NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Sir Paul McCartney is set to take the stage at The Pinnacle Thursday night. Beyond his beloved songwriting, there is another way Nashville is appreciating McCartney's talents. There is quite the local tie.
You have something big or something just cool happening in Nashville, there's a pretty good chance you'll find photographer Ray Di Pietro.
"I call it my never-ending photo essay," Di Pietro said. "If I die tomorrow, you'd know what's pretty much going on in my time here."
"I just juggle cameras like they used to back in the day," he continued, showcasing three cameras hanging around his neck.
Di Pietro rarely covers something so personal. There's a reason he is close to an exhibit at Frist Art Museum made up of photography by someone you know.
"We're talking about THE Sir Paul McCartney," said Seth Feman, executive director and CEO of Frist Art Museum.
Feman said the exhibit's pictures are taken by McCartney in 1963 and 1964, right around when the Beatles came to the United States. It was the start of the British Invasion.
"They're getting really global attention at a whole new level," Feman said of the era captured by the pictures. "Paul is carrying around a camera and watching this happen in real time."
There are candid moments of the other Beatles and glimpses behind-the-scenes of appearances that would go on to be legendary. That includes pictures taken around The Ed Sullivan Show appearance.
"He took these photographs in the 60s, and they basically got put away," Feman continued. "It was only a handful of years ago that he went back into the archive and realized this was a real treasure trove and a real moment."
Something about Di Pietro, his dad was a touring musician during that same time the Beatles had their breakthrough.
"My father's name was Ralph Di Pietro," he continued. "He was a guitar player and singer. That band was Joey and the Showmen, and they were the orchestra of Johnny Hallyday, who was a French superstar."
It just so happens, in this exhibit of pictures taken by McCartney in 1963 and 1964, there's a picture of Di Pietro's dad.
"Why the Beatles interacted with Johnny Hallyday and Joey and the Showmen, they were both playing the Olympia Theater in Paris," Di Pietro explained. "Paul McCartney must have been hanging out or talking to them, and he got that photograph which looks like a jazz album cover. It's quite remarkable."
Di Pietro has known about this photograph for a few years. He first spotted it in McCartney's book of photography, 1964: Eyes of the Storm.
"There's my father, and I just gasped, and I felt like my heart almost stopped," Di Pietro remembered. "I was shocked."
"He passed away eleven years ago on Monday, today would have been his funeral," Di Pietro said of his father. "He would have gotten the biggest kick out of this. I know he loved that period of his life as a 20-year-old, 21-year-old. For it to come into town, and I get to visit my dad is an honor, and it's very special."
The Frist exhibit, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, is here through January 26.
Do you have more a positive, good news story? You can e-mail me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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