Right Place, Right Time is Gruen’s autobiographical tale of becoming one of the most iconic rock photographers. He did so often by befriending his subjects such as Ike and Tina, John and Yokohama, the New York Dolls, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. Reading his stories offers a personal bird’s eye view that only riding with the band could offer. One star he never quite grooved with and almost got knocked out by was Dylan. All in all, it is quite a fun and interesting read.

A fascinating look during a time when rock photography was at it's height. Bob's personal stories gave such a richness to this book that it made me want to hop in a time machine with my camera and go. 4/5 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Press for a copy of “ Right Place, Right Time “ for an honest review..

Even though I’d seen many of his photos before I wasn’t aware of who Bob Gruen was .
I found this memoir ,and anecdotes from the lives of famous musicians , really interesting and entertaining .
This is an ideal book to pick up and read in several sittings.
Well worth the read even on Kindle , but I’d imagine the book format with accompanying photographs would be even better.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book in return for an honest review.

Rating: 3⭐

This is an interesting account by Bob Gruen about being a photographer in the rock and roll industry. It was well written and I enjoyed it. The only reason the review has taken so long to write is because biographies and autobiographies can take me a while to read.
Would I Read It Again? Yes
Would I Recommend it? Yes

Right Place, Right Time by Bob Gruen was a fascinating autobiography. Despite being one of the greatest Rock and Roll photographers of all time, Bob Gruen comes across as very down to earth and relatable. I particularly enjoyed the international scene descriptions. The second half of the book was a bit crammed but I can understand why they didn’t make the book longer to compensate. I highly recommend to any photography fans!

I requested an arc for this on NetGalley.

I was interested in this book, because it's about photography.
I'm not necessarily all that familiar with the rock scene, but my parents listened to it a lot and so obviously whilst growing up I listened to it as well. I really like to read books that are about people successfully making an career out of their dreams. Especially when Bob Gruen ended up making a lot of iconic photographs and connections in the music industry, of like Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Alice Cooper to name a few. So it was intriguing to read about.

What I really liked about this book was the fact that not only are you finding out more tidbits about Bob Gruen, but also the people either working or partying in the scene. And it does paint a picture of that time period. How for just 5 dollars you could see the Rolling Stones which now seems crazy. And also how certain artists grew into the icons they are to this day. I also really like the photo's that were included, which of course would've been weird to leave out of the story of a photographer. I wasn't familiar with those pictures so it was nice to see them, as well as that they were intertwined with the paragraphs surrounding the pictures.
I also liked the humorous conversational way of how the memoir was told, which definitely made it an easy read.

I really enjoyed this book. Part memoir and part behind the scenes rock'n'roll story. With a cast of characters that includes a virtual who's who of rock'n'roll including John & Yoko, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde, and more. A fun, easy read. Strongly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exhange for an honest review.
I thought it was well written & a very interesting book.

I really enjoyed this one, it was a fascinating look at the evolution of rock photography as well as the evolution of rock. I'm a big fan of rock and roll memoirs, and Bob Gruen's offers all the delightful bits (behind the scenes views at stars, the origins of bands/genres) without many of negatives (addiction, violence, drugs) that seem to plague so many artists (and their memoirs). The writing style is engaging and easy-going - it's like listening to your cool relative tell stories about back in the day. I read it on kindle so the pictures were cool but not always that easy to see, fortunately Google was a quick solution to that.

I wanted to love this one! I’m a huge rock fan, and this one looked like it would be a fun read and a good memoir. Unfortunately I just could not get into it, the way Bob Gruen writes is just...not for me.

A memoir from the top photographer in rock and roll. He has met about everyone and shares behind the scenes stories, It is a fascinating read for anyone who enjoys rock. Well written and flows quite well.

Bob Gruen has hobnobbed with anyone who is anyone in rock and roll. Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, The Who, The Ramones and Elton John. Even John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Bob has photographed them all but also hung around them backstage. This gives the autobiography a unique perspective from the true beginning of rock. He really was in Right Place, Right Time.

