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[leaves rustle]

[dial tone]

[relaxed music playing]

[dial tone]

[voicemail] You have reached Jim Marshall.

Please leave a message after the beep,

and someone will get back to you shortly. Thank you.

[voicemail beep]

[Amelia Davis] I think when I first started working with Jim,

he was really trying to kill himself.

He was...

struggling with a cocaine habit

that started in the late 60s, early 70s

which was really his downfall.

He was starting to become very isolated

and reflective

because he recognized that he could hurt people.

He literally locked himself in his apartment,

so the only person he could hurt is himself.

[music builds] [seagulls cry]

[anchor] It's thanks to him that we have memories we have

of certain icons of the rock and roll business.

He shot them all:

Coltrane, Cash, Dylan, Monk, Hendrix.

He leaves them to all of us.

Jim Marshall was 74.

[Davis] I'm glad he died the way he did,

because he always said to me,

You probably are gonna be the person

when I die that finds me.

And he goes, "And I don't want that

to be the last memory that you have of me."

And he fulfilled that wish. [traffic noises]

He was in New York.

He died in his sleep at the W Hotel.

He was reading a book, and the book was on his chest.

The police put crime scene-- [laughs]

around the W Hotel,

and everybody was like, "Oh my God, what happened?

There was some murder!"

So Jim died the way he wanted to,

and he died like a fucking rock star.

[man] Looking great.

[Jim Marshall] Yeah, for an old guy.

[man] For an old man, no, no.

You got a spirit of a 12 year old, you know that.

[static]

[driving rock guitar riff]

[anchor] These are the images of Jim Marshall,

a photographer who's been behind the front lines

of just about every significant musical revolution

during the last 20 years.

And almost every significant musical trend since.

In the early 60s, Marshall was in New York

when Bob Dylan went electric

and rock came of age.

He later moved back to San Francisco

and documented the psychedelic era

and has strong feelings

about people who take their pictures less than seriously.

[static pops] I think a lot of photographers abuse

the camera and abuse what they do.

I think that an artist lets you into their life

on a personal level.

I'm not talking about some jive concert shots.

I'm talking about personal, real photographs of people.

I feel that these people have let you into their life

as a trust, and I feel to violate that trust is criminal.

You know, I'm not gonna just sit here

and gush about Jim Marshall.

The mother fucker could take a good picture.

[pages rattle]

I mean, shit, where do you start?

Do you start with Jimi Hendrix?

Do you start with Janis Joplin?

Do you start with, oh here's Miles?

Oh no, let's talk about Coltrane.

When you look at the body of work,

[pages rattle]

Who-wee. You know? Come on now.

And it was a commitment.

It was a commitment to the work.

The stuff that Jim got, you'll never see that again.

I don't care what anybody says.

You won't even see reasonable facsimilies,

alright?

[distant crowd]

Let's talk about Haight.

You had Jim there [flash snaps]

right in the middle of that.

Right in the middle of

the whole Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love.

[city traffic] [building music]

[Jim Stern] Haight-Ashbury was a very wonderful neighborhood.

It was a melting pot.

Nobody saw color or race or any of it.

It was all just--

everybody was everybody.

And I grew up on Haight Street.

I went to the Haight Theatre.

Uh, that was our place.

[Katherine Poppy] The first time I saw Jim Marshall

was in the Haight-Ashbury.

Our neighborhood bands,

who we didn't know would ever be famous,

were The Grateful Dead,

Jefferson Airplane,

Quicksilver Messenger Service,

The Charlatans,

among others.

And Jim was part of the core,

what I call family in the Haight-Ashbury.

[music continues]

[Joel Selvin] So he's there scooting around town

from one hippy scene to another.

He's one of the few professional photographers

that's associated with this movement.

There were other people shooting,

but they weren't necessarily the professional quality

that Marshall was.

And so he walks in to this band

of upstarts called The Grateful Dead,

and he is elevated.

They are the amateurs seeking status.

[Jorma Kaukonen] Jim Marshall was one of the first guys

that showed up with a camera

and wanted to take pictures of us.

Before that, I mean, who cared?

Just a bunch of fogeys hanging out.

Jim was there when stuff was going on

that was unimaginable before then

and is unimaginable today.

[Talamon] He could roll out of bed

and take his camera and start pointing it

and come up with gold.

You had, you know, Big Brother and the Holding Company.

You had Jefferson Airplane.

You know, Joan Baez was down the street.

You know, Hendrix would show up.

Everybody was right there.

I mean, there was so much stuff going on, it wasn't even funny.

[inspirational music]

[Selvin] In a way, he became

a part of our odd little family.

And it was one of these things

that once that he had appeared,

it was like he had always been there.

I think that brief moment in time

when there really was that freedom

to pretty much say and do

and be whatever you wanted to be.

[Sons of Champlain sing "Sing Me a Rainbow"]

[crowd cheers]

♪ Mister Good Time ♪

♪ I want so much to have a good time, yeah ♪

♪ To try to forget ♪

♪ That bad girl ♪

♪ Who will never be mine ♪

♪ Never be mine ♪

♪ Sing me a rainbow, in the sky ♪

[Davis] When I first met Jim Marshall, it was--

quite an experience.

My childhood friend was having her 30th birthday party

and invited me to it.

So I went.

And all of the sudden, there was this little man

with a Leica around his neck, shuffling around.

He looked at me, and he was like, "Woo."

And he boom, boom, boom, came over.

And he goes, "Hi. I'm Jim Marshall."

I said, "Hi, I'm Amelia Davis."

He goes, "What do you do?"

And I said, "I'm a photographer."

I said, "What do you do?"

I had no idea who Jim Marshall was.

He just wasn't in my wheelhouse.

And then he said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Are you gay?"

And I looked at him, and I said,

"Yes I am."

And he goes, "Oh!

I'm always attracted to gay women or married women."

And I looked at him and I said, "That's your problem, not mine."

And he laughed, and he said,

"I think we're gonna be really good friends."

[laughs] Next 13 years of my life,

it was filled with Jim Marshall.

[music continues]

[camera whirs]

[typewriter clacks]

[Michelle Margetts] Okay, well, the easiest thing to do

is to talk about when Jim and I met.

And I was a Journalism student at SF State.

And when I got into a magazine writing class,

they would do these typical assignments.

And one was, uh, Where Are They Now?

So one day, a magazine guy came in.

I said, "Man, I gotta have a topic

in an hour for my magazine writing class,

and I need somebody who used to be famous

but they don't have to be that famous,

but it would be good if they were famous."

And this guy looks at me and he goes, "Jim Marshall."

And I was like, "Who the fuck is Jim Marshall?" Right?

And he says, "Oh!

He's this asshole, but he's really famous,

and he's done like hundreds of album covers.

And he just got released out of prison."

The first moment I met him at a bar downtown,

which I don't think is there anymore,

he had a box of what turned out to be proof sheets in his hand.

And this turns out to be 5 weeks

after he's been released from Work Furlough.

This is March 1984.

I go in, and I'm about 15 or 20 minutes late.

Meanwhile, Jim has been there probably for 3 hours.

Sitting at the bar, drinking green margaritas

because it's St. Patrick's Day.

So I show up, and I look down,

and I see this little malevolent gnome

who looks really pissed off.

So I walk up to him, and I'm like,

"Hi, I'm Michelle. You probably figured that out already, right?"

And he just kind of looked at me, right?

And I looked at him.

And he said, "Well you're late." And all this--

So anyway, we went and sat,

and he had this box.

I opened it up,

and there were about this high a stack of proof sheets.

And I looked down, and I said, "Well, what do you mean?

It's a bunch of proof sheets."

And he goes, "Well, no, you look at each one of these is a killer shot.

This is gonna be my come back."

And I said, "Ok..."

He goes, "I'm gonna call it 'Jim Marshall shoots people'."

[gunshot] [laughs]

[distant traffic]

[Marshall] What are you doing? Leave the fucking lights alone!

When I was a kid, I'd won a track meet.

And I had a baby Brownie.

But the guy that took pictures for the school

was using a Leica.

