Danny Clinch : The Jersey Made Podcast-Capturing Music History Through New Jersey's Sound and Legendary Artists

Jersey Made

In this episode of Jersey Made, host Buzz Knight interviews legendary photographer Danny Clinch about his journey from Toms River to the fore

Key takeaways

• Danny Clinch's photographic style is rooted in building trust and capturing subjects with their guards down.
• Clinch intentionally placed himself in a position to intern for Annie Leibovitz by attending her photography workshops.

Main topics

• Music Photography
• New Jersey Roots

Notable quotes

I put myself in the position for Annie to see how hard I work and how passionate I am about photography.

Conclusion

The episode provides an inspiring look at how personal heritage and re

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) What up, this Jay Valentine, co-host of the R &B Money Podcast alongside my brother, R &B legend, Tank. Together, we've built a space for artists, executives, and fans of R &B music to reminisce and tell the real stories behind the music. I Speaker 1 (0:12) have no money. I was hood famous. Speaker 4 (0:14) They think you're gonna get everybody out. We Speaker 1 (0:15) lived in a project. Real Love came out. They're hearing the music and we had nothing. From Speaker 4 (0:19) Smokey Robinson to Mary J. Blige, B2K to Jill Scott, if you're a super dedicated R &B fan... This is where you belong. Listen to R &B Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (0:34) Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I talk to actor Stephen Root. I'm Speaker 1 (0:40) a people watcher. You see that guy going down the drain and go... Yeah, I can use that. And Speaker 7 (0:44) Open Igloo co-founder Alia Mohamed. Speaker 6 (0:47) I love staying on top of what is going on in our city, what is on renters' minds, and taking all of that knowledge to build a platform that hopefully is going to make New York City better in the long run. Speaker 7 (0:59) Listen to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (1:07) Doorbell prankster that tormented German resident apartments turns out to be a slug. Speaker 1 (1:12) Ding dong. Hi, Speaker 8 (1:13) I'm Kurt Braunohler. And I'm Scotty Landis. They say no news is good news. But weird news? That's bananas. Every Tuesday on our podcast, Bananas, we find the strangest true stories from around the world and try to understand Speaker 1 (1:27) what the hell is going on. Man rescued by firefighters after getting stuck in a phone booth trying to order a kebab. Speaker 1 (1:35) Man, you did it. You wowed me. We cover important discoveries, questionable decisions, and animals behaving exactly as badly as you know you want them to. China's first corgi police dog's in trouble again. Uh-oh, what'd he do this time? He stole a sausage from a child. Classic dog stuff. That's it. With more than 400 episodes, there's always more weird news waiting for you on Bananas. Listen Speaker 8 (1:59) to Bananas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (2:06) On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard. And we pull apart the story behind the image, discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (2:43) My name is Danny Clinch, and I'm an artist. I'm a music lover. I'm a photographer and a filmmaker. I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I've been all around the world, but I just keep coming back here. Speaker 3 (2:56) What does it mean to be Jersey made? Maybe it's growing up close enough to see the biggest city in the world, but far enough away to know no one is coming to hand you anything. Around here, You learn early that if you want something, you build it. You earn it. You make people notice. That's been the Jersey story for generations. And it's Danny Clinch's story, too. Danny grew up in Tom's River before setting out with a camera and an instinct for capturing something most photographers can't teach, trust. It's a quality that has opened doors few ever get to walk through, allowing him to document Bruce Springsteen, Tupac Shakur, Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and countless others. not just as performers, but as people. He's also directed acclaimed concert films and documentaries and published books. But after all those years documenting music history, Danny came home. Today, his gallery in Asbury Park has become a gathering place for artists and music lovers from around the world. Through the See, Hear, Now Festival, He's helped write a new chapter in New Jersey's musical story. Because sometimes the greatest measure of success isn't how far you go. It's what you choose to build when you come back. This is Jersey Made. Danny Clinch, welcome to Jersey Made. Speaker 2 (4:45) Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Speaker 3 (4:47) Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tupac Shakur, Pearl Jam, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton. You have spent more than 30 years photographing some of the most iconic artists in the world. But before any of that, you were a kid growing up in Toms River, New Jersey. