About the Artist
Tom Gundelfinger O'Neal began his career as a Rock and Roll photographer in 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival. There he was able to capture candid backstage moments of many of the artists as well as some of the electrifying performances. Based on the positive feedback from those early photos, Tom moved to Los Angeles and was hired immediately by the manager of the Byrds and began taking remarkable images of the band right before David Crosby was fired from the group and through the short-lived return of Gene Clark.
Over the next eight years Tom photographed and built friendships with many of the artists that performed at Monterey. Tom’s photos appeared on numerous album covers such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu and Four Way Street, Steppenwolf's debut album, as well as covers for Neil Young, BB King, John Phillips, Mama Cass, Spanky and Our Gang, Poco, Crazy Horse and Jim Croce.
Tom’s work was in such high demand that he was hired by other major artists such as The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Cream & The Monkees and his work is so highly respected that an image of Joni Mitchell from 1969 and an outtake of the photo session for CSN&Y’s Deju Vu album cover are hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The Reelin’ In The Years Photo Archive represents the work of many legendary photographers (including Tom Gundelfinger O’Neal), as well some truly remarkable private archives, all of which contain both and iconic and unseen images of musical artists spanning the last ninety years. The Reelin’ In The Years Photo Archive focuses exclusively on licensing images of music artists. The archive includes over 200,000 photos from the 1930s to today. Their holdings feature unique images of artists ranging from Elvis Presley to The Sex Pistols, The Beatles to Beyonce, Muddy Waters to Bob Marley, and everything in between. Additionally, Reelin’ In The Years Productions controls a unique archive of over 30,000 hours of music footage spanning 90 years, making it the largest of its kind in the world.
