Jim Marshall is the guy who, in essence, invented Rock music photography. His iconic images of the top performers of the sixties and early seventies laid down the visual groove that every rock photographer since has been obliged to follow. “Not Fade Away” The Rock and Roll Photography of Jim Marshall collects his best images from this important era for the first time. In the course of a career that spanned almost four decades, Marshall shot more than 20,000 rolls of Kodak Tri-X Black & White film, over 700,000 images of performers like Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, the Who, Cream, and thousands of other singers and musicians.
The Times
The sixties and early seventies were a period of turbulent social and political change in America. Race riots, sit-ins, love-ins, civil rights marches, casual drug use, assassinations of public figures, communes, free love, anti war demonstrations, draft card burnings, bra burnings, political dirty tricks, government conspiracies, and revolution in the streets. Catch phrases and mottoes like “don’t trust anyone over thirty”, “sex drugs and rock’n’roll”, “tune in, turn on, and drop out”, “if you aren’t part of the solution then you are part of the problem”, “give peace a chance”, and “ hell no, we won’t go” fired the imaginations of millions of middle class white kids and poor disenfranchised blacks.
In the middle of all this chaos was the one solid element, the glue that kept the fragile coalition of discordant voices focused, the magical music that bound us all together. There was a style, a groove, and a beat for every taste, nothing was taboo, the old rules were gone. Soul, jazz, rock, blues, rock’n’roll, gospel, rock-a-billy, and country music were dumped in a huge cultural cauldron and when the mixture boiled in the heat of the times, what foamed over the top was totally new and fresh, the music that defined a generation.
Jim Marshall was there, he was one of the guys stirring the pot. His images let us know that we weren’t alone, that others felt the same as we did. That we had champions who spoke for us, and to us. They spoke in a poetic language only we could decipher, a strange new tongue that kept the rhythm with fuzz-toned guitars, and electric organs, that laid down the beat with throbbing bass guitars and pounding drums. We knew their hearts from the beat, we knew their minds from the lyrics, Jim Marshall showed us their faces.
The Photographer
Marshall grew up in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, and by the early sixties he had bought a used Leica rangefinder camera and started talking his way into the small smoky “beatnik” music clubs of North Beach. He photographed John Coltrane, Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters, and many other prominent jazz and blues performers of the day. His stark Black and White images were like nothing anyone had ever seen before, they showed the performers in a new light, and launched a career.
By early 1963 Marshall was in New York City, living in Greenwich Village and shooting the folk performers at the coffee houses and bars along Bleeker. His images of a very young Bob Dylan, just before he made the big time, are classic. Marshall was doing exactly what he wanted to do, he loved the small smoke filled clubs, the enthusiasm of the dedicated fans, and the fantastic music; but most of all he loved the musicians and the high he got from shooting them at work. After two years in New York, Marshall returned to San Francisco, just in time to see the city’s Bohemian reputation make it a hippie Mecca, and the focal point of the most incredible and explosive period of popular music development this planet has ever seen.
Marshall’s photographic heroes were from the time honored photo-journalism tradition. FSA shooters Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, and Walker Evans taught him sensitivity and empathy for his subjects. Combat photographers David Douglas Duncan and Robert Cappa showed him how to work like a sniper, to get in close and make the shot count. Photo journalists Ernst Haas, W. Eugene Smith, Carl Mydans, and Henri Cartier-Bresson taught him how to see and compose strong graphic images.
Marshall was an anachronism, in an era of motor drives, howitzer sized telephoto lenses, and potato masher flash units, he shot all his images with hand held Leica’s, natural lighting, and normal or wide angle lenses. He knew how to see photographically, how to anticipate the “decisive moment” when all the elements would come together, and a two-dimensional image of a single moment in time would become more than the sum of its parts. Marshall’s images provide a window to the souls of the performers, a moment of shared experience, a representational expression just as valid artistically as a painting, a sculpture, or a work of literature.
Jim Marshall was never an outsider, he was accepted as a friend by his subjects, and treated like one of the band. His large ego, almost irrational self-confidence, and penchant for partying hard, insured his acceptance. The performers he shot knew Jim was one of them, and they allowed him a level of access without limit or restriction. His images revealed the triumphs and terror of instant fame, the joy of creation, and the beauty of making music with your friends. They also revealed the self-destructive behavior, the alienation, and foolish antics that talented young people are prone to. His honest and un-contrived images show the triumph, despair, and pain of the intense lives lived in front of the crowds of screaming fans. The intimacy, sensitivity, and immediacy of his images chronicled the insanity and chaos of the times. His images show the stars as real people, their blemishes are evident, as are the enthusiasm for the music, the vulnerability, and their self-doubt. Marshall’s photographs also communicate viscerally the sheer unadulterated joy of being part of something magical. It wasn't ever about the money or fame, not during those years, it was all about the music. Nobody really understood what was happening, but everyone knew that anything was possible.
Bands appeared on the pop music radar and became famous over-night, nobody knew the rules, because there weren’t any. There was no need for the performers to protect their images, and nobody was worried about who was in charge. The kids in the bands had as much control as anyone, but mostly things just happened.
When the Beatles played their last ever, live concert at Candlestick Park in August of 1966, Jim Marshall was the only photographer allowed backstage during the show. When Otis Redding sang “Dock of the Bay” at Monterey in 1967, Jim Marshall was on stage and captured the soul of one of the greatest singers of the time, just months before his untimely death. When Janis Joplin screamed her way onto the San Francisco rock scene, Marshall showed the world the face that went with the voice. When the Jefferson Airplane started playing gigs in clubs around town, Marshall was the first photographer to shoot them. When the second day dawned at the Woodstock festival, Marshall was on stage with the Who, and when the Rolling Stones started their “Exile on Main Street” tour of the U. S. in 1972, Marshall flew with them, the only photographer allowed on the band’s Lear jet. He shot every show they played and the images from the tour were published in Life Magazine with a Marshall shot of Mick on the cover.
