? Listen to the Here and Now segment on this exhibit.

View photos of country music stars by Henry Horenstein

"Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music," Henry Horenstein's book and accompanying exhibit, couldn't come to New England at a more appropriate time. Interest in Boston's country and bluegrass' past has been steadily growing. Over the past two years, Club Passim in Cambridge, MA has organized workshops with living greats such as Everard Lilly, Jim Rooney, the Charles River Valley Boys, Peter Rowan, and Bill Keith. This year, the Boston Bluegrass Union's Joe Val festival focused on the same venerable artists.

In the exhibit photos, Boston resident Henry Horenstein emphasizes country music's solid place up North. Local aficionados will be pleased to see that the New England selection of pictures is as big as the Grand Old Opry's. It's a treat to see the Hillbilly Ranch, a legendary country music bar in Boston's fabled porn block, the Combat Zone, which is now gone. Satin-shirted "Hillbilly Tex," "neither a hillbilly nor from Texas" Horenstein comments, poses holding a ukulele. The anonymous "Patron" at the Hillbilly Ranch stands in for years of sailors, tattooed and Brylcreemed, who were out for the night.

In the book's preface, Horenstein states he wanted to be "a historian with a camera." And he succeeds, his photos conveying the flavor of the early 70s. Although he took plenty of star portraits, the strongest work in the exhibit focuses on scenes and surroundings. His Tootsie's Orchard Lounge pictures return again and again to detritus. "Wall behind the bar" immortalizes thick-packed clippings, chip bags, and one Canadian dollar bill (back when Canada used paper dollars).

Horenstein is probably his most valuable as a historian because he captures both sides of his subjects: Nashville and Boston, bluegrass and country, fans and famous, beehives and hippies. Set on the same wall are shots of traditionalist Joe Val and the long-haired Holy Modal Rounders. (The outdated fashions make the pictures seem more than 30 years old.)

As it turns out, the early '70s saw the last of many country music hangouts. The Grand Old Opry moved from the Ryman to a theme park outside Nashville; the Hillbilly Ranch burned down; Tootsie, founder of Tootsie's Orchard Lounge, died in 1978. Horenstein depicts the old country music "ranches," now mostly gone, although Western Massachusetts's Indian Ranch soldiers on. Conversely, the 70s saw the beginning of a number of bluegrass festivals. In both cases, the photos convey the primacy of live performance for country music fans.

Horenstein worked in sharp-textured black-and-white. In the portrait of Boston banjoist Don Stover, you can make out individual blades of grass in his backyard. Every zigzag stands out on Hillbilly Tex's herringbone pants.

There are a few conventionally attractive portraits, such as the picture of Emmylou Harris. But even though Horenstein took promotional photos for Rounder Records (none identified in the book or exhibit), most of the pictures are off-kilter, unflattering, or downright weird. That makes them all the more intriguing.

For instance, Horenstein captures most of the stars off-duty. Guitarist/singer Doc Watson sits on a couch. Dolly Parton, Minnie Pearl, Pee Wee King, and many other performers are photographed on the Opry backstage and sidelines. In "Listening to the band," the eye is drawn to where the group plays, just out of the frame.

At home, Ralph Stanley proudly shows off his mounted deer head, gun rack, and shag rug. Out of retirement and two years before his death, Charlie Monroe (Bill's brother and early band mate) looks like an ordinary grandpa. Horenstein simultaneously poses and deflates stars; in a way, it's a visual counterpart to these musicians' accessibility to fans. Tex Ritter signs autographs, his liver-spotted face a sad contrast to his smooth promo picture.

Horenstein respected his subjects, but his artistic eye was drawn to contrast. For instance, take his car fetish. Horenstein lavishes attention on background detail to such a degree that sometimes the objects take over. The bluegrass festival photos focus, obsessively, on fields and parked cars. The reunited Blue Sky Boys, practicing, are eclipsed by their Ford Torino. The rehearsal lends the moment intimacy. "Webb Pierce's Bonneville" (plates TN 1Z-547) doesn't even bother to include Pierce.

Hank Snow and Roy Acuff, legends of country music, are shot from below, which gives them dignity along with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Even a giant like Bill Monroe comes across as both monumental and uncanny. Huge and stark, he stands amidst plebeian bleachers, a dirt pile, and his tour bus, squinting into the glare.

Apart from the Monroe image, the most affecting photographs treat country music fans as something out of a Fellini film. A nearly empty Lone Star Ranch concession stand advertises "Pop Corn Snow Cone Candy Floss." Judging from his facial expression, the "Acme boots representative, sponsor of show" might be selling you your coffin. A Tootsies tip lady shoots the camera a frozen gape. "Waiting in line" interrupts a line of coat backs with one white-faced girl. These images go on and on: a father grinning sharply at his child in "Playground," a "Country music fan" whose buttons pull over her belly, a "Banjo pickin' dog."

The book ends at 1981, so "Honky Tonk" offers a fascinating glimpse at a lost world. One wonders if there's any way of getting back to that unidentified harmonica player, sitting back on a stool in Nashville's Merchant's Caf?wailing away in his paint-spattered jeans and battered hat while no one seems to notice.

? Listen to the Here and Now segment on this exhibit.

? HREF="javascript:popupSized('http://www.wbur.org/arts/photogallery/honkytonk', 685, 600,'scrollbars,resizable', 100, 50)">View a gallery of photos from the "Honky Tonk" exhibit

? "Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music, 1972-1981, by Henry Horenstein" will be on view at The Print Center in Philadelphia, PA, from July 9-August 21, 2004, and at The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC from September 10-October 22, 2004.

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