“Ray was testy at the start of the session. Ultimately, he loved the process and ended up calling me ‘brother’. It was a seminal session. We plunged deeply into his creative process and it became a benchmark for where I aspired to go with artists. Ray summed it up for me: “You can bring yourself to your own incompetence, but there’s always more left in the instrument…If you can think of it, see that’s the key, to create it in your mind.”- Norman Seeff
Ex-medical doctor Norman Seeff emigrated from South Africa to New York in 1968 to pursue a career as a photographer, filmmaker and designer. Three years later, he relocated to Los Angeles as Art Director at United Artists Records, where his album cover designs and photography received many Grammy nominations.
He went independent in 1975 and has worked with hundreds of artists including Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Ike and Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell and many others. Seeff is now engaged in documentary filmmaking focusing on the exploration of the inner dynamics of the creative process.