Pete Townshend smashes a guitar against his Marshall stacks while performing live with The Who. The Kinks and The Spencer Davis Group wowing crowds in the late 60s.
By the mid-‘60s, Beatlemania was sweeping both sides of the Atlantic, and US audiences were increasingly turning to the rebellious sounds of The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Small Faces over the pop acts they found elsewhere. As motorcycles, mini-skirts and the James Bond film series also made a splash across the pond, Britain suddenly found itself in the midst of a full cultural offensive on the States.
Anticipation for rock shows by British artists soon reached fever pitch. As music venues grew bigger in order to meet the greater demand, the sheer volume of screaming fans presented a problem: the bands themselves were being drowned out in the midst of all the excitement. Large-scale audio distribution via high-tech PA systems was still a way off – and so the likes of The Who’s Pete Townshend suddenly needed louder amps to wage their assault from the stage. Jim Marshall was the man to supply them.
“Townshend wanted a cabinet containing eight 12-inch speakers,” Jim recalled in an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2012. But even this newer, louder innovation wasn’t as straightforward as it sounded. The prototypes were so heavy that roadies struggled to get them in and out of the venues.
“I TOLD HIM IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO LIFT – AND I WAS RIGHT,” ... “SO WE TRIED CUTTING THE CABINET IN HALF AND PUTTING ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER.” – JIM MARSHALL
The gambit paid off, and the resulting JTM45/100 – a seven-foot-high monster of speaker power – became the first of what is now recognised as the definitive Marshall stack; the forerunner to the 100-watt Marshall of today. The introduction to this new revelation was held with The Who themselves at a pub in Southall. “We were all completely blown away,” recalled Marshall legend Jim Nairn – who, like everyone else present, had never heard a 100-watt amp before.
Ronnie Lane and Stevie Winwood of The Small Faces perform with Marshall amplifiers in 1967.
“I DON’T THINK ANYBODY SAID ANY MORE THAN TWO WORDS, EXCEPT ‘WOW’, IN A BIG WAY.” – JIM MARSHALL
With the Marshall stack unleashed, the volume war was then truly underway. By the ‘70s, the stacks were being piled on top of each other, leading to titanic walls of sound that were as visible on stage as they were audible out front. The sound of that decade was all but confirmed by this groundbreaking creation, as the likes of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath each turned to Marshall thereafter. British bands have been making a noise in the States ever since.
An original JTM45 with a 4 x 12inch cabinet.
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