Jim Marshall - Creator Of Marshall Amps, Spring 2001
By: Toby L
Throughout the natural history of rock music, things change. Music evolves, revolutions occur and scenes develop and diminish within the same time it takes to watch an edition of 'Top of the Pops' on a Friday evening. However, there is some stability which lives on within the rock music world - otherwise the concept of guitars would have fallen slain years ago, the audience of the world forced to listen to styles that often don't demand the originality and continual progression which guitar-based sounds commonly deliver.
Ever since the electric guitar was invented, it has been a haven to instrumentalists looking to define their own style and sound in a form that's both pleasing and exciting to listen to, as much as it sounds new. Decades and decades on, we are here in the twenty-first century: just say that to yourself in your head, 'the twenty-first century...' A lot has changed in the world of music. However, for the past nigh-on forty years, one name has remained synonymous with musicians and fans alike - a name that has stood in the background of stages in countless concerts and TV appearances when it comes to bands plugging in to play live. It's just that one word emblazoned across the world's finest amplifiers, in one of the most truly glorious logos in existence: it's, quite simply, 'Marshall'.
We all know it, it's just always there: from Bowie to Blur, Iron Maiden to The Kinks, The Jam to Led Zeppelin: when I say there's an endless list of artists which use Marshall equipment, I seriously mean an endless list. It's probably fair to say they do maintain a monopoly over the market, but it just comes naturally to the company, who, despite being so well established for such a long period of time, continue to move on, as shown in the way that they have embraced production of their successfully-selling range of high quality guitar pedals. If you were to hear in the future that guitar music was dead, it's a safe bet that it would be because Marshall wanted to cease trading.
But, luckily, such a tragic fate will never happen. This is thanks to the man behind it all, Jim Marshall, who, at the incredible age of seventy seven, arises at 5:30 am every weekday morning to work at the Milton Keynes factory, where the créme de la créme of the amplifiers crop is manufactured. Jim stays in the back-to-basics, hands-on approach in regards to his work-role for the company, to ensure that the quality control remains one of the highest in the world. This has been shown in the vast display of awards and rewards that he's received for working within the music-industry. He's been made a Freeman of the City of London, has won the Queen's Award for Export on more than one occasion, and bears countless certificates of gratitude for all the charity work he's managed to undertake in his spare time. That's not to mention a never-ending supply of private photographs and messages of thanks for his personal involvement with the globe's most massive acts, which have been passed over to him over the years of his career in showbusiness.
However, this empire hasn't simply built up from nowhere, nor has it been an easy ride. At an early age, Mr. Marshall was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bones, resigning him to be plaster cast from his ankles up to his armpits during many of his formative years. He left school at the age of thirteen and a half, bewildered by some of the mundane and irrelevant teachings that took place, leaving him to seek a world of work, which began with a huge variety of jobs. Jim worked in a builder's merchant, a biscuit factory, as a handy man in a scrap metal yard, a shoe-shop salesman, a canned food manufacturer's meat-cutter, and a 'boiler' in a jam factory. Now, try and look at me in the face and honestly say that you spent most of your youth working as hard as this man did...
Despite not going to school, Jim Marshall always wanted to develop his knowledge and, during the time of the Second World War, he learnt considerable engineering expertise, mainly from books. He had also learned how to tap dance, music growing into one of his life's major passions. His first interest in music came after being approached to try out as a singer with a band and in 1942 when the drummer was called up to join the forces, he took over the drum chair. This followed on with Jim Marshall becoming a drum teacher, enabling him to earn £5,000 a year during the early 1950s, in addition to concerts he played. Constantly saving up the money he'd accumulated throughout this period, he was inspired into building bass and PA cabinets in his garage, going on to open his own shop, in which various musical instruments and equipment were sold.
A road manager for several bands, Ken Bran, joined Jim's company as a service engineer in 1962, suggesting to Jim that they should produce their own amplifiers.
With the help of an engineer called Dudley Craven, the threesome designed and built the first prototypes early in 1962, resulting in the first sale in September of the year. And, from then on in, it grew and grew. Its name as a serious overseas distributor was triggered off predominantly by Roy Orbison, who used the equipment on his UK tour, before deciding to return home to his native US shores still with it in his possession, letting the good word spread.
