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Jim Marshall ... by Jock McDonald © All Rights Reserved
By Jeff Kausch
Legendary Rock and Roll Photographer Jim Marshall passed away March 24. Jim was an APA SF Executive Board Member, was a close friend of many APA members, and was a central character in the Bay Area Photo Community for decades, so we are creating a special section here on our blog to help honor him.
If you have any stories, or photos of Jim, or relevant links to share, please email them to info@apasf.com.
Please feel free to share your stories about Jim by posting comments too.
And of course, please be warned that this section of our blog contains adult language; it is virtually impossible to remember Jim without it.
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Remembering Jim Marshall
Links
New York Times article and Slideshow
Rolling Stone article with many comments from Jim’s friends and fans
Andrew Hetherington’s whatsthejackanory post – video of Jim at Nutopia Forum
KTVU SF TV Station article with Video Interview with Jim
The Online Photographer: Artists Ain’t Saints, Jim Marshall, 1936-2010
Marianne Campbells’ blog: legendary photographer, jim marshall
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Remembering Jim Marshall
There are few who stand on this spinning globe who are truly able to be exactly who they are. Jim was that, an extremely honest character of rarity. A man who used volume, profanity, and racism’s, to hide his deeply generous nature and his sensitivity. No more will San Francisco vibrate with his loud timber of opinions, and his extremely fine sense of what moments required a camera present. He died as he lived, in a Rock and Roll fashion…true to the end…..encore my dear friend ENCORE!!!!!!! You wonderful complicated Fucker!
© Jock McDonald
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Jim Marshall, The Man, In Memoriam
I met Jim in the early 90’s at Julie’s Supperclub, a local bar that the San Francisco photo community met at ever Friday night. I was there for a week long magazine assignment. At the time, I was a regular contributor to People Magazine. One of the local photo retailers walked up to me and said, “Jim Marshall would like to meet you.” I paused for a minute, and then his images clicked in my brain. Jim was not famous at the time, he had not published his first book, but I already knew the images.
I turned to my friend Berndt and said, “So where is he?” He said, “Over there.” I said, “there’s no one there but a smallish man in the corner, alone, with a scotch in his hand.” His reply, “That’s Jim Marshall.” That night began an almost 20 year friendship. Late that night, I proceeded to his house in the Castro off Market. We looked at his images, mated and in plastic bags, while he poured scotch all night. I don’t drink scotch, so I kept sneaking it into the sink (I never told him that, he would have killed me), but he kept pouring. The images I saw summed up much of his life. Jim had chronicled the early years of American Rock ‘n Roll and the British Invasion as it hit the shores of the US and he also lived the life. I saw a history I had only listened to as a young kid, from someone who was backstage. He was granted access that was unprecedented, and he had an art for both capturing an un-posed scene and also “suggesting” images (the posing of Grace Slick with Janis Joplin), giving them a journalistic pathos that was deep.
Early in his career Jim worked for The Saturday Evening Post covering poverty in America. Those images were part of the first show I saw of his in a little frame shop in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station. He was very proud of those images because of the importance of the content. The significance though is those early journalistic images established a perspective by which he chronicled musical history.
That first night at Jim’s house, I got another glimpse of Jim’s other interests. He showed me the image of Janis Joplin and Grace Slick. The mat had a hole in it. He had explained that he had two Navy Seals over his house the night before and they shot a .22 caliber hole through the mat of the print. He felt it added a level of reality to the image. Oh, did I mention that Jim collected guns?
From that night on, I would see Jim when he came to LA and when I was in San Francisco. He enjoyed good food, fine wine and his McCallan and every night was a party. Then sometime in the mid 90’s, I was assigned to shoot Michael Douglas for Entertainment Weekly in his offices. As I entered the complex, I saw a wall of Jim’s images in the conference room. When I asked Michael if he knew Jim, he was very protective and skirted the question. I proceeded to tell him the story of how Jim and I met and then Michael Douglas one upped me. He told of a night after shooting the TV series in San Francisco called, “The Streets of San Francisco.” He and Jim were partying at Jim’s place making a great deal of noise and there was a knock at the door. Jim told Michael he would handle it. He pulled out his gun and opened the door to two San Francisco police officers. Soon, Jim and the rookie officer were head to head with guns in each others temples. Michael described it as the longest three minutes of his life. Both he and the other officer were shouting, “Jim, put the gun down, Jim, put the gun down.” Jim eventually did and lived on to touch many people lives, myself included, very deeply.