So at nine or ten years old maybe,

end of the World War II,

I started cutting pictures of cameras

out of magazines and pasting them in a scrapbook

and writing the price in pencil.

That's maybe what started it.

My fascination with the camera.

I've always liked cars, guns, and cameras.

Cars and guns have got me in trouble.

Cameras haven't.

[clicks] [reel whirs]

[traffic passes]

[kids scream]

I was about a year and a half old,

and I came out here

obviously with my mother and father.

Grew up here. Went to school here.

And lived here all my life.

[students chatter]

[Hon. Joanne Parrilli] I think, at times, Jimmy gave me

the impression that he didn't have a lot of self-confidence

or self-esteem or whatever.

That he felt the son of immigrant parents.

He was so close to his mom.

And you could tell it was a mother-son relationship.

She reminded me of Italian mothers in many ways.

He would bristle when Margie told him to behave,

or not do something, or eat more or whatever it was.

But it was dear, and you could really tell he loved his mom.

[Michael Zagaris] I only met his mother a couple of times,

and this is just me, personally.

I... I felt--

he loved her, but I felt there was real tension

and I thought part of that was, you know,

Jim was really raised by his mother and his aunts.

And his father wasn't around.

I think, like all of us,

we're all shaped and formed by

the things that happen to us

in our real early years.

And you know what? He had a tough time.

He was basically like an immigrant kid,

in white America.

If Jim was nothing else, he was a fucking survivor.

[plane whines]

[Marshall] And I went in the Air Force when I was 18.

18 and a half for a year and a half.

And then I wrangled my way out of the Air Force

because I didn't feel like being a clerk typist.

[planes whir]

Then I came back to San Francisco

and then from...

oh, Jesus Christ, that was in '56.

1956.

And I was very involved in automobiles

and sports car racing and drag racing and stuff.

[Zagaris] He used to go to Fremont to the drags.

And he was a big car guy. [cars roar]

I mean talk about Americana.

That was Jim.

[contented music playing]

[Selvin] Marshall started out shooting stuff

in North Beach at the height of the Beatnik era.

And San Francisco

Grand Avenue, that was ground zero for that whole thing.

I mean, that's where Jack Kerouac ended up

after On the Road.

So whatever the zeitgeist of the '60s was,

Marshall was in on it right from the very start.

[Marshall] I've done, you know, maybe...

50,000, 100,000 rolls of film.

On roll number 40. 4-0,

Dinah Washington.

And on roll 57-- 567 to 579,

John Coltrane.

From 1960, I'd met him at the Jazz workshop

and we're backstage, and he asked me,

"How do you get to Berkeley?" And I go, "Why?"

He goes, "Well I've gotta go to, um, Ralph Gleeson's house

for an interview.

Ralph was the Jazz critic for the Chronicle.

So I said, "I'll drive you." And I shot pictures at the interview.

And they're beautiful.

[Selvin] I don't know what it is.

He just, he saw Coltrane.

He captured the serenity of the guy

and the depth and the intensity. All at the same time.

What time of day is that, that one

out in the back yard taken?

That's like sunset or something like that?

The-- the light and the colors

are just like out of a Renaissance painting

or like a Turner or something.

[Michael Douglas] His love for the blues.

His love for Jazz.

He photographed a lot of particularly Black artists

who weren't necessarily getting a lot of attention.

And he always had a strong defense for the underdog.

He almost would look for an underdog to defend.

He always was the ultimate outsider.

And he fought

and scrapped

and used that as a motivating tool.

You know, one of the reasons that John Coltrane exists

aside from his musical genius, was the zeitgeist.

I mean, the time that he was reacting to.

Those songs like Alabama,

responding to social things.

And Marshall's part of that time.

He's so important to kind of an era

where a lot was changing socially,

artistically,

and Marshall's photographs of these men

away from their instruments, not on stage,

kind of reveals that more than anything else for me.

[crowds cheer] [jazz music]

[Talamon] Between Jim Marshall and Ralph Gleeson,

Ralph Gleeson, of course, being the jazz critic

for the San Francisco Chronicle

and later co-founding the Monterey Jazz Festival.

I mean, that was the big deal.

You know, you gotta go to the Monterey Jazz Festival.

And who documented the Monterey Jazz Festival?

Fucking Jim Marshall.

Jazz festivals were one of the first places

where you really had integration.

It was nice and loose.

You know, and people would dance

and people would associate.

and people would get together and have a drink.

[Kenyatta] And remember,

this is like just after segregation, right?

And so these people were together

with the community in a way that doesn't exist anymore.

[people cheer] [slow jazz continues]

Musicians operate a lot on feeling.

And so it's clear to me that someone like Marshall,

who had access to Miles Davis,

who had access to John Coltrane,

they had to respect him to let him that close.

Coltrane was known as a very gentle man,

but Miles certainly didn't let people close to him

that he didn't respect.

They must have thought of him

as an artist on their level, in some ways.

[Marshall] I think the first time I met Miles in '59,

I asked him why he had a green trumpet.

I forget what he said, but he goes, uh,

"I didn't ask you why you have a black camera."

Scared the shit out of me.

So in the next 6 years, I do two album covers on him.

Live stuff.

Then the first time he played for Bill Graham

at the Winterland,

I made a print for Miles of Coltrane backstage,

the media all over the place.

I go, "Hey Miles," he goes, "Ugh."

"This is for you." "What is it?"

I go, "It's for you." "I'm a busy man, what is it?"

I start to walk away. He opens it.

Everybody's going, Miles this, Miles that, da, da, da.

And he goes, "Everybody, shut up!

Hey, Jim. Come back here."

He goes, "You knew John like this?

And John trusted you like this?"

And I go, "Yeah."

"Why don't you ever take pictures of me like that?"

I go, "Why don't you let me?"

[somber piano]

[Jeff L. Rosenheim] It's a diary of a life.

This was the life.

It was something that he thought

that he must have been able to do better than the next person.

Or something that fulfilled a desire.

That had nothing to do with music.

That had to do with living.

Ok, life is short.

And basically I wanna fill my life

with as much poetry as I can.

And the camera is a kind of memoir.

It is a diaristic tool

and that's what, I think,

when you look at a whole, the collection of images,

it is a diary of a life in music.

And what a beautiful thing.

[record whirs]

[distant traffic]

[Marshall] In 1962,

I did a lot of stuff on Dick Gregory,

and I was going to New York.

And I drove Dick Gregory's car with a bunch of money and stuff

to take to Chicago for him.

And I got as far as Chicago

and then took a bus on to New York City.

Got there in June of '62.

Lived there for 2 and a half years.

[foreboding music]

[Anton Corbijn] I think the '60s,

there was a sense of a movement,

that music was part of that movement.

When I look at Jim's work, I see a documentary photographer

And it's really hard if you're a documentary photographer

to prepare these great compositions.

As they say, you have to have an eye for it.

And he definitely had.

He was able to create in really weird circumstances a beautiful picture.

[Davis] 'Cause it's not just music.

He was shooting Woody Allen

for the cover of Look Magazine.

He was shooting Carol Channing, a lot of theater.

Take a look.

And those proof sheets tell the story.

I mean, you see the Dylan walking down the street

with Dave Van Ronk and his wife.

And then, you know, they're just hanging out on the sidewalk.

It's just Sixth Avenue on some like Saturday or Sunday morning.

There's not much traffic.

And then all the sudden, boom.

There's the tire picture.

Just out of nowhere.

[Corbijn] I mean the Dylan moment's

pretty close to perfection to me.

It says so much, that picture.

It makes you long for a different era.

And what I learned from all these...

pioneers of photography is that:

No matter how good you are, if you don't have the access,

you don't have the picture.

[clunk]

[Marshall] I don't know. I'd prefer just to hang out,

and shoot as a photo journalist.

I want total access.

I don't want someone telling me I can't go here or there.

If they want me there,

then they should respect my judgment and taste

and integrity, if you want to use that word.

And just let me take the fucking picture.

[easy guitar music]

And let me capture what I see.

[Graham Nash] Jim had an eye for the moment.

