Designer and musician Lee Everett says he has always been involved with cameras to some degree. His dad was a photographer. Everett did not want to be one himself, growing up. Anybody could take a picture, he thought.
He had taken pictures since he was young. His dad even made him help with weddings. Everett learned his commercial art in college. He began by studying photography at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“I wanted to be a fine artist,†he said. “Drawing and painting are one of my true loves.†But “you don’t necessarily want to sell drawings,†he added later. “It would be like selling your kids.â€
After first year at Pratt, his advisor suggested he study advertising design and visual communications. He took the advice and signed up, though he still took electives in painting, printmaking, and drawing. After he graduated, he tried working for an agency in the city; he hated it, and moved here.
Everett had a Pittsfield studio for awhile. He did freelance work. He designed logos, including the heart and flame logo for Alice’s Restaurant, ads for Arlo Guthrie, signs for local stores, magazines, packaging like the boxes for Nejaimes’ Lavasch, CD packages, and videos. He got work by word of mouth.
He also became the unofficial official photographer at the Music Inn, before it reopened in the ‘70s. This was a wonderful venue, he said, across from Tanglewood, where White Pines is now. Stephanie Barber started the Music Inn in the ‘50s as a jazz place. “It gave the musicians credence,†he said; “it got them out of smoky bars.â€
The Inn ran a school, like the Tanglewood Music School. All of the major jazz performers played there: the Modern Jazz Quartet, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Thelonious Monk. Dave Brubeck taught at the school. They recorded albums there.
It became a hot place to go, Everett said. It had an outdoor theatre, and a club called the Potting Shed. It died out — he did not know why. In the ‘60s, it came to life again as a pop concert place, and in the early ‘70s it reopened a third time with new stars: James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal and other contemporary musicians. Then it got a new producer who tried to bring in heavy metal bands, and the town shut it down.
When National Music Center came to Lenox, Everett said, he thought it would be like the old Music Inn. It had two theaters that were great to play, and it attracted a range of performers, from Wynton Marsalis to Sonny Rollins to the Bobs’ comic a capella. He was staff photographer and designer there, and had a studio on the grounds.
Everett started his current company, Fine Line, 30 years ago, about the same time he opened Glad Rags. He had done costuming and bought antique clothing for a store in New York, he explained. When he moved, the owner suggested he start his own place. He was already renting a commercial building. Glad Rags started with vintage clothing, antiques, and handmade clothing, crafts and jewelry. It has evolved over the last 30 years. His wife runs the business now, he said. He just does the advertising.
When he left the Music Foundation, he bought the building Glad Rags lived in, and built his own studio in the yellow barn/garage behind it. It made life easier, he said, containing all his businesses in one place. His studio now has a sound room, a collection of marimbas, drums, standing bass and percussion instruments, sound and video recording and editing equipment, a photography studio, computer and design tools.
Everett said he may run drawing classes there this spring. People recommend him to each other. He has kept some clients for years, and had success with new ones. Sheffield Pottery, which has mined its own clay for 56 years, and sells ceramics and ceramics tools, kilns, wheels, glazes, and clays, hired him a year ago to look at their ads and work with their catalog.
They did a lot of advertising before they got in touch with Everett, but the ads were just type and logo, he said. They ran the same ad all the time, and it was not interesting unless the brand names had appeal. He told them they needed a visual image people could relate to.
Everett took thousands of pictures of pottery for the Sheffield Pottery ads and catalog and invented a retail logo separate from their industrial logo. Their business increased 25 percent. In a year where everyone was down 25 percent, he said, he felt that was a very good showing. He also did cooperative ads for them with kiln manufacturers, and a TV ad. Because he knows different mediums, he said, it was easier to talk to people that worked in them. Most of these media he studied in school, so he could work in them when asked. Video did not exist when he was in college, but he studied film editing, which was related.
His best known video production came from Tanglewood. Everett taped the concert when Mi Dori, a 14-year-old violinist, soloed with Leonard Bernstein. She broke two strings, and swapped violins twice with other performers, to get through her solo. Everett had the only video footage of the performance, and it went everywhere, he said. ABC sent a helicopter to get it in time for the evening news.
He has also done video work for Berkshire Hills Conferences and industrial video for Fox Fisher, the Crane Paper Company and others. He has made performance videos and a special piece on Seiji Ozawa for his 25th anniversary at Tanglewood.
In other venues, Everett performs, himself. He has played in a local band, Tamboura, for 12 or 13 years now. Tamboura plays Caribbean folk rock blues, jazz, reggae and soca, he said: a mix of danceable, percussive, upbeat music. They did reggae covers of Rolling Stones tunes, Jimmy Buffet, Joni Mitchell, and Men at Work, and originals, and Caribbean music. Everett said he had always loved reggae and played percussion. He was a singer at heart; he played percussion so he had something to do with his hands.
David Reed, the founder and leader of the band, played trumpet, banjo and guitar, Everett said. He often sang lead, Everett said, though other performers were beginning to trade off with him. He had performed his own solo work for many years, and still did. He began playing with friends, and the band built up.
Tamboura has had as many as seven performers, Everett said. There are five in the group now: Sam Earnshaw, the drummer; Dan Broad, the bass player; and Mary Knysh, who grew up on the islands, and played flute, steel drum, and mandolin. Everett played hand percussion: marimbas and bells and shakers and tambourines. He also played African, Indian and Latin drums, but less often, since the band had another drummer. His rattles and bells gave texture to the music, he said. He, Knysh and Broad also sang.
Tamboura recorded an album live at the Lion’s Den with the seven-player band. The album had sold out, Everett said, but for a handful of cassette tapes. The group was hoping to reprint it, and they were working on a new album. Charlie Tokarz sat in for the recording of the first one. In one solo, he played two horns at once; “it sounds like a horn section,†Everett said. An accordionist from the Cowboy Jubilees joined them, and Rick Tiven on violin, and several local back-up singers.
Everett has also kept up with his own photography. In 2000 an 2001, he mounted an exhibit: “30 Years of Music in Massachusetts,†from his collection of performance photography. He started taking these photographs backstage at the Music Inn, he said. He had 30 years’ worth of files. He had never really printed most of them. Someone found out about a grant for a photography exhibition and convinced him to apply, and he got the funding. He spent a year going through files to select 45 prints, to show the diversity of performers in the Berkshires.
The exhibit has shown since in Easthampton, at the Williston Northampton School, also at Kimball Farms and at the ArloZone, when Arlo Guthrie owned his place on North Street in Pittsfield. In fact, Everett built a galley in that space for his pictures. They may show at Canyon Ranch this summer.
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Berkshire Food Project Closed for Power Issues
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshire Food Project is closed Monday because of a power outage early in the morning.
"We are unable to get proper electricity and heat to the building," according to Executive Director Matthew Alcombright. "We hope that this can be resolved and be open tomorrow."
The project does have some sandwiches and frozen meals that will be distributed at the entry.
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