Photographer shares particular connection to Paul McCartney pictures exhibit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Sir Paul McCartney is ready to take the stage at The Pinnacle Thursday evening. Beyond his beloved songwriting, there’s one other method Nashville is appreciating McCartney’s abilities. There is sort of the native tie.

You have one thing massive or one thing simply cool occurring in Nashville, there is a fairly good probability you will discover photographer Ray Di Pietro.

“I call it my never-ending photo essay,” Di Pietro mentioned. “If I die tomorrow, you’d know what’s pretty much going on in my time here.”

“I just juggle cameras like they used to back in the day,” he continued, showcasing three cameras hanging round his neck.

Di Pietro not often covers one thing so private. There’s a cause he’s near an exhibit at Frist Art Museum made up of pictures by somebody you realize.

“We’re talking about THE Sir Paul McCartney,” mentioned Seth Feman, government director and CEO of Frist Art Museum.

Feman mentioned the exhibit’s photos are taken by McCartney in 1963 and 1964, proper round when the Beatles got here to the United States. It was the beginning of the British Invasion.

“They’re getting really global attention at a whole new level,” Feman mentioned of the period captured by the photographs. “Paul is carrying around a camera and watching this happen in real time.”

There are candid moments of the opposite Beatles and glimpses behind-the-scenes of appearances that may go on to be legendary. That consists of photos taken round The Ed Sullivan Show look.

“He took these photographs in the 60s, and they basically got put away,” Feman continued. “It was only a handful of years ago that he went back into the archive and realized this was a real treasure trove and a real moment.”

Something about Di Pietro, his dad was a touring musician throughout that very same time the Beatles had their breakthrough.

“My father’s name was Ralph Di Pietro,” he continued. “He was a guitar player and singer. That band was Joey and the Showmen, and they were the orchestra of Johnny Hallyday, who was a French superstar.”

It simply so occurs, on this exhibit of images taken by McCartney in 1963 and 1964, there is a image of Di Pietro’s dad.

“Why the Beatles interacted with Johnny Hallyday and Joey and the Showmen, they were both playing the Olympia Theater in Paris,” Di Pietro defined. “Paul McCartney must have been hanging out or talking to them, and he got that photograph which looks like a jazz album cover. It’s quite remarkable.”

Di Pietro has recognized about this {photograph} for a number of years. He first noticed it in McCartney’s ebook of pictures, 1964: Eyes of the Storm.

“There’s my father, and I just gasped, and I felt like my heart almost stopped,” Di Pietro remembered. “I was shocked.”

“He passed away eleven years ago on Monday, today would have been his funeral,” Di Pietro mentioned of his father. “He would have gotten the biggest kick out of this. I know he loved that period of his life as a 20-year-old, 21-year-old. For it to come into town, and I get to visit my dad is an honor, and it’s very special.”

The Frist exhibit, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, is right here by way of January 26.

Do you might have extra a constructive, excellent news story? You can e-mail me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.