What Was the Mojo for These Nine Artists?

mojo • ˈmōˌjō  • noun,  a magic charm, talisman, or spell: someone must have their mojo working over at the record company • magic power  – Oxford American

What is that X quality that great artists have? What gives them the mojo?  I’ve been gnawing on that question for a while, but this morning it really started to demand attention like an itch that makes you stop what you’re doing — now–and scratch it, damn it!

I decided I’d jump in and at least try  to get this answered. I went through the studio and grabbed or discarded books that either had or didn’t have  mojo. Lots of books were left behind in fact most, I grabbed a few which you can see above, why? From the bottom up

1. Sadly hidden, only the corner of its yellow cover is “The Europeans” by Henri Cartier-Bresson. This book was hugely influential for me: The mojo he taught me was how to capture the moment. Don’t worry too much about technical details, just get the image that grabs life. Transcend the camera and get the moment. If you forget about the camera so will your subjects.
2. A book with various photogs mostly from the 50s, but the one that blew me away was Irving Penn, man did he have the secret sauce, the je ne se que, the holy mojo!  What was it, just look for yourself, but it’s nothing like HCB, Penn loved to build sets and build images that were not just of the moment, but looked like they were.
3. National Geographic with Steve McCurry’s famous image of the girl in Afghanistan.  I had Steve set for an interview last year and wanted to talk to him about that image, but unfortunately last minute scheduling prevented it, we’ll see if I can ask him what gives him the magic.
4. Then you have “The Boss” Bruce Springstein, if you’ve never seen him live you don’t know what you’re missing. I guarantee no one puts out so much pure energy in a concert for 3 1/2 hours.  Even if you don’t know the words, you’ll be on your feet singing “glory days” and yelling Bruuuuuuuuuuuuce!  Pure musical Mojo
5. The Beatles.  Does anything need be said?  They appeared in the early 60s with the look, the sound, the style, repackaged old songs and simple love songs but blew us all away. Listen to Joe Holmes’ tell his story of being at their last concert in San Francisco.
6. U2, another group that blows the doors off,  from simple to huge and great to see live. BTW that’s when you know they really have it is when you see any one of these artist work their magic live or see their work live, you can feel the mojo just ooze off!
7. Annie L– she has a way of finding the way to put a twist on the setting, emotion or whatever else she works to belt out one stunning image after another. At Work gives you some clues about how she does it.
8. Frank Lloyd Wright. I grew up in a house designed by one of his understudies and definitely had his stamp on it.  He took the idea of the normal house made of  rectangles and threw that out the window and opened it up with light and angles. Inside and outside lines worked together. Changed your whole way of looking at the world and made you wonder, “why have just 90 degree angles everywhere?”
9. Gaudi– another architect who threw all the rules out and just designed with pure genius. His buildings were sculptures that had all the hidden cool features of an iPhone, I’m not kidding.

I will add to this list and plan a trip to the library for the sole purpose of finding the mojo makers, at least the ones that pop for me. I invite you do do the same.  There are common denominators we should talk about in another post, but for now,who are the mojo-makers in your world and why?