Hippie Jack: The Life

Hippie grew up in Miami, Florida in the late 60's in a comfortable enclave of hard-drinking Greatest Generation folk. He managed to get kicked out of a swanky boarding school, then fended for himself a while, took some classes at community college near Boston, got radicalized in the anti-war movement, narrowly escaped some potentially bad experiences with federal agents, went back to Coconut Grove near Miami to chill and started taking pictures on a whim. That’s when he met Lynne (better known now as Munch), a transplanted beauty from New York working at the University of Miami at the time.

Convinced that there really was an alternative to the dominant materialistic culture, and up for some adventure, Hippie and Munch got in their van and headed north toward the mountains of Tennessee, Overton County to be exact, on the Cumberland Plateau. It was 1972. They had no money, but they didn’t mind working. The countryside was beautiful and the people were remarkably accepting of them and several other hippie types then moving “back to the land.” So they settled in and have been there ever since.

Hippie became fascinated with the local old-timers who had been subsistence farmers, loggers, miners and tradesmen their whole lives. He started taking their pictures, wanting to record and preserve their remarkably successful and yet simple ways of life. Along the way, Hippie worked at a local saw mill, assisted the local large animal vet, and performed various odd-jobs for money. He and Munch found that they were particularly good at making beautiful babies. Along came Avery, Jason, Jessica and Silas.

In the late 1970s, Hippie and Munch began showing and selling his photographs at artisan festivals, first in Nashville then all over. In 1981, the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville, TN gave Hippie his first big museum installation, which he called "The Plateau Collection." The response to his work was overwhelming. For the next twenty years, Hippie and Munch traveled the artisan festival circuit all around the country, making friends and selling photography. Collectors and museums and average folk who happened to stroll by his booth couldn’t resist his work or his sly, charming ways. Now his photography is part of the collections of The Morris Museum, Augusta, GA; The Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN and the Museum of American History at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC just to name a few.

For all these years, Hippie made his silver gelatin, black & white images on fine European paper, washed in pure Tennessee spring water. But by the late 1990s, the process he used to create these museum quality images started becoming another victim of change. As digital photography began to dominate the market, the materials necessary to print the traditional silver gelatin process become less available.

Fortunately, by this time, around 2002, Hippie’s son Jason was getting a degree in film making and wanted to collaborate with his old man. They bought some digital cameras and film making equipment and have been figuring it out together ever since.

One evening while sitting around a fire on the farm, one of Hippie’s guests happened to be Becky Magura, a friend and the president of local Cookeville, TN PBS affiliate WCTE. It was a beautiful night, cool, clear skies. Some folks were playing guitar and singing. You ought to film this, Becky said, and I’ll put it on the air. And that's how Jammin at Hippie Jack’s was born . . . .

Hippie Jack

Featured Friend

I had a blast at the Hippie Jack taping -- the crew was awesome, the place was packed and it sounded great. I look forward to doing it again.

Will Kimbrough

Singer/songwriter

Festivals

Fall Festival 2010
September 24-26
Bands | Schedule | Buy Tickets

Get You Some Hippie

Does your local station air
Jammin at Hippie Jack's?
If not, click here and find out
how to make it happen.

Be a Friend of Hippie

Be a Friend of Hippie and
enjoy these benefits:

First chance to buy festival tickets
Email updates from Hippie
Special offers from our music friends and sponsors
Opportunity to confuse your straight friends and in-laws

Listen to the Music

Sit back and enjoy
samples of music from
Jammin at Hippie Jack's.