Alumni Gazette: Tony Levin ’68E

SHOCKING: Levin shot this picture of himself (left foreground) and popular music icon Peter Gabriel (right foreground),during a performance of Gabriel’s hit “Shock the Monkey." The set up involved a squeeze ball, a foot pedal, and a camera mounted on a tripod. (Photograph: Courtesy of Tony Levin)

Tony Levin ’68E is among the most acclaimed bass players in popular music, a virtuoso on the electric as well as the upright bass, and on the Chapman Stick, a 10-stringed instrument played with both hands and ideal for complex arrangements.

In a typical year, he’s on the road nine or ten months, touring with a range of acts that have included the Levin Brothers—with his older brother, keyboardist Pete Levin—the Stick Men, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, and Sting.

But COVID-19 brought his roving lifestyle to an abrupt and lengthy pause. Homebound in the Hudson Valley, he took on the ambitious task of reviewing tens of thousands of photographs he has taken from nearly a half century of touring.

Compiling a selection of those images into a coffee-table book was a project that Levin, who has enjoyed photography ever since he was a kid growing up outside Boston, had envisioned for years. But he wouldn’t be able to pull it off as long as he was touring. “It would just take so much time," he says. “And that’s exactly what I had in 2020."

Over six months, he winnowed his collection of images down to the 240 that appear in his self-published soft-cover photo book Images from a Life on the Road.

How did you come to a life on the road?

I went to the Eastman School planning on becoming a classical musician. However, I changed paths and quickly learned that if you want to play other genres of music—if you really love that music and want to play it as your life’s work—then you’re going to have to travel and play concerts around the world. That’s what I embarked on doing in the late ’60s when I left Eastman.

What has inspired you to document your life on the road in pictures?

I was always interested in taking pictures of what’s going on around me, and on the road, there are some special moments. If you can capture them, they lead to an understanding of what it’s really like out there.

How would you describe in words what it’s like?

It’s not for everybody, but it’s very gratifying. You get to do what you love—for about two or three hours a day. And I will continue to do it as long as my health allows, because of those few hours of sharing really special music with an audience.

The rest of the time—I’m laughing as I say this—is spent getting you to the place and getting set up. It’s extraordinary how much that experience varies.

There’s the van tour, the bus tour, the plane tour, and for the last few Peter Gabriel tours I’ve done, there’s a private plane tour. Surprisingly, they’re all satisfying. You would think the better hotels make for a happier person. But as long as the music is good, and the group gets along well together, we’re happy.

You’re the photographer even when you’re in the photo. How do you get those shots?

In the ’80s, when I was touring with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, I started setting up a tripod on stage, with a camera attached to a foot pedal among the foot pedals I have for my bass. And I was able to use that to surreptitiously take pictures. With Peter Gabriel, especially, there’s a lot of choreography in the show. A lot of jumping and dancing. And I would give some thought before the show to how I could capture that.

The “Shock the Monkey" image—it was quite a challenge to get that picture because we all sing and jump every time Peter sings the word “shock." And what I did is pick up a squeeze ball, which you can see in the picture if you really know where to look. I picked up the squeeze ball and as I jumped and played and sang, I squeezed the ball and captured a picture. And of the maybe 500 times I took it, two or three came out OK.

How did you manage being homebound for 15 straight months?

I can’t complain. I do tour a lot. But I also record a lot, both of my own music and plenty of tracks for other people. I was able to do ones that I usually wouldn’t or would have had to postpone. I could say, “I’m home in my studio, send the track and I’ll play on it."

And, of course, I tackled the photo book. I began it in June and finished in December. I went through tens of thousands of pictures, laid them out to see which went together and which deserved to be in the book. The first week of that was fun, but after that I thought, “What am I taking on here?"

But you’re returning to touring.

Yes, a typical year for me. It’ll get to be normal for me again—I hope.