By P.A. Geddie
Hank O’Neal is a music producer, author, and photographer. Named for his father, Harold L. O’Neal Jr. was born June 5, 1940, in Kilgore, Texas. Although the family moved away from East Texas when he was a boy, his deep roots, memories, and many return trips as an adult, make it one of the most special places in the world to him.
During his childhood, the family moved to Fort Worth, Indiana, and New York. In 1962, O’Neal was about to graduate from Syracuse University when he was recruited by the CIA and worked for the organization as a contact specialist. He lived in Greenwich Village and immersed himself in Harlem’s jazz scene. His artistic interests overtook his world of espionage and by 1972 he founded a small independent record label called Chiaroscuro Records. In 1973, he published his first book and held a photography show, “Winona, Texas,” in Manhattan.
O’Neal was visiting his father in 1970 in East Texas and they went to see a relative’s property in the Starrville community called the Sam Gary farm and then went to nearby Winona.
“The first non-musicians project I ever undertook with a real camera was [there], “O’Neal says, and more photos soon joined his original collection when returned to Texas when his father was ill.
“He got sick a year or so later and I was back in East Texas to be with him and I took more pictures.”
That series ultimately led him to do a show at The Open Mind Gallery in New York City in 1973.
He’s photographed and befriended Andy Warhol, Elie Wiesel, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, and Jacqueline Kennedy, just to name a few from his world in New York and beyond. In the 1970s he associated with a diverse group of photographers, notably Walker Evans, André Kertész, and, Berenice Abbott, with whom he worked for the last 19 years of her life.
He’s collaborated on many other creative projects with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and counted guitar legend Les Paul among his friends.
In addition to Chiaroscuro Records, a 40-year career in music also included forming another record company, Hammond Music Enterprises, and building two recording studios, WARP and Downtown Sound. He produced more than 200 jazz LPs/CDs and co-produced more than 100 music festivals from 1983–2002. He published books and articles on jazz, photographed most of the major jazz musicians from the second half of the 20th century, exhibited photographs regularly, and served on the boards of various non-profit organizations that serve the jazz community including the The Jazz Foundation of America and the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. He is a lifetime member of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Since his first book in 1973 and books on jazz, O’Neal has published many others. Find extensive lists of them on his WEBSITE and AMAZON.
In 2017, O’Neal released a book centered around his parents in East Texas, a place his father called “Heavenland.” Preserving Lives: An American Family’s Scrapbook, 1920-1950 is the story of two ordinary people living ordinary lives in East Texas almost a century ago. O’Neal shares stories about his parents, Harold and Sarah, from what he gathered from old scrapbooks, photographs, letters, postcards, illustrations, and bits of memorabilia of their lives together. The book takes readers through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the emerging supremacy of what came to be known as the American Dream.
The story began and thrived in the rough and tumble world of the East Texas oil patch, making it all the more compelling. The book is published by TCU Press and for sale on AMAZON.
Another book by O’Neal released in 2021 about his love of baseball and his interactions with baseball legend Ty Cobb. Sincerely Ty Cobb is illustrated with handwritten letters from Cobb to O’Neal along with cards and notes from other Hall of Fame players and traces 10 years of his own life in baseball as well. Read more in this County Line ARTICLE.
His latest book, scheduled for release this year, More Than the Music, features mostly jazz musicians and a few other people he’s known. Read more about this book HERE.
O’Neal’s career has taken him all over the world and he’s chronicled much of it through his photography, none more special to him than those in East Texas. He has frequently left his New York home to shoot photos of “Heavenland” at every opportunity.
Juxtaposing life in New York City with his roots in East Texas balances the world for Hank O’Neal.
“I see rapid change around me all the time in New York City,” he says. “A building that goes up a thousand feet or so is a remarkable thing, but glacial change is also of interest to me, as is no change at all. And that is one of the best things about East Texas. Of course there is change — people come and go, but to me it is refreshing to see that they still charge $1.50 to see a first run movie in Daingerfield at the Morris Theater (for example, since 1949).”
Some of O’Neal’s East Texas photos are part of the permanent collection at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts. See many of his favorite photos from around the world on his WEBSITE. Under “Places,” he has them categorized into France, England, Norway, the Far East, and other adventurous lands. At the top of the list sits East Texas, a place he says forever holds his heart.