Jim’s rules were very simple. One night at his then girlfriend’s birthday party he explained them to me. He was dating a very beautiful Jazz singer named Miranda and we went to see her perform. For her present he had found a spectacular antique Miranda Camera. While she was performing, a friend of hers picked up his camera and he was pissed. He turned to me and said, I have three rules: never touch my girl, my gun and my camera. Not that I ever would. They were very clear boundaries, that if followed would reward an amazing friendship.
In 1997, Jim’s book “Not Fade Away” came out and his life changed. The collectors increased, he had shows around the country, and his recognition grew. Jim was now always surrounded by the rich and famous that collected his art and loved his work. He never changed though, he was still as warm and down to earth as he had always been. Every year, I help organize a photographers dinner at the Photo Plus Expo. The past two year’s, during both dinners, Jim turned to me an said, “Mikey (yes, he was the only one allowed), is that Joyce Tenneson, is that Barbara Bordnick.” Can you introduce me? I love their work, they are such great photographers. I want to meet them.” Last year, he stood up and made a speech about how he had one of Barbara’s calendars and fell in love with her work years ago. I never saw Jim being competitive, only appreciative of others work and what they had accomplished.
Over the years, Jim even mellowed. He was openly vocal and proud that he had been drug free for the past two years. At 72, he could no longer embody all the aspects of the Rock ‘n Roll lifestyle. His body could no longer support the drugs. Many people knew, or have heard of, Jim’s reputation as a guy to tell everyone to “go F-off.” There is no denying that was definitely a part of Jim. He was quoted to say, “If someone doesn’t want me to shoot them, fine, fuck ‘em. But if they do, there can’t be any restrictions.” He regularly used the f-word in every second sentence.
But the other side of Jim was kindness, generosity and loyalty that was unsurpassed. He would literally give you the shirt off his back. He called Timothy White and me his brothers, and that is an honor I will carry forever. In the end it is who we touch and are touched by that matters and, not an award, not a magazine we worked for. Through all the tough exterior he had the power of heart. That’s what makes his images so touching, they are so human.
When Johnny Cash died, Jim was shooting in my studio. He called all the major magazines, trying to get a feature story going. It never happened. He was heart broken because his Cash images, in particular were some of his best work. He had shot Johnny Cash at different periods of Cash’s life, from rebellious drug induced monuments were cash gave Jim the finger in stage, to intimate moments with is wife, June, at home. Now in his passing, I know many of the music and photography magazines will be running his images. I don’t think he would have ever imagined all the press at his passing. I hope he can see it from where he is.
Sunday night I got this deep, deep premonition that something was wrong. I called him on Monday and never heard back. He had been in New York for the release of his new book, Match Print. He never showed for a TV interview Wednesday morning and died in his sleep, of what we presume are natural causes, on Tuesday night. He had no family other than his friends, and his assistant, Amelia, who was his right hand and who he loved dearly. Those of us who knew him, and all of us who were touched by his images, will truly miss him.
_MG
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Three Stories and a photograph of Jim Marshall :
1. I met Jim through my late friend Dany Walker around 1979. Dany’s father, George, was Jim’s criminal attorney and handled his weapon assault charges. When Jim did his work-furlough program for photographer Dennis Grey, (assist during the day and in jail at night) Dany moved into Jim’s Union Street apartment. This was probably around 1980 or so. I would hang around there a lot and there were lots of parties. It was above the Food Art Store and faced right onto busy Union street. There were these steel filing cabinets in the kitchen all full of Jim’s negatives. I mean ALL of them. We used to rummage through looking at them. It’s so cool nobody took them. They sat there for years.
2. I remember once way back in the late 80s when I was going to New York to show portfolios, Jim asked me if would take his work and show it around. I told him that I would represent him in a minute, if he were dead. If you knew Jim, you would understand my reply. He told me to fuck off a few times and then gave me a print. A few months later he photographed me and my friends at my birthday party. I never saw those images.
