Honky-Tonk: country music the way it used be; here's a look at a bygone era, an affectionate glimpse of fans, performers, and the places where they mingled.

• Author: Perich, Shannon Thomas
• Position: USA Yesterday

IN 1972, HENRY HORENSTEIN. a young history-trained photographer and country music fan began recording the country music scene as he experienced it from Reeds Ferry, N.H., to Mamou, La. Taking the advice of his professor, the sage and significant photographer Harry Callahan, to "photograph people and places you are drawn to," Horenstein turned his camera to the country music concerts, bars, and music parks he frequented. The result was a direct and affectionate glimpse at fans, performers, and the places where they mingled.

His early documentary work is featured in "Honky-Tonk: Country Music Photographs by Henry Horenstein, 1972-1981." About 80 black-and-white stills and a dozen artifacts hint at what the country music scene was like at the end of an era--a time when the old-timers were still alive, today's greats were up-and coming, and fans could walk right up to musicians to get an autograph and a handshake.

Underlying Horenstein's photographs is a theme of accessibility. Fans and performers had a close relationship because smaller venues allowed for it and there were fewer handlers who pushed photographers out of the way. Without the structure of today's music industry and arena venues, performers needed fans in a different way, and there was a willingness to permit photography of themselves and their homes.

One example of an amateur fan's experience of this freer access to performers is a photo album that is included in "Honky-Tonk." It is a straight-forward work made by an unidentified fan in 1972, with snapshots of Doily Patton in a bar where the stage is maybe only 6' x 4' and of Waylon Jennings and Jessie Colter signing autographs at an unadorned folding table.

Fans often could approach performers before or after the show. Ernest Tubb was known for being gracious to his legions of followers. One of Horenstein's photographs shows them swarming around Tubb as he arrives on his tour bus. In another, Pearl Butler is accepting a song request from a young fan during a performance at the Lone Star Ranch in New Hampshire. Photographers certainly had easier access to well-known stars in the 1970s. Horenstein had about an hour with Patton at Boston Symphony Hall in 1972, but he was so nervous that he actually only took a few pictures. The one seen here is his first published photograph for Boston After Dark (now the Boston Phoenix).

Horenstein knew Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton-Levy, and Bill Nowlin before they founded Rounder Records, a popular...