The famous Marshall sound was founded upon an amplifier built in a garden shed by a few amateur radio fanatics, and the period until 1968 became the era of the first Marshalls – the classic JTM series. Rob Stockley tells the story of Marshall Amps…
London has no less than 800 blue plaques celebrating the birthplaces or former living quarters of famous men and women. They commemorate everything from dramatists to doctors yet, oddly, only two celebrate rock stars; one for Beatles John and George at the site of the Apple Boutique, and one at 23 Brook Street in Mayfair, the one-time pad of James Marshall Hendrix.
In 2012, however, another plaque went up on the wall of 76 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, west London. It wasn’t blue, but black, and it was placed on a site very much connected to the legacy not only of Hendrix but of thousands of other artists as well. Back in the early 1960s, number 76 was the shop where the first Marshall-branded amplifier was sold. Just 11 feet wide and 22 feet deep, these tiny premises marked the first step in a journey that would lead to another shop, then a series of workshops and factories, ending with the large, modern facility of today in Bletchley: to several Queen’s Awards For Export, a turnover of goodness knows what and, of course, a worldwide reputation amongst players of all ages for righteous-sounding amplifiers.
Fender Vs. Marshall Amps
Jim Marshall, who passed away in April 2012, began his career as a danceband drummer and drum tutor. He saved his money and opened his shop at number 76 in July 1960, first selling just drum kits, then the expensive imported band equipment his customers wanted, such as Gibson 335s, Fender Strats and Fender Tremoluxes.
However, Fender amps just weren’t coming in fast enough, and they were expensive. This left a huge hole in the development of the UK’s rock scene, and it was a hole that home-grown products such as the Dominator amp, the Bird Golden Eagle and even the lauded Vox AC30 struggled to fill. Bass gear in particular was near-unobtainable in the very early ’60s (Bill Wyman, it’s said, gained entrance to the Rolling Stones partly on the strength of him possessing a huge homemade bass cab).
Jim Marshall’s first step towards his destiny came by building cabinets containing Goodmans speakers for the only half-suitable standalone valve amps you could get hold of in Britain at the time, first Linear amps, then 25W Leaks. These cabinets weren’t built at number 76, Jim reported – there just wasn’t any space – but at his home on Sundays.
How The Marshall Amp Changed Rock—and The Meaning Of 'loud'
Half a century is a long time, and the exact details of the development of the amplifier that would become known as the first-ever Marshall are subject to some somewhat differing opinions. The official Marshall tale is consistent and often-repeated. In 1962, the story goes, Ken Bran – recently employed by Jim as an amp repairer – made a suggestion that buying so many amplifiers didn’t make sense when the resources could be assembled to produce their own.
Regular Marshall customers such as session player Big Jim Sullivan, the Tremoloes’ Brian Poole and youngsters like the High Numbers’ Pete Townshend were all in agreement: an amp like a Fender, but cheaper, with guts, would sell very well indeed. No doubt, Jim’s astute business brain must have thought of the success of Tom Jennings’ Vox company, situated a few miles down the Thames on the other side of London. In 1958 Dick Denny had come up with the unique-sounding AC15 amplifier; now, a mere four years later, Vox had won the priceless patronage of the most popular group in the country, the Shadows. Could Ken Bran draw up an amp that could make a similar impact? No, but he knew someone who certainly could. And so an ex-BBC electronics whizz called Dudley Craven joined the team.
It’s worth considering the subtly different tale related by Ken Underwood, writing on the Vintage Amps Forum. The story, says Underwood, was that before any Marshall involvement, Dudley Craven formed a partnership with one Richard ‘Dick’ Findlay. Findlay performed in an advisory role but didn’t want to be officially involved. Ken Bran was next to come on board. It does seem that Bran and Craven worked together on the all-important technical side of the first amps; Ken Underwood himself took part slightly later, from early ’63 to late ’63, helping out on mounting the main mechanical components to the chassis.
