Harry Goodwin
Encyclopedia
Harry Goodwin is a British
photographer, known for his photographs of pop
musicians and sports personalities. He was the resident photographer of the BBC Television
programme
Top of the Pops
from its inception in 1964 until 1973.
, the son of a bookmaker. After being drafted into the R.A.F.
in 1943, Goodwin's initial photography experience was loading cameras in reconnaissance planes flying over Japanese Territory in Burma. When his unit moved to Kuala Lumpur
he borrowed the equipment to take photographs of the local girls to sell to his comrades. After the war ended he returned to Manchester and began taking pictures professionally on the beauty pageant and boxing circuits. His first celebrity subject was comedian Ken Dodd
. In the 1960s a job as a scene shifter at the BBC's Manchester Studios gave him the opportunity to shoot television personalities. When in 1964 the studio hosted Top of The Pops for its first 12 week run, producer
Johnny Stewart hired Goodwin to shoot the bands. He was paid ₤
30 a week and given a credit
at the end of the programme. His pictures were used as backdrops for non-appearing artists and the chart rundown. He continued until 1973, missing only six shows in that time, in the process photographing every single act that entered the Top 30 of the UK Singles Chart
, except for Frank Sinatra
and Elvis Presley
. Often he would be dispatched to get a shot of an absent act, and was known for his tenacity in gaining photo opportunities against all odds.
Goodwin first photographed The Beatles
in 1963 at The Apollo in Manchester, and went on to have a close relationship with the band. In 2007 Yoko Ono
opened a permanent exhibit of Goodwin's photographs at the John Lennon Airport
in Liverpool. The exhibit came about after the airport director chanced upon some of Goodwin's photographs on display in a Chorlton-cum-Hardy
barber's
.
Trained as a boxer as a young man, Goodwin had a lifelong affinity for sports and boxing in particular. He gained accreditation with the British Boxing Board of Control
photographing many champions including Muhammad Ali
. His photograph of Sir Matt Busby
was used for his plaque at Old Trafford
.
Goodwin has always been reluctant to sell prints and only recent retrospective exhibits have given the public the opportunity to view his work.
Several Goodwin prints are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The 1999 Icons of Pop exhibit included his photographs of Sandie Shaw
and Tom Jones
. In 2003, after John Lennon had been voted #10 (by national vote) from "one hundred Britons", a Goodwin portrait of Lennon was selected for inclusion in the NPG/BBC publication Great Britons: The great debate. The 2006 exhibit Beatles on the Balcony featured Goodwin's work.
In 2004 the Museum of Lancashire
in Preston mounted an exhibit Legends: The Photographs of Harry Goodwin. The exhibit moved to Lancaster City Museum in 2005, and returned to Preston in 2007.
In 2008, a Victoria and Albert Museum
exhibit about the costumes of The Supremes
included his photographs, as did an accompanying book. The exhibit moved to The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool
., before travelling on to Birmingham and Bristol.
In December 2009, Goodwin was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.
In 2010, the Victoria and Albert Museum mounted a major exhibit of his photographs My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock – Photographs from Top of the Pops 1964–1973, and again published an accompanying book. In October 2011, My Generation: The Glory years of British Rock was displayed for free at The Public
in West Bromwich.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
photographer, known for his photographs of pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
musicians and sports personalities. He was the resident photographer of the BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
programme
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
from its inception in 1964 until 1973.
Career
Goodwin grew up in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, the son of a bookmaker. After being drafted into the R.A.F.
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
in 1943, Goodwin's initial photography experience was loading cameras in reconnaissance planes flying over Japanese Territory in Burma. When his unit moved to Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
he borrowed the equipment to take photographs of the local girls to sell to his comrades. After the war ended he returned to Manchester and began taking pictures professionally on the beauty pageant and boxing circuits. His first celebrity subject was comedian Ken Dodd
Ken Dodd
Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE is a British comedian and singer songwriter, famous for his frizzy hair or “fluff dom” and buck teeth or “denchers”, his favourite cleaner, the feather duster and his greeting "How tickled I am!", as well as his send-off “Lots and Lots of Happiness!”...
