Newly discovered John Loudermilk photograph


Here’s a newly identified photograph of John D. Loudermilk (also known back then as “Johnny Dee”) performing on a stage with three band members.  This image likely got passed over for scanning when processing the Morton collection because, as you can see in the scan, the negative is a double exposure—albeit very lightly so.
I’m researching images for an upcoming exhibit called “Curating Sound” and I scanned the unidentified negative just to see what was depicted.  The photograph probably won’t be in the exhibit, but I wanted to share it here because it probably hasn’t seen the light of day before now.
Can anyone venture a guess on the date, venue, or some identify the band members?  You can’t tell from the scan as it’s sized for this blog post, but John is playing a Gagliano acoustic guitar, and the guitarist on the left is playing a Gretsch electric.  Does that information help to date the image? John are you still reading along out there?

5 thoughts on “Newly discovered John Loudermilk photograph”

  1. I’ll email this to his son. John III has a sound studio on the Screen Gems lot in Wilmington. He can get this to his dad, who still lives in Nashville.

  2. John says the drummer is Chuck Bergner of Bergner’s Music Store, which in the day was located on West Franklin across from Colonial Press. Chuck still lives in Chapel Hill. The guitarist on the left is Joe Tanner. John says this combo was the second version of the Blue Notes. The photo may have been taken in Swain Hall.

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