3. About seven or eight years ago I was sitting at the bar at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in LA. There were about ten or more of Jim’s photographs framed on the walls. I started talking to the bartender about Jim. The bartender told me that he had been banned from the Hotel for throwing a chair through the window. Literally five minutes later we hear this really loud voice yell out from the doorway across the room; “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE MASLOV?!.” Sure enough it was Jim. Returning to the scene of the crime.
Last July I ran into Jim at at Lulu’s in San Francisco. I took this picture (below) with my iPhone after he bought me a Martini (he frequently bought everyone drinks) . I would always run into him in bars. Many many many times.
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Emily Merrill and Jim. This was taken prior to a Tori Amos concert in September 2009
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Patricia O’Brien
Jim Marshall… never without a Leica… never predictable… always in motion…and so much a part of the San Francisco creative community, that it’s difficult to picture it without his powerful presence.
My experiences with Jim range from:
1) driving down Folsom Street with him in his AMG at 100 miles per hour
2) watching him chase down (knife in hand) a homeless guy, who had asked if we would share the leftover food we were holding while walking
3) pulling silly pranks on me to spice things up during my tenure as director of APA
4) passionate conversations about respective heartbreaks and happy times in our lives.
We also had dinner one time shortly before his 70th birthday, and the 2 guys sitting next to us were intrigued with his bluster and his peppery language. I introduced him, and they knew his work and seemed impressed to meet him. He took down their names and addresses and went home and sent them an invitation to his Birthday Bash, which was the following week. He also put their dinner on his credit card.
Like every woman he met, he was “in love” with me. But I was “too old” for him. Drat!
As an APA board member, back in the early 90’s, Jim was engaged and active. Never one to “follow rules,” he promised “to make things happen,” he informed me, if I “agreed to do things his way.” A bit of a scary proposition, but why not?
He began by writing a “social” column for the APA Newsletter, which he titled BFD (in some ways reflecting the way he looked at his own talent). The column was the first thing that most of us went to when receiving the news, but when the “controversial title” was nixed, the column was no more! “ Fuck ‘em!”
We served wine at board meetings then, and sometimes the meetings would last for hours. Jim was full of ideas and never complacent about any issue that came up. I don’t think anyone, but the ever-balanced Will Mosgrove, could have kept things moving along in a relatively efficient way.
I remember chewing a lot of gum at those meetings to alleviate my tension.
The year Jim was on the committee for the Annual Auction, the artwork auctioned included works by Irving Penn, Timothy White, and Mark Seliger, as well as San Francisco greats Michele Clement, Jock McDonald, Art Rogers, Baron Wolman and others, including Jim himself. His generosity and energy was magnificent. He also worked his magic and had the event promoted on a major network TV channel, as well as in the Rob Morse column of the (then thriving) San Francisco Chronicle. Jim Marshall could indeed “make things happen.”
When he asked to be MC of the event, some board members cringed (like I said, he was unpredictable…oh and did I mention, along with the Leica, he usually carried a flask of Macallan or some other single malt scotch… but maybe you already knew that).
He got behind the microphone at the event and spoke from his heart. The proceeds that year were going to Bread and Roses, the late Mimi Farina’s organization, which brings music to those institutionalized, an organization that Jim was very passionate about. He worked the crowd. And he was really focused. And he gave so much of himself. It was the APA’s most successful fundraising auction.
He’d drop by my office, from time to time, “PO (his nickname for me; I called him MoMo), I’d like to give you a print for all the work you’re doing.” I’d put up a token resistance, and he’d pull 10 or 12 amazing matted photographs out of a bag he was carrying. Like I said, he was generous… and really unassuming about his work.
In fact, he was amazing. I wanted NOT to like him. He was the most “politically incorrect” person I’ve ever met, when that sort of thing was important to me. He talked like a racist, sexist, Nazi warrior. He was incredibly impatient. When I tried to find a phone number for him on my computer, he’d shout, “Get a fucking rolodex!” (He kept all his appointments in a little notebook that he always kept with him.) He screamed at a kid who rang his doorbell, educating for an upcoming election… didn’t just turn the kid away… SCREAMED at her. He chased a homeless person down the street with a knife!! He threw up his hands in disgust at my left-leaning ways.
