Rare photos of Grateful Dead in S.F. by Jim Marshall showcased in new book
That gave him immediate access to the band in their big Victorian at 710 Ashbury St. They welcomed him to drop by any time, with the two Leica cameras he wore around his neck, one loaded with Kodachrome color slides and the other black-and-white.
He wound up making some 10,000 pictures of the band, at home and in concert in their home city — which often meant a stage quickly put up in Golden Gate Park or the connecting Panhandle. Marshall's images of the musicians at the park, in sunglasses or squinting in the daylight, are featured more than any other single venue in ' The Grateful Dead by Jim Marshall: Photos and Stories from the Formative Years, 1966–1977.'
The coffee table issue, which weighs five pounds and costs $50, will be released nationally Aug. 5 by Chronicle Books, an independent publishing house.
But bookstores Bay Area-wide are offering it early by special arrangement to coincide with the 60th anniversary weekend of shows by Dead & Company at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park. The band's lead guitarist, Grammy-winning musician and songwriter John Mayer, wrote the afterword, having given Marshall full access to cover his solo career. The cover lettering is by Fez Moreno, who also designs concert posters for Dead & Company.
'This book is a tribute to the GratefuI Dead, Jim Marshall and San Francisco, in that order,' said Amelia Davis, who spent 13 years as Marshall's assistant, up until his death in 2010. 'It tells you a visual story about the relationship of Jim with his subjects in their environment, and documents an era of access that we are never going to see again.'
Marshall was married and divorced twice but never had any children. He left his entire archive to Davis to reward her for loyalty and patience with a personality that was as complex and difficult as the rock stars he depicted.
The book features some 265 pictures plus proof sheets that bring it to 900 images total, including candids and performance shots that were never printed and have never been seen. The totality, 288 pages with a psychedelic design, is an indicator that Marshall spent more time with the Dead than with any of the other subjects who gave him preferential treatment, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and the Jefferson Airplane, which was the biggest San Francisco band of that era.
'Jim used to say he never ate or drank anything when he was with the Grateful Dead, because they notoriously dosed everything with acid, and that wasn't his thing' said Davis. 'He considered the band to be family, and we want the readers to feel like family when they go through the book.'
The book idea came from Oakland singer-songwriter and Grateful Dead authority David Gans, who pitched it to Davis as a 60th anniversary tribute long before the series of concerts in Golden Gate Park was announced. Marshall left behind a catalog of 3-by-5 notecards referencing every musical act and event he photographed. These corresponded to proof sheets and negatives, but they were not cross-referenced, so Davis had to search through the cards of every other act the band was known to play with and every venue it played at.
There was no notecard for Golden Gate Park, but there were notecards for the Artists Liberation Front Free Fair in the Panhandle on Oct. 16, 1966, and the Human Be-In of Jan. 14, 1967, at the Polo Field, the same venue as the Dead & Company shows. There was also a notecard for an impromptu concert after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 1968. Marshall got lots of shots of band members arguing with San Francisco police — and that's all he got, because that concert never happened due to a lack of permits.
Marshall, who was known to be persuasive, somehow managed to get the members of the five major San Francisco bands — the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Charlatans — to pose for a group photo in the Panhandle, as if they were a sports team. That image from the book is the ultimate proof of access.
'Jim was everywhere that mattered and he documented it with a photograph,' Davis said.
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USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
One Dead & Company fan's nearly 50-year journey to Golden Gate Park
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Forbes
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Grateful Dead: 60 Years of Celebration
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Eater
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is an award-winning food writer living and eating in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Eater SF, and Edible SF. The original Beretta on Valencia Street has officially reopened as of Sunday, August 3, revealing a new mod look with the same strong cocktails and pizza. After 17 years worth of stirring the risotto, some adventures in pandemic delivery, and all of the Valencia bike lane rigamarole, it was definitely due for a refresh. The team shut down for six weeks worth of deep renovations, and are now promising a refreshed Beretta. 'To reassure the people who love Beretta, it's not like we're not scratching everything and starting from new,' promises Adriano Paganini of the Back of the House group. 'It's just a version that's being polished up. In some ways, it's going back to what made Beretta special to start with.' 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