Dennis Morris
Dennis Morris. A man who got the breaks but used them!
Born in Jamaica but ended up in Dalston Hackney which is in East London, Dennis developed an interest from the age of nine in photography. He lucked out that the choir he was in was sponsored by Donald Paterson, a manufacturer and inventor of photographic equipment. Paterson had also set up a photography club and some of the boys, including Dennis, also got involved in that. Though not initially supported by his family – it wasn’t a working-class thing to take photos – Patterson changed their minds.
Morris then lucked out again in 1974 when aged 14 he played truant at school and took pictures of Bob Marley at his studio door when he was in London. Marley was so impressed that he invited Morris to come with him and the band on tour and Morris was off.
Inspired by his street photographer heroes, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Don McCullin, and a natural for composition, he spotted a boy (pictured above) in sunglasses standing beside graffiti for the local reggae band Black Slate.
Morris got involved with Island Records and his photographs appear on record covers including Burning Spear, U Roy, The Cimmarons, Aswad, Big Youth Bob Marley and Third World
His luck continued when doing some photo work for Virgin Records he was asked if he wanted to photograph the Sex Pistols for them as they had just signed. What followed was photos of the band recording Pretty Vacant, their promo film and their secret tour. Some great pictures including Sid Vicious smoking a reefer and the promo pics for Virgin. Some of these pictures were published in his book Rebel Rock in 1983.
Even when the band split it was Morris who accompanied Rotten and Don Letts to Jamaica and photographed them there.
On his return Morris became A&R at Island and according to him signed up Linton Kwesi Johnson and The Slits. The latter was not to work out as there were arguments between the band and Morris over direction and image resulting in Pennie Smith taking over photographic duties and the band being left with producer Dennis Bovell.
That said it was a temporary blip as Morris got involved with PIL, designing their logo, and photographs for their first album and being involved in their Metal Box concept.
If that wasn’t enough he joined Basement 5 as a singer in 1979, signed to Island, and released some great records including Last White Christmas.
A man of many talents.
TalkPunk
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