ENDURING IMAGES OF SOME OF OUR MOST FASCINATING SUBJECTS

Words by Max Weiss

More than anything else, our goal here at Baltimore is to tell human stories, to introduce you to the many intriguing, talented, and, yes, eccentric people who make this town soar. We do this, of course, through close observation, in-depth interviews, and artful descriptions—we use our words, basically—but we also do it through photography. As writers, we’re inspired by (and maybe even a little jealous of) how much can be communicated through a picture, how much personality and humanity can jump off a page. We’re proud of the wonderful roster of photographers we use here, and we wanted to show off some of their best work. On the following pages, you’ll see vibrant, vital, evocative photos of some of our favorite subjects of the 21st century, from the late Ethel Ennis to R&B star Mario (yes, he’s from Baltimore). In some cases, our subject is seen close-up, so that their face alone seems to tell the story. In other cases, we put the subject in their own environment, because so much can be learned when people surround themselves with their favorite stuff. In all instances, the cliché proves true: A picture really can speak a thousand words.

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ETHEL ENNIS: JAZZ MUSICIAN

“PURE ETHEL” BY JOHN LEWIS / MARCH 2011

Photography By Dean Alexander

We interviewed the grande dame of Baltimore jazz, who died last February, at her Mondawmin home with her beloved husband, the writer Earl Arnett, at her side. She regaled us with stories of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, explained why she didn’t get stage fright (“I don’t get nervous because I’m not ambitious.”), and shared how her musical spirit was inspired by her grandmother: “She wanted me to sing things that would uplift the spirit and not dwell in sorrow.”

PAT MORAN: Casting Director

“SEEING RED” BY JOHN LEWIS / AUGUST 2013

Photography By Mike Morgan

The word “iconic” gets thrown around a lot, but it certainly applies to Pat Moran. With her signature shock of orange hair and oversized glasses, the multiple Emmy-award-winning casting director is instantly recognizable, and she’s been a fixture in Baltimore, moving from the underground scene to the height of mainstream success, for decades. “My whole career has been one big accident,” Moran told us, modestly. “I’m just lucky to have gotten out of Catonsville.”

MARIO: R&B MUSICIAN

“MARIO SINGS THE BLUES” BY GREGORY KANE / JANUARY 2011

Photography By Daniel Bedell

We spoke to the actor and R&B heartthrob during a particularly dark time in his life. His mother, who struggled with addiction, had accused him of assault (she later recanted and the charges were dropped), and he was still reeling from the negative publicity. Music, he explained, had been a way to escape his troubled home life. And though his relationship with his mother was strained, he vowed to be there for her: “This is my mother, and this will always be my mother,” he told us.

LEFTY KREH: FLY FISHERMAN

“BIG FISH” BY LYDIA WOOLEVER / MAY 2016

Photography By Mike Morgan

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, a serious amateur fisherman himself, equated meeting his friend Lefty Kreh to “a Little League shortstop meeting Cal Ripken for the first time.” We got a fly fishing lesson from the legendary sportsman and writer, who died at 93 in March 2018, and captured his innate good nature (“I just like people; and if you like people, they like you.”); his concerns about the state of the Bay (“In my opinion, there shouldn’t be any commercial fishing in the Chesapeake Bay anymore.”); and his philosophy of fishing——and life (“Even if you don’t catch anything, you had fun playing the game.”).

BRYAN VOLTAGGIO: CHEF, RESTAURATEUR

"LIFE OF BRYAN" BY JANE MARION / NOVEMBER 2014

Photography By Mike Morgan

“I’ve always looked to Baltimore as a city I grew up in, even though I’ve never lived here,” said Frederick’s Bryan Voltaggio, who appeared on season six of Top Chef in 2009 and its spinoff, Top Chef Masters, in 2013. “We frequented it so much on weekends——I felt like it was part of my childhood and my life. . . . I love Baltimore.” We talked with the chef right as he opened the (since closed) Aggio in Power Plant Live! His Volt and Family Meal restaurants remain dining institutions in Frederick.

