Behind the Lens: Tony Levin, Images from A Life in Music

Bass is the glue, the true foundation upon which all music is built. And when it comes to bass virtuosos, few have reached the level and ubiquity of Kingston’s Tony Levin.

Since the 1970s, Levin has played on well over 500 albums, including many of the best-selling entries in rock, jazz, folk, and experimental music. Paul Simon, David Bowie, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, and Judy Collins are just a few of the prominent artists whose classics benefited from Levy’s steady groove. But Levin may be best known for his long-standing collaborations with two progressive-minded British musicians, Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp.  

Since 1977, Levin has been the bassist of choice for Gabriel’s constantly evolving music, including the hit songs “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time.” Since 1981, he has been a key member of various iterations of Robert Fripp’s legendary progressive rock band, King Crimson. With Crimson, Levin has delivered stunning performances on both electric bass and the Chapman Stick, a unique 12-string instrument which combines elements of the bass, guitar, and piano. Today, Levin continues to tour and record almost nonstop with bands including the Crimson offshoot BEAT, Stick Men, and the Levin Brothers, his jazz group with his piano-playing brother Pete.

But for this article, INSIDE+OUT Upstate NY is focusing on another of Levin’s talents, something that has rarely been explored in depth before: his photography.  

Since the early 1980s, Tony has been documenting his life on the road and in the studio through thousands of photos, which are posted, along with his writings, on the long-running blog on his website. Although the always-humble Levin wouldn’t say it, these are world-class images that have been featured in a series of books, starting with 1983’s Road Photos and continuing with the brand-new, The Book of BEAT.

Read on to hear how this remarkable Hudson Valley legend is delighting both the ears and eyes of music lovers around the world.

INSIDE+OUT: When did you become interested in photography? 

Tony Levin: It was in college, in the ’60s, that I got a Nikon, a Nikomat EL to be specific, and became more serious about photography. But I was only working in color at the time. I didn’t have a darkroom until I moved to New York City in the early ’70s. I had a small studio apartment, and eventually, I dedicated the entire tiny kitchen to a darkroom.  

Your first photography book, Road Photos (1983), documented your travels with Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp’s 1981 revival of the King Crimson quartet. What did you aim to capture in this book? And how did it serve as a template for your work on the three subsequent projects?

Tony Levin: That book was meant to simply document the shows I’d done with various artists, not just Peter and King Crimson. Looking back, I didn’t have a clear way to organize it meaningfully, but it had a lot of great photos. And I didn’t know about overseeing the book’s printing process, which was very analog back then, so it all came out too high-contrast, in a way that would shock me now!

Some of the best photos you take are the ones captured while you’re performing on stage. Can you tell us a bit about how you achieve this? And is it true that you used this setup to capture the very first note you played on stage with King Crimson?

Tony Levin: Well, it’s clearly a vantage point that not many people have, so that alone inspired me to start taking pictures during shows – of other players and sometimes with a tripod of the whole band. But with the advent of the internet (can I go that far back?) in the 90s, when I started my website, I found out how much people who had come to shows loved the audience shots. On stage, we realize how much their passion relates to our performance, but it was great to discover I had a way to share with them what it looks like to us. That’s something I still do on most tours now, calling it a “web diary” and just posting the pics for people to see. 

When, in 1981, we formed the band that later became King Crimson (initially called “Discipline”), I decided to get a shot of the first note of the opening show. It wasn’t difficult since I’d been using a tripod and foot pedal to take photos during an earlier tour with Peter Gabriel. So, I simply set it up next to me in the small club called Moles during our first show in Bath, UK, and captured the shot. By the way, the old-timers will remember that the foot pedal was actually a squeeze bulb designed for the hand. I had a hollow tube leading to a device that could screw onto the shutter switch, triggering it when I stepped on it. Primitive but effective!

Your work includes not only stage shots and portraits but also everything involved in touring – travel, backstage moments, post-concert bows, and your experiences walking around the cities you visit. Is this meant to give people a full view of what the life of a touring musician is like?

Tony Levin: My goal isn’t to showcase the touring experience, but it’s definitely a lively environment, so as a photographer, I take advantage of the opportunity to be there. Where the photos end up isn’t really what matters to me, though I’ve learned my lesson about not shooting in high resolution and always trying to get the best quality I can. That’s just in case it ends up on an album cover or something.

