Sidney Smith , the New Orleans photographer who documented the Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin and other rock legends before founding Haunted History Tours, died Friday of pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

To his enormous circle of friends, Smith was as colorful and focused as any of his photographs.

He inherited his first camera from his father, an art teacher at Alcee Fortier High School. In November 1970, at age 16, he snuck into Tulane University’s homecoming dance to photograph the Allman Brothers Band. Off and on for years, he traveled with and photographed the Allmans.

Smith identified with Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical 2000 movie “Almost Famous" about a teenage journalist traveling with a rock band in the 1970s.

"That," Smith said in June

See Full Page