was a high schooler when he turned a visit to an Allman Brothers concert at the Sunset Strip nightclub into a gig of his own — as club photographer for the legendary hub of Los Angeles' rock scene.
A different era
“At first I would just buy a ticket and kind of ‘upgrade' to a closer spot when I got inside,'' Papazian said.
“Back then you could walk in with a giant case — nobody was searching purses. It was not like it is today. Anybody could walk in with a camera.''
On his next visit to the nightclub, he handed the person in the ticket booth three 11x14s shot at the Allman Brothers show.
“Elmer Valentine, the owner, came out as I was walking off and asked if I wanted to be the club photographer. I said yes,'' Papazian said.
Later he took his camera to Valentine's Roxy and the Palace theatres, spending years documenting the biggest names and flashiest music acts of an era that boasted of big amplifiers and even bigger hair.
At the end of each show, young Papazian would develop his 35mm Tri-X black-and-white film and make prints of the three best frames on each roll to deliver.
Then he carefully filed away the negatives in glassine sleeves. High school classmates would ask him for a print of their favourite performer or group and he would oblige.
Part-time fun
After the school day, Papazian held down a part-time job in his father's shoe-repair shop.
When the shop closed, he would hitch-hike to the Strip, where he would deliver the club's pictures and stake out a vantage point in front of the stage for the night's show.
Bands would often ask him to shoot group pictures for them at the Strip's Hyatt Hotel, where most of them stayed.
In time, punkers elbowed rockers off the Strip. Papazian became disenchanted with the punk-music scene and drifted back to his father's shop to work full-time. His 3,500 concert negatives lay forgotten in his bedroom.
Eventually, he took over operation of Eddie's Shoe and Handbag Repair. A chance encounter two years ago with high school friend Greg Mastrogiovanni sent Papazian digging through his film cache.
“He had given me some pictures — Zeppelin and Jeff Beck — and they were great. I told him he should be doing something with them because they're works of art,'' said Mastrogiovanni, a videographer.
Papazian decided the walls of his shop would make a perfect canvas for a commemoration. Customers are stunned when they learn the images on display came from their shoe repairman.
“I was very surprised when I saw these pictures,'' said patron Judith Shevin, an interior designer. “I've pointed several of my clients his way.''
In the world of sole, a new rock star is born.
Star-studded
The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Peter Frampton, Procol Harum, Rod Stewart, The Who, Mott the Hoople, Edgar Winter, Humble Pie, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Judas Priest, Chuck Berry, Deep Purple, the Bee Gees, Arlo Guthrie, Traffic, T Rex, Uriah Heep and Tina Turner — they were among the hundreds of rock stars who found themselves in front of Papazian's Nikon F lens.