But when I needed anything, he came through. When a photographer asked me a question, I knew I could refer him/her to Jim. His generosity is as legendary as his growl with those who knew him. He touched a lot of lives. Mine was one of them.
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First time I met Jim, he told me:”… there are many stories about me, so if you want to know something just ask”. He was not at all shy about sharing what anyone else would consider to be unflattering stories about himself. I asked if it was true that he fired a gun at his upstairs neighbors – yes, it was true. They were making a lot of noise, so he ‘asked’ them to be quiet, and when they didn’t, he pulled out his gun and shot through his ceiling into their floor — the noise stopped and they moved out the next day!
I remember Jim invited me to join him for lunch at Moose’s with Duane Allman’s wife and daughter. Duane’s daughter wanted to hear stories about her dad. Jim was generous and remarkably tender with his memories.
In many ways, Jim was extraordinarily generous. He offered to give me a print. I wanted a David Bowie photo, but Jim had never photographed him. So he called his friend Andrew Kent and got me one. Jim gave me other prints too.
Jim once offered to buy me a drink while I was in NYC, while he was still in SF. I went to the bar he recommended. I gave the bartender my order and stated “Jim Marshall wants to buy me a drink.” The bartender asked the hostess, “can he do that?” She replied, “Jim can do anything!”
Like Patricia O’Brien and others, Jim claimed to be in love with me. But years later when I saw him, he recognized me and said: “You broke my heart — what was your name again?” That was Jim.
Most people know that even at a young age, he was obsessed with cameras.
Jim’s mother had saved a scrapbook he had made as a boy, which was filled with cut-out pictures of cameras.
Another time, while I was with my husband, Jeff Kausch at a big photo industry party in NYC during Photo East, Jim was taking pictures of friends at an impromptu photo booth set up for party goers. After using his Leica to photo Jeff & I, for some reason, someone handed Jim a digital point-n-shoot. He looked at it and said: “What the fuck is this?!” and promptly handed it back. That was Jim too.
Like Norman Maslov, I’ve never seen any of the photos Jim took of me.
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Tom Kunhardt
The first time I remember meeting Jim Marshall was in 1985. He photographed the holiday promo image for The New Lab. I was amazed and humored by this guy barking orders and dropping f-bombs at us for not cooperating. If I remember this right the latter half of the greeting on the card was, “We Wish You A Happy 198E-6”. Jim thought it was fucking corny and bitched to no end for us spoiling his lousy photograph with such schlock. You see, that was Jim, self-deprecating and insulting in one breath.
He fell in love with my young daughter Vanessa who was hanging out with me at The New Lab one day. And I don’t mean robbing the cradle in love; she was only 3 years old! But come to think of it, he did make some comment about when she turned 18. Well, he was so enamored with her charm that he offered to take my family portrait. All I had to do was invite him to dinner and make sure we didn’t cook with onions. I wish I had taken him up on that offer, but like others, I probably never would have seen the prints anyway.
I quickly learned not to bring up politics unless I was prepared to listen. It was futile to wrestle with logic or facts or opinion, other than his. I never wanted to be the cause of him blowing a valve in his booze and drug abused heart. I mean his heart muscle, the organ, not his soul. He truly was a gentle sweet and generous man behind the gruff obnoxious persona.
In my days as a Kodak rep on occasion I would stop by his apartment with a brick or two of his favorite film, TRI-X (always shot at 1,000 and run in Rodinal). He insisted I choose a print in return. I attempted to decline, but then I remembered the gun stories and I knew he always carried a knife!
All kidding aside, Jim and I worked an event together in Portland, sponsored by Leica’s NW rep Brad Weeks and Kodak. After the main event, during the Q&A, Jim held court, flask in hand and dropped a few jaws as usual. One guy from the audience was very impressed and clearly realized he was in the presence of a legend. But others were put off, especially when he insulted another rep for dying his mustache orange! Classic Jim Marshall. Brad and I took Jim to dinner afterward and he regaled us with stories, was the perfect gentleman, and we enjoyed our Macallan 18 neat with a water back. Ever since he bought me that drink, I have never bought any other scotch for anyone else, served any other way. Ever. Well OK, maybe the Macallan 12. But the point is that’s my everlasting toast to Jim Marshall. There is only one Single Malt Scotch worth drinking and there is only one Jim Marshall. Cheers Jim, you will be missed and adored for years to come.