For Bob Dylan to have opened himself up that much

to a photographer was very interesting.

And at times, he became invisible.

[crowd chatters]

I know when people are taking pictures of me.

You always want to put your best side forward.

You wanna look like James Dean and look cool and stuff.

But people trusted Jim.

And I think that was one of his main secrets.

Once he had the trust of an artist,

the artist trusted him to not screw up.

[Talamon] You know, he could be frantic,

but through all of that, people gravitated toward him,

and they would allow him to come into their space.

You can't teach that.

You cannot teach that.

I don't care how many cameras you have.

[clicks] [driving beat]

Um...

so a photographer being present,

it's the classic thing that

the documentarian changes the subject.

And often for the worse.

When it is working well,

the documentarian allows something that is always there

to emerge again.

And a little bit of introspection

on the photographer's part

the recorder's part,

the documentarian's part,

and a little bit of introspection

on the performer's part

allows another kind of composition to take place.

[classical piano]

[Davis] The way Jim truly expressed himself

was through his photographs.

And when you look at his photographs

you can see what he was feeling,

what he was trying to get across,

and the history that he was documenting.

[Marshall] As out there as I am, when I'm photographing,

I kind of become a fly on the wall

and just want to document it.

[Davis] Out of habit, he would always

always, whenever he left the house to go somewhere,

pick up his Leica

and put it on his shoulder.

It was an extension of him.

But he also, I think, he had a curious eye.

And that's what really put Jim apart

from other photographers

because he was always looking,

always wanting to document,

no matter how insignificant you or I thought it was,

It was significant for Jim.

[smooth jazz]

[Rosenheim] Every street corner is a circus.

And when I teach, and my students arrive on the first day,

and I have to pick who's gonna be in the class

and who is not gonna be in the class,

the kids who don't show up with their camera on day one,

they're out.

You're either that kind of person or you're not.

You gotta be open to it.

Being ready to have your life changed every day.

[gunshot]

[reporter] It appears as though something has happened

in the motorcade group.

[gunshot]

There has been a shooting, a shooting in the motorcade in the downtown area.

[somber music]

[reporter 2] The President of the United States is dead.

[Marshall] Now, if you know the shots that I did

the day JFK was killed,

I did right at this corner.

Right here.

[Davis] When I met Jim and started working for him,

my mother had just died,

and I had just been diagnosed with MS.

For me, it was a difficult part of my life.

I had this void.

And then I, boom, met Jim.

So he filled that void, in a way.

He was this very charismatic person, intelligent, witty.

He also needed somebody in his life that cared

and that would be with him.

So I think it was beneficial for both of us.

Actually there's a cute one of you and me Jim.

-Did you see this one? -Uh, yeah.

Right there.

Oh I look awful.

[laughs]

And art does not look good in pictures.

Oh it doesn't.

I'll do that one.

[Davis] He was such an intense person.

I mean, he could be the biggest asshole,

and then the next minute,

he could be the sweetest guy in the world.

[reel whirs]

[interviewer] I wanna know how

in one body can be such an incredible range.

I mean, you're such a sensitive photographer

and have such a way with getting these things out of people.

And you have so many dangerous ideas in there--

[Marshall] What dangerous ideas? For instance?

[interviewer] Well, that's my opinion.

[Marshall] Let's talk about 'em. What dangerous ideas?

[interviewer] Well, you're, you're...

very casual and cavalier about--

about guns and blowing people away.

- [Marshall] They're a tool. - Threatening people.

Hey, I don't threaten anybody, man,

unless they fuck with me first.

[Marshall] What?

[interviewer] How can all, how can this--

[Marshall] It's a-- it's a paradox.

-[interviewer] It is a paradox. - It is a great paradox

that I'd probably have to spend every penny I make

to a head shrinker to find out,

and I don't believe in head shrinkers.

-That's why I'm fucked up. - Just talk to me about that.

[Marshall] I don't know how to talk about it.

[interviewer] How can you be so sensitive--

[Marshall] My first wife said I'm not sensitive.

I'm just technically good.

[Douglas] I mean, there was a softness and a compassion

about him and how he treated his friends.

But you did not wanna be on the wrong side of Jim Marshall.

[blows raspberry]

And I know, was he a Syrian Jew?

He was a Catholic, but he was Syrian.

People kept thinking he was a Jew.

because, you know, he did have a schnoz,

bless his soul.

Well, he was a Catholic. Well, that explains a lot.

[Selvin] Everybody who knew Jim Marshall

has Jim Marshall stories.

They came with every encounter.

The pose of this hard-ass, spiteful guy was simply that.

A pose.

And we know this by looking at his photographs.

You can't see into people's

hearts and souls through a camera lens

unless you're an open connection to that.

Somebody who's that open

to these connections in life

has to really guard himself.

[moody music]

[Margetts] Oh yeah, it's right here.

It's right in this, right here in this bag.

So apparently I have even the edited version.

It was called: 'Jim Marshall's Last Shot'.

And my journalism professor said,

"Great stuff. Rough passages though."

[laughs] Oh yeah?

[tape whirs]

At 5 foot, 6 inches, Marshall is a small man with a large talent.

and an even bigger insecurity.

200 years ago, he would have been jousting at windmills.

100 gun fighting in the dusty streets.

Now he just shoots pictures for the most part.

[click] [steady beat]

[The Chamber Brothers perform "Time Has Come Today" ]

[crowds chatter]

♪ Time has come today ♪

[train whistle] ♪ Young hearts can go their way♪

♪ Can't put it off another day ♪

♪ I don't care what others say ♪

♪ They say We don't listen anyway ♪

♪ Time has come today ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

[man] Sir, I don't need to leave!

We've come to register to vote.

You beat us, but refuse to register.

What kind of people are you?

[crowds shout]

♪ I have no place to stay ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ I'm thinking about the subway♪ [dogs bark]

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ My love has blown away ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ My tears have come and gone ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ Oh my Lord, I have to run ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ I've got no home ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

[train roars] ♪ I have no home ♪

♪ Hey! ♪

♪ Now the time has come ♪

♪ Time! ♪ ♪ No place to run ♪

♪ Time! ♪

♪ Might get burned up By the sun ♪

♪ Time! ♪ ♪ But I've had my fun ♪

♪ Time! ♪

♪ I've been loved, And put aside ♪

♪ Time! ♪

♪ I've been crushed By a tumbling tide ♪

♪ Time! ♪

♪ And my soul has Been psychedelicized ♪

[radio static] [song continues over radio]

♪ Time! ♪

♪ Now the time has come ♪

[crowds scream]

[Jon Savage] Jim Marshall's very well known

for taking the last pictures of the Beatles playing live.

And the Beatles knew it was going to be the last show.

And they asked him to take pictures, you know, explicitly.

[Marshall] August 29th, '66.

The Beatles at Candlesticks had platinum print.

I was the only guy allowed backstage.

And they didn't want to play. They were too burned out.

They were coming onto the stage from the dressing room

and I was on the field with them.

The sound was pretty primitive

with just the amplifiers on the stage.

The lights were just the stadium lights.

[sharp music] [cheers]

That day, August 29th, '66, was right out of Hard Day's Night.

It was that crazy.

[camera clicks]

[reporter] The Beatles, they did what the Redcoats

could not do in the American Revolution.

They conquered the colonies.

I think, they were at that stage in their lives anyway,

where they'd just completely had enough.

So the Candlestick pop concert, which was not a success,

fans were miles away from the stage,

terrible acoustics, a lot of high wind,

not particularly pleasant weather.

They were just glad to get the whole thing over with.

I should think they were exhausted

and pretty fed up, to be honest.

[Marshall] I really believe this

in the deepest part of my heart

that no one knew that would be the last show they ever did.

But uh,

August 29th, '66 was their last public show.

[somber music]

[plane whines]

[Nash] I'd left London to come to Los Angeles

to spend some time with Joni.

I got to the house.

There were other voices there, and I went, ah.

But it was David and Stephen.

And uh, after dinner, we smoked a big one.

David said to Stephen, uh,

"Hey, play Willie that song that we were working on."

