Grand Ole Opry

This gallery of in-and-outlaws was shot in '87.

I'd rustled together 20 rounds of 664 (Polaroid) and a beaten-up Mamiya Universal. At the time I thought nothing of the shots and laid them to rest. Like a case of Jack they've matured. These photographs weren't taken in a bar in Tennessee or an outpost of the Wild Frontier. They were captured in the Grand Ole Opry - the wild West -


West of Scotland!

  At the time the talk going around in the salons of Edinburgh was of gunslinging Weegies high on Heavy, ready to lynch the first Sassenach who dared put a foot over the boundary line. It sounded too good to be true. "Govan Gavin?!" was the baffled response to my invitation, apparently to a suicide ball. No one would come for the ride so I went on my lonesome.

I was welcomed with open-arms and over the winter of '87 I kept returning for a reality check-up.

Laredo gunslinger

  A stratified cloud of gun-powder and cigarette smoke hung over-head. Gunslingers danced as they slapped the burning embers on their thighs (in the race to beat their opponent they would often prematurely shoot-off before withdrawing from the holster). These urban cowboys were dedicated to detail - the get-up was got right. Who was going to argue with how they chose to escape? They had conviction, and six-shooters.

The Wanted posters had questions that needed answers. Where were the old-timers? What became of 'Jo Horner', 'Country Joe', 'Curly Bill', 'Bounty Hunter' and 'Cimarron'? Would I find ghosts where once stood a funeral parlour or would the image of bonhomie still play on in the former Picture House?

Kid Kamikaze and Cowboy Alec.

I deputised Kid Kamikaze who rode shotgun. The Kid was gonna cover me, armed with his pink compact and sharp eye. The fist-full of Polaroids was my passport to a magnanimous home coming.

Times have inevitably changed; there are too few cowboys and too many plucking hen parties. There's still a live band, bingo, line-dancing and gun-slinging (all for a fiver). Gone is the nicotine soused velvet curtain that hung like human fly-paper. The vista has been transformed by a prairie-panorama courtesy of STV's lawman - Taggart. Pretzels and cans of Red 'Sitting' Bull are a sobering change from the days of heavy and hard liquor. The memory of the old days still lingers in the air - the gunslinger's sulphur and salt peter making a last stand against the tobacco ban on the senses.

Outlaw (left) and Big Hoss (deceased).

Everyone gasped as I turned the shots. 'Deceased' was the word most used to describe the subjects.

John 'Kid Curry' McGhee (deceased).

John 'Cheyenne' Johnson (deceased) had attained legendary status before taking his life and with him the glory days.

Gambler (above) was run out of town after running-up bad debts.

John 'BJ' Duff (left) and John 'Doc Holliday' McCafferty (deceased). Blind DJ BJ has moved over, the new kid-on-the-decks is mos deaf DJ Rowdy Yates below.

DJ Rowdy Yates

Ian and Michelle (above) were on a roll. Michelle hit the bingo jackpot- a hundred pounds. Her and fiancé Ian (left) couldn't contain their joy- or their love for one another. Now they didn't have to worry about the taxi bill home - priceless moments.

The last of the die-hards was Archie 'Joe Horner' Buxton (above). It was unanimously agreed that Archie confounded convention, proving that looks could improve with age and tooth-loss! 

There are no pretensions here, just an honest celebration of culture and kinship. The spirit the of the Grand Ole Opry lives on...

 Thanks to all the kind folk of Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry, especially: JK, Big Bad John, Joe Horner, Cowboy Alec, Line Dancer, Bounty Hunter, Characo, Rowdy Yates, Peggy Sue, Nick Wray, Durango, Davey, Tony, Fiona, Night Rider, Donnegal Kid, Big D, Jake, Michelle and Ian, Duane, Bella and Cathie.

touch- a definition

touch: definition by Peter Ross- Anthropologist and Animateur;

 In his photo series touch, Evans explores the boundaries between subjects. He instructs them to take his hand and place it in the frame of the photograph and by doing so explores the cultural and psychological limits of connectedness. Some take his hand and keep him at a distance while others are prepared to take him into their bodies, literally. The viewer is invited to reflect on the limits of physical contact between strangers, both in its cultural and gendered context, and to explore their own thresh-hold of acceptable touching.

  touch also challenges the conventions of photographic portraiture. Evans is both subject and photographer as he invades the space of both the sitter and the image. His intervention blows apart the separation of the artist and subject, they can no longer be discrete, and the viewer must consider Evans' influence over the sitter. This work embodies Evans' belief that all his photographic portraits have himself as the central subject and that the images he produces of a sitting are a record of an event in which he is central.

 If you would like to contribute comments or texts on touch please email me at touch@gavinevans.com

British Journal of Photography

 Interview by the esteemed British Journal of Photography on the making of the 'iconic image'.

 This face is haunted by the aching spirit of Kevin. Society plucked him of everything, his one eye is constantly on the look-out. He was wheel-chair bound for purgatory before he found salvation in the church and the support of The Big Issue. I crouched next to him and fixed on his nomadic eye. He tells me he has a kid! Grasping my hand, he drew me to his toothless cavity and gasped "Naebody shud suffer fae poverty...'specially children." No matter how many copies of The Big Issues he sells, he always keeps enough aside to sponsor his child. This is the closest it gets to family for Kevin - a progress report from the other side of the world. Kevin's hope is that he can help free someone else, if not himself, from the snare of poverty. 

 I was speechless, my head ached from the sudden impact. How do you balance the altruism of Kevin against the hell-bent motives of celebrity child-snatchers?

 

This touch photograph is striking- compare it to the 'portrait' above. Kevin momentarily surfaced for the image.

 

 A wee laddie popped up and asked what I was "up tae?" His name was Robert, one of Jock Tamson's Bairns - a curious kid who could steal hearts as easily as cars. In a call-booth, holding his phone, he took my hand and put it to his ear -

Is anyone listening?

Glesga Gudfellas

 Time's running out on the meter and Joan's lament is running through my head. Inside the car; engaging the key, my concentration was shattered by the rapping of a sovereign on the windshield. Peering back at me, like a scene from Jurassic Park, was a face unaccustomed to refusal. "Let me try oot yer car," came the order. I got out to clarify what I thought he said. Like a silk snake-belt he slipped around me and into the car. "Just as well I hung on to these" I said, dangling the keys at him. "Thaat's shite son, s'no fer me". As he got out and turned to walk away I called him back - he owed me. He fixed me through his reactor-lies and growled "Wha?". "Your turn to repay the favour - I get to shoot you." He gladly conceded, adding "In the past I'd a had them oot yoor mouth if I'd a caught you round here" (I have two discreet gold caps).
 

This was Ian - Glesga Gudfella and former safe-cracker. The cut of his jib was razor-sharp. The Paisley cravat, he explained, was his colors. Ian is the Glesga forefather of the Crip - a Clydeside Crip. Back in the car my focus was broken again, this time Ian and three of his associates were deriding my motor. Once again I took the key out of the ignition. "Introduce me then!"
Ian read out the role-call like a well versed brief:

First in line grins Billy. These days he's putting a different smile on the faces of Glasgow.
 

Jimmy's enthusiasm for misdemeanor is replaced by a wise, calmer demeanor.
 

 'One Hit' Willie stepped up to the mark. "What was the song?" I teased. "A swan song, one hit an' you'll no be coming back" Ian clarified.


  The Gudfellas were on the street, smoking and regaling the glory days of honest crime. In their sobriety they had found self-respect, something they couldn't extract by fear or extortion.