Hey Vincent, how is everything in Jersey right now?

Well, it’s raining here right now! It’s just the storm season, it’s unusual - everything has changed. But, I’ve had a pretty busy moment here. I’ve just finished a two day shoot for the governor of NJ conference. 

Thank you for your time, sharing with us your story as the House Photographer of the famous Club Zanzibar. How and when did you get into photography?

I always had a desire to do photography. I was in the military and that's when I bought my first camera. This was back in 1968. Dating myself here a little bit! I was serving in the Vietnam war and I started shooting film and people would buy my photographs. When I got out of the military I ended up coming to Jersey. I always had a desire to take photography further. I had a friend who had a dark room set up and on one Saturday afternoon and he showed me how to develop black and white photos. From here I eventually got into colour prints. At the time, a friend of mine and long time business partner at Zanzibar, Charles Johnson, got into some trouble and was looking for a job. Every photographer at the time wanted to have their own ‘House’. Polaroid was the big thing then and as a House Photographer, you would go to clubs, shoot polaroid's and peel them off and give them to people.

Got it, so as the ‘House Photographer’ at Zanzibar, you were the chosen photographer who would sell polaroids to the party people.

Right! Just before the new years of 1978, we ended up going to this new spot Zanzibar to try to set up a meeting and sell polaroids. A few days later the owner, named Miles Berger, called me up and wondered if I was still interested in being the Zanzibar House Photographer - I said Yes of course! And so we met with Miles, the owner, and he showed us where he wanted us to be set up. We already had folders ready for the polaroids with the whole Zanzibar logo on them - boxes of them. I gave him my price, he said straight away that it was too low and said we got to charge more for them. That New Years Eve, we came back to get started at about 9 and the place was packed! I had never seen that many people before. We started shooting polaroids, we went all night and at about 5 o'clock in the morning we were out of film. They used to do the double packs of polaroid and I had about 10 double packs and Charles had the same amount. We were out of everything! I had money in every pocket and had never made so much money shooting polaroids! Because Charles had got into trouble and he was out of a job, we were fortunate enough that Miles gave us the deal as the official House Photographers from that New years onward. 

 

It’s a complete trip thinking about how that time of recording moments in clubs differs from today’s version, which seems inversely self-obsessed with online, fast-feeding media. 

In the 70’s and 80’s, you have to understand people were questioning how we were taking photos and why we weren’t representing the stars and just the club people. I was trying to get people to understand that we took photos of people in all kinds of outfits and they took the pictures home with them. We always thought that our work was for the people, for their homes and their memory and no one else.

Going back to the opening night of Zanzibar, it’s popular beyond what anyone can imagine. Miles Berger, the owner of the time and all the way through. What was he like to deal with as an operator?

He was a pretty shrewd business guy. We had a tight business arrangement and he expected you to deliver. Over the years and getting to know him, I had a lot of respect for him. I don’t know anyone who did work for Miles and didn’t get paid. He always stuck to the agreement. He was like Al Murphy (Zanzibar club manager) - a genius in his own right. He was a hotel developer, and developed not only Abe’s Motel into Zanzibar, but also had other hotels around NJ and NY. All his properties were well taken care of - First Class.

You get a really good feeling of Abes and Zanzibar through your photography. Can you explain the space and the corners of the club?

It was a huge space. The top floor was used as a banquet hall. The speakers were huge and there were bars on each side of the club and then there was the DJ booth. You could walk behind the DJ booth and all the way around. It was an incredible dance space. They eventually moved the DJ booth to the left to build a whole stage and dressing rooms for the performers. You would bring in the performers into an office space behind the bar into this small area and that’s where a lot of the pictures would take place. That’s what made it - the dance floor. You couldn’t stand it in The Zanz if the speakers were turned up all the way. We used to find people who managed to sleep in The Zanzibar which makes no sense because the speakers were so damn loud! Miles then came to me one night and said "Vincent, if you start taking pictures of the show, I’ll buy them off you". It gave me an idea. I’d take the photos, print them up and then sell them back to Miles. It sounds straight forward now but back then people weren't taking photos of club acts. I’d still have the polaroid business alongside this. He used to put the pictures on the wall of the hotel and people used to steal them. 

So you’d have people listening to the iconic DJ’s of the early Zanzibar days like Hippie Torrales and Gerald T downstairs and then Miles was getting you take photos of the people and the Live Show upstairs. 

I preserved the negatives like a photographer used to do. I’d just shoot the artists around The Zanzibar and put the negatives in a box. Eventually I started printing them all, we had repeat acts in the early days. One of the acts who started buying a lot of my pictures was Sylvester.

One of my favourite photos in your books is Sylvester with the SH-101! Run me through your relationship with him.

I was real close with Sylvester. Sometimes he would spend a weekend at Abes, which was the hotel that Zanzibar was connected to. He would do a couple of shows and we got talking. I saved all his photographs and I’d make a bunch of 16x20 prints for him and he would always buy them off me. He was one of the artists at the time who actually had control of his money.

You also have other cult-figure artists and DJ's like Gerald T, Tee Scott, DJ Merlin Bobb, with Grace Jones and Chaka having regular shows at The Zanz. What was it like shooting them at the time?