LOIS LEDNUM: WATERWOMEN

"WATERWOMEN" BY LYDIA WOOLEVER / JULY 2016

Photography By Justin Tsucalas

When people talk about a face earning every crevice and line, they might as well be talking about the sun-browned face of 75-year-old Lois Lednum, one of our “heroines of the Chesapeake Bay” profiled by Lydia Woolever in 2016. This is the face of a woman who has gone out crabbing and oystering with her husband, Dickie, on the eponymous Lois Ann boat since her youngest child turned 12, a woman who could bag bait and drop trotlines in her sleep. “I like to stay busy,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I can’t stand being cooped up inside.”

JOHN BARTH: WRITER

“ON WITH THE STORY” BY JOHN LEWIS / NOVEMBER 2008

Photography By David Colwell

From his hometown of Chestertown, the then-78-year-old writer reflected on his career and legacy. “It’s very pleasant,” he said of his ongoing reputation as a master of postmodernism. “If you’re a novelist, you hope that your stuff stays in print and that someone still remembers you.” As for why he hadn’t been beset by the kind of melancholy that sometimes afflicted his aging peers? “[It’s] largely because my personal and domestic life has been a real source of bliss, support, and satisfaction,” he said.

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The entrepreneur got his start in the economic world of crusts and fillings—his pumpkin pie was recently picked as one of the top Thanksgiving pies by Food & Wine magazine’s website—by turning out pies that were sold at the Daily Grind in Fells Point in the late ’90s. At the time, he was also moonlighting as a waiter and bartender at Peter’s Inn, not coincidentally, one of his favorite restaurants (along with Sticky Rice).

“He’s a jack-of-all-trades,” says Bud Tiffany, who owns Peter’s with his chef/wife Karin. They both have one thing to say about Henry, who, even now, occasionally helps out at the former biker bar: “Best. Employee. Ever.”

By 2003, Henry took over an old Herman’s Bakery at South Montford Avenue and Fleet Street with financial support from his parents and brother-in-law. Today, he has a mini-chain of pie shops with the Canton location, three in D.C., and another in Detroit—plus food trucks. And the empire is growing. He’s negotiating to open a Dangerously Delicious Pies in Austin, TX, and is considering a spot in Napa Valley, CA, where he envisions a “farm-to-table” theme in keeping with the area’s all-year growing season. “I’m like a pie bastard,” he admits.

The name for his business just came to him one day while he was driving his car, he says. He liked the sound of Dangerously Delicious Pies and envisioned the cross-bones logo that distinguishes his brand.

But these days, Henry isn’t usually doing the day-to-day dough making. He has other partners involved.

“Rodney doesn’t like the word ‘franchise,’” says Mary Martian Wortman, who owns the Canton Dangerously Delicious shop with her husband, John. “Rodney doesn’t want the shops to be cookie cutters.”

Mary, a longtime believer in the pies and Henry, left a teaching job at a private elementary school in Dundalk to follow the master, who trained the married couple in all aspects of the business. “I believe in his product—his pies are like no one else’s—and his marketing ability,” she says. “And it freed him up to do what he does best.”

Henry is still very hands-on at the shops when he has time, even getting behind the counter. “I keep it so it’s personal. I have a vested interest,” he says. “I get a cut of the action.” He doesn’t talk exact amounts of money, but he says, “It will help with the kids down the line.”

The diversity of his shops—which all use the same recipes for the pies, quiches, and side dishes and have similar color schemes of red, black, and gun-metal blue—is particularly evident in Detroit. The pie enterprise is in a tavern—the Third Street Bar near Wayne State University. Musician “Doop” Duprie—who played at Bertha’s—runs the place.

Henry met Duprie, a songwriter and singer/guitarist with the Michigan alternative-country group Doop and the Inside Outlaws, at South by Southwest, a film-and-music festival in Austin, while he was playing music and slinging pies. Duprie heard Henry sing there. “I was blown away,” he says. The men became friends, and Henry went to Detroit, where the two recorded music and hung out.

While Henry was there, the bleak employment outlook in the Motor City wasn’t lost on him. “I love Detroit,” he says. “There are no jobs, so I said, ‘Let’s open a pie shop.’”

