Grateful Dead

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So many of photographer Jim Marshall’s images are iconic that I can just say “Janis backstage with a bottle of Southern Comfort,” or “Johnny Cash giving the finger,” or “Dylan rolling a tire down a Greenwich Village street,” and chances are you’ll know what photo I’m describing. Marshall died March 24 in New York, where he was promoting a new book he put together with photographer Timothy White called Match Prints. One could convincingly argue that Marshall was the greatest rock photographer of them all, but he was also one of the all-time great jazz photographers and did amazing non-music work, as well, from the late ’50s up until the present. As one of the key chroniclers of the San Francisco scene in the ’60s and early ’70s, Marshall took thousands upon thousands of pictures of the Grateful Dead (and all the other local Bay Area bands) and his body of work through the years constitutes a vital and indelible record of those groups and those times. Jim was an official photographer at Monterey, at Woodstock, on the Stones’ ’72 tour…just hundreds of concerts and events.

Anyone who actually knew Jim Marshall probably has a story about him, because he was truly a larger-than-life character who made an impression—positive and/or negative—on nearly everyone he encountered. I met him in the late ’70s when I was a writer/editor for BAM magazine (a free Bay Area music magazine). I can’t recall the details, but somehow the mag’s editor/publisher, Dennis Erokan, befriended Marshall (who was already a legend) and because BAM was a cash-strapped free monthly magazine, Jim took pity on us and allowed us to run some of his photos dirt-cheap. He came by the office a couple of times early on, I recall, and he was like a cartoon: short, Middle-Eastern-looking with a great hook nose, Jim was brash, irascible, foul-mouthed—he insulted anyone he cared to, and in the most extreme ways imaginable; not content merely to drop f-bombs, he invariably littered his tirades with all sorts of anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-everything invective that was so over-the-top it was comical… unless you were on the other end of it, in which case you hoped there was some cooler presence there to reassure you, “Oh, that’s just Jim.”

The first time we “worked” together was when I was BAM’s representative for a Garcia cover photo shoot at the Dead's Front Street studio in November 1977. Jerry had known Marshall for years, of course, and seemed thoroughly amused by him. I recall Marshall insulting Jerry a bit—Jerry loved it!—and they had a nice, easy-going rapport. Maybe you’ve seen some of the shots of Jerry from that day—like the ones where he’s holding a big glass of red wine; quite different. There was another time in my BAM days in the late ’70s when Dennis Erokan and I went up to Bill Graham’s house in Mill Valley (known as “Masada”) and Jim convinced us he should be the photographer for the cover shoot, since he and Bill went way back. Well, Bill and Jim were quite a volatile mix, and there were definitely a few moments of tough-guy bickering between the two of them (which had Dennis and me laughing nervously). It was like tossing oil on a napalm fire. Still, the photos that came out of the day were, as usual, magnificent.

When I really got to know Jim a lot better, though, was when I started my Grateful Dead fan magazine, The Golden Road, in early 1984. Because we’d had a pretty good working relationship during my BAM years, when I approached him about my magazine idea and asked (sheepishly) if I could run some of his Dead shots from time to time, he couldn’t have been more supportive. He only asked for $50 a shot, which was unbelievable considering what he charged folks like Rolling Stone and other “real” magazines. But the greatest thrill for me was actually choosing those shots. Now, the way he generally worked with his archival material was he had certain favorite shots that he had multiple prints of, and then when he’d get a request from a magazine or book publisher, he’d send off a few prints—Jimi at Monterey? Here are these; Santana at Woodstock? Check these out. But because I was local and he seemed to like me, he allowed me to go over to his flat—first in a Victorian on Union Street; later his pad in the Castro District (ironically enough, for this surface homophobe… who wasn’t actually homophobic) and actually go through his proof sheets and select photos for The Golden Road. So, although there might be two “famous” images from the Dead’s last night at the Fillmore West in ’71, I got to choose from five or six proof sheets (with 36 shots per sheet) from that night. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to look at all of his proof sheets from Woodstock, for instance, to select a few for The Golden Road. And I’m here to tell you, folks, nearly every shot this guy ever took was a winner; no lie. He just had an incredible eye, and he understood how to use natural light to his advantage, and stage lights in non-clichéd ways. I consider the numerous times I got to do this, one on one with Jim, me huddled over his proof sheets with a magnifying loupe, to be among the peak creative experiences of my life.

(OK, since, as I said, those who knew him all have stories about him, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the time he greeted me at the top of the stairs of his Union Street flat pointing a gun at me—I believe there were some coke dealers he was on the outs with; Jim and coke as not a good combo, I’m afraid. And there was that time several years later when he insulted a waitress so viciously at a place we were having lunch I spent most of the lunch apologizing to the poor woman—“Don’t mind him. He’s an asshole. He doesn’t mean it.” You could say that in his presence… and he still wouldn’t mellow!)

I didn’t have much contact with him in recent years. I was excited to attend his 60th and 70th birthday parties—big blowouts attended by dozens of friends and colleagues, who invariably swapped outrageous stories about their host, who always seemed genuinely humbled by the waves of affection aimed in his direction at these affairs. It’s funny—the subtext of each of these parties was “Can you believe that Jim Marshall is still alive?!” Because he lived fast and hard and pissed off so many people along the way, you figured there was no way he’d make it to 60 and 70!

The last time I saw him was probably a year or more ago, at a gallery show opening in San Francisco. A lot of his classic rock and jazz shots were there, of course, but also a number of photos I’d never seen—of people in the street crying the day John F. Kennedy was shot, of poor folks living in shacks in Appalachia… every one a gem in its own way. And he couldn’t have been nicer—he took the time to talk to my teenage daughter and we chatted about his favorite musicians to photograph: Duane Allman, Kris Kristofferson, Mimi Farina, Janis, Johnny Cash… He loved music and musicians.

Bottom line: For all his coarseness and grumbling and threats, deep down, Jim was a sweetheart—loyal to his friends and colleagues, (mostly) nice and encouraging to young photographers who came up after him, always interested in presenting musicians in the best light possible while still telling the truth. He was one-of-a-kind and will be greatly missed. But what an incredible legacy he leaves!