Photo exhibition of black music legends in Birmingham

Mar 20 2009 by Richard McComb, Birmingham Post

Photographer Pogus Ceasar gives Richard McComb a tour of black music in Birmingham over the past 25 years

The colour scheme is stark, unyielding, the white studio space flooded with sunlight from the overhead windows on this early spring morning.

Black and white photographs, framed in black, hang from the walls. There are no fancy, bawdy colour flourishes here. Welcome to the monochrome world of photographer Pogus Caesar.

When I walk into the room – actually, there are two – there is no one else about. But I am not alone, far from it. Similarly there is no sound, no audible chatter. And yet the place is ringing with voices, thumping with drums and bass, buzzing with a cacophony of rhythm and melody, roaring with visceral pleasure.

It is said every picture tells a story but in the case of the 37 images displayed inside Fazeley Studios, Digbeth, they also sing a song. The pictures capture some of the biggest global stars of soul music, R & B and reggae, many of them taken during performances and visits to Birmingham. The collection represents an unrivalled record of the city’s black music experience of the past 25 years. Birmingham may never rival Detroit’s Sweet Sound of Motown, or Kingston, Jamaica, but the city has given a stage to their legendary sons and daughters.

The pictures spark different associations for each individual visitor to the show, titled Muzik Kinda Sweet. Looking at some of them, it is hard not to hear an act’s trademark hit playing in your head. The eye is caught by rapper MC Hammer, wiggling in those ridiculous sequined balloon pants, during a show at the NEC. I defy you not to hear: “Can’t touch this.” Jazzie B, of Soul II Soul fame, is kicking back at Pebble Mill studios in 1999, giving the peace sign: “Back to life, back to reality...”

There are funkmeisters Cameo, codpieces and all, strutting at the Odeon Cinema in 1986. You can almost hear singer Larry Blackmon yowl: “Come on baby tell me what’s the word. Word up!”

Some of the stars have been around so long it’s difficult to generalise. What do you hear when you look at Pogus’s image of Lionel Richie, caught looking slightly bemused at a local radio station stand at Cannon Hill Park? It probably depends on your age. If you’re unlucky, the saccharine mush of Hello (and that video) will infuriate your senses. If the sweet gods of soul are looking down, you’ll hear Easy or Sail On.

“Every picture sings,” says Pogus. “When I look at them, I hear songs. I like to think that everyone who comes in here has a memory of the artist they are looking at.”

Pogus, who was born in St Kitts but grew up in Birmingham, has had a varied career in presenting on television as well as producing and directing, focusing on black culture and music in particular. His work, and reputation, has given him access to the big names featured in Muzik Kinda Sweet (the title is a play on the language of his West Indian heritage).

The most recent photo in the show, taken of Grace Jones straddling a fan’s shoulders, his head nestling between her thighs, was taken from the front stalls at Symphony Hall. Like all of Pogus’s work, it was taken with his trusted Canon Sure Shot Auto Focus, yours for less than 20 quid on eBay although Pogus reckons he paid about £7.

Viewed by some as a photographic dinosaur, Pogus adores his Sure Shot. There is no digital jiggery-pokery, no image manipulation, no lipstick and blusher courtesy of Photoshop. Pogus’s style – Think & Feel, Point & Shoot – has become second nature.

The Grace Jones image, taken in January this year during her Hurricane tour, shows other fans trying to snap the singer on their phone cameras but it is Pogus’ robust “old-school” lens to which she is drawn, glowering like an exotic cat, all teeth and defiance.

“She’s looking straight into my camera lens,” says Pogus as he walks me round the show. “My pictures aren’t airbrushed. You can get spots and pimples and scars.”

Pogus’s love of photography and his fascination with performers can be traced back to his childhood in Sparkbrook, when he fell under the spell of music. His parents listened to Jim Reeves, Ella Fitzgerald and Sam Cooke on their Ferguson radiogram.

Pogus recalls: “They would play the tunes every Sunday. As soon as they were out of