. In the 1960s a job as a scene shifter at the BBC's Manchester Studios gave him the opportunity to shoot television personalities. When in 1964 the studio hosted Top of The Pops for its first 12 week run, producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Johnny Stewart hired Goodwin to shoot the bands. He was paid ₤
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
30 a week and given a credit
Credit (creative arts)
In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgement of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.-Credit in the arts:...
at the end of the programme. His pictures were used as backdrops for non-appearing artists and the chart rundown. He continued until 1973, missing only six shows in that time, in the process photographing every single act that entered the Top 30 of the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, except for Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. Often he would be dispatched to get a shot of an absent act, and was known for his tenacity in gaining photo opportunities against all odds.
Goodwin first photographed The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
in 1963 at The Apollo in Manchester, and went on to have a close relationship with the band. In 2007 Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
opened a permanent exhibit of Goodwin's photographs at the John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is an international airport serving the city of Liverpool and the North West of England. Formerly known as Speke Airport, RAF Speke, and Liverpool Airport the airport is located within the City of Liverpool adjacent to the estuary of the River Mersey some southeast...
in Liverpool. The exhibit came about after the airport director chanced upon some of Goodwin's photographs on display in a Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Chorlton-cum-Hardy is a suburban area of the city of Manchester, England. It is known locally as Chorlton. It is situated about four miles southwest of Manchester city centre. Pronunciation varies: and are both common....
barber's
Barber
A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....
.
Trained as a boxer as a young man, Goodwin had a lifelong affinity for sports and boxing in particular. He gained accreditation with the British Boxing Board of Control
British Boxing Board of Control
The British Boxing Board of Control is the governing body of professional boxing in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1929 from the old National Sporting Club and is headquartered in Cardiff.- Councils :...
photographing many champions including Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
. His photograph of Sir Matt Busby
Matt Busby
Sir Alexander Matthew "Matt" Busby, CBE, KCSG was a Scottish football player and manager, most noted for managing Manchester United between 1945 and 1969 and again for the second half of the 1970–1971 season...
was used for his plaque at Old Trafford
Old Trafford
Old Trafford commonly refers to two sporting arenas:* Old Trafford, home of Manchester United F.C.* Old Trafford Cricket Ground, home of Lancashire County Cricket ClubOld Trafford can also refer to:...
.
Goodwin has always been reluctant to sell prints and only recent retrospective exhibits have given the public the opportunity to view his work.
Several Goodwin prints are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The 1999 Icons of Pop exhibit included his photographs of Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw is an English pop singer, who was one of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s. In 1967 she was the first UK act to win the Eurovision Song Contest...
and Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
. In 2003, after John Lennon had been voted #10 (by national vote) from "one hundred Britons", a Goodwin portrait of Lennon was selected for inclusion in the NPG/BBC publication Great Britons: The great debate. The 2006 exhibit Beatles on the Balcony featured Goodwin's work.
In 2004 the Museum of Lancashire
Museum of Lancashire
The Museum of Lancashire is housed in an old courthouse in Preston in Lancashire, England. It is mostly a historical museum dedicated to describing life in Preston during World War II. It also displays information about the role of women during the war and that of life in the World War I trenches....
in Preston mounted an exhibit Legends: The Photographs of Harry Goodwin. The exhibit moved to Lancaster City Museum in 2005, and returned to Preston in 2007.
In 2008, a Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
exhibit about the costumes of The Supremes
The Supremes
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...
included his photographs, as did an accompanying book. The exhibit moved to The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
., before travelling on to Birmingham and Bristol.
In December 2009, Goodwin was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.
In 2010, the Victoria and Albert Museum mounted a major exhibit of his photographs My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock – Photographs from Top of the Pops 1964–1973, and again published an accompanying book. In October 2011, My Generation: The Glory years of British Rock was displayed for free at The Public
The Public, West Bromwich
The Public is a multi-purpose venue and art gallery in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England, at the forefront of a regional regeneration programme which – by late 2012 – will also bring Europe's biggest Tesco, a multiplex cinema, restaurants and a new retail centre.-Overview:The project grew out...
in West Bromwich.
Books
- The Story of The Supremes, (Daryl Easlea) V&A Publishing (2008). ISBN 978-1-85177-552-1
- My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock (w/Alywn W. Turner) V&A Publishing (2010), ISBN 978-1-85177-597-2
External links
- Harry Goodwin's website
- Video of the Lifetime Achievement Award presentation