It was a song called You Don't Have To Cry.

And the third time we sang it, we had to stop

in the middle of the song and start laughing.

It sounded so insanely beautiful.

And whatever sound Crosby, Stills, and Nash had

was born immediately.

In a half a song.

As soon as I heard that sound, I knew I'd have to go back

to England and leave The Hollies and leave my family

and my friends and my equipment and my money.

And go to America and follow that sound.

[spirited violin]

[Selvin] In San Francisco [traffic noises]

at the height of the Fillmore era,

this was the center of the pop music universe.

And nobody from London could get their wings

until they played the Fillmore.

Groups like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Traffick,

Pink Floyd, Procul Harum.

All came to San Francisco to play the Fillmore.

Cream, it was the height of their entire career.

Marshall took all these photos.

The Who first showed up in San Francisco in June 1967.

There's photos of Roger Daltrey

that his mother probably doesn't even recognize him in.

We were not only attracted to the music,

but also, of course, to the clothes and culture.

Jimi Hendrix came back to us from the UK transformed.

The Stones providing a sort of

a more raw counter point to the Beatles.

John Mayall and Keith Richards

and Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood

all gave us back the blues.

[Nash] It was a very fabulous

sunshine filled, band filled,

ladies filled moments.

I went to Los Angeles,

and I swore I would never go back and live in England.

And I never did.

[chaotic music] [traffic roars]

[plane whines]

- Haven't ever been to Levin? [man]- No .

God.

I think it's gonna be like Easter

and Christmas and New Years and your birthday all together, you know?

Hearing whole different bands, you know?

Just like I've heard a lot of 'em,

but all at the same time, it's just gonna be too much.

[Selvin] I mean, once again,

there he is at a seminal moment

in rock and roll history.

But rock and roll music

had never actually been dignified yet

with its own festival.

And the Monterey Festival, it was magical.

'Cause they had all these great international stars there,

from Ravi Shankar to The Who to Hendrix.

[Marshall] Well, Jimi started in England.

You know, he's from here, but he started in England with a trio

and Monterey was his first gig in the United States

as Jimi Hendrix.

[Selvin] The Hendrix pictures from the sound check,

which start with Saturday Night with Otis Redding at the top.

And then he put his camera away,

and comes back to sound check,

And there's Jimi Hendrix behind a drum set.

And Jim is standing face to face with this guy,

'cause it's not a show, it's sound check.

[chill bass line]

Those photos are indelible.

[crowd chatters]

[Zagaris] One of my favorite shots

of his that not many people even see,

was a shot of Nico, Judy Collins, Brian Jones on acid.

and Dennis Hopper backstage at Monterey.

And people don't even recognize Dennis Hopper in it.

And he's in the middle of the picture.

He's out of his fucking mind.

And, you know, it's funny.

I have heard from friends of mine

that worked on Apocalypse Now,

Dennis Hopper modeled his character in that movie

after Jim.

And it's probably how Dennis Hopper

being on acid at Monterey

[laughs] remembers Jim.

[applause]

[Marshall] Before he went on, Jimi looked at me,

he goes, "You got a lot of film?" I go, "Yeah."

He goes, "You got, you got motors?"

I go, "Yeah."

[energetic drumbeat] [screams]

I think maybe one or two of his roadies

knew what he was gonna do.

And he comes out in the last number,

and he had a can of Rosonol lighter fluid.

You could see it in the picture.

And he's, like, starts burning the guitar, man,

and crashed it, and Oh Christ. [fire crackles] It was amazing.

No one had ever seen anything like that.

[intense rock music]

[feedback whines]

♪ Whoa, whoa, oh honey ♪

♪ This can't be ♪

♪ Well, no, no This can't be a thing ♪

[Rosenheim] Music is about self-transformation

The best of music is about transforming an individual

that's listening to it to a place

that they have not been before.

It's like reading a great poem.

Watching a performance of ballet.

Music is transformative.

And I believe

that seeing is a creative act.

And the best photographers

allow us to believe that we see the world differently.

That we see the world differently

than our brothers and our sisters.

From our parents and from our children,

and that seeing is a creative act.

And when the two things come together,

when great music and great performance

and great photography

hey, it's art.

[vocalizes]

[crowd screams]

[Davis] Jim didn't just photograph

the event that was going on.

He would keep his camera rolling,

and he would just then shoot everything else

that was going on around that as well.

So something as meaningless as a peace sign,

you know, on the concrete of a sidewalk,

Jim saw it. And he photographed it.

[Rosenheim] The peace symbol and its history

is a really beautiful story.

And the fact that Jim made a kind of study,

one, it was in his face, ok?

But two, he realized it was larger than that moment.

[Davis] He really documented how this symbol

changed over the '60s and became something

to many different people.

Not only was it anti-nuclear arms,

it also meant freedom of speech.

It also meant anti-war.

It meant racial equality.

It took one so many different meanings.

And there was Jim Marshall documenting all of it.

And I think that was his way of communicating with the world.

LSD, electric rock,

social protest,

anti-war movement,

boils up into this massive brew

that's going to change the rest of the nation.

[planes roar]

[reporter] The news tonight, despite an official denial,

is of a significant escalation of the war in Vietnam.

[explosion]

[Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan]

[protesters chant]

♪ Johnny's in the basement, Mixing up the medicine ♪

♪ I'm on the pavement, Thinking about the government ♪

♪ The man in the trench coat, Badge out, laid off ♪

♪ Says he's got a bad cough, Wants to get it paid off ♪

♪ Look out kid, It's something you did ♪

♪ God knows when, But you're doing it again ♪

♪ You better duck down The alley way ♪ [explosion]

♪ Lookin' for a new friend ♪

♪ The man in the coonskin cap In the pig pen ♪

♪ Wants eleven dollar bills, You only got ten ♪

[people shout] [harmonica continues]

♪ Maggie comes fleet foot, Face full of black soot ♪

♪ Talkin' that the heat put Plants in the bed but ♪

[man] Looting, murder, and arson have nothing to do

with civil rights.

♪ Look out kid, Don't matter what you did ♪

♪ Walk on your tip toes, Don't tie no bows ♪

♪ Better stay away from those That carry 'round a fire hose ♪

♪ Keep a clean nose, Watch the plain clothes ♪

♪ You don't need A weather man ♪

[man] I say violence is necessary.

Violence is a part of America's culture.

It is as American as cherry pie.

♪ Oh get sick, get well, Hang around an ink well ♪

♪ Hang bail, hard to tell If anything is gonna sell ♪

♪ Try hard, get barred, Get back, write braille ♪

♪ Get jailed, jump bail, Join the army if you fail ♪

[man] They are trying to teach us political power

rolled out of the barrel of a gun.

♪ Six time users, Hangin' round the theaters ♪

♪ Girl by the whirlpool, Lookin' for a new fool ♪

[Margetts] His is a personality not split but fractured.

The kind of man who, on first meeting,

will more often repel than attract.

He is ruthlessly, often offensively blunt.

Talented, profane, compulsive, violent, sentimental.

Capable of great love and great hate.

[Zagaris] I first met Jim on May 18th, 1968.

And I saw that there was gonna be this pop rock festival.

And everybody was gonna be there.

And I showed up to the gig,

there was this guy in this corduroy coat,

and he had a hat on.

Pretty aggressive, giving people shit,

and some fraternity guy had pissed him off.

So this guy pulls a knife on him.

The security guy almost shits his pants.

And I said,

"Hey man, is that knife real?"

And Jim turns to me, and puts the knife up under my throat,

And he goes, "Yeah, mother fucker, it's real."

And then reaches back into his waistband

and pulls out a gun and said, "And so is this!"

"Hey man, who brings a gun and a knife to a rock concert?"

He said, "I do!"

And I said, "Who are you?"

He said, "I'm Jim Marshall, mother fucker.

Who the fuck are you?"

[ominous drumbeat] [camera clicks]

[Douglas] He had a lot of guns

and guns were a big part of his

his persona.

Um, and...

and you thought sometimes this guy could actually use one.

