Marshall

Marshall ampilfiers are some of the most recognizable and essential pieces of rock and roll equipment.  

Marshall - In the beginning

Jim Marshall opened the doors of his first music store "Marshall & Son" in 1962 at 76 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, London. It was a general store dealing in all manner of instruments. Jim had many influential musicians visit his store including Pete Townshend (The Who) and Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple). 

Marshall gave their first amplfier (built also in 1962) a perfectly familiar name, "Number One". Twenty three "Number Ones" were ordered on the first day that they were placed in the shop. 

The Marshall Stack and the 1959 Super Lead

The Marshall Stack is a signature piece of Marshall's engineering and intuitive. It came about when Pete Townshend was worried that the amplifiers available at the the time were not loud enough to really capture the attention of the whole audience in their larger venues. 

Marshall's response was to build the first-ever 100 Watt Marshall amplifier, the Super 100 Head with an enormous Marshall 8x12" speaker cabinet. The speaker cabinet was a great product but too heavy and clumsy to transport to different venues. The intuitive answer that Jim and Pete came up with was to use two smaller 4x12" speaker cabinets and stack them together. Thus, the Marshall Stack was created.

In 1959 the 1959 Super Lead was created and became an instant hit. The older brother of the Super Lead 100, the 1959 became the go to amp for Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple as well as many more! 

Jimi Hendrix - The Marshall Ambassador

And in Jim's own words, “During the mid '60s a lot of well-known and up-and-coming guitarists used to visit me and see me at my music shop in Hanwell, West London, but there's one particular visitor that I'll never forget. His name was James Marshall Hendrix and he quickly became the greatest ambassador my amplifiers have ever had. Jimi's playing is still the best ever and heaven above knows what he'd be doing if he was still with us today. Plus his showmanship was just fantastic! Jimi's talent was so extraordinary that he didn't only influence his generation; he's influenced every single generation since then."

Marshall - Up until now

Marshall continued for over 5 decades to bring out new and interesting designs and maintaining their position as the number one supplier of amplifiers to professional musicians. 

Jim Marshall sadly passed away in April 2012 at the grand age of 88. That year was also the company's 50th anniversary, and Slash (Guns & Roses) was quoted as saying "The great thing about Jim is he's one of a handful of people in this world who've created something that's the standard of the industry. He's the man that's provided us with a great amp for about 50 years now. And not too many people can say that about anything. It really is few and far between to be able to provide a product that caters to the masses the way that Marshall has. Especially with the amount of integrity it's maintained all these years"