In early October, I had the great pleasure of photographing Alois Koch, aka Al Cook, an Austrian blues musician, for Die Zeit (article here).
I met Al at a local café and listened to his stories and anecdotes while he tucked into a Schinkensemmerl for lunch. After an hour of stories and sandwiches, I was up to speed on his life story, and we headed to his rehearsal studio in the basement of a traditional Gründerzeit apartment building in Vienna’s 3rd district.
The musty basement den was made available to him by his landlord, who only discovered a few years ago that his admired blues musician, Al Cook, was living in his building. The studio features a baby grand piano that almost got thrown away, an array of vintage amps, a set of Shure microphones like the ones Elvis used, and a computer running Windows 98.
Al was a real joy to photograph. He was game for all sorts of shenanigans and, at 81, still has that little Lausbub grin.