However, the book is more than just a who’s who of musicians. It tells the author’s own inspiring story of following his dreams. Instead of going to college and getting a boring 9 to 5 job, he used his photographic skill to meet the most interesting, and famous, celebrities at the time. Bravo!

Right Place, Right Time is the perfect book for music fans or anyone starting their adulting right now in these troubling times. 4 stars!

Thanks to Abrams Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I think most people came to this for the rock n’ roll anecdotes, but I came for the photographer advice! Needless to say, anyone who comes for either won’t be disappointed.

Right Place, Right Time, charts Bob Gruen’s career from his beginnings in the folk scene of the 60s through to the 2000s. As well as getting a look at the lives of countless music icons, I also really enjoyed the stories behind many of the photographs.

I don’t read a lot of memoirs but despite that, I decided to pick up this book and I’m glad I did it. Through this book I was able to understand the history of Rock and roll and Bob Gruen’s experiences and his journey. Each chapter was so fun to read and well thought. I highly recommend this book.

Let's all go on a rock 'n' roll tour with Bob Gruen, where what goes on tour (doesn't) stay on tour. A top-notch photographer, Gruen captures his subjects with finesse and can thank his lucky stars, who can also thank him, for being in the right place at the right time.

If anyone has a story to tell about their rock and roll career, it would be Bob Gruen as a photographer for many rock and roll artists. And he does it well in this memoir. He shares the story of how he began, processing his own film because his other taught him her own love of photography. The artists he captured quickly became his family, and he writes them as such. Each chapter is brilliantly titled, and he mentions in a subtitle the names of those he talks about in that chapter. The book is a story of real life, things he experienced as if we are experiencing it with him. He shares many of his photos as well. Anyone interested in rock music and the photography behind the scenes , especially the 70s, will enjoy reading this book.

“It’s lazy not to ask for something, because if you don’t ask, you are the one saying no.”

Operating on that wisdom from his mother, Bob Gruen has become a man whose name nobody knows, but whose catalogue is familiar to millions.

John Lennon in his New York City shirt, The Sex Pistols touring America, Elton John seemingly floating in mid-air while playing piano...the list goes on and on, a career of photos spanning fifty years of rock and roll as it evolved with the heartbeat of the world. He’s elbowed his way in with the people who fascinate our world the most, taking chances and living life in the fast (tempo) lane as a freelance music photographer in the heart of New York City.

And now, Abrams Press readers can elbow their way in with him.

Out on October 20th, Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock & Roll Photographer chronicles Gruen’s quick rise from amateur concert attendee to seasoned music photographer under the recognizable skyline of New York City. Like all good artists-gone-autobiographers, Gruen feels personable, like someone you’d want to chat to at a party. That kind of personality explains his ability to get in with just about every major rock star in American history, from Ike and Tina Turner to the New York Dolls, among others.

All rock and roll autobiographies start to hit the same notes after a while — they all know about as many narrative structures as a punk does guitar chords — but Gruen has the distinct advantage of tracking his career through his own visual work. Starting with the fuzzy, yellow toned shots every photographer knows all too well, it morphs at a frenetic pace into work that would grace the cover of hundreds of magazines and album covers across the years, from concert photography to portrait sessions to candid shots of rockstars big and small. Everyone from Alice Cooper to Sid Vicious fill the pages of Gruen’s book, an illustration of how rock in New York City grew and changed, fueled by love and grief and a desire to stand out amongst a crowd of thousands.

The story behind how a shot comes to be can be just as fascinating as the work itself, a moment of realization that brings on brilliant work solely because of someone’s quick thinking with a Nikon. Linda McCartney once said that good photography is something you feel instinctively, when you click that shutter in the moment without worrying about the outcome, and Gruen’s body of work certainly reflects that practice. (The copyright watermark that obscured all of the images did dampen their effect, but that might just be a side effect of reading a digital proof.) Right Place gives him the opportunity to tell those stories, to liberate them from the confines of a recording studio or an underground club and send them out into the world to flourish.