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My interest in photography started while I was in college. During that time, I bought a book published by Rolling Stone and edited by Annie Leibovitz called “Shooting Stars.” That book became my source of inspiration for years. In the forward, Leibovitz states that the book meant little without Jim Marshall.
Years later, I met Jim at Robyn Color on South Park. He was in need of cash and was selling prints to the employees. Jim offered to come by my studio after he was done. He pulled out a little book and scribbled my name and studio address down. “I’ll be there in an hour,” he grunted. Back at my studio, I told my studio partner about my encounter with Jim, and we waited – excited, but not quite knowing what to expect. Jim arrived soon and laid out a dozen or so of his most iconic images. We were like kids in a candy store. Jim politely asked if he could use the phone. His phone conversation was not so polite. He was negotiating with a pawnbroker, attempting to get his Leica out of hock. Finally, Jim pulled back his coat and drew a gun from his pants. “If you sell that camera, I’ll fill your belly with lead,” Jim screamed. I nearly peed my pants. My partner’s eyes were like saucers. Jim slammed down the phone and turned to us, “How many prints you guys wanna buy?” Jim left with two sizable checks.
From then on, Jim would periodically drop by my studio unannounced. He’d give me a bad time for not having his drink of choice. One day, I found a bottle of Jack Daniels in one of my kitchen cupboards. No one in the studio knew where it had come from. The next time Jim dropped in, he went straight to that bottle and poured himself a drink. I later found out Jim had planted bottles of Jack at studios all over the City.
Jim encouraged me to run for the APA board. He had a way of getting people involved, and I thank him for that. Jim was generous to a fault. He truly cared about the photographic community in San Francisco, gave his time, and donated tons of his photography in support of the APA and other causes.
In the early 90s, I asked Jim if I could take a portrait of him. I’d been working on this double exposure style in the studio and thought Jim would be a great subject. He was happy to help. Jim stood on the set with a drink in one hand as I shot polariods. As I shot the first polariod, Jim moved to refresh his drink, not knowing he was supposed to stay still for the second strobe. We opened the polariod to find a most bizzare image: Jim standing on set with his head floating in mid air. Fortunately, I was using Type 55 Polariod, and we were able to save the negative. See both photos below.
There will never be a time like the ‘60’s and there will never be another Jim Marshall to record it.
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Despite a demeanor meant to scare people, those of us lucky enough to count Jim as a friend knew that he was a generous softie who probably gave away as many prints as he sold, and that was a lot. He just wouldn’t put up with *any* shit from… PR people or promoters but he loved, and was loved, by the musicians.
When I was doing my book on Concert Photography, I wanted to include his photo of Janis backstage at Winterland so I called to ask him what he would charge. He told me there would be no charge and then told me I should really use both of the photos in that series. When I came to his house to pick up the prints for scanning, he gave me a signed, mounted print of the sad one. I interviewed him briefly and then he offered to provide a blurb for the back cover. He was very flattering, and I’m sure his blurb helped convince more than a few people to buy the book. He was always complimentary of my work, which I took with great humility since Jim was not given to false praise.
I like this shot because Jim was a stone Leica guy, one of the greatest, and I caught him wearing this Nikon headband at the San Francisco Blues Festival. We’ll all miss his presence but his work will live on forever.
Here’s another shot of Jim taken in 1977 at Mimi Fariña’s legendary Bread & Roses Acoustic Festival. Musicians treated him like a rock star, and he loved it. From left to right: John Herald, Jim, Josh White, Jr., and Richie Havens. I think the hand covering Jim’s lens belongs to Joady Guthrie, Arlo’s younger brother.
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Jim at a 2008 book signing © 2010 Genaro Vavuris
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Christian Peacock
Remembering Jim Marshall’s Photography
I first became aware of Jim Marshall’s photographs when I was an impressionable young lad growing up in San Francisco. I did not know of his rock & roll exploits or any other of the soon to be made legendary stories. I only knew of his work and his photography was one of the most influential and inspiring body of work that had a lasting impression. His photography captured something deeper and more personal than some of the other work being published at the time. Plus his final prints were so rich and lush. His images of Miles Davis, Ray Charles and Big Mama Thorton showed what it was like to print rich toned dark skin. A gray scale that just runs so deep into the silver of the print. The true definition of “Black Pearl”. But not just considering technique, his empathy to capture Johnny Cash’s relationship with June Carter was so spot on. His iconic shot of Janis Joplin sitting alone backstage with a bottle of Southern Comfort in her hand. While at the peak of her creative powers she looks slouched and despondent. That one shot packs a more emotional punch, than a hundred Jim Marshall “F” bombs.
