Photographer, musician Gil Michael dies at 84
Whether “Boilin’ Cabbage” on the Billboard charts or shooting pictures of James Earl Ray in police custody, Memphis musician and photographer Gil Michael made an impact.
An instructor and administrator at the University of Memphis for more than 30 years, Mr. Michael, 84, died Aug. 21 at his Atoka home and studio after suffering a massive stroke, according to his longtime business partner at Gil Michael Photography, Pauline Cuevas.
“It’s rare for rock-and-rollers to live that long,” joked Mr. Michael’s old music boss, Bob Tucker, who led the Bill Black Combo during its 1970s resurgence, when Mr. Michael’s steel guitar and fiddle transformed the venerable Hi Records unit from a rock ‘n’ roll ensemble into the “World’s Greatest Honky Tonk Band,” to borrow the title of the Combo’s 1975 LP.
“Of course, Gil was pretty straight, he didn’t smoke or drink, so he had an advantage,” said Tucker, 77.
Born in Booneville, Mississippi, but raised in Memphis, where he essentially lived the rest of his life, Gilbert Ferrell Michael pursued the twin interests of photography and music for most of his life.
Introduced to the fiddle by an uncle as a boy, Mr. Michael played in bands for fun and side money while studying journalism at the University of Memphis (then known as Memphis State University) and working as a photographer for The Commercial Appeal.
Eventually, Mr. Michael was put in charge of the university’s Journalism Department photo lab. In 1963, he was tapped to run the school’s new Photo Services center, which shot and collected photographs of university events. He held that job until his retirement from the U of M in 1996.
It was in his capacity as a respected and trusted university employee that Mr. Michael was recruited to be the only photographer allowed in the Shelby County jail on July 19, 1968, when James Earl Ray, the accused assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was escorted into his cell by deputies after being apprehended in London and extradited to Memphis.
In a 2008 interview with The Commercial Appeal, Mr. Michael remembered that the handcuffed Ray turned violent and kicked his shoulder while Mr. Michael was snapping away with his camera.
“I turned around and a big foot was right close to my face,” Mr. Michael said. “He didn’t hurt me, just bruised me a little bit.
“He called me a name that I won’t repeat,” he added.
The photo of Ray with his head down, in the custody of then-Shelby County Sheriff Bill Morris, ran in newspapers and magazines around the world. “It’s one of the highlights of my life,” Mr. Michael told The Commercial Appeal.
Morris prevented news photographers — as well as any Jack Ruby-style would-be assassin — from shooting Ray by using a school bus to block access to the suspect as he was hurried into the jail. But although he kept the press at bay, Morris wanted Ray to be photographed as proof that the killer — glasses on his face, a bullet-proof “apron” on his chest — was under arrest, despite rumors to the contrary. Hence, Mr. Michael.
“There was so much intrigue about what was going on, the picture was to show the world that James Earl Ray was indeed in Memphis and in custody and in jail, and that’s where he would be until the judicial process was completed,” said Morris, 85, who still lives in East Memphis.
The officially released photograph by Mr. Michael also sabotaged what Morris called the “staggering sums of money” being offered by tabloid publications for the first exclusive photos of Ray in custody.
Meanwhile, Mr. Michael never lost his passion for music, notably playing for a time in the late 1950s with Memphis rockabilly artist Eddie Bond.
In the 1970s, he found an unexpected commercial outlet for his talent when he learned that his friend and fellow Memphis State professor, Bob Tucker, was the leader of the Bill Black Combo (sometimes known as Bill Black’s Combo), a successful instrumental group founded by Elvis Presley’s original bassist, Bill Black.
Recording for legendary local label Hi Records since 1959, the Combo experienced many personnel changes, not the least of which was the loss of its eponymous founder, who died in 1965. Tucker — sometimes billed as Bobby Joe Tucker — joined in 1962, in time to play with the group when it opened for the Beatles a couple years later on the British band’s major American tour.
When Tucker met Mr. Michael, he was not just the manager and guitarist but the owner of the Bill Black Combo name, having purchased the rights (with band member Larry Rogers) from Black’s widow.
Tucker said the Combo had just lost its Hammond B-3 organ player to Jimmy Buffett’s band when he learned Mr. Michael could play steel guitar. “It filled up the sound like an organ, and it sounded pretty good,” Tucker said, explaining why he asked Mr. Michael to join the band.
The steel guitar was fine, Tucker said, “but then one night we were in a club down in Mississippi, down on the Gulf Coast, and Bill said, ‘I can play the fiddle, too,’ and I said, ‘Whip it out.’ And Gil cut out on a breakdown, a fast one, like ‘Orange Blossom Special,’ and the people went crazy.”
The Bill Black Combo incorporated the fiddle into its arrangements and soon made some noise on the country music charts, scoring hits in 1975 with a couple of tunes co-credited to Mr. Michael, “Boilin’ Cabbage,” which reached the Top 30 and earned the ASCAP award for best country instrumental of the year, and “Back Up and Push.”
But if Mr. Michael’s music made people dance and if his James Earl Ray photos made history, he probably made his biggest impact on society as a mentor and teacher at the university, where his students included (among others) Richard L. Copley, who shot the most iconic “I Am a Man” photographs during the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike. In recognition of this impact, in 2012, Mr. Michael was presented with the Herbert Lee Williams Award by the University of Memphis Journalism Alumni group.
In addition to his university work, Mr. Michael’s Gil Michael Photography business was frequently hired as official photographer for the Memphis PGA Tour golf event, now known as the Fed Ex St. Jude Classic.
Also, Mr. Michael was the photographer for Graceland for several major Elvis books and publications, including the 1993 coffee table book, “Graceland: The Living Legacy of Elvis Presley,” written by music journalist Chet Flippo.
Mr. Michael leaves behind his wife, Sara Michael; two daughters, Melanie Graff of Lakeland and Trese Sellers of Houston, Texas; four sons, Stephen Michael of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Shaun Michael of Atoka, and Ferrell Michael and Randy Michael, both of Collierville; 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.