David Gahr was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 photographer. He was one of "the pre-eminent photographers of American folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 musicians of the 1960s and beyond." (Bruce Weber

Bruce Weber (photographer)

Bruce Weber is an American fashion photographer and occasional filmmaker. He is most widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Pirelli, Abercrombie & Fitch, Revlon, and Gianni Versace, as well as his work for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Elle, Life, Interview, and Rolling Stone...

, The New York Times, May 29, 2008).

His photographic output includes more than five decades of musicians like Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

, Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

, Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

, Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

, John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

, and Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, among others. He published a book, "The Face of Folk Music" (Citadel Press, 1968) with writer Robert Shelton that captured the exploding American Folk music scene

American folk music revival

The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...

, with hundreds of images including Dylan, Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins

Judy Collins

Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...

, Tom Paxton

Tom Paxton

Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...

, Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

, Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

, Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

 and Junior Wells

Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...

, Mary Travers

Mary Travers (singer)

Mary Allin Travers was an American singer-songwriter and member of the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel Stookey...

, and Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, among others.

Dozens of Wikipedia pages include reference to Gahr's photographs, like those of The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, His Band and the Street Choir

His Band and the Street Choir

His Band and the Street Choir is the fourth solo album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released on 15 November 1970 by Warner Bros. Records. Originally titled Virgo's Fool, Street Choir was renamed by Warner Bros. without Morrison's consent...

, Love, God, Murder, The Fugs First Album

The Fugs First Album

The Fugs First Album is the 1965 debut album by The Fugs, described in their All Music profile as "arguably the first underground rock group of all time". In 1966, the album charted #142 on Billboard's "Top Pop Albums" chart...

, Doc Watson and Son

Doc Watson and Son

Doc Watson & Son is the title of a recording by Doc Watson and Merle Watson, released in 1965. It was their debut album together.-Reception:Writing for Allmusic, music critic Jim Smith wrote the album ".....

, Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City

Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City

Doc Watson at Gerde's Folk City is the title of live recordings by American folk music and country blues artist Doc Watson, released in 2001. The recordings are of Watson's first solo public performances, recorded in 1962 and 1963 at Gerde's Folk City. The tracks were never released prior to...

, Stages: The Lost Album

Stages: The Lost Album

Stages is an album by Folk rock musician Eric Andersen. The album was recorded in late 1972 and into early 1973, as the intended followup to Andersen's successful Blue River album, but before it could be released, the master tapes were somehow lost in the Columbia vaults. It wasn't until 1990 that...

, The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble is a compilation album of material by Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble released in 2002 . The album was released by Epic Records and includes songs from 1980 to 1990 including several live tracks on two discs...

, and others.

He leaves behind a son and his beloved daughter, Carla Gahr (who is also a NYC-based photographer and who, with her Dad, managed the David Gahr photography studio and archives)