John Olson's brilliant photographs of 1970s rock stars at home.

John Olson is most famous for his visceral images of conflict in Vietnam, but, in 1971, having joined Life magazine as its youngest ever photographer, he was commissioned to shoot a series of portraits of rock stars and their parents. It was, he says, "a hell of a lot more difficult and unrewarding than war photography".

The recently rediscovered portraits were taken over a 15-month period. "I had worked for the rock promoter Bill Graham for a few years so I had some experience of dealing with rock stars' egos and unprofessionalism," elaborates Olson, who now runs a scanning and printing business in upstate New York. "But, without exception, the performers behaved like regular human beings as soon as their parents were around. They were polite, on time and not stoned. That's the primal power of parenthood, I guess."

Olson's only regret is that the Beatles refused to take part and "Hendrix and Janis were already dead". Grace Slick's father, a banker, also refused to be photographed. "I think he felt her lifestyle was just too much of a contrast," Olson says. The shoot with Eric Clapton and his grandmother was punctuated by obscenities from her pet parrot. "[Musicians] Delaney and Bonnie had stayed in the house for a while and taught the parrot to shout 'fuck you!' at anyone who walked past the cage," says Olson, laughing. "That was about as rock'n'roll as it got."

Sean O'Hagan, The Observer