Rock photographer, Haunted History founder Sidney Smith dies | Keith Spera

Sidney Smith, the New Orleans photographer who documented the Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin and different rock legends earlier than founding Haunted History Tours, died Friday of pancreatic most cancers. He was 71.

To his monumental circle of mates, Smith was as colourful and centered as any of his pictures.

He inherited his first digicam from his father, an artwork trainer at Alcee Fortier High School. In November 1970, at age 16, he snuck into Tulane University’s homecoming dance to {photograph} the Allman Brothers Band. Off and on for years, he traveled with and photographed the Allmans.

Smith recognized with Rolling Stone author Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical 2000 film “Almost Famous” about a teenage journalist traveling with a rock band in the 1970s.

“That,” Smith said in June, “was my life.”

He shot scores of rock legends at The Warehouse, the grungy brick concert venue on Tchoupitoulas Street.

In early 1975, he chronicled Paul McCartney recording the “Venus and Mars” album at Allen Toussaint’s Sea-Saint Studio in Gentilly. For an avowed Beatles fanatic comparable to Smith, it was a dream job.

He additionally snapped footage of Paul and Linda McCartney cavorting as clowns on Mardi Gras.

But throughout a celebration for McCartney aboard a Mississippi riverboat, Smith’s digicam bag was stolen. It contained most of his gear and the 40 or so rolls of movie he’d shot. Disillusioned, he largely gave up pictures for years.

Shifting gears, he based Merry Minstrels Singing Telegrams. His private specialty was “stripper-grams,” bursting into track in places of work, bars, properties and hospitals in numerous states of undress.

Realizing that he “can’t be a 70-year-old stripper, but I can be a 70-year-old tour guide,” he launched Haunted History Tours in 1995. From French Quarter ghost excursions, Haunted History expanded to cemetery, true crime, voodoo and vampire excursions. The firm, Smith mentioned, hosts over 100,000 clients yearly.

He ultimately picked up his digicam once more. In 2019, he published a book of his Allman Brothers photography. He was an early promoter of guitar prodigy Brandon “Taz” Niederauer, who’s now in Jon Batiste’s touring band.

Along the way in which, Smith was married and divorced 4 instances. After his fourth divorce, he shifted to what he described as a “Hugh Hefner” mannequin of domesticity.

“I’m extremely honest with everybody in my world,” he mentioned this summer time. “I don’t lie to anybody.”

His day-long birthday bash each May at his Broadmoor dwelling boasted stay bands, crawfish and movie star company. In current years, he issued wristbands to assist management the gang.

When he introduced his pancreatic most cancers prognosis in January, he famous that he’d beforehand crushed three different kinds of most cancers. In lieu of a birthday bash this yr, he deliberate an “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” occasion on Sept. 13. Niederauer, the Troy Turner Blues Band and the Beatles tribute band The Walrus have been scheduled to carry out.

The occasion would coincide with the publication of his memoir, “Being Sidney,” which mates satisfied him to put in writing within the wake of his prognosis.

In June, he was nonetheless optimistic about being wholesome sufficient to benefit from the occasion. But by late August, as his weight reduction accelerated and his ache elevated, his optimism light.

On Sept. 4, the Haunted History Tours common supervisor posted on Smith’s Facebook account that he’d entered full-time hospice care. The “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” occasion was canceled.

Being identified with terminal pancreatic most cancers, Smith mentioned, was not the worst tragedy he’d ever confronted. The worst was when his 42-year-old son Justin, who lived with him and struggled with psychological well being points, disappeared in June 2023.

Eventually, Smith found that Justin’s unidentified physique had been on the Orleans Parish coroner’s workplace for 25 days. He’d died of an overdose.

Angered by the delay in figuring out Justin’s physique and that it decomposed on the morgue, Smith sued coroner Dwight McKenna, alleging negligence. In July, a Civil District Court choose discovered McKenna’s workplace was chargeable for “outrageous and reckless” misconduct.

In August, Smith took the unprecedented step of securing an injunction from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill that prohibited the Orleans Parish coroner’s workplace from dealing with his personal stays.

Plans for a celebration of life are pending. His picture archive will reportedly be donated to the Historic New Orleans Collection.