“Everything was easy with The Band in Woodstock. They used to hang out at Deanie’s, the best restaurant and nightspot, with really good homemade banana cream pies. Anyone they knew would come by and sit down if there was room. I was in awe of how beautifully they treated everyone, from the clerk in the store to the president of the record company. They had old-fashioned manners.
“Robbie caught onto me. He saw what I was capable of, he saw the pictures were gorgeous and he got the best out of me. I showed him a book of Matthew Brady’s Civil War photos and told him, ‘This is the visual style for what I want to say about you.’ He loved it. With the early sessions, he’d tell me, ‘We love the pictures, but they’re not right.’ So I didn’t feel like I was being rejected. When I had an idea, it was always, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ That was Robbie’s personality.