All access pass to the legends of jazz and rock and roll
Photographer Jim Marshall and his work at Big Wood Bread
By HANS IBOLD
Express Staff Writer
After reading Not Fade Away (Bulfinch, 144 pages), a golden hits
collection of pictures by music photographer Jim Marshall, it becomes clear that Marshall
is: a brilliant photographer and, arguably, one of the world’s premier music
photographers; and is known to many, for good reason, as a madman.
This enigmatic man, who photographer Annie Leibovitz once called "the
rock and roll photographer," shows his work and signs copies of Not Fade Away
at Big Wood Bread Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Not Fade Away is foremost an intimate look at historical figures in
music. Its 124 duotone images depict virtually every artist in the rock pantheon,
including the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Muddy Waters,
the Allman Brothers and Jackson Brown.
But Not Fade Away, with its foreword by actor Michael Douglas and
its epilogue by freelance reporter Jon Bowermaster, also throws light on the fascinating
photographer.
Marshall was one of the chief photographers at the Monterey Pop Festival
and at the original Woodstock, and the only photographer granted backstage access to the
Beatles’ last concert. He has more than 500 album and CD covers to his credit. His
work has been published worldwide and is included in the permanent collection at the
Smithsonian Institution.
He’s also had his violent moments, Bowermaster reports. He once broke
a man’s jaw with his Leica camera. He has shot people and been shot, knifed people
and been knifed. In 1983, when a neighbor tripped the burglar alarm in his apartment,
Marshall responded by waving a .45 automatic in the neighbor’s face. When the police
arrived, they found $10,000 worth of weapons in Marshall’s apartment.
Compassionate, loud, aggressive, obnoxious, caring, sensitive,
ill-mannered and nice are the contradictory words friends used to describe Marshall,
according to Bowermaster.
Marshall’s own website—www.marshallphoto.com—reports that
he was the man who "attended the original Woodstock with a .380 Walter PPK in his
belt; who battled with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson over controlled substances; and
who actor Dennis Hopper claims to have based his character on in Apocalypse Now."
But the respect and affection he gives to his subjects and his skill have
won him admiration and trust among musicians and friends. As a result of that trust,
Marshall found himself invited into extraordinary situations and responded with
extraordinary pictures.
"His style is very in your face, and yet he inspires trust and
confidence in the people he photographs," writes Douglas, who is a collector of
Marshall’s work and a friend. "And the shared intimacy is caught in a
millisecond. His photographs genuinely remind us that the performers are human and, in
many cases, lonely wanderers. Jim always manages to capture the vulnerability of the
performer."
Marshall appears in conjunction with Document: the Sun Valley
Documentary Film Festival. The exhibit runs through Sunday. Marshall is donating 25
percent of all sales to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