One of his most remarkable photographs is of Miles Davis sitting on a stool in the corner in a boxing ring. Shirtless and his arms are outstretched, Miles has totally surrendered himself to Jim. What a accomplishment! If you know the personality of Mile Davis, you would know that this image it truly unique in capturing Miles Davis. Normally taciturn and defensive, Miles trusted Jim so much as to let him into this small moment inside the proverbial boxing match of a photo shoot. Go ahead and search the internet and look for a more accessible photo of Miles Davis! I haven’t found one yet. That was the genius of Jim Marshall.
Jim’s photography was the total package. Great content backed up by excellent technique.
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James Joseph Marshall. The formal name hardly fits the man. Known to many simply as Marshall, he lived the life and kept the reputation that kept many of us shaking our heads in disbelief and quite often in belief.
My first encounter with Jimmy (as I called him) was when he was an instructor at the then Academy of Art College. He was a fun and entertaining instructor and had many of us laughing about his technical knowledge when he kept insisting that the sun was a broad light source because it lit so much of the earth at one time. This, from the man who could look at the back of his hand and give you the correct f-stop reading in any light, accurate within 1/4 stop.
We kept in touch in the early years of my career and soon after we found ourselves working together at Dennis Grey’s studio. A mention must be made about Dennis and his willingness to take Jim in rather than having him sit in a jail cell. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Dennis for this. Little did Dennis (or the rest of us) know that having Jim in the studio was like having a puppy, on caffeine, sitting in a small kennel. Once the kennel door was open, there would be hell to pay. We would find things for him to do, outside of the studio, including more than one trip to Walnut Creek to pick up a box of 4×5 film because “Dennis really likes that emulsion”.
When my daughter was born, Jimmy was the first person to barge into the hospital room, ignoring the nurses and posted visiting hours and the fact that my wife had been in labor for over thirty hours because he had to see the baby. Asked if he had been asked by the nurses not to come in so soon, his totally expected response was “fuck em”.
Ever generous over the years, I remember when my two kids were 3 & 4, that he was going to leave them each one of his Glock 9mm pistols. “Oh, ok, thanks for that Jim.” I hope that portion of his will never shows up.
We remained friends over the years and was truly a delight to see how his life regained its’ balance. When introducing Jimmy to friends, you never knew what you were going to get. But deep down, you always news Jim as a man who cared deeply about his friends.
Being in New York, amongst good friends, staying in a five star hotel and after what I assume was a wonderful dinner and great bottle of wine or two, Jimmy checked out the way he would have wanted to go.
Good bye old friend. I hope the next life knows what to do with him.
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The Man Who Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll
I had to buy onions today. I just couldn’t bring myself to write about Jim Marshall, I suppose, until something that ordinary and evocative opened a sluice of memories and tears. Some of you will understand why.
For another reason I waited to see what others had to say. I didn’t want to repeat the obvious encomiums and tropes describing Jim’s irreconcilable and invidious utterances. Nonetheless, in spite of himself, Marshall made very many friends, and every individual memory they share is priceless.
I heard about his somnolent passing—a blessing but ironic—within hours. It hammered me unexpectedly hard. The news sent me wandering on foot through Golden Gate Park for a couple of hours to take the edge off. Walking home, still restless, I decided to do something cornball and sentimental. (Marshall could be that way himself sometimes.) I bought flowers and a candle—pumpkin-scented, not votive, was all I could find—to lay by the entrance to his home.
As I stooped down with my offerings I saw light under the door. Oh come on! Was it a hoax? Or was I having one of those flashbacks? I rang the bell. More footsteps. Shit! I should have gotten really hammered. The door opened and, kindly, Jim’s indefatigable, indispensable, and saintly sidekick, Amelia Davis, greeted me with a hug. She had just arrived herself from elsewhere in New York. She invited me in. Her companion Bonita was there to support her. More tears. I drank some of Jim’s whiskey. I left hoping that these digs, very familiar to me, could remain a shrine for other photographers to visit. Hell of a place.
