{"id":131218,"date":"2025-11-09T23:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T23:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/131218\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T23:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T23:35:15","slug":"how-one-photographer-got-access-to-1960s-rock-royalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/131218\/","title":{"rendered":"How one photographer got access to 1960s rock royalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young Mick Jagger poses for a portrait in 1965. The photo, which shows Jagger behind his own silhouette, is the cover of Bent Rej\u2019s new photo book \u201cMusik.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was June 1964, at the height of Beatlemania.<\/p>\n

The English rock band was launching its first world tour \u2014 a pivotal moment in music history \u2014 and young photographer Bent Rej<\/a> was there to capture the hysteria.<\/p>\n

Rej started at the Copenhagen Airport in Denmark, where the band was welcomed by hundreds of teenage fans. He attended both of the band\u2019s concerts that night at the K.B. Hallen arena. But one of his most memorable Beatles photos came after the shows, as the band was being rushed away from the arena to its hotel.<\/p>\n

As the Fab Four entered a limousine \u2014 well, Fab Three as drummer Ringo Starr was out sick \u2014 Rej was waiting nearby.<\/p>\n

He reached his camera through the window of the front door and snapped the shutter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A peek inside the Beatles\u2019 limo on the first stop of their world tour in 1964. From right are John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. Ringo Starr was sick and couldn\u2019t make the trip.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Beatles fans show their love for the band as it begins its world tour in Copenhagen, Denmark, in June 1964. Hundreds greeted them at the airport before they performed that night.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t McCartney and Lennon sing together at one of the two shows in Copenhagen. They opened with \u201cI Want to Hold Your Hand\u201d and ended with covers of \u201cTwist and Shout\u201d and \u201cLong Tall Sally.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a bold move by the 24-year-old Dane, and the start of a brief but prolific stretch where he would go on to photograph many of the era\u2019s most influential musicians.<\/p>\n

For the next few years, Rej was able to get access to beloved artists \u2014 legends such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. He would photograph them both on stage and behind the scenes as they visited his country.<\/p>\n

More than 200 of Rej\u2019s photos, some of them rarely seen by the public, can be found in his new book, \u201cMusik: The 1960s Photographs.\u201d<\/a> The coffee-table book, made in the dimensions of a record album, comes nearly 10 years after his death in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur father didn\u2019t really talk much about that time,\u201d said Ny Rej, one of his two daughters. \u201cIt was just him being at the right spot, at the right place, at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t Bent Rej later photographed the Beatles in the summer of 1965, when they were shooting scenes for the movie \u201cHelp!\u201d in London.<\/p>\n

After the Beatles concerts in Copenhagen, Bent signed a contract with the English magazine Fabulous to photograph British groups visiting Scandinavia.<\/p>\n

His first major assignment was covering The Rolling Stones, who arrived in Copenhagen in April 1965. He was invited to an afterparty at their hotel, where they booked an entire floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not take pictures during the nightly parties, and I think they noticed that,\u201d the photographer says in the book. \u201cIt was just an unspoken agreement; it felt natural to put away the camera at some point. As a result, I gained their confidence \u2014 something that would prove useful on many later occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He became good friends with one of the band\u2019s founding members, Brian Jones, and would later visit the individual band members at their homes for an exclusive portrait series.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones\u2019 Keith Richards plays the piano in 1965.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones is photographed at his home in London in 1965.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts sits at his dining room table as part of Rej\u2019s photo series At Home with the Stones.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jagger poses at his home in London in 1965.<\/p>\n

Bent\u2019s reputation began to grow in the industry, and it wasn\u2019t long before stars and their managers began to seek him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not always Bent who approached the musicians. Sometimes it was the other way around, as was the case with Tom Jones and also The Who,\u201d his wife, Inge, recalls in the book. \u201cThe managers knew that he was a good photographer and contacted him with jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the shoot for Tom Jones\u2019 album cover, Bent went out and rented a white horse for him to pose on. Bent also had to go buy safety pins during the shoot because Tom busted the zipper of his pants. He became a friend, and we spent a lot of time with him when he was in Denmark. He was such a pleasant, unpretentious guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix poses for a portrait while in Copenhagen in 1967. Rej at the time had pretty much stopped with music photography, but the Animals\u2019 bass player, Chas Chandler, tipped him off about the emerging talent from Seattle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Kinks fool around on a street sign in Copenhagen in 1965.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t While in Denmark in 1966, Bob Dylan set out to visit Kronborg Castle, the setting of the Shakespeare\u2019s tragedy \u201cHamlet.\u201d Rej accompanied Dylan on his walk to the castle.<\/p>\n

Bent\u2019s portfolio continued to grow as he photographed more iconic stars from that time: Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just as young as they were, and a little bit crazy, too, I think,\u201d Ny Rej said of her father. \u201cMaybe that functions well with rising young rock stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe it also helped that he wasn\u2019t a big music fan, according to his daughter. He wasn\u2019t intimidated by their celebrity status.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo my dad, whether it\u2019s someone from The Rolling Stones or a neighbor down the street, it\u2019s the same thing to him. He was never starstruck,\u201d Ny said.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t Legendary rocker Chuck Berry plays in Copenhagen in 1965.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t Looking up at The Who at the beginning of their career. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones urged Rej to check out the new act when he was in England.<\/p>\n

For several years, Bent had a backstage pass at such a critical time in rock music.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t stay for long, though. By November 1966, just a couple of years after he photographed the Beatles, Bent turned to fashion and opened a shop in Copenhagen. His career in music photography would soon be finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe says it stopped when he got a drink that was spiked with some LSD,\u201d Ny said. \u201cHe was very much affected by that. This happened in London. He had two young girls, my sister and I, back home in Denmark. And maybe he got kind of a wake-up call to know that this was not for him. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he could have made a great career in that direction, but maybe it didn\u2019t interest him. If he had been crazy about music, maybe he would have stayed with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t The Who pose for a snowy portrait in Switzerland in 1966.<\/p>\n

During the \u201970s, Bent also bought a farm and got into breeding cattle, Ny said. He later got into the advertising business.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a very good advertising photographer because he could make anything happen, almost no limits,\u201d Ny said. \u201cTo him, everything was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

His last photos of The Rolling Stones were taken in 1970, and he never returned to music photography outside of an album cover he shot for an old friend, Peter Belli, in 1980.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not until many, many years later that some of his friends told him, you know, I think you have an archive that could be really substantial from that period of time. Why don\u2019t you look into that as a business idea?\u201d Ny said.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t The Rolling Stones appear together for a photo shoot in Copenhagen in 1970.<\/p>\n

Bent died January 14, 2016, at the age of 75. His daughters, Ny and Mumle, have been carrying on their father\u2019s legacy, exhibiting his work and sharing it with the world.<\/p>\n

Ny remembers her father as a modest, hard-working man who didn\u2019t like to talk about himself. Even late in life, he didn\u2019t brag about his work or the time he spent with music royalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur children, almost grown at the time before he passed, also tried to talk to him about it. He never talked about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for us, his pictures speak volumes.<\/p>\n

\t \"\/\"\/<\/p>\n

\t Dylan performs in Copenhagen in 1966.<\/p>\n

Bent Rej\u2019s book \u201cMusik: The 1960s Photographs\u201d<\/a> was published by Chronicle Books and is available now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young Mick Jagger poses for a portrait in 1965. The photo, which shows Jagger behind his own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-131218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}