DICK WATERMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER, BLUES PROMOTER, AUTHOR AND THE ONLY NON-PERFORMER IN THE BLUES HALL OF FAME.

Agent, manager, producer, promoter, Dick Waterman is the only person inducted in The Blues Hall of Fame who was not either a performing artist or a record company executive. He established himself in the Blues community as a diligent advocate for the artists and the art of Blues. Waterman is primarily known today as an archivist and photographer of Blues, Country, Rock and Jazz legends from Mississippi John Hurt to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. His commitment to documenting the Blues artists he worked with and came into contact with throughout the years is legendary.

Dick Waterman's first book, "Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive," contains about 100 of his Blues photographs from the Cambridge folk clubs and the Newport Folk Festivals of the 1960s to today. Among the music legends featured in Waterman's photographs and essays are Mississippi John Hurt, Ray Charles, B.B. King, Reverend Gary Davis, Skip James, Junior Wells, Mick Jagger, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin.

Waterman moved to Boston in the 1950's to study journalism at Boston University. The dominant music of the era was Folk, but Waterman sought out the Blues. In 1964, he journeyed to Mississippi with friends Phil Spiro and Nick Perls (Perls later formed Yazoo Records, a label dedicated to music preservation). The result of this trip was the re-discovery of Eddie "Son" House, a legendary Blues singer who had vanished from the Delta music scene over 20 years earlier.

Waterman acknowledges that finding Son House was the turning point in his life; from there he started Avalon Productions, the first booking agency ever formed solely to represent Blues artists. Within a few years, Dick Waterman was representing Blues acts including Son House, Booker White, Lightnin' Hopkins, "Mississippi" Fred McDowell, Skip James and many others.

When the electric sound of the Chicago Blues scene started gaining popularity, Waterman added Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Luther Allison to his roster. In the late 1960s he met Bonnie Raitt and convinced her to begin what has become a long, fruitful music career. As many of his Blues artists died, Waterman assumed responsibility for their estates to provide for their heirs.

Dick Waterman's photographs, which have appeared in many publications around the world, feature never-seen-before images of some of the legends of Blues, Country, Rock and Jazz. Dick Waterman's photography is displayed in A Gallery For Fine Photography in New Orleans and The Govinda Gallery in Washington DC.