Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Pictures Worth A Million Words

Jim McGuire just might be one of the finest portrait photographers in the business. The proof is in Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts, where many of McGuire's best-known portraits of Country performers are on display through Sept. 9. Yet McGuire - until recently, at least - often waved off this sort of praise, demurring that he began taking these pictures "just for fun."
"I've grown up with Country Music," he said. "I've always been a fan. I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can still remember the smell of the room I was standing in when I first heard Hank Snow sing 'Spanish Fireball.' I was a 12-year-old Boy Scout when I fell under the spell of his hypnotic guitar rhythms and that velvety voice coming out of that ratty loudspeaker. And just as he wrote 'I played the part and gave my heart to that Spanish fireball,' my love of Country Music started that day and has never left."

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