Phillip Wong Productions

Photography/Media

Blues Musicians

          When I was in Italy, I proposed a overview story of Blues Musicians to editors at Italian Vogue. I didn’t necessarily think that it would have an angle at Italian Vogue, but L’Uomo Vogue, Vanity or one of their smaller publications might have an interest.They turned it down, because they didn’t see how it could be produced.

          Believing that this niche story had value, I flew back to Chicago, where my family was still living, and for three weeks, photographed and interviewed Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, Lefty Dizz, Junior Wells, Sugar Blue, Lonnie Brooks, Son Seals, Sunnyland Slim, and then back in Italy, as I was finishing the writing, Albert Collins and B.B. King in Pistoia.  My interviews were wide-ranging and free-flowing touching on how their music and the musicians they met, guided their lives, framed their views on race, and war, and society and relationships.

          Producing the finished interviews and photographic story, Conde Nast picked it up as they tried to decide which one of their publications would run with it.