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:07) And Speaker 3 (5:07) we've heard you talk about your dad, this blue collar Jersey guy, and how when you listened to Springsteen's Early records, you actually recognize your father's life and some of those characters. Take us back there. What was the Clinch household like and what kind of kid were you growing up in Tom's River? Speaker 2 (5:26) Well, the Clinch household was a very welcoming household. I will say that. My dad was a house painter. Speaker 2 (5:40) And my mom were both very welcoming and non-judgmental people. They had a lot of friends from all different walks of life. Speaker 2 (5:55) My dad worked many jobs, you know, aside from painting houses. At Speaker 5 (5:59) times he was washing dishes. At times he was, you know, when it snowed, we would all go, you know, out and shovel snow to make an extra buck. My dad used to buy and sell, you know, used cars. He'd find a car for a really low price, and then he would bring it home in the garage with my cousins, and he would, you know, change the oil, the points, the plugs. give it a little paint job you know type thing uh he was um you know when i think back to the springsteen songs that remind me of him uh growing up is definitely one of those uh the idea of when they said sit down i stood up uh you know my father was that guy uh he was Speaker 2 (6:42) a kind Speaker 5 (6:42) -hearted person though he was um not a troublemaker in that sense um but uh but was, you know, kind of an outsider character. Speaker 3 (6:54) Two things seem to show up pretty early in your life, music and photography. And eventually you found a way to bring those two worlds so brilliantly together. Where did each of those come from? Was there music and art in your house growing up or were those things you discovered on your own? Speaker 2 (7:15) There was a lot of music in the house. It was often 50s music that my parents both loved. Speaker 2 (7:29) They had become parents when they were really young, my mom and dad. So they weren't out discovering, you know, when I was born in 64, Speaker 5 (7:40) they weren't out discovering the Stones and the Beatles. They were still listening to the vocal groups of the 50s and Elvis and the Big Bopper, Richie Valens, stuff like that. That was a lot of the stuff that was being played at our house. I do recall. As a kid, my mom and dad had an 8-track that was the hits of the 50s with all those artists I just mentioned and Buddy Holly Speaker 2 (8:10) and the likes. And every time we got a new used car, which is also a Springsteen reference, we Speaker 5 (8:20) would take that 8-track with us everywhere we went. Those songs I know by Speaker 2 (8:27) heart. They're part of my DNA. And so I just used to have a love of music, I guess, early on. And it turned out that both of my grandfathers loved to photograph. And they were, you know, my grandfather, even though on my dad's side, didn't really have a lot of means and a lot of cash. There were a lot of photos Speaker 5 (8:52) of his family. And my dad had like... you know, six brothers and sisters. And, you know, there was, but there was all these photos. And I thought to myself, Speaker 2 (9:00) I asked my dad at one point, you know, you know, how they ended up with all these photos. And she said, he said, well, you know, your grandfather loved, you know, to take photographs. And I said, but he's in a lot of the photographs. And he was like, well, yeah, if you look at his hands. He always has his hands behind his back because he had fashioned, you know, some monofilament or fishing string, you know, to a camera on a tripod. And he is just like, click, click, you know, type thing. So that was cool. And then my mom's dad also loved photography. And so did my mom. My mom really was the queen of the snapshots. And we have piles Speaker 5 (9:40) upon piles of photo albums to prove it. And she was really my biggest inspiration Speaker 2 (9:47) because she always had a camera. And I was like, you know what? I need a camera. And I remember as a kid going to this, you know, garage sale down the road, you know, little yard sale. And I just remember a blanket spread out in my neighbor's Speaker 5 (10:00) yard. And, you know, there was a bunch of items on it. And one of them was like a little Keystone, you know, snapshot camera. And I bought it and started taking photos as a young kid. Speaker 3 (10:13) There's a point earlier in your career that really caught my attention. You get this opportunity to work with the legendary Annie Leibovitz, and you said you don't consider that luck or simply being in the right place at the right time. You said, and I quote, I put myself in the position for Annie to see how hard I work and how passionate I am about photography. Tell us about putting yourself in that position. What did you do to make sure that first opportunity didn't pass you by? Speaker 2 (10:46) Yeah, I mean, you know, people would, you know, say to me like, oh, you're so lucky. And I'm like, well, no, I'm not lucky, actually. I worked really hard to put myself in the position. And how I did it was actually at the time, my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, Maria, had gone to... Speaker 5 (11:05) London to study Shakespeare and, you know, study abroad. And most of the people in my family never went to college. And I had no idea you could go study abroad. And, you know, and I got inspired by that. And I started looking around for like some, some photographic workshops. And I found a workshop that had Annie Leibovitz and David Hockney as two of the instructors. David Hockney had just finished a book of Polaroids and collages that he had made. And I was really intrigued