By the mid seventies bean counters had taken over and pop music had become a multi billion dollar business. Record company executives and band managers wanted to protect and manipulate the images of their groups. Unlimited access was no longer allowed. Photo ops with the bands were rigidly controlled, art directors, record company executives, managers, and producers decided what shots they wanted and where they wanted them taken from. Jim Marshall found himself on the outside for the first time in his career. He couldn’t shoot as a member of the press pack, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to tell him what to shoot or where to shoot from.
He soon gained a reputation for being difficult to work with. By 1974 he was no longer working. He spent his time drinking too much and doing drugs. By the early eighties his life was out of control. People were using his famous images without his permission or royalty payments, his wife had left him, and he started getting into altercations that brought the police. By 1983 he was looking at time in prison. He managed to talk his way into a work furlough program instead of jail and he spent two years working as a photographic assistant for $150.00 a week. He worked hard, swept floors, moved equipment, and did his time. When he was discharged, he had managed to turn himself around and regain control of his life. These days he sells prints of his famous images to aging but affluent baby boomers who want something on the walls of their homes and offices that remind them of their glory days.
The Book
“Not Fade Away” The Rock and Roll Photography of Jim Marshall is a beautiful, standard coffee table size book. The images are well printed, on high quality glossy paper, as clear and sharp as the day Jim shot them. Most pages feature one image, generally a 5x7 or 8x10 photo, printed full frame from Marshall’s original Tri-X negatives. Each image is accompanied by Marshall’s caption of what was happening when the photo was taken. The 144 page book has 124 Black & White photos, a forward by academy award nominated actor Michael Douglas, and ends with a feature article by free-lance music critic Jon Bowermaster.
This book will take you on a journey to another time, when for a few brief years all the planets were in alignment and the magic was alive. A time when a committed and determined coalition of young people and the disenfranchised poor were able to make our country live up to its promise, and the face of America was changed forever. Together they stopped a war and made it possible for a person of color to reach his or her potential. Marshall’s book shows us the faces of the musicians and singers who played the music that guided and inspired all of us, the revolutionary soundtrack for one of the greatest social, political, and cultural dramas in the history of mankind.
If you were there, during those incredible years, then this book will speak to you in a language only those of us who witnessed them can understand. If you love music and want to truly understand the value of the contributions made by the artists Jim Marshall photographed, then this book will provide you with an insight into an era that still defines and influences everything that happens in popular music. If you love photography, Not Fade Away The Rock and Roll Photography of Jim Marshal, is the work of an artist whose sensitivity, creativity, and consummate photographic skill blazed the trail for every rock music photographer who followed. The book collects the finest rock music images ever shot, by the seminal photographer who invented the medium.
The Pictures
The images cover Marshall’s entire career, from the early sixties to 1996. There are rare and fascinating pictures like Marshall’s shot of Janis Joplin jokingly choking Grace Slick (the only photo of the two of them together) a pensive shot of John Lennon sitting backstage at Candlestick Park. The famous shot of Johnny Cash flipping the bird at San Quentin Prison, and the iconic photo of the Allman Brothers Band lounging on their equipment cases used as the album cover for “Live at the Fillmore East”. Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Otis Redding shots from the Monterey Pop Festival. Side by side pictures of rock'n'roll legends Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry, and a really neat shot of Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, and Robbie Robertson hanging out in the San Francisco alley that would years later be re-named Kerouac Street. A double page shot of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard working on a song during the 1972 tour. For those who want something a bit more recent there are images of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a neat shot of Bonnie Rait and Chris Isaak playing together.
Conclusion
I’ve been a photographer for thirty years, and a serious lover of music for more than forty, so I understand Jim Marshall, I understand what he was trying to do, and I understand how important it was to him to do it right. I understand where he came from, where he’s been, and how he got there. Maybe the best way to convey the depth of emotion, the magic of creation, and the sense of history observed present in this book, is with Marshall’s own words, “You know when I had unlimited access, when the lighting was good, and the music was right, there was no greater high. … I swear to God it was unbelievable, there was no way to describe that feeling” (*2)
Title: Not Fade Away: The Rock & Roll Photography of Jim Marshall
Author: Jim Marshall
Publisher: Bulfinch Press
Release Date: 05/01/2000
Available formats: Hardcover - Trade Cloth (ISBN: 0821223623) • Paperback - Trade Paper (ISBN: 0821226568)
Number of pages: 144
End Article by: Jon Bowermaster
Foreword by: Michael Douglas
(*) ”F8 and be there” In the old days, when photo journalists turned in beautifully composed, sharply focused images, photo editors would sometimes ask, “How on earth were you able to get this great shot?” The photographer would smile and say, “F8 and be there” which, simply put, meant the photographer had chosen a small lens aperture (insuring sharp focus and good depth of field) concentrated all of his/her considerable experience and talent on capturing the shot, and made a point of being very close to the action, as it unfolded.
(*2) Comment by Jim Marshall in an interview with Jon Bowermaster in “Not Fade Away” The Rock and Roll Photography of Jim Marshall
If you enjoy photography books, please read my review:
“Wynn Bullock, The Enchanted Landscape, Photographs 1940-1975”
http://www.epinions.com/book-review-5DDB-80C8F3E-39DB828E-prod1
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