Gruen is no rock critic, with every personality he mentions labeled as “fantastic” or “tremendous”, but the enthusiasm for what he does is what makes the stories in this book so exciting. The infectiousness of an artist loving what they do propels all of his writing, and his love for the artists he’s worked with makes him seem like one of us, a normal person serving as a gateway into a stunning, glittering world of rock stardom. Right Place reflects a unique time and place in rock history, when everyone knew everyone else and opportunities and collaborations popped up at a moment’s notice, and Gruen’s stories become uniquely interesting because of it.

Unfortunately, some of those stories get lost to the sands of time (or copyediting) as a visual artist is forced to put pen to paper in an art form he has no experience working in. Like many autobiographies, Right Place starts to slide around its midpoint, its control over Gruen’s career timeline slipping as he affords large chunks of space to his work with a select few artists. Certain months or years are skipped over in mere sentences, while artists like John Lennon and Yoko Ono are afforded chapter after chapter, at the risk of making the book sound like a biography of someone else rather than him. The 80s are hardly a blink in the reader’s eyes, and the Roadrunner race through time in the last few chapters gives off the distinct impression that Gruen grew too bored to afford anything after 1981 more than a paragraph’s worth of space.

That being said, fitting fifty years’ worth of a career into four hundred pages is no easy task, and Gruen makes a clear effort to engage readers with the stories he deems to be the most important in his career. (No amount of good press will ever make me not hate John Lennon, but I can’t say those stories weren’t interesting.) Like most artists, Gruen has a hard time structuring a concrete narrative, but his stories are still compelling in a way that speaks to human curiosity. It all feels a little bit like a fairy tale, like that many famous people in one place can’t possibly be real. His life seems slightly otherworldly, except his book falls into the nonfiction section of the library instead of the fiction one - proof that maybe there is a little bit of magic in our world after all. All you need is a camera lens to see it through.

Right Place, Right Time is more than just a photography book, elevated above the coffee table clunkers people buy to look cool. Meaningful tales fill the space between photos, rather than copy drummed up at the last minute to fill space in InDesign. Some of the work feels glossed over, but the important stories are there, the highlights of his career picked out amongst a torrent of influential work. It’s refreshing to see an insight into the people who make rock stars look good, the perspective from the other side of the camera. Gruen has influenced hundreds of young artists, whether they know it or not, and now he gets to tell his own story, and hopefully bring even more young photographers into the fold.

Good read. I was not familiar with Mr. Gruen's name, but I have certainly seen his work throughout my life. I liked the stories, although I was not so interested in his childhood/personal story. That's my bad. His story is interesting. I just mainly wanted the rock stories. I have read many other rock and roll biographies. His book fills in some of the blanks, without the gory details. I do wish he had included a few outrageous stories of things he surely saw behind the scenes. Overall, this book is a pleasant read for anyone in my age group, 50's, or older. It would also appeal to younger folks with an interest in the great music and performers of the 60's, 70's, etc. I think the biggest drawback of this book is that it would probably be better as a print book. While I was able to enlarge the pictures on my device (I was reading this book on my phone), it doesn't have the rich details that a print copy would likely have. Overall, this is a fun, informative bio, so give it a go!

Fascinating reminiscences from a top photographer who has met just about everyone in the rock world and has the photographs to prove it. I found it very interesting to read more behind the scenes stories of artists that I've followed over the decades. I particularly liked the sections on John Lennon and Bob Dylan. Some sections, like those on The New York Dolls and Kiss , I found less riveting but that's down to personal musical taste.

All in all I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about the people who made the best rock music over the past five decades.

Bob Gruen gives us a unique view to the 70’s rock and roll world through his eyes (and lens). With a backstage pass to virtually every group or performer during the golden age of rock and roll. His stories of John and Yoko, Elton John, Bob Dylan as well as many of the famous and soon to be famous. He brings his stories and pictures to an entire generation who was shaped by the music.
This is a must read and viewing for all those who lived through these times as well as students of music and the times.
I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.