By D.R. Lennox
At 73 years of age, Jim Marshall can be forgiven for being set in his ways. The veteran music photographer, with a career spanning 50 years and a port folio containing some of the biggest names in music – Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash – works only on his terms, resists technology (he continues to shoot on film not digital), despises the paparazzi, and has lived in the one apartment since 1965. He knows what works for him.
What does work for Marshall, and which has been the foundation of his photography process, and ultimately its success, throughout his career, has been his access-all-areas policy. In the days when he shot the likes of Hendrix and Joplin, this was a mere request; one always granted due to a mutual respect, trust and, in most cases, friendship. “If the artist trusts me there is never a problem,” Marshall says. “I tended to be a part of the wall.” This is a rather modest assessment of a how Marshall, once having gained access to the subject, managed to capture such unaffected and ‘real’ moments in the subject’s world.
Today, in a world of paparazzi (“whores with their cameras”, Marshall spits), and posses of agents and hangers-on, Marshall has to stipulate, if not demand, access-all-areas when musicians and celebrities request his services. It’s not always agreed to, but Marshall is unperturbed: it has got to be his way or not at all. “Fuck ’em. I really don’t need the work.”
If all of this makes Jim Marshall sound like a cantankerous old man, he really isn’t. Speaking from his studio in LA, where he personally doesn’t use a computer (longtime assistant Amelia Davis handles all email), his phone manner is jovial and he is forthcoming when speaking of the past. Marshall may be shouting a little but understandably, at 73, his hearing isn’t what it used to be. Conversely, his mind and, more importantly, his eye are as sharp as ever. He recently did some photography for friend Billy Bob Thornton, country singer Shelby Lynne, and an album cover for The Doobie Brothers, whose first album cover he shot back in 197?.
But it is not album covers for which Jim Marshall’s photography is celebrated. Rather, it is the intimate, mostly black and white portraits of some of music’s biggest names, most of who are sadly no longer with us. Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison, Janis Joplin in a light mood, a young Bob Dylan on the streets of New York, and the now iconic (colour) image of Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
“Johnny Cash and Jimi Hendrix were two of the most charismatic people I ever met. When Johnny walked in the room you knew he was there. And Jimi was amazing,” Marshall reflects. And what about Joplin, one of the many musicians whose home phone number (this is in a time long before the mobile) Marshall had? “She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world but she was not afraid of the camera,” he says, honestly but affectionately. Marshall subscribes to the theory that regardless of appearance, if you are not comfortable in front of the camera you will not take a good picture: confidence is key.
Jim Marshall is somewhat of an oddity in today’s world of digital photography, Photoshop and facebook. He continues to shoot on film, does not stage his shoots (preferring to discover the “gold” afterwards) and only releases images he himself is happy with. And Marshall has had the same dark room assistant for 28 years, the same amount of time since Marshall himself has been inside one. “I would rather watch re-runs of Quincy than go in the dark room again,” he laughs. Since he doesn’t doctor his photos, Marshall believes his work is done once the shot is taken.
Marshall also prefers to work in black and white (“I just like it better”), believing it to be more aesthetic as well as having a more “editorial” look; a legacy, perhaps, of his early days as a photojournalist covering events such as the US Civil Rights movement in 1960s Mississippi. But he does work in colour and a book of Marshall’s colour photography, Trust, will be published later this year.
But Marshall isn’t totally resistant to change or technology. He carries a portfolio of his work with him on an Ipod and he does have a cell phone; how could he live in LA and not? Marshall has lived in the same LA apartment since 1965; he has too much “stuff” to even contemplate moving. “It’s a fucking nightmare to think about. They’ll bury me in here!”
Not that thoughts of the grave have been occupying Marshall’s mind. He has already made plans for his 75th birthday, to be held on a friend’s vineyard, and there is the colour photo book to come this year. And so long as the likes of Billy Bob Thornton and Shelby Lynne are requesting his artistic services, Marshall will continue to shoot but because he wants to, not because he has to – and on his terms.
