Sisters of Rock

Things have changed. In O'Neill's prime - and his prime lasted a long time, from the birth of the 1960s youthquake to well into the 1980s and 1990s - celebrity snapper Terry O'Neill had the kind of control today's photographers can only dream of. He is the embodiment of the phrase "access all areas". He hung around with Frank Sinatra, went to the pub with the Rolling Stones, photographed the wedding of the odd Beatle, even married an Oscar-winning actress (Faye Dunaway, his second of three wives). "I'm the luckiest guy on two legs," he admits.

Maybe not this morning, though. A recent injection for macular degeneration scratched his eye and he's in some discomfort. "It's so painful it's unbelievable." Still, he's survived worse. Cancer. Heart bypass surgery. None of this, though, has dented the 76-year-old's natural jeu d'esprit. Talk to O'Neill about his life and the people in it - the people he's photographed and the people he's friends with (there is a decent overlap) - and he hasn't a bad word to say about anyone. Which is impressive given that he's photographed politicians, sporting greats, actors and royalty.

But he made his name shooting pop stars. "When I first started you'd never see a picture of a pop group in a newspaper. I had the first picture ever of a group published. The Beatles recording Please, Please Me. It took three months to publish and when it was, the newspaper sold out and that was the start of pop pictures in newspapers. That was in 1963. That's how I became really successful in the 1960s. Because I could get a pop picture in newspapers."

A new book of images from O'Neill's archive - an archive that stretches to several million images - is testament to that ability. Terry O'Neill's Rock 'N' Roll Album is also effectively a history of rock 'n' roll (with side glances into jazz and soul and country). It stretches from The Animals to Zeppelin, stopping off at most points in between. The Beatles are here. Elvis is here. Elton is here ("He hated being photographed. I gave him a part to play and got out of his life as quick as I could because that's the only way you'd get anything out of him"). Bowie and Bruce and Frank and Stevie Wonder too.

And then there are the women. From Marianne Faithfull to Amy Winehouse, from Sandi Shaw and Dolly Parton to Chrissie Hynde and Sheryl Crow. There's a shadow story to be told here. One that stretches back to the 1960s when women in the music industry were happy to do what their managers told them through to the present day when pop stars are - hopefully - in charge of their own careers.

Take the case of Marianne Faithfull. When O'Neill first took her picture she was being managed by Stones manager Andrew Oldham, who wanted to sexualise her image. O'Neill's idea was to put her in a basque and stockings. Such were the 1960s.

The persona of Faithfull today is of a woman who knows her own mind, who refuses to be messed around. But back then she didn't demur from O'Neill's suggestion. Compare that with Hynde or Crow, women who always understood how they wanted to be presented and have never been reduced to sexual stereotypes.

The easy thing would be to put the Faithfull photograph down to simple 1960s sexism. Women as objects. O'Neill, however, thinks the decade's attitude was slightly more nuanced than that.

"There was a lot of good manners around in the 1960s. People forget that. There was a lot of politeness towards women like Sandi Shaw. Dusty Springfield was another. They were highly thought of. They weren't just tossed aside.

"You had to watch your Ps and Qs around Dusty Springfield, only because she was a highly strung performer and when she was working she didn't want any distractions so you had to be on your toes."

Of course O'Neill has a rose-coloured view of that particular decade because it's where his own professional story began. But he still holds to the line that it was the decade that changed everything.

"The 1960s broke every barrier down. People can't really comprehend what it was like. England, from being a country that everyone ignored, was suddenly in the eyes of the world. And everything we did - like fashion, photography - everything jumped to first place."

O'Neill jumped with them. Born in 1938, he left school wanting to be a jazz drummer. But in the end it was his eye not his hands that were to be the making of him. By the end of the 1960s he was in Hollywood, photographing Sinatra and every passing movie star. But he never lost his love of music.

"Musicians are different," O'Neill says. "Most of them don't like being photographed. You've got to get on with them differently. You've got to blend into their life even more so than with a top movie star. You have to fit in with them because their music is the most important thing of all to them.

"Singers are so much more highly strung than actors or actresses. Their voice has to be in great condition. There's all sorts of reasons."

But music - like photography - is not what it was, he reckons. "All the people in that book were great but there's not anyone great around any more. There all bloody X Factor and all that."

When he photographed Amy Winehouse a short time before she died he thought he'd completed the set. She was the last person he felt he wanted to shoot. But, maybe, he's now thinking, that's not the case. "I wouldn't mind photographing Lady Gaga. She's not bad. I like the jazz side of her. This album she did with Tony Bennett is great. You want to buy it."

Maybe that's the key to Terry O'Neill's success. When it comes down to it, at heart he's still a fan.

Terry O'Neill's Rock 'N' Roll Album is published by ACC Editions, priced £45