In the Gallery, month of May 2013, The Blues in Black and White, an exhibition of archival photographs by Robert Allison from the glory days of Albert’s Hall, the premier venue in the late 80s for blues musicians passing through Toronto.
Robert wrote in 1989: “I began photographing each act that came to the bar. On Monday I’d shoot, and by Friday I’d have prints to be signed. 
It gave me a goal, it gave me a purpose for shooting, but most of all it gave me satisfaction – something that I was interested in and something that I could feel. The management gave me a private gallery, and the bar gave me a captive audience. Thematically I was capturing history in the making. That’s what this collection is. It’s a history of a bar that I’ve worked in for five years, and it’s a history of the musicians that have played there.” (photo top left James Cotton, left lower Paul Butterfield, right Jimmy Reed)
Robert Allison’s statement in 1989: The walls were white; the musicians were black and white; the music was blue. I was just a bartender listening to the coins come across the counter, interrupted by Doug’s scream of “yaaa”. The “a” sound stretching on forever, his vocals never cracking. A pause. Then I’d look up front and there he’d be with his arm stretched towards the stage, a bottle of beer held tightly in his hand in a salute to the sound – a pagan worship of the blues.
I was down in the bar’s basement one day, and in a box, on a shelf, I discovered a pile of photos, musicians without names. They seemed misplaced, buried prematurely. I spoke with the management and got permission to hang them on the bare walls that led up to Albert’s Hall. I became both a grave robber and a resurrector.
At some point I came to realize that if I could resurrect, then I could also record. Encouraged by the initial response to the photos that I had placed on the wall, I began photographing each act that came to the bar. On Monday I’d shoot, and by Friday I’d have prints to be signed.
It gave me a goal, it gave me a purpose for shooting, but most of all it gave me satisfaction – something that I was interested in and something that I could feel. The management gave me a private gallery, and the bar gave me a captive audience. Thematically I was capturing history in the making. That’s what this collection is. It’s a history of a bar that I’ve worked in for five years, and it’s a history of the musicians that have played there.
Each photo has its own history. I’ve stood behind the bar and watched people stop and point at one photo or another as the image, like the songs, jars loose some memory. Each time it’s happened, I feel as if I’ve become an extension of the music. I’ve been allowed a chance to be part of something intangible, something contradictory, painful and yet sweet. It’s the blues, it’s life. Robert Allison 1989