[menacing strings]

[gunshot]

[sirens]

[Margetts] Violence, in fact, has followed him closely throughout his life.

Hugging his shoulder as tightly as a camera strap.

He keeps charging at me with this knife,

and I'm screaming at him to keep away.

He wouldn't and I shot him.

And now he's only got one kidney.

[gunshot]

Mr. Macho. Ok.

I was foolish and stupid to have a gun with me

in an irrational situation.

But he was a hell of a lot more stupid than I was.

[camera whirs]

So Jim, you know, he definitely had, um...

malleable ethics around people.

But what he didn't have malleable ethics around

was photography.

[Davis] Johnny Cash was another really lifelong great friend

of Jim Marshall's.

They were so much alike it was crazy. [laughs]

[John Carter Cash] My father, in some ways,

had a, had a gruff, abrasive exterior.

But had a great, big, warm heart underneath it.

Jim Marshall was exactly the same way.

[Davis] In 1968,

when Johnny Cash wanted to do a live recording

at Folsom State Prison,

He said, "I want Jim Marshall to be my photographer."

Turns out there were two one day shows.

It paid rent a few months.

The album at Folsom Prison,

and then I did San Quentin a year later.

[Cash] My father knew hardship.

When he went to prisons, he saw the conditions

there that the men were living in.

He also knew that many, at the time,

and still today, of course, pay far beyond their due.

[prison guard] Who have you got there?

[man] I've got Johnny with me.

Alright, come right on in.

[keys and doors rattle]

[cheers]

[Cash] There are times in my life when...

when I thought, you know, I wish that there was a video

the day that my father recorded live at Folsom.

What happened was captured

as true as could be in any format by Jim Marshall.

The photographs that he took defined the experience.

It's all there.

You can see it in my father's eyes,

in my mother's eyes.

And you know the experience, if you know the album.

It's a unique connection with that moment and that time.

I'm grateful there isn't a film

because I believe he captured it better.

[inspirational music]

[crowd cheer]

[Davis] Next year was 1969,

which was San Quentin, and he...

had all access and he photographed

one of the most iconic images ever.

And that's the finger shot.

[crowd murmurs]

[Johnny Cash] Hello.

I'm Johnny Cash.

[cheers and applause]

[Marshall] At San Quentin, doing sound check

I said, "Johnny, let's do a shot for the warden."

And he goes, "Aghhh." [prison doors rattle]

It's become one of the most ripped off pictures.

[John Carter Cash] When I look at the famous picture

of my father with his middle finger raised,

I feel the energy of the moment.

I feel my father's sense of defiance.

You know, he'd written the song San Quentin

the day before on the airplane

as he descended into the Bay Area.

The energy that was there.

The laughter, the humor that was there. I feel that.

I also see my grandmother Maybelle in the background.

And so, what an interesting connection

that my two family members,

my grandmother and my father

both in the Country Music Hall of Fame,

are in one of the most famous,

rebellious photographs ever taken.

You better not bend over there on that camera like that.

Man, you're in the wrong place to bend over, don't you know it.

Get up from there on that camera.

[cheers]

[John Carter Cash] Jim was the music photographer.

Jim wasn't a politician's photographer.

He wasn't a nature photographer.

He was a musician's photographer.

He captured music.

And to capture that visually and to connect in the heart,

um, is a magical thing.

Growing up around my parents, there was always laughter.

There was always a good time.

The kinship that my parents had with the ones that they love

never faltered.

There were people they always held dear.

and Jim Marshall was one of those people.

[crowds cheer]

[Margetts] An only child born in Chicago,

his family moved to San Francisco

before he was one year old.

He remembers his father as a handsome man.

Frustrated, abusive.

A bit of a womanizer.

And a drunk.

[Zagaris] I remember one night

trying to find out more about his life as a kid.

And asked him how he felt his dad not being there

contributed to his, like, rage, sometimes.

And he went--

He said, "What are you, a fucking psychiatrist?

Fuck, how-- how the fuck do I know?"

You know, and I thought Ok, yeah.

[Margetts] No matter what it was it was never enough.

You know, he had that, that hole--

in him, that just seemed to be unfillable, you know?

[somber orchestral music]

[Margetts Archive] My father was a brilliant man.

Knew 13 languages and how to paint houses.

So he drank a lot.

My parents divorced when I was 10.

My mom slaved in laundry to bring me up.

When I was 15, my father died.

I didn't even know about it until my aunt came and told me.

All I said was, "Good."

[music continues]

[helicopter whirs]

[Margetts] "I only have two clear memories of him.

One time, I got up, and he made me pancakes

as big as a frying pan.

Another time I got up from the table

without permission, and he slammed my head against the side of the table.

Knocked two teeth out."

In the time it takes to tell the story,

Marshall's features moved from joy into rage.

Some years ago with the help of Rebecca,

he was finally able to visit his father's Colma grave site.

He sat for a few hours, talking and crying and made peace.

[man] We're all children of the 1960s.

Orphans of America.

Children of blood. [rocket roars]

Give it back! Give it back!

You don't like it here, why don't you leave?

We said, we left!

We're already gone mother fucker!

[inspirational music]

[police sirens]

[reporter] Do you have to re, re-shoot?

[Marshall] No, I mean sometimes you can't.

[reporter] What happens?

[Marshall] Uh, let's not go into that.

It's too painful to think about.

[somber music fades]

[Davis] Jim, what did you need the dog shot for?

- What? - Janis' dog, what did--

Did we need to make one of those?

- No. - No, ok.

I don't think he realized what an influence

and a personality and a friend he was

to people.

And it's shame because that's why he felt so alone,

and he didn't really need to.

'Cause there were a lot of people who cared about him.

But when he was, uh, when he was doing his cocaine,

and just crazy, he would lock the inside door.

So I knew when that lock was on it,

it was, you know, I'm on a bender.

Don't come in. Just go home.

I'll call you when I'm done.

God bless him.

He started writing notes

that he would tape on the outside of the door.

And he didn't write the notes before he was fucked up.

He wrote them after.

Because in the back of his mind, he was like, uh-oh,

I better write a note to Davis.

No work today.

I'll pay tomorrow.

Come at 11.

Come at noon.

[somber guitar]

This is the best one.

He'd obviously just done a line of coke or cut it,

and it says, NDW.

Bis to day.

So every time he went on a binge

his shirt would be filled with blood,

you know, there was cocaine all over the place.

There was trash everywhere.

You know, it just, it was crazy.

For whatever reason, I stayed

and I would clean up his mess, and I would always come back.

And I think Jim realized that.

That I was really the only person that would come back.

and it comforted him, I think,

to know that somebody

loved him enough to stay.

[somber music]

[Adam Block] I think that Jim was lonely.

I think that he could be so irascible and so challenging

that, I think, you know, a lot of people didn't understand him.

And I think that when he found people who did,

He kind of grabbed hold. Tightly.

[gentle piano]

[reporter] What was she like?

[Marshall] A very human person. Very real, very vulnerable.

Uh, one night in North Carolina,

I was on the road with Baez and David,

and Janis was giving a concert.

And she said, you know, "Hey, uh, look at this, man."

She said, "I just made it with 20,000 people out there.

And I'm going home alone."

Now, she wasn't hitting on me, man.

It wasn't that kind of relationship, you know.

I gave her a ride to the motel.

'Cause she was a friend.

And she went home alone.

And these two photographs, man,

at one point, you know, a lot of people

didn't like the vertical shot.

They said, man, that makes your legs look fat and depressing.

And Janis said, "Hey man, that's part of it.

That's part of backstage, and I like it 'cause it's real."

Someone came in and said something,

and she got out of her little slump,

and she was the joyous, bubbly Janis

that most people saw.

She was a very special lady, you know.

[melancholic music]

What if there's a situation where people gather for one time

and one time only, and they're never together

in that situation again?

I can't recreate that picture.

I guard my pictures of Coltrane like they were gold themselves.

Not just for the money but because John was close to me,

and I can never photograph him again.

And I've been called a real martinet

about the, you know, controls of my work.

Especially on people that have passed away. Well hell yes.

