Bandstuff Interview: Eric Cato, 2025

 

Eric Cato, Photographer/Designer

Eric Cato is a photographer and visual artist of 50+ years. Originally from New York, now based in Columbia. I've always wondered where the iconic image used on the front cover of The Band's landmark live album "Rock of Ages" came from.  So I reached out to Eric and he was so kind to answer all my questions about that image, as well as his background in the industry. 

JTBS: At what age did you take interest in photography and how did you get your start?

EC: As a kid, my father was a photographer.  Both my mother and father had a number of photographer friends.  So, cameras were around frequently. So I guess that stimulated my interest. They were both very interested in and involved with the arts- painting, sculpture and photography. So there was always a lot of art around on the walls. My father was a painter and graphic designer, as well as a photographer. So when I asked for a camera around the age of 12, he let me use a camera that used a 35mm cine camera frame, which is half the size of a regular 35mm SLR.  I was 12 or so when I attended a class at the University of Long Island, Southampton (which had just opened) with a well-known visual artist/cinematographer/photographer, Val Tellberg. Don't remember much about it, but I enjoyed it. About the age of 15 or 16, my father let me use an old full-frame 35 mm with a zoom lens and a light meter. He taught me the basic technical stuff- aperture setting and shutter speeds. It's really not that complicated.  Over the years, my father Bob had taught art and photography at Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts and knew how to talk about art with young people.  So he would give me photo assignments -not actual photo work- to do on my own which we would go over and point out technical things... the stuff, and you know, that's so it kind of built from there.  I learned a lot from him. Actually, the essential part in photography is the eye and the brain. The camera is a recording device.

     

Eric's father Bob with Richard Manuel, 1983.(Photo by Richard Wall) 

JTBS: Your work is featured on the iconic cover of the "Rock of Ages" album by The Band. How did that come about, and I'd love to know where the image was taken? It seems to be of a sculpture or statue? Many inquiring Band fans, including myself, would love to know the history of this image.

EC: As for the Rock of Ages cover, my father Bob had done all of the Band's covers including the Basement Tapes with Dylan, except Big Pink.  He was friendly with Robbie- all of them- and he was very fond of Garth. As I understand, he took a carousel of slides up to Robbie's place in Woodstock. He put some of the extreme close-up 'portraits' I made of a small bronze figurine of the Buddha, from Thailand or Burma, on the carousel with the other photographers, and Robbie really liked those images of the Buddha and that's how it happened.

                                       The iconic cover photo of Rock of Ages, 1972

JTBS: You've also had other photography and/or design work featured on album art by legendary artists like Paul Anka and Miles Davis. For projects like these, did you find you were given a lot of creative freedom or were there specific ideas the artist or their representatives were looking for? Just wondering how the process works when approached for something like this.

EC: Well, the Paul Anka thing was an assignment. I did a number of assignments for Blue Note, which was a jazz label. I did some covers for London Records and those were images I had in my portfolio. I did a Seatrain LP and that was on assignment. Some UA Records assignments. I did quite a few magazine story assignments for the Saturday Evening Post.

 On the Miles thing, my father was working on an LP cover for Miles and I was in his office and I knew and liked the photograph he was using; it was a color shot of Miles in a studio on a black background wearing snakeskin pants and loose purple Indian cotton shirt, and he was sticking his tongue out and looking directly into the lens. It's quite striking. Kodachrome, super-sharp focus, irreverent, and quite unusual for that time. When I saw that Bob was cropping the image to fit the 12x12" square single LP format, I knew it would spoil the visual elements of the image that made it special. So I suggested he use the double LP format which would allow him to use the image full frame... the record company went for the extra cost and Bob gave me an associate designer credit. It was nice to be a part of creating a cover now a collector's item. There's no predictable way these things happen.

JTBS: You are originally from New York. When did you move to Columbia? How is the art scene in South America in comparison to the U.S?

EC: Born in New York, yep.  I moved to Colombia in 2012.  As for the art scene in Colombia - that's in the capital, Bogotá. I don't live in Bogotá, and there really isn't much of an art scene where I live... but there's a lot of nice graffiti so that's a plus, nice weather too.

Posters 17 (Manhatan, 2005). Working title: The Tail End, Eric Cato

JTBS: Where's the best place for folks to check out your art?  

EC: My photographic images fall in two categories: Abstract or Narrative, and occasionally a hybrid of the two. My photographs are of weathered surfaces, graffiti, random paint, or faded handbills found on walls, lampposts, and doors in the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Havana, Medellin, and other cities.

Concrete 656 (Medellin, 2013). Working title: Elvis in the House, Eric Cato

Traditionally, abstract or non-representational imagery has been the domain of painting.  My process involves photographing a surface or object that I find in the street, cropping out any reference to what it is, or its size. Through this process, it is my intention to transform what it ‘was’ into something new -an intangible realm of color, surface, shapes, mood, energy and hopefully some mystery.  I have come to believe that it is the final image- the new object, that matters. Not how it was made or whether it is a painting, a collage, or a photograph.  I strive to make large prints of these images that have ‘wall presence.' Each photographic print is made in a signed and numbered limited-edition. The prints range from medium to large in size, and are made using archival inks and paper.

The best place to see my work online is on Instagram (preferably using a tablet). @Ericvcato