Iggy Pop, Beastie Boys, Led Zeppelin: Classic Shots From Rock Photographer Lynn Goldsmith

Legendary rock photographer Lynn Goldmith's current exhibition Rock and Roll: Lynn Goldsmith is up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland through January 6th, 2008, but you don't have to hop a flight to check out some of the show's highlights: Click here to browse our gallery of shots from the exhibit, which includes bonus Goldsmith stories about Debbie Harry, the Eurythmics and more artists she has photographed across the globe. "If Debbie had not been successful as a recording artist, she would have been a star in being a makeup artist or fashion stylist," Goldsmith says, in reference to a photo of the punk icon from 1977. "Back in those days, artists did it themselves and she was the best one at it. She created looks that rock had never experienced before."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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