Marshall Amplifiers, History And Evolution
Marshall lore has it that the first ‘complete’ Marshall amp, the famous bare chassis, was demonstrated in the shop at number 76 in the autumn of 1962, where it caused a sensation – plus a flood, according to Jim, of 20 or more immediate orders – and was sold to Pete Townshend. Interestingly, photos of the pre-Who High Numbers – a fairly well-documented band – show it was John Entwistle who was using a JTM45 around 1964-’65, plus what’s claimed to be the first-ever Marshall 4×12”, while Pete was still using a blonde Fender head with two Marshall cabs stacked beneath (one of which was a dummy).
Ken Underwood says that the first amp – Marshall, or Craven/Findlay? – was tested one Sunday night at nearby music venue The Ealing Club by a local group of musicians who always gave useful feedback when it came to the all-important matter of the sound. Underwood says he remembers the line-up of the band on the first test date – future Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell (who was either employed or just about to be employed by Jim Marshall as a ‘Saturday boy’ in the shop), Dave Golding on sax, Kenny Rankin on bass and Jimmy Royal on lead and vocals. The band, Underwood says, played several numbers including Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and, crucially, a cover of the recent Beatles hit I Saw Her Standing There – which was not released in 1962 at all, but on 22 March 1963.
Confusing? No doubt… and there are other versions of the story too – such as the testimony of Ken Flett, who joined the Marshall operation in 1963. According to Flett, the genesis of the idea for a Marshall amp lay with Jim’s son Terry Marshall and also with Mick Borer, who worked in the shop (incidentally, Terry and Mick would both leave Jim Marshall’s operation at the same time, in 1968 – at which point the ‘JTM’ designation for ‘Jim and Terry Marshall’ would abruptly be changed to ‘JMP’ for ‘Jim Marshall Products’ – and later joined forces with Simms-Watts amplifiers based in nearby Ealing). Terry Marshall has also said that he was present at the first trial of the prototype amp, that he was playing sax in the Ealing Club band, and that he also remembers the s that were used that day… a Strat and a Gibson 335.
A Full Stack Of Overdriven Marshall Amp Tone In A Pedal?
The very first amplifiers – a run of six, most parties agree – were not built on Marshall premises, since at number 76, the tiny shop with a counter down one side and drums piled on shelves to save space, there was simply no room. Instead, they were assembled in the builders’ sheds at home, and – according to Underwood – sold by Marshall through the shop on a commission basis. And then Jim Marshall astutely took control, employing Dudley Craven and Ken Bran officially on the amp-building side, adding his own name, selling the new ‘Marshall’ amps exclusively through his shop and taking control over the cabinet-building and all the vinyl work in the rear of a new, larger premises just across the road, at number 97.
The amplifier that we can assume Dudley Craven created with the help of Ken Bran was modelled fairly closely on Fender’s Bassman combo, the 1959 version, now considered to be one of the finest-sounding amps of all time. Of course, there were small but telling differences both within the circuit and without, and to what degree these were intended to circumvent any possible copyright or were purposely chosen to reflect the tonal tastes of the main designer, Dudley Craven – not to mention the players who test-drove the earliest models – is a matter of conjecture.
However, everyone agrees that the new amp was not intended to exactly ape the Bassman, but to better it. ‘Like a Fender, but more so’ was the aim, and the Marshall-to-be certainly succeeded. It was loud – louder, for sure, than an AC30. It was also fiercer, edgier and more raucous than the Fender, yet it was rich and sweet. Plugged into the ‘high’ input of the normal channel, the sounded tonefully smooth; swapped to the brilliant side, the result was ear-slicingly sharp and trebly. Most of all, the quality of the sound was fantastic.
Marshall Origin 50c Guitar Amplifier
The differences in the sound between the Fender 5F6A circuit and the new amp were bought about both by component choice and component availability. The all-important first valve in the preamp stage in the Fender was a 12AT7; the UK amp used a ‘gainier’ 12AX7.
