About PJay Plutzer
From seeing Ray Charles and The Supremes in the 1960s with my Mom to seeing shows at both the Fillmore East and West with my brother, music ran in my family long before I became a “Prisoner of Rock and Roll."
Whether on assignment, as a freelancer, or from my own seat, I began to photograph bands in the ‘70s. I started in and around New York City, then moved to Boston, where I studied photography at the Art Institute of Boston, and then in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live today.
My photographs have appeared in books about Bruce Springsteen, including ‘For You, The Light in Darkness’ by Lawrence Kirsch and ‘Down Thunder Road’ by Marc Eliot, and as images licensed for T-Shirts for official Bruce Springsteen Merchandise by Live Nation Merchandising/Merch Traffic available. The Live Archives, available from NUGS.net and Bruce Springsteen.net have selected my photos for seven cover images in Springsteen's Live Archives music series. And several of my photos appear in the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music exhibit “Bruce Springsteen Live!”, which toured Grammy Museums around the U.S..
In addition to assignments from record companies and freelance work for WCOZ radio in Boston, my photos appeared in several print publications, including The Boston Herald American, Rock Around the World, Rock Scene, and Circus Magazine. I have been a contributing photographer to Backstreets Magazine since 1995. I also did work for Dee Anthony’s Bandana Enterprises, which managed Peter Frampton, Gary Wright, Ten Years After, J. Geils Band, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
Origins of the “Prisoner of Rock and Roll”
It’s March 25th, 1977, and I’m rockin’ at a Bruce Springsteen concert during the final show of his Lawsuit tour, ending a four-day run at the Boston Music Hall. The band is playing the first encore, “Quarter to Three”. At the end of the song Bruce stops the song and shouts “I’m just a Prisoner….of Rock and Roll!!!” with the band then hitting the final crescendo of the song. That declaration hit me. I understood it and felt it and I realized that I have identified with that proclamation as far back as my early years.
Music, and especially Rock and Roll, has been a part of my soul since the first time I saw The Beatles and the Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan show. Watching bands on American Bandstand and Shindig. My mother had taken me to see The Supremes and Ray Charles in the 60’s, but rock and roll really took hold of me when I was a teenager in 1969 when my brother would play the first Led Zeppelin album, Bob Dylan, The Band, CSN, Janis Joplin, The Young Rascals, Eric Clapton, The Who, CCR, Sly and the Family Stone, The Byrds and so much more on his turntable. He opened up my world to loving music. When my brother took me to my first rock and roll concert at the Fillmore East in 1970 to see Ten Years After, I was forever hooked on live music. My brother’s friend, Joe Bravo was a photographer at that time and took incredible concert photos of so many bands. When I saw his work, I wanted to be a rock photographer and capture the magic of rock and roll concerts. I wanted to capture the action and excitement of a live show. I started taking concert photos when I was in High School in the 70’s and that was the beginning of my collection of classic rock and roll photos.
So many years later, with my “classic” rock and roll photographs appearing in magazines and books, On Springsteen Live Archives CD covers and even in the Springsteen Live traveling exhibit, I decided to have my website, “Prisoner of Rock and Roll Photos” designed to showcase my work through those years I spent in so many clubs, concert halls and arenas.
In the years after I decided to stop taking concert photos, my photographic eye moved to my enjoyment of taking travel photographs of landscapes, nature and cityscapes from all over the world, which are also featured on this website.
Travel Photography - Los Angeles