It got to the point where we vibed together and everyone got to know who I was. These artists had heard about The Zanzibar and they in turn got to know me. We all seemed to vibe together which made the pictures look so incredible - I was in the moment with them. I think that one of my favourite things was capturing entertainers when they actually performing. I think that is one of my gifts that I’m able to do. When they spent a couple of weekends at The Zanz, that’s when I got to know them. One group, they were called the Weather Girls (Two Tons Of Fun) and they used to be Sylvester’s backup singers. When they came together, one of the Weather Girls husband’s didn’t like Sylvester at all! So they were never on the same side of the dressing room. One was on one side, and one was on the other side of the room. Only when they went on stage would they sing together, but they would never be caught in the same room! But they made it work.

I guess this is a live performance when stage acts were still a big thing in the club. Your photos show the diversity of Al Murphy's bookings too, where not only big name acts are coming through but you also have fun acts like the Michael Jackson impersonator.

He was so good! He passed recently, but he used to travel the country going to clubs - he looks the exact same as MJ and you couldn’t tell them apart. That's what made Zanzibar so unique, everybody was waiting on what new ‘theme’ was for the weekend. When you come through the door, it was always something unusual! Sometimes there would be giant fruit platters, boa constrictors in a glass cage - you never knew what they were doing! Whistle and bracelet giveaways but something always for the people to look forward to for their weekend. Al Murphy was a super creative person and he was always making a theme for the weekend making people dream about what they were going to see next. He is definitely responsible for what made Zanzibar so unique. You probably saw the halloween scene where they bought Hippie Torales in a casket! 

So that’s Hippie Torales in the casket!? I always wondered about that photo. So classic!

You got Miles in that photo too - he would hang out like everyone else! And all of his friends used to hang out with him! All his white friends would hang out together. But if you weren’t dressed to the nine you couldn’t get in! You know, it was high profile then.

What was you recollection of the crowd at the time?

They would examine you before you got in the door, but everyone from sports figures, to Earl Munroe, to politicians, mayors, senators, fashion designers, actors - everyone would be there from all over. Zanzibar was a hotel attached to a club. People would come from Washington to Boston and spend the whole weekend there and go to the shows. The whole East Coast.

So people would stay the weekend, go to bed at the hotel, party all night at the club - and spend the whole weekend in the same spot? 

Exactly right. Once it became well known, there were the big shows with Patti Labelle, Mtume, Earl Munroe, DJ’s from NY. That was when it first published with Jet Magazine and Ebony. This was nationally published, so if you was published here it would blow up. We also got put up in Billboard. People would come from all over! When these publications got out there the crowds went off the chat. I could hardly come in there! It was 5 deep and the place was full and people still waiting to get in all night. The parking lot was full. If Grace Jones was gunna be there as soon as the door opened, it was a crowd you couldn’t even imagine!

That photo of Grace is all time! The writing at the back of the Chaka Khan show .. There was a lot of effort put into these stages. I heard DJ Merlin Bobb created this stage!

We knew each other super well. We all knew each other to make it happen. When we talking about Chaka Khan. You see that whole theme. When people would talk about Chaka, they would always say 'Hips n' Lips'! Hence the big lips on that back of the wall. That was a Zanzibar theme just for her! Those guys were connected all together and DJ Merlin Bobb bought it into mainstream. Before it was known as "House Music" we just called it "Club Music". It wasn't a genre yet by that stage. We’d have Grace Jones and Merlin Bobb and later on most famously Tony Humphries live streaming broadcasting in the middle of the night on WBLS. They didn’t play this music during the day time because obviously we weren't open. We would have the shows streamed live from the venue straight to WBLS, and people was up all night listening to 'em. It was a way to promote the night and get people from Jersey to Manhattan to come to the club.

So you stepped away from the club at 82. Did you step away from this point? 

It wasn’t as easy as it looks. Staying up all night Friday, Saturday and you would get tired. A lot of people moved on because of that. I think I outgrew this. But I feel like we created some great memories as well as had some of my own. One of the Weather Girls once asked me to take her to eat after a big night at Al Murphy's house. This girl was hungry. I had a little orange convertible Volkswagen - a tiny, tiny little car. She said I was gonna take her no matter what. I said but I had a tiny Volkswagen. She said 'I don't care what you drive, you taking me to eat!'. People in east Newark was like 'Aren't you a Weather Girl!' I could hardly drive that car - it was pullin! I got a chance to get to know her, her story about being from Texas. Got a chance build a personal relationship between all these people behind the scenes and working in the background and in the industry. Loleatta Holloway was another one - she was always in Newark all the time doing her shows. One night she had her son with her. She had a show in NY and she would stay in at Abe's a lot. Her son was in a tux and I took the picture all the way back then. Over the 20 years her son grew obviously in that time. She did a show much later at the Lincoln Park Festival. I gave it to her and she freaked out that I still had the polaroid! She couldn't believe it!

Passing someone a memory like that after all that time would be understandably pretty powerful!

One of the things about the pictures is that they were the best pictures in town. You couldn’t get a better polaroid developed outside of our pictures. People would have this stamp of social approval by having the Zanzibar photo that they could put on their bedroom wall. I had people in mid-west talking about how much people would talk about how good club Zanzibar was. You wouldn’t ever see Shelton (Managed Zanzibar after Al Murphy) in these photos though. He was always in the background and he hated pictures. When Shelton Died, his family wanted pictures but I didn't have any. Tony (Humphries) was the same. He hated photos in the booth - he was just all about the music.

Thank you Vincent so much for sharing your story.

No, thank you.