A Dose of Rock 'n' Roll

It has been said that rock ‘n’ roll was a boys-only club in the 1960s and 1970s. Among the few women who gained entry was a high-spirited, half-Sicilian and half-Cherokee beauty named Nancy Lee Andrews. As a top Ford model, Andrews was the perfect complement to one of the world’s biggest rock stars, former Beatle Ringo Starr. Her romantic relationship with the famous drummer granted her an All Access Pass to a world beyond the velvet rope. These photographs, taken over a decade starting in 1970, are a personal journey through Andrews’ life at the peak of pop culture history. It’s also an intimate view of the stars with whom she shared those amazing years. Seen through the lens of Nancy Lee Andrews, this fascinating visual portrayal captures some of the greatest rock and other icons of our lifetime. This is a casebound signed edition.

Working for The Ford Model Agency, Nancy Lee Andrews modeled in New York with some of the greatest photographers of the 1960s and 1970s. They included Richard Avedon, Dick Ballerian, Bert Stern, Irving Penn and Gordon Munro, but it was Milton Greene who recognized that she had a burning desire to click the shutter. “He handed me a Nikon camera and said, ‘Try it and see what happens’,” Andrews recalls. “From that roll of film onwards, I was hooked on the process of capturing the constantly changing moment. People are the most fascinating subjects on earth and I have loved photography ever since.” Thus begun her career on the other side of the camera. Encouraged by former Beatle Ringo Starr, with whom she shared her life through the 1970s, Andrews began shooting fashion for designer boutiques along Rodeo Drive and trendy Melrose Avenue. Later she shot Ringo’s publicity photos and has to her credit two of his albums - Ringo the 4th and Bad Boy. During this time she also snapped legendary artists such as George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, The Band, Keith Moon, Carl Perkins, Bernie Taupin, Gregg and Duane Allman, Leon Russell, Donovan, Hoyt Axton, Harry Nilsson, Dolly Parton, Carly Simon... to name a few. She now resides in Nashville, Tennessee.