Someone trusted me with the privacy of their life.

To come into their lives with a camera.

I can't violate that trust, and I won't.

I will not do it.

[Margetts] When he found out that

Duane had died in a motorcycle wreck

he walked the city for like, I think he said, 12 hours.

It was very troubling to him, you know.

And I think he, he would feel very...

just isolated.

[Marshall] Of all the people that I've met

in the music business, I loved Duane Allman the most.

I like to think of him as a brother.

I mean, I love him, man.

And when Duane died, a part of me went with him.

[Galadrielle Allman] Once he held my hand,

he pulled me across the table, and he said,

"Your daddy, your daddy loved cocaine."

You know, which was like the funniest thing.

And no one was telling me the truth like that.

And you know, and he told me his own struggles with drugs.

He had not artifice at all.

And he didn't like artifice in other people.

And in some ways, I think that that's really

what his connection with my father was.

[Selvin] His photos have the feeling

that nobody else is in the room but the subject.

There's a picture of Duane Allman

playing in a hotel bathroom.

I just can't believe there was another person there.

Not even Jim.

There's such a private, intimate,

extraordinarily deep life image.

These are real people boiled down to the nut.

[somber piano]

[bell rings]

[Marshall] Well, I did him in the same ring,

the horizontal one on the ropes.

I did the same ring a year before.

It was Newman's gym, down on Levenworth Street.

He used to work out, and he was very good.

And he'd box. And one guy said,

"Don't hit me in the mouth, man, I gotta play tonight." [laughs]

[Eileen Hirst] There's an expression on his face

you don't see in any other Miles Davis photograph.

His face is soft and open,

and that is what I find so striking about his photography.

[Corbijn] Miles Davis' pictures may be my favorite.

That's just a most stunning picture.

[cars rumble]

[Douglas] I mean I was up doing the Streets of San Francisco

from 1970 to '74.

He wasn't a set photographer,

but he came in on several occasions

for what we call special shoots.

So it was probably professionally

the first time I met him.

The contradiction with Jim is he was always trying to make

you, you know, as relaxed as possible.

And it's just hanging out and all that.

But meanwhile, he was the most uptight, strung out guy

you ever seen in your life.

You know, his fingers were chewed down to the bone.

He was just raw.

He was always picking on his fingers.

No, just relax! Just relax, relax!

[gunshot]

I said, "OK, I'll try Jim. I'll try."

But he was a very social cat.

So if you kind of hit it off, he liked to socialize.

It was a wonderful, free, liberal town.

It was a great time, man.

I didn't know a lot of people up there,

and he was, you know, a great guy to pal around with.

[police radio and sirens]

[Zagaris] Jim would be gone for a while,

then he'd be home, and you know, at that point in time,

in the-- from late '60s through, really, '73, '74,

Jim was gone a lot.

He was always working.

I mean, he was probably

one of the most, if not the most in demand photographers.

Jim was the man.

[Marshall] There was about 50 people

who had submitted portfolios to Life Magazine

to do the Stones tour for Life.

I got it. Based on 10 pictures.

And then I had the cover of Life.

Uh, it was great.

[camera clicks]

[Talamon] That's amazing.

And it's not some puff piece.

You know, let's stretch it.

No, this is like serious, serious work.

Serious stuff where you look at the proof sheets,

and you go, "Oh fuck, ok!"

[Selvin] When the Stones come back on the 1972 tour,

they played four shows at a 5,400 seat venue

called Winterland that Bill Graham ran.

To be in that close proximity of that band

at that point in their career,

it was just an explosive performance.

[Marshall] When I see something developing before me,

I instinctively--

I think this just comes from experience, man,

and shooting a long time, you instinctively pick up the body

that I feel at that given moment is gonna give me the framing

and the image that I want.

In other words, I gotta 15, a 35 around my neck.

I've got a 28 or a 21

and a 90 or an 85 around one shoulder.

And a 180 on another.

How did that mother fucker get that shot?

You know, I mean, the whole idea of being close.

Being inside the photograph.

That was a characteristic of Jim Marshall's

that you don't see.

I don't see with a lot of other photographers.

They'll put a long lens on so that compresses everything.

But Jim would get close

and do it with a 28.

Get close and do it with a 35.

That 28, it's like as if you've stepped into the frame.

His attention to detail. His exposure.

His focus... he didn't miss.

I mean, look, that was the thing that I was always interested in.

Why am I a photographer?

I wanted some youngster

to walk around the corner in an exhibition

and get hit in the face with a huge print,

and say, "Who are those guys?"

And that's what Marshall's work did.

[inspirational music] [crowds cheer]

[plane roars]

[reporter] What was it like being around the Stones,

the bad boys of rock?

[Marshall] I probably did more coke than they did.

[laughs] The '72 Tour

was fueled by cocaine.

There was a lot of it. It was a good tour.

[guitar riffs]

[Zagaris] And you know, at the time,

I don't wanna say all of us indulged,

but to Jim, to me,

to a couple of other people, this was a participatory sport.

If you're with whoever you are shooting,

it was very much like being in a Stanislavski movie,

where you become what you're shooting.

And it meant, doing the drugs,

drinking the drinks,

and it wasn't to emulate 'em.

It's because that's who we were.

And you know what? We were curious.

[whining rock music]

[Marshall] This cocaine tour [laughs]

fueled by cocaine.

A lot of it. I was doing a half ounce a week.

[distorted] That's 14 grams, almost 2 grams a day.

[crowds cheer]

[music builds sharply]

[Douglas] I think as his career went on,

and as his drug habit got more serious,

then an anger evolved, more strongly,

and he felt more restricted.

And he fought, he fought against that.

[Marshall] I'm tired of shooting concerts and live stuff.

I'm really fucking bored to death with it.

Most places the light is so bad

that it's really frustrating to try to shoot

when you don't have access to all angles.

It's really awful.

[Douglas] What has happened as rock and roll got bigger

is all of a sudden everybody said,

"Oh I don't want you that close.

I'm sweating.

My manager wants me to have a good photograph."

And the whole thing got much more restricted and controlled.

It drove him nuts.

[Marshall] I mean, fuck all the words, man.

Let's, let's look at it, look at my work.

Look at my track record over

18 to 20 years of taking pictures.

You could dislike me or like me, I don't give a shit.

Look at my body of work over the last 20 years.

You think it works?

[Zagaris] 1977 [fireworks pop]

when Day on the Green were the biggest things ever,

they'd have 60,000 people.

Fleetwood Mac,

Peter Frampton are

headlining Day on the Green.

As the show's going on,

right behind the drum kit, he has a table set up.

[Peter Frampton] They'd have a little table

with the table cloth

and champagne that they were drinking.

You know, [laughs] as if to say, we made it.

[cheers]

Jim and Mike would be everywhere.

you know, they'd be down in the pit.

They'd be over in the left, behind me, whatever.

[Zagaris] I'd start shooting.

Well Jim's shooting that day too.

And Jim's doing lines.

I guess Jim and Dee Anthony

at some point somewhere, something hadn't gone right.

Now Bill sees how upset they are.

So he says,

"Tell Jim to get out of there."

"He's-- you know, I told him once, he's off."

So someone pulls Jim by the arm, and says,

"Hey, you've gotta quit shooting you've gotta leave the stage."

So as Jim's walking away, he says,

"Hey Anthony!

I'm not afraid of you. You know I got a fucking gun too."

And I thought, oh shit.

That was the last time Jim ever shot on Bill's stage.

[crowd cheer] [somber music]

[Marshall] It's not fun anymore. I think that--

the people that run it, most of 'em,

and this isn't just the concert promoters.

I feel it with the PR people,

the record company people, the managers.

In the beginning, I think it was more for music.

It was fun. It wasn't just fun--

I mean, let's face it, it was a business.

But it was fun.

And I think the bottom line now the bloody thing is being run

by accountants and business men.

Let's go folks, let's go. Whoa! Whoa!

[Zagaris] You know Kevin Mazur, who does a lot of it.

And he shoots for the Stones, they own everything.