Thanks to the usage of Marshall amps by UK megastars, such as The Who and Cream, its reputation in the music scene of the 60s was soon well established. Just five years on from the original amplifier being created, Jimi Hendrix - who many people regard as the undisputed greatest guitarist of all time - was quoted as saying, 'There's nothing can beat them, nothing in the whole world,' on commenting on a full volume blast of a Marshall amp. He added, somewhat bemusingly, 'It looks like two refrigerators hooked together...' Clearly, an object reminiscent of 'two refrigerators' has never before been so alluring.
Obviously, as such a history as this has been documented over and over, the only real new spin that could be added to it is the secret of Marshall's success. Here to add the feedback to rockfeedback (ahem), in this exclusive interview, Jim Marshall explains why his company is widely regarded as one of the finest in the music industry...
You're seen around the world as the amplifier distributor...
'Well, we manufactured the first rock 'n' roll amplifier, with the aid of Pete Townshend, Ritchie Blackmore, who was playing with one of my pupils at school at the time, called Micky Underwood, as well as Big Jim Sullivan, who is still one of the top session guitarists. So, it was those three people that gave me the idea of the sound. Craven, a brilliant electronics man, aged eighteen at the time, built six different prototypes and, on hearing the last one, I said, 'That's it - that's the Marshall sound.'
What are the key elements and dynamics which make up 'the Marshall sound'?
'It's the combination of the type of valves we use, the custom designed transformers, the voicing of the individual stages and the way they're integrated. The new AVT - which is the big seller around the world at the moment - is solid-state, with the nearest thing to a valve sound anyone's ever heard!
'Worldwide, we put about 5,000 units a week into the market, with the top of the range still manufactured in the UK.'
To demonstrate the success of the AVT range, Jim went on to quote the sales figures from the prior week to the interview, and all that can be said is that they're impressive. Very impressive. The same can be said regarding the list of popular, alternative artists already adapting their playing to use these units, including Papa Roach and The Bluetones, who both lend their seal of approval to these new amps.
Jim's clearly proud of all his achievements; on telling you statistics about his company, he'll sit back in his chair smiling excitedly, and you can't help but look on in sheer admiration. He genuinely deserves the praise, though, unlike others, because...
'I still do the costing for the company, and all the weekly figures from every section of the factories. If anyone asked me a question regarding the way Marshall's been managed over the last twenty years, I've got all the evidence in the files and books I've stored.'
There's been a 'rock revival' touted for this year - have sales figures in any way altered recently?
'Yes - America, which is number one anyway, had a 33% increase in sales last year. In the UK, we used to come third in amp-sales, and Germany was second, but Britain has since become number two, Japan now number three. European sales have lowered sadly, due to the strength of the pound and the high exchange rates, which means an increase in prices over there.'
What does the future of the company hold in store for itself?
'Well, because we've got one of the finest research and development teams in the world, I can trust our products will just improve all the time. They're all young men, in their thirties or so, and are always working on new ideas - they were the ones that developed the AVT, which is an absolute world-beater.
'I'm sure it's just a continual progression: around the corner in Bletchley, we originally leased a factory, which was under 6,000 square feet. However, we grew out of that very quickly, and I then bought some land and had a factory built on it just down the side of where we are now, which was 16,000 square feet... And then we bought the factory next door, in 1984, and that was 50,000 square feet, which I thought was going to last us forever! But, about six years ago, we bought further space, totalling it all, now, to 157,000 square feet, which includes the theatre - and that seats 250 people...'
If you're not a numbers person, then I'm sure that last paragraph went way above your head, but let's just say it's nothing short of incredible in terms of a company's expansion. But, what was that he said about a theatre..?
'Mainly, it's used for demonstration - the launches of new ranges occur there as well.'
Indeed; every Marshall distributor will travel from far and wide to attend unveilings of new products soon to be sold, as well as to witness meetings on how to market such contraptions. It's obviously a highly professional affair - but could you expect anything less from such a prestigious enterprise?
To ensure that he sees his products used in different musical genres, Jim recently saw Eric Clapton in Frankfurt, but was quick to follow up that he's also seen Iron Maiden live on several occasions. Surely, that's the secret of his phenomenal success: recognising artists' needs and putting them all into a compact and attractive looking box, which follows them on tours in Japan to Iceland to Australia to the States and everywhere in between.
Remember, folks: when you next hear your favourite rock star making a sound on the guitar which completely blows your mind, recall the man who helped make it sound so sublime in the first place. As said at the beginning of the article, bands come and bands go, scenes come in and out, but quality equipment remains in place - expect Marshall to still be trying out the latest in sound technologies for years to come... And, anticipate your future favourite artists all queuing up to buy theirs, just like they do now.
Artists in this article: Jim Marshall