At the So.Co. Image of Music Awards, the photographer is being named Legend of the Year. According to Vince Bannon, the organization’s CEO, “Jill’s incredible work has touched the lives of millions of music fans globally.”
“Music photographers are the heartbeat of what we do at So.Co., and we couldn’t be more excited to honor Jill’s legacy at this year’s awards,” the organization that promotes music vocations and music-making continued.
Raised in what is now Zimbabwe, Furmanovsky moved to London at the age of eleven, a “traumatic change” that she described.
“My father was a photographer and a jazz musician in addition to being an architect. At home, he had a darkroom. Essentially, my profession evolved from my dad’s interests.
“I had an aunt who loved Elvis, but I wasn’t into the jazz recordings he was playing at the time.
“Then we heard about The Beatles, but because it was Africa to us, beetles were these insects that we were familiar with found in the mud, so we thought it was very amusing that there’d be something called The Beatles.”
In the 1960s, Beatlemania was raging in Britain, and Furmanovsky was thrown headfirst into the madness.