He put Duprie, a laid-off firefighter, in charge of the new business, bringing him to Baltimore for a month to train and learn how to bake pies. Duprie, who cooked for the firefighters at his former station, was a quick study. And he is grateful for the job opportunity, especially since the two-year-old operation is already showing a profit. “He’s a good man with a big heart,” he says of Henry. “He does a lot of stuff for other people. He’s this guy who comes in and creates jobs.”

Henry accepts his role matter-of-factly: “I’m spreading the word of pies.”

Duprie isn’t the only musician to benefit from Henry’s largesse. Lee, Canton’s head baker, also received a helping hand. The Baltimore singer/guitarist, who frequented a former Dangerously Delicious shop in Federal Hill and met Henry there, was on the verge of being laid off from his job working on electric cars in an industrial park near Camden Yards. Henry heard about Lee’s plight, called him, and invited him to come to work. Lee, who learned to bake as a child from his mother, fit right in.

A number of Henry’s employees are musicians. The open kitchen in Canton allows easy viewing of the baking action, whomever is patting the dough into a pan or cutting up fruit and vegetables. The savory pies—especially the plump steak, Gruyère, and mushroom and the pulled-pork barbecue—are as popular as the sweet pies of apple, blueberry, lemon chess, and—one of Henry’s favorites—the “white-trash crème brûlée.”

The pies aren’t cheap: A whole pie is $28 for a sweet one ($6 a slice) and $35 for savory ($7 a slice). But Wortman, who took over the Canton location on O’Donnell Street a year ago, says that she and her husband are “taking it slow and sinking the revenue back into the shop.”

They also have an entertainment license now and book music acts on occasion, which certainly fits into Henry’s concept.

“He started his pie shop to extend his music career,” says Lee, whose band Lazlo Lee and the Motherless Children performs locally and around the
country. “He’s all about ‘pie style.’”

Ah, “pie style,” the phrase Henry made famous on last summer’s Food Network Star, where he was one of 12 contestants vying for a chance to have his own TV show. What exactly does it mean?

Essentially, it’s a way of life, a work ethic, a loyalty to those of similar interests. As Henry explains it vaguely, “It’s a laid-back attitude.”

While Henry was a fan favorite on the show, he came in second to Southern cooking-school instructor Damaris Phillips. His followers rallied around him, as Elizabeth Smith posted on Facebook: “Rodney should have won . . . hands down . . . but he will always be the pie guy. Nobody can beat that!”

The worst part about the show, Henry says, was not being able to talk about the results. “I’m a loudmouth,” he shares. “It had to be a secret.”

He had a good time, though, enjoying the repartee with celebrity mentors Giada De Laurentiis, Bobby Flay, and especially Alton Brown. “Me and Alton are totally cool. In the morning, we’d hang out and talk about rock-and-roll,” Henry says. “He was the most personable of all the judges.”

He would like to catch up with Brown when the TV celebrity brings his Edible Inevitable Tour—featuring stand-up comedy, live music, food talk, and more—to Baltimore on February 22 at the Lyric. “If I’m here, I’ll see him somewhere on his tour,” Henry says. “I’m going to stalk him.”

The recent TV stint wasn’t Henry’s first shot at national fame. He has also appeared on the Food Network shows Chopped and Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

But there’s still hope for Henry on the small screen. While he can’t talk about the specifics, discussions are in the works for his own program,
which he describes as a lifestyle show involving music, food, and bars.

“Sort of like Anthony Bourdain, but not so highbrow,” he suggests with a laugh.

His friends envision a starry-eyed future for him. “I can see him teaching bands how to bake pie or going mobile and teaching a band like U2 to make pies,” Lee says.

“I think with his positive attitude—and he’s sure driven—he’s bound to have something happening,” Bud Tiffany agrees.

For the next several months, Henry will be spending time in Los Angeles, working on the mystery TV possibility, and traipsing around the country in his usual fashion. “My life is killer,” he says. “I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’ve been ‘pie style’ since day one.”

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