It’s a so-called “railroad flat,” a narrow passageway with rooms off to one side. On either wall throughout its length is a gallery of framed photographs; not Jim’s but those of his friends, including some historic icons (i.e, both the photographer and the subject), given to him and hung with curatorial pride. Jim’s office was in the back on a kitchen table cluttered with tchotchkes and memorabilia, as was the entire abode. An adjacent door led to his rumpled bedroom, where a television usually presented football games or old dramas with the volume turned up loud.
His enduring archives are carefully stored in file cabinets in the center rooms; every negative numbered and immediately accessible by card catalog and, hitherto, in Jim’s remarkably acute memory. The front parlor contains stacks of Marshall’s matted and signed prints, lots of CDs and LP record albums and photo books. There, too, were his Recaro racing seat and the saddle from a long-gone Triumph. This room faced onto the street and the blinds were always drawn—in every room. God help anyone who parked without permission in the driveway directly below! A decorative fulmination of epithets applied with a rattle-can of spray paint would be visited upon your vehicle. And Marshall did love cars. I don’t know how many of his acquaintances know that he was also a prolific documentarian of goings on at the Bonneville Salt Flats speed trials back in the late 50s. In his garage was a beloved Mercedes-Benz. The Stealth Benz he called it. It had more side- and rear-facing radars plus other evasive electronic paraphernalia than avionics in an F-117. Speakers and flashing panel lights alerted Jim to perform evasive maneuvers.
I remember a non-stop drive riding shotgun with Marshall from San Fran to Ketchum, Idaho at 100mph-plus much of the way. Jim wasn’t wearing a hearing aid yet, and every time we got an audible hit on the reconnaissance gear it nearly sent me through the sun roof. We could hear befuddled state police on the scanners catching sight of us going in the opposite direction, trying to make U-turns as we sped away. We didn’t get caught, continuing even faster and then ducking behind rest stops. It would have been costly, to say the least, armaments considered.
Years ago, I shared a hotel room with Marshall after a night of drinking in LA. An early-morning phone call didn’t put either of us in the best of spirits but the picture editor of Rolling Stone, Laurie Kratochvil on the line three thousand miles away, must have been sorrier to hear Jim’s curses; not for the wake-up call but for neglecting to offer him assignments in years gone by, and yet asking for stock photos to publish in a commemorative issue. That diatribe must still be ringing in her ears.
Of course, the Chronicle ran Marshall’s obit on the front page. If he could have pulled off a Tom Sawyer, he would have exclaimed, “They didn’t run it above the fold, motherfuckers!”
One time in New York with Jim, when we had failed to hail a cab, Jim jumped into the middle of 10th Avenue and body-blocked a limousine. We got in and offered the driver a hundred bucks to take us to a party. I think we were with Robert Farber. Jim offered the driver a non-pecuniary tip that was well received. Later that night in the Whiskey Bar, Jim passed out, asleep in a chair clutching his Leica (I loved to see him react when, during one distraction or another, I would hide it from him.) The apparent groom of a honeymooning couple made a snide remark to his young bride about the lowlife drunk slumped across the table. Oooh, it felt good to point out the pictures on the wall to this now contrite couple. They picked up his bar bill. (I told Jim I did. Oh well. Hey, it worked!)
When I stopped shooting years ago, I gave Marshall some bricks of film I had in my fridge. He loved Tri-X. But the last time I saw him, at my own recent exhibition opening, he proudly showed me the new digital Leica M9, engraved with the Jim Marshall moniker, with which he was bequeathed by the German factory moguls. I would like to see the pics he made that night.
Last year I was asked by the Doobie Brothers’ manager to shoot a comeback album cover. I had already hung up my cameras. I knew that Jim shot the first Doobie Brothers cover back in the 60s. I suggested he do their last. I think that may have been Jim’s swan song assignment. I’d like to think so.
The apotheosis of Jim Marshall begins.
Tom Zimberoff
San Francisco
March 28, 2010
Tags: APA, Legends, photography