Marshall lore has it that the first ‘complete’ Marshall amp, the famous bare chassis, was demonstrated in the shop at number 76 in the autumn of 1962, where it caused a sensation – plus a flood, according to Jim, of 20 or more immediate orders – and was sold to Pete Townshend. Interestingly, photos of the pre-Who High Numbers – a fairly well-documented band – show it was John Entwistle who was using a JTM45 around 1964-’65, plus what’s claimed to be the first-ever Marshall 4×12”, while Pete was still using a blonde Fender head with two Marshall cabs stacked beneath (one of which was a dummy).
Ken Underwood says that the first amp – Marshall, or Craven/Findlay? – was tested one Sunday night at nearby music venue The Ealing Club by a local group of musicians who always gave useful feedback when it came to the all-important matter of the sound. Underwood says he remembers the line-up of the band on the first test date – future Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell (who was either employed or just about to be employed by Jim Marshall as a ‘Saturday boy’ in the shop), Dave Golding on sax, Kenny Rankin on bass and Jimmy Royal on lead and vocals. The band, Underwood says, played several numbers including Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and, crucially, a cover of the recent Beatles hit I Saw Her Standing There – which was not released in 1962 at all, but on 22 March 1963.
Confusing? No doubt… and there are other versions of the story too – such as the testimony of Ken Flett, who joined the Marshall operation in 1963. According to Flett, the genesis of the idea for a Marshall amp lay with Jim’s son Terry Marshall and also with Mick Borer, who worked in the shop (incidentally, Terry and Mick would both leave Jim Marshall’s operation at the same time, in 1968 – at which point the ‘JTM’ designation for ‘Jim and Terry Marshall’ would abruptly be changed to ‘JMP’ for ‘Jim Marshall Products’ – and later joined forces with Simms-Watts amplifiers based in nearby Ealing). Terry Marshall has also said that he was present at the first trial of the prototype amp, that he was playing sax in the Ealing Club band, and that he also remembers the s that were used that day… a Strat and a Gibson 335.
A Full Stack Of Overdriven Marshall Amp Tone In A Pedal?
The very first amplifiers – a run of six, most parties agree – were not built on Marshall premises, since at number 76, the tiny shop with a counter down one side and drums piled on shelves to save space, there was simply no room. Instead, they were assembled in the builders’ sheds at home, and – according to Underwood – sold by Marshall through the shop on a commission basis. And then Jim Marshall astutely took control, employing Dudley Craven and Ken Bran officially on the amp-building side, adding his own name, selling the new ‘Marshall’ amps exclusively through his shop and taking control over the cabinet-building and all the vinyl work in the rear of a new, larger premises just across the road, at number 97.
The amplifier that we can assume Dudley Craven created with the help of Ken Bran was modelled fairly closely on Fender’s Bassman combo, the 1959 version, now considered to be one of the finest-sounding amps of all time. Of course, there were small but telling differences both within the circuit and without, and to what degree these were intended to circumvent any possible copyright or were purposely chosen to reflect the tonal tastes of the main designer, Dudley Craven – not to mention the players who test-drove the earliest models – is a matter of conjecture.
However, everyone agrees that the new amp was not intended to exactly ape the Bassman, but to better it. ‘Like a Fender, but more so’ was the aim, and the Marshall-to-be certainly succeeded. It was loud – louder, for sure, than an AC30. It was also fiercer, edgier and more raucous than the Fender, yet it was rich and sweet. Plugged into the ‘high’ input of the normal channel, the sounded tonefully smooth; swapped to the brilliant side, the result was ear-slicingly sharp and trebly. Most of all, the quality of the sound was fantastic.
Marshall Origin 50c Guitar Amplifier
The differences in the sound between the Fender 5F6A circuit and the new amp were bought about both by component choice and component availability. The all-important first valve in the preamp stage in the Fender was a 12AT7; the UK amp used a ‘gainier’ 12AX7.
0 Response to "Marshall Guitar Amp History"
Posting Komentar