“Memphis Blues: Photographs by Ernest C. Withers?

Friday, 11 January 2008 03:04

Allentown, PA - Ernest C. Withers, a practicing photographer for over 60 years, lived and worked in Memphis, Tennessee. A perhaps unwitting historian, Withers, who passed away on October 15, 2007, made a living shooting community events and selling photos to news agencies, telling American stories through the lens of the camera.  He captured in black and white key moments in the Civil Rights movement, the life and death of the Negro Baseball League and the black social life of the city. He also documented the vibrant Beale Street music scene that grew out of the city’s black culture and influenced a generation of white musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis, who helped to bring the Memphis sound to the attention of the nation.
 
This exhibition features Withers’ photographs from this classic period in American music. The works provide an insider’s view of the clubs on Beale Street at the point when Americans, white and black, were beginning to recognize Memphis as a musical Mecca.  He photographed hundreds of the great musical performers who performed on Beale Street stages, many of whom he knew well. B. B. King, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown and a host of others were captured in his camera’s eye. His photographs reveal the musicians’ spirit and talent as well as the regional flavor of an important place in time. Withers’ powerful images validate the message he had printed on his business card: “Pictures tell the story.”
 
On exhibition February 10–April 27, 2008 at the Allentown Art Museum.
 
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The Museum's collection of more than 13,000 works of art offers our regional community the opportunity to experience more than nearly 2,000 years of cultural heritage, in an accessible and visitor-friendly environment. Visit : www.allentownartmuseum.org/