Everything's become corporatized,

and corporate not only wants to own all the images

but they also want to control the message.

That really hit about 1975, '76, '77.

And at that point, Jim was done.

He would not put up with that.

And he found out, you know, in the end,

they don't give a fuck who you are.

If you're in sports, if you're Georgie Best,

if you're Joe Montana,

at a certain point, it doesn't matter.

You go down, they drag you off, bring in the next one.

[dreamy music]

[Margetts] December 1st, 1981.

Just another winter day.

He arises and makes a cup of Sellaby's coffee

for Rebecca his wife of 8 years.

A successful bank executive,

she prepares for yet another business trip.

She mentions needing a lift back from the airport

around 7 that night.

Quote, "I still can't believe how smooth she was"

he says, shaking his dark head slowly.

"I was watching the news, and she hadn't called yet.

It was a little after 7,

and I remember thinking the plane must have been late.

Just then the phone rang, and I thought it was her.

I answered, 'Hello darling, I missed you.'

And it was Western Union.

There was a note in the left-hand dresser drawer.

Rebecca had run away taking close to 20 grand with her."

[Parrilli] Jimmy told me a story about how [laughs]

he had put her in a closet and nailed the door shut

so she couldn't get out.

He was so angry.

And I'm not quite sure how she did get out,

but I think it was shortly thereafter that she left,

and left permanently.

[Margetts] He was not to hear from her

or know if she was alive for more than a year.

Eventually papers notifying him

their marriage had been dissolved arrived from Minneapolis.

"I thought I was going to go crazy.

I loved that girl so much.

She took a piece of me with her.

She helped me and I wasn't there when she needed me.

I was inconsiderate and stupid.

I used drugs, I was an asshole.

And I fucked her life up and mine."

The words tumble out one upon the next

in an attempt to purge himself of the hurt.

After Rebecca left

he began to slide deeper and deeper

into a prison of despair,

self-pity and self-indulgence.

And of course I learned in media ethics class

that you're not supposed to sleep with your--

you know, you're not supposed this Jim.

And he was like no, no, it's fine, don't worry, don't worry.

He would figure out which photos to use,

what was gonna be the cover.

I mean, it was getting pretty close

and then Jim pulls the Jim card.

He wanted me to do something.

He wanted me to go somewhere.

And he's like you know what?

You better do this or I'm not gonna let you use those photos.

And he-- he mistimed it.

I just told him to-- I got very Sicilian.

You know and I was just like

you and the fucking horse you rode in on.

No way and I'm not publishing that article ever.

No matter how much you beg me.

And he begged me his whole life.

It's more than 25 years since the first meeting

and that first critical lesson.

But there were many, many more.

Listen to your instincts.

Be true to yourself.

Don't bullshit.

Keep it simple.

Know your equipment.

Respect your subject's trust.

Get closer.

Protect your work.

No matter what. [click]

You know if you talk about Jim Marshall

you've gotta talk about copyright.

You know people talk about Jim and his guns.

I think he'd have shot a couple of people

if he had the chance,

as far as just being stupid

about protecting their copyright.

Or rather not protecting their copyright.

One of the things that he and I talked about

was the fact that actually the whole copyright system

needs to be revised.

Because it's woefully inadequate.

You know, a lot of stuff is falling into public domain

that shouldn't have.

Because what's happening is now

they are targeting the photographers.

They're targeting their copyright

to check out the validity of it.

And that is troubling.

You know and Marshall, he got paid.

You know and in his later years

you know he stopped running after them young bands.

But his work then protected him.

I could go make a very comfortable living

never having to pick up a camera again.

Just on my files.

'Cause I never did a buyout.

I've never done work for hire.

I own everything I shot.

So you know I've been good to my pictures.

Now they're being good to me.

I took a continuing education of the bar class

about copyright infringement.

And he was one of the speakers.

And he was very emotional about it.

But what he was talking about

is the sanctity of a person's work,

and how it cannot be stolen from him.

I called the FBI in on it, on the bootlegger trip,

'cause they were selling bootlegged Johnny Cash,

Bob Dylan album with my picture on it.

Someone bought the album for me.

I wanted to double check.

I called Rather Ripped

and said I'd like to find out where you got it.

They told me [bleep] off,

we don't have to tell you [bleep].

And I said you're telling that to the wrong person.

I called the FBI,

I went down and made a formal report.

And Rather Ripped got busted.

They're gonna be [bleep] smart asses,

hey [bleep] with me,

I went after them legally.

And I'll do it again to anybody at any time,

anywhere that uses my pictures without my permission.

[clicks and whirs]

[Zagaris] Most of the people out there,

if you weren't paying attention, would rip you off.

And I remember the first time he was telling me that

I was going, really?

"Say, mother fucker, they rip off the musicians,

why the fuck wouldn't they rip us off?"

He said, "You know we're at the bottom of the fucking rung.

We're nothing to them."

He said, "You can't take any shit from them

and this is why I've got a fucking gun."

[Marshall] I don't have any guns now.

I'm not supposed to have any. I don't have any guns.

What's a gun? I used to have guns. Haha.

[interviewer] You got in trouble with guns before?

[Marshall] I have been in trouble with guns before, yes.

But that is not for print.

Because you will be in trouble with guns if you print it.

[laughs]

[menacing beat] [police sirens]

[police radio chatter]

[Margetts] And it happened in 1983.

Rebecca had been gone more than a year without word.

Marshall pulled up in their huge Union Street apartment.

On a March evening before St Patrick's Day,

the building's silent alarm was tripped.

He went out with a 45 automatic.

Cocked, locked and ready to go.

[gun clicks]

Descending the stairs he came upon two more neighbors.

They phoned the police,

charging that Marshall at one point

crouched in a shooting stance

and told them he would blow their brains out.

[sirens]

Police confiscated a small arsenal

from Marshall's apartment.

Shotgun, rifle, 14 handguns,

and dozens of rounds of various types of ammunition.

The gun charge was a little bit of an issue.

But Ray talked his boss, Mike Hennessey,

into sitting down with Jim.

Jim came in

and Mike kind of

looked at him and thought

this guy's gonna get beaten to pieces in jail.

He's going to annoy everybody.

So Jim was sentenced to one year in Work Furlough.

But by every account

he was a complete pain in the neck.

He was always trying to co-op the deputies

by offering them signed photographs

of their favorite rock musicians.

People had to be reminded over and over again,

accept nothing.

He made it. He finished his year.

Hennessey had told him,

"You cannot violate a single rule

or I'm putting you in jail."

And he was forever grateful.

[Margetts] "His mother's still alive,

but Marshall doesn't speak with her anymore.

I have more than 80 first and second cousins,

aunts and uncles in the Bay area.

When I got arrested, not one member of my own family

came to help me or even called.

Not even my mother.

I know I only have one mother

and it might haunt me the rest of my life.

It's something I have to resolve in my mind.

I haven't yet."

You know, there's a long period of time

Jim really didn't do any photographs.

He really was just selling catalog

and not shooting things at all.

And, and I know that a lot of that was drugs.

But I also think that it was also

he was tired of having to be Jim Marshall.

It was hard work because it was exacting.

It was demanding.

And the excellence had to be there.

[Allman] You go from being this kind of superhero

that's constantly doing the work.

And drugs are everywhere and it's available

and it's just one big party all the time.

And then you're alone.

And you've got all this down time.

And there's just a huge period that is just blank.

And I think that happened to a lot of them.

It's not that he didn't have the talent,

it's that he was lost in processing his own demons.

[somber piano]

[Block] I was a young executive in the music business,

and Jim showed up in my office,

and he sat down across the desk.

And before he said a word

he pulled out just a gigantic knife

and he slammed it on the table and said,

"You're never gonna fuck with me."

I was both terrified and amused I think at the same time.

And I just said, "Jim,

why would you think I'd fuck with you?"

And he explained that

everybody's always fucked with him.

Every label guy's always fucked with him.

And I said, "Well look,

give me the opportunity to prove to you

that I'm not that label guy.

And I'll try to do that."

And that was the beginning of a relationship

that lasted until the day he died.