Yes, my book Images from a Life on the Road was meant to showcase what it’s like to tour with different bands. I arranged it to follow the typical progression of our day on the road. My latest book, The Book of BEAT, is a visual diary of my experiences with the band BEAT as we toured frequently—playing one-nighters, traveling on a band bus, and spending entire days together. 

The Crimson Chronicles collection was, as it sounds, the best of my photos from the ’80’s incarnation of the band with Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, and Bill Bruford. 

The aforementioned Images from a Life on the road spans your career, showcasing over 80 musicians from tours on four continents. It includes artists from major global tours like Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Sting, and Peter Frampton, as well as from smaller club gigs with your own band, Stick Men, and your long-running jazz quartet with your pianist brother, Peter. What are some of the highlights of this collection, and how did you organize all this work?

Tony Levin: I’d say the highlights are when, by luck, I’ve had the chance to catch the way it really is backstage, or right after the show, when the audience is ramped up, and everyone’s thrilled by the music that happened. I’m not an expert at catching those moments, but I take a lot of shots and spend a lot of time late at night going through them to see if I got lucky. When you multiply that by a 65-show tour… yeah, I do get lucky enough to have something meaningful to share.

As we discussed, The Book of BEAT documents the reunited ’80s-era King Crimson, your 2025 tour with Steve Vai taking the place of band leader Robert Fripp. What makes this group of musicians and the photos you capture of them so special?

Tony Levin: We have a ton of fun touring together, not just on stage. More than my other books, this one will feature the backstage antics and hanging out, the rehearsing, the traveling, and of course, the performances.

You’ve captured many famous musicians in your books. Which ones are figures that surprise you with each photo, subjects you want to revisit time and again? And which of your musician collaborators is the most camera-shy?

Tony Levin: Well, folks have a right to be camera-shy, and I don’t bug them by taking their pictures. But on a long tour, most people get used to me shooting all the time, and it becomes, fortunately, irrelevant to what’s going on. As for being surprised by what they do, yes, that happens to me with everyone.

I understand one of your regrets is not capturing a shot of John Lennon during his final sessions for the Double Fantasy album, when you worked with him and Yoko. Why didn’t you manage to take that shot? And are there other moments you regret missing?

Tony Levin: Yes, on one playback, I wandered into the control room with my camera and asked John and Yoko if they’d mind if I took a shot. John said he’d rather I didn’t, so that was that. Later, I pondered that the difference between me and a real pro is that if I were a pro, I’d have taken a picture first and then asked!

Some of the best musicians and photographers are bass players, like jazz legend Milton Hinton, Paul McCartney, and another Hudson Valley icon, Melissa Auf der Maur of Hole. Why do you think some bassists excel at photography?

Tony Levin: I don’t have a clue about that, but I’d add Rick Laird, the great bassist with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, to the list. 

Your writing about your life in music has also been included in the book, Beyond the Bass Clef (1998), along with more creative pieces on your website, such as your many “Haikus from the Road.” Do words and writing come easily to you? How and when do you find time to do it, and also edit your thousands of photos?

Tony Levin: I’m glad you asked about this because I’m in the finishing stages of a book of memoirs, Stories From The Road, and Poems From The Tour Bus. I hope to have it out in about a year. And you know, getting anything published isn’t a quick process. 

I’d be remiss not to ask about your music. What are you most excited about in 2026? Your new album, Bringing It Down to the Bass? Road tours? A return of your annual music camp in the Hudson Valley with your longtime musical partner, Adrian Belew?

Tony Levin: I’m very lucky to be doing a lot of touring this year, and usually when I’m home between tours, there are some recording projects. I’m out with Stick Men right now, touring in the U.S. In May, I’ll tour with Levin Brothers, my long-running jazz band with my pianist brother Peter, in Canada and the U.S. Immediately after that tour, I’m off to Europe for a couple of months touring with BEAT. In August, as every year, we’ll do our Three of a Perfect Pair music camp in the Catskills. In September, there will be more touring with Stick Men, and for the rest of the year, we’re considering more BEAT touring. 

Photos courtesy of + by Tony Levin

Contributing writer Sal Cataldi is a musician, writer and former publicist living in Hudson Valley NY.

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