Celebrated rock photographer Henry Diltz launched a seven-date slide show tour dubbed “Behind the Lens: California Dreamin’ 2025” on Thursday night, May 8, at The Largo at The Coronet in Los Angeles, where he was introduced by longtime friend Jackson Browne.
Co-produced with Peter Blachley, who co-founded the Morrison Hotel Gallery with Diltz in 2001 (they sold it in 2023), the tour focuses on California with a side trip to Phoenix on May 13, and wraps in Santa Barbara on May 31.
For the first time, along with Diltz’s iconic stills, this special edition of “Behind the Lens” will also feature a handful of rare video clips, some dating back to 1972.
Here’s the itinerary (click on venue link for tickets):
5/8 – Los Angeles – The Largo at The Coronet
5/11 – Solana Beach – The Belly Up Tavern
5/13 – Phoenix – Musical Instrument Museum Performing Arts Center
Phase 2:
5/27 – Mill Valley – Sweetwater Music Hall
5/28 – Menlo Park – The Guild Theatre
5/30 – Grass Valley – The Center For The Arts
5/31 – Santa Barbara – The Lobero Theater
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Official photographer for the Monterey International Pop Festival and Woodstock, Laurel Canyon music scene documentarian, lensman behind hundreds of album covers, and a Grammy Trustees honoree, just for starters, Henry Diltz at age 86 is also a master storyteller, and his slide shows are legendary.
As detailed in the biography accompanying the U.S. version of his book “Unpainted Faces” (published in 2011 and now out of print), Diltz produced his first slide show in 1966, soon after he segued from Modern Folk Quartet banjo player to amateur photographer.
He picked up a used camera at a thrift store that summer and started shooting slides of his mostly not-yet-famous musician neighbors and friends in Laurel Canyon. They were comfortable with his candid picture-taking. He was one of them, what he’d later call “an accidental photographer,” not snapperazzi.
When they did get famous and needed photos, Henry already had them covered. His client roster soon came to include Buffalo Springfield, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Mamas & Papas, The Hollies, The Byrds, The Monkees, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young (solo and collectively), the Eagles (ditto), Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Frank Zappa, and hundreds if not thousands more over the decades.
As Glenn Frey famously said of Diltz’s Eagles photos: “This is not history – this is evidence!”
And behind every iconic image is a fascinating and often humorous tale.
This reporter, who introduced Diltz to Blachley at Capitol Records in 1978, spoke with both in separate conversations to get a sneak preview of the “Behind the Lens: California Dreamin’ 2025” tour.
Henry Diltz: Several years ago I did some slide show tours produced by Peter Blachley, your old Capitol buddy, and then my partner in the Morrison Hotel Gallery before we sold it. We did one with Pattie Boyd back East in 2015 and another with Mick Rock in 2019, and both were great.
Peter called me about a month ago, and said, “Henry, I’ve got a great idea: Why don’t we do a California slide show tour, and give a portion of the proceeds to the Palisades and Altadena fire victims?”
So we’re taking the show up and down the state, and donating part of the proceeds to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which helps L.A.-area musicians and music industry people affected by the fires in January.
The slide show is my life in photos, going back to the earliest days of the Buffalo Springfield, Lovin’ Spoonful, CSNY, Joni, James, Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, and more.
One of the new photos in this show is the Dan Fogelberg “Souvenirs” album cover [the photo of him with the feather]. There’s a 50th anniversary edition of the album out now, so I put that one in. There are always changes happening. It keeps evolving.
Peter has also put together a few little video segments that will come in here and there, which will be fun. Like in the middle of the slide show, suddenly, here’s a little clip with the Eagles talking about one of the covers we did. I’ve never done that before. He can tell you more about those.
The L.A. and Phoenix dates sold out immediately, and tickets are going fast for the other ones.
Stephen K. Peeples: At the Largo show in L.A., I see Jackson Browne is presenting you. The two of you have quite a history, going back 50-plus years and his first album cover.
Diltz: Yes! He’s introducing me onstage. I don’t know what he’s gonna say, but I’m sure it will be great.
Peeples: I know you prefer not to sign memorabilia, ’cause it just takes too long, but will you have autographed prints available for sale at the shows?
Diltz: Yes, I’ll be hand-signing and selling some little prints, and at a lovely discount. I’ve got 10 or 12 different ones – all the main people: Eagles, CSN, Joni, Jackson, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, James Taylor.
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Peeples: Peter, what’s different and new in this edition of “Behind the Lens”?
Peter Blachley: One big difference is that Henry and I decided to keep it in California, except for the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix. We wanted to keep it on the ground because that’s a great way to do a tour and stay within a budget.
We also haven’t toured in several years, so this is another litmus test for us to see who the audience is, how many people out there still know Henry. They certainly still know all the artists and bands he’s worked with.
Two other things are different as well. Henry told you about Jackson introducing him on our first date in Los Angeles – that’s is a great acknowledgement to Henry, who shot the photo on Jackson’s debut album in late 1971.
Also new this tour as he mentioned are some short video clips – they’re from “Under the Covers,” the video documentary Henry and I produced in the 1990s with Gary Burden, his longtime art director partner.
It was about many of the classic album covers they did, and Henry’s relationships with people like Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Don Henley and Glenn Frey from the Eagles, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash of CSN. We were able to film all these musicians and more talking about their experiences working with Henry as a photographer and with him and Gary on their album covers. [“Under the Covers” was released on CD-ROM in 1996, then DVD in 2004].