[Ken Valente] I have a picture here

that Jim who lived up the street from my plumbing shop,

I had just taken over from my dad and my uncle.

So Jim came by one day with the camera.

We were all standing there, it was after work.

I can't even remember him shooting the picture.

We're yakking.

He goes just front of that truck.

Me, my cousin, my brother

and two other brothers that worked for me.

It was not in your face. It was not staged.

He just presented me with this in 1982, '83

and he said, "Ken I want you to have this."

[Block] He was one of the most thoughtful people

I think I've ever met.

He was coming to town and he called me

and he said, "I wanna make a picture of your family."

And I said, "No Jim, thank you, you really don't have to."

"No, I'm doing it. Where do you live?

I'll be there on Saturday.

Be there Saturday at 10 o'clock."

Sure enough, he showed up at 10 o'clock

and he marched us out to the park

and he captured us

right outside of our apartment in Riverside Park

that for me is an absolute forever, forever moment

that I am so grateful for.

[Davis] He didn't have a lot of friends.

He didn't have a lot of work.

People weren't calling him.

So he had to really do what he could to survive.

He photographed a lot for Fantasy Records,

which was in Berkeley.

So he did some of his one hit wonders.

Eye of the Tiger, Survivor [laughs]

which is a total shock to anybody who knew Jim.

And he started pulling himself out of the mess he had made.

And I think he really wanted to redeem himself.

[Margetts] John McDermott,

who shoots regularly for Time Magazine,

has known Marshall casually for about 7 years.

He respects him as a photographer,

but is brutally candid in his assessment

of Jim Marshall, the man.

"The people who are close to him

hope that this is the time he gets serious.

Straightens his act out, gets more in control of his life,

uses his talents, gifts and intelligence

and doesn't act so much on some of the baser instincts."

What happened was a catharsis, he says,

trying not to pick at his hands,

a nervous habit he finds almost impossible to break.

"It washed the slate clean

and I feel ready to make a fresh start.

There's still a lot of pictures I wanna take

and what I do I think I do as well as anybody.

I've seen the mountain and been to the top,

I was sliding down, down the last few years,

but I can get to the top again and I will."

[sobs]

"I wanna see Jim take better care of himself",

McDermott stresses,

"because to tell you the truth

it breaks my heart to see someone hurt themselves

the way Jim has hurt himself."

"He needs to start loving himself more."

"He's got a lot of bridges to mend.

He's gotta eat a little bit of crow.

He's gotta start making friends for himself."

[sniffs]

"I think it's fair to say this is Jim's last shot."

[paper rattles] [somber piano]

[sobs]

[exhales]

I haven't read that--

[sniffs]

In a long while.

[Marshall] You know I couldn't ask for a better life.

I've been my own worst enemy.

You know, I'm never, never gonna be one to say they did it to me.

Whatever I did, I did myself.

I'm very good at that.

Uh...

[Hirst] The last time I saw him,

he took me to lunch.

And at that time I think it was about a year before he died.

And he looked very different to me.

And he told me then that he had

stopped using drugs.

That Amelia had told him

if he didn't stop she was leaving him.

And he could not let that happen.

And I am so glad

that I got to see him that way

at least once.

It's really a shame

Jim died when he did

because he was really starting to see

that people loved his work.

He was really starting to get recognized.

And so he was just starting to really get that.

And see that. Then he died.

[Davis] I have an image of this

very complex, incredible friend

who was a photographer,

but he was also my friend.

He really was my friend.

[melancholic music]

[Talamon] He was--

he was another kind of cat.

Alright, and, and, and I,

I miss him.

[Block] I remember thinking

that we'd lost one of the great characters

who has ever been.

And almost as quickly as I thought that,

I thought, you know and--

I don't know why this is, but we're not replacing them.

And um,

it just compounded the sadness for me.

Jim pushed every boundary

and I think that's where a lot of...

his genius and greatness occurred,

was out there at the edges.

And I just, you know I think that

that doesn't really exist as much anymore,

for lots and lots of reasons.

You know, the one thing I say

to young photographers now is pay attention.

You know you gotta earn it.

You gotta work for it.

Jim earned it.

Jim worked for it.

His pictures are immortal

and the beauty of what he did

is it's obviously living way past his life

and as a true artist, be it a painter

or a photographer,

you have a clear legacy of that time.

And his pictures

stand out

in terms of their subject matter,

not necessarily about their lighting or composition.

That was secondary to him.

He loved passion. He loved--

He loved feelings of emotion,

and his pictures are really

a personification of,

of the incredible depth of feeling

that musicians had.

[music continues]

[Marshall] I left behind a body of work

that I think is second to none.

I think there's a lot of people that have

done maybe better, but uh,

but I think I captured

the essence of each musician I photographed,

or tried to.

[Rosenheim] I can tell you this,

that what I get pleasure out of thinking about what

any individual artist has achieved,

and how I would rank their achievement

is not based on one picture.

It is based on a lifetime.

[Margetts] When asked if he knew at the time he recorded them

how powerfully lasting his images would be,

Jim laughs slightly and then pauses

as if looking at the last two decades

and the hundreds of thousands of frames

that have slipped past his view finder.

"No, I didn't know they would be so lasting.

I never realized how important those days were.

I have been at some of

the greatest events in musical history,

and it's because of my cameras.

And the trust people had in what I did with them.

I'm proud of that.

I've been lucky.

And good."

[Zagaris] Everything in life,

it's bits and pieces, even the most incredible love affair.

It only burns white hot for a while.

We probably didn't even realize it at the time,

that we were going through an incredible period

in our youth.

And the world has been fortunate

that for people like Jim,

he was able to hold up a mirror

and at least on film, document

some of his experiences.

To share.

And those experiences,

I mean the best stuff was behind the scenes.

The back stage.

It's places most people never go.

They only dream about going.

[music builds] [crowds roar]

[Marshall] I climbed up the rafters

about a hundred feet in the air.

I was on a little bit of acid, coke.

I'm up there and I'm,

"whoa, looks cool with the red filter."

And I was so stoned I didn't know how to rewind 'em.

I didn't even stay for the whole thing.

[thunder]

I didn't see Jimi.

I didn't see Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

I'd been there for 4 days,

drugs didn't work anymore.

Chemicals didn't work anymore.

It was nuts.

[reporter] Marshall has been at many great rock events.

He recalls what it was like to be

at yet another ripe place, Woodstock.

[Marshall] Nobody

could have conceived

that it would have been what it was.

I mean, I had a motel 30 miles away.

I never saw the room and it was paid for up front.

I ended up what little sleep I got

was in a Ford, a rented Ford

that ended up smelling like

a gymnasium when I was done with it.

It was about 50 yards from the stage.

I mean, the scope, the feeling,

the camaraderie, everything about that place

he only bummer was that, that idiot, was it Abbie Hoffman

or one of those morons that got up on the stage

when The Who were on there

and Peter Townsend knocked him off the stage?

That was the only bummer at the whole festival.

It was rock and roll, man.

It was rock and roll.

["Soul Sacrifice" by Santana, live at Woodstock]

[interviewer] I think we're inundated

with mediocre images constantly.

[Marshall] Yeah. We see so many pictures,

and the bulk of the public

thinks it's easy,

that they're not worth very much.

They forget...

They forget that to take that picture took me years.

I mean, I've expended half my life

taking photographs.

People don't seem to understand that.

They think they can go out and buy a [bleep] camera

and take the same picture.

Well, no they can't.

And you take what you want out of that.

Now turn that fucking thing off.

[music continues]

[tape rattles]

[crowd roars]

["Somebody To Love" by Jefferson Airplane]

♪ When the truth is found ♪

♪ When the truth is found ♪

♪ To be lies ♪

♪ And all joy ♪

♪ And all the joy Within you dies ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love ♪

♪ Love, love ♪

♪ When the garden flowers, ♪

♪ When the garden flowers, Baby are dead, ♪

♪ And your mind, ♪

♪ your mind is so full of red ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love ♪

♪ Your eyes ♪

♪ Your eyes ♪

♪ Oh ♪