Since he was 16 years old, pioneering photographer David Corio has built an unparalleled six-decade music photography archive.
From Bob Marley’s final London performance to the birth of hip-hop in New York, for almost 50 years Corio has been in recording studios, backstage dressing rooms and major cultural events like Notting Hill Carnival and Rock Against Racism, documenting the 20th century’s most groundbreaking musicians.
“Bob Marley was really difficult to shoot. He was almost in a trance, dancing like a shaman. His locks were thrashing around. It didn’t make it easier that I was standing chest-deep in a lake at the time. I got down to my last shot, the 37th frame on my last roll of film and waited – and just managed to capture it all at the right moment. There have been a few times over the years when, just as you click the shutter, you feel that you’ve got it. This was one of them. I was 20, just starting, and I’d only done a dozen jobs. I wouldn’t have known at the time he was ill”
David Corio on capturing Bob Marley’s final London performance
Corio now shares an exclusive, career-spanning collection for photography platform Print Matters, with 20% of every print and fine art poster sale donated to mental health charity Rethink Mental Illness.
At Marvin Gaye’s seminal Royal Albert Hall concert, Corio was the only photographer standing in the pit. Corio remembers “Everyone was dressed to the nines, and there was just me, alone at the front. It felt like Marvin was singing to just me.”
“Normally you’d get your name put on the door, so you’d get in for free. That was one of the main reasons I did it – to get into gigs.”
David Corio
Nina Simone at Ronnie Scott’s, Nick Cave in an abandoned church, Horace Andy dancing in the London snow outside Rough Trade Records, Print Matters are proud to present the widest collection yet of Corio’s unforgettable portraits.
David Corio’s work has been exhibited at the V&A, the Photographer’s Gallery, The Hayward Gallery, the ICA, the International Center of Photography in New York, and is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
Corio also shares a signed limited-edition fine art poster of Public Enemy, taken in Hyde Park in 1987 – the year the culture-defining band released their debut album Yo! Bum Rush the Show.
Corio grew up as a fan of the NME. “NME was the bible”, Corio recalls. As a 16-year-old Londoner, Corio went to gigs, made photographs, and for six months dropped off prints at the NME offices – to silence. Until one day, the NME editor called Corio asking him to photograph Joe Jackson at the Marquee Club in 1979. Corio never looked back, creating an iconic archive in his time at the NME, The Face, Time Out, and of course Black Echoes, the legendary black British music magazine.
Print Matters bring limited edition, exhibition-grade photographic prints and fine art posters to a wider audience, with 20% of every print and poster sale donated to Rethink Mental Illness.
No matter how bad things are, Rethink Mental Illness can help people severely affected by mental illness improve their lives. Rethink know people severely impacted by mental illness can have a good quality of life. With support, Rethink will make that possible.
De La Soul, Bruce Springsteen, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Fugees, Ms Lauryn Hill, Alton Ellis, Joe Strummer, John Lydon, The Cure, The Pogues, The Specials, Talking Heads, The Slits, U2, George Clinton, Curtis Mayfield, Ray Charles, Goldie, Kirk Franklin and Miles Davis are just some of the other music royalty who feature in David Corio’s Print Matters collection.
Photographer David Corio says, “I’m really pleased to be collaborating with Print Matters. To help raise awareness of a charity such as Rethink Mental Illness which has an important, worthwhile cause and to know that every sale will be of some help to them means a lot to me.”
David Corio’s signed, limited edition photographic prints and fine art posters are available now from Print Matters. (printmatters.uk) from 22 September 2025. Signed, limited edition photographic prints from £575. Public Enemy fine art poster £85.