We own all that, so we’re incorporating some of those clips into the slide show for the first time. I’ve been working on that for the past month. So, in addition to Henry being there live to tell the tales behind all his great photographs, you’ll see and hear from some of the artists themselves, including a few who are sadly no longer with us.
For example, Ray Manzarek – on location at the real Morrison Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles – talks about the “Morrison Hotel” shoot. It was still standing, but not in great shape. Ray told us about the day Henry, Gary, and the band were there [December 17, 1969] and how they shot this amazing cover of them inside the lobby.
And that’s come full circle now because a fire damaged the hotel’s interior in December 2024 and the building may be torn down.
This morning I was going through the clips and added two more that just gotta be in there.
One is with Jackson and Gary Burden, where they talked about the cover for Jackson’s first album [released January 1972 on David Geffen’s Asylum label]. Jackson tells the whole story about how they ended up with that desert water bag with Henry’s photo on it and why the album was erroneously subtitled “Saturate Before Using.”
The other cool thing is rare video footage Henry and Gary shot at your Texas buddy Boyd Elder‘s famous art show in Venice in 1972. They were both Boyd supporters and helped him set up the exhibit, then invited all their musician friends from Laurel Canyon to attend a big opening event.
Peeples: Ah, yes! Henry in fact introduced me to Boyd in 1978. You’re talking about the “El Chingadero” affair on April 2, 1972, with party-goers including Jackson, Joni Mitchell, Cass Elliott, Ned Doheny, Asylum chief David Geffen, and more. Also, the first performance in front of their peers by Geffen’s new band, the Eagles (Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner).
Boyd’s friend and Chouinard Art Institute colleague Rick Griffin created the special poster for the event that’s now very rare. Graham Nash picked up the tab to mail the invites to all the guests.
The “Chingadero Show,” as Boyd called it, is a chapter in the “Boyd Elder: Artlaw” biography I’ve been working on forever. Henry graciously has provided us all the photos he took at that event, most previously unseen and unpublished.
Blachley: Yes, so many people were there before they were anybody! The Eagles – they were the house band for the party. So for Henry’s slide show, I thought a clip from that gathering would be a good prelude leading into some of his live stories about photographing Joni Mitchell.
Peeples: There’s a wild story behind that Chingadero footage. It was thought to be lost for more than 20 years…
Blachley: When we started working on “Under the Covers,” Gary had this old storage thing in his yard up off of Mulholland somewhere, and when we went in there, he found this box full of 16 millimeter black and white film.
The problem was, he didn’t know if it’d be any good because rats were in there, literally peeing on the film. So when he restored it, the film had this bizarre effect that made it look even older and more vintage, as weird as that sounds.
But Joni’s dancing, the Eagles are playing, Jackson, Mama Cass, David Geffen, all these people are there. It’s amazing, a lot of L.A. music history. And you’ll see some of that footage in the slideshow, along with Henry’s stills.
Coincidentally, Boyd’s also in another slide show clip from “Under the Covers” – from the Super 8 footage Henry took at the Eagles’ “Desperado” photo shoot [in mid-December 1972]. You’re gonna see Boyd on horseback. Of all the people you’ve ever known, that guy fits on a horse. He grew up in West Texas and looks and rides like he was born in the saddle.
Peeples: One of Henry’s favorite stories is how the Eagles and their friends, including Jackson, J.D. Souther, and band road management guys all rented cowboy outfits. Then, on the Western set at the old Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills, they re-created a bank holdup, and their blanks-blazing six-guns raised so much smoke that the local Fire Department rushed trucks to the scene thinking the set had caught fire.
Blachley: Not that many people have seen Henry’s “Desperado” footage, either. So those are a few of the video vignettes we’ll have in the show. And with Henry there to tell the stories – he’s lived them – it all adds so much authenticity and makes the experience even more special.
And the tour’s last show is gonna be doubly interesting because Hale Milgrim, another old Capitol buddy of ours [former label president/CEO] who lives in Santa Barbara, is the opening act.
Hale’s “Quips & Pixs & Flix” shows at the Lobero Theater are local favorites. He’s a delightful guy, great storyteller. So that’s gonna be a bonus for the last show.
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Stay up to date with Henry Diltz at his official website. Special thanks to Henry, Peter Blachley, and Gary Strobl.
Stephen K. Peeples is a Grammy-nominated multi-media writer-producer and award-winning radio/record-industry veteran raised in Miami and Los Angeles by career newspaper journalists and music lovers. He and Henry Diltz have been friends and occasional collaborators since 1978, when Peeples worked at Capitol Records. He introduced Diltz to Capitol colleague Peter Blachley; two decades later, in 2001, Diltz and Blachley co-founded the Morrison Hotel Gallery. Based in Santa Clarita, California, and semi-retired in April 2021 after a 46-year media career, Peeples is (as of spring 2025) developing an art book-biography, “Boyd Elder, Artlaw: The Greatest Artist You’ve Never Heard Of,” about the artist who created the skull art for three classic albums by the rock group Eagles and much more, and including dozens of previously unpublished Diltz photos (due in 2026). He is also authoring a new book celebrating the 60th anniversary in 2024-2026 of Bruce Brown’s epic surf movie “The Endless Summer” (due in spring 2026). See the “Stephen K. Peeples” page on his website. More original stories and exclusive interviews are posted there and on his YouTube channel.
Article: Henry Diltz Launches New ‘California Dreamin” Slide Show Tour May 8
Category: News and Reviews
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Article Source: stephenkpeeples.com
