James Joseph Marshall, better known as Jim Marshall, was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1936 and was raised in San Francisco. He purchased his first camera while still in high school and started documenting the artists and musicians in San Francisco's burgeoning beat scene. After serving in the Air Force, Marshall returned home, where he had a chance encounter with John Coltrane: when Coltrane asked him for a lift, Marshall obliged and the jazz legend returned the favor by letting Marshall shoot nine rolls of film. He famously photographed Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival, and Johnny Cash at San Quentin.

After moving to New York, Jim was hired by Atlantic and Columbia to shoot their artists at work in the studio, including Dylan and Charles. But it was when Marshall returned to the San Francisco in the late sixties that he produced his most indelible work, taking hundreds of photographs of the Dead, Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and Santana. Marshall continued to be prolific even late into his life. Most recently, he snapped portraits of everyone from John Mayer and Ben Harper to Lenny Kravitz and Velvet Revolver. He has published five books, including 2009's collection Trust. Marshall, who had no children, was passionate about his work till his last breath. In 2010, Chronicle Books published Pocket Cash, Jim’s last book, developed before his death due to natural causes in New York city on March 24, 2010.

After starting as a professional photographer in 1959, Marshall was given unparalleled access to rock's biggest artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Who, Miles Davis and Ray Charles. He was the only photographer granted backstage access for the Beatles' final full concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park in 1966 and he also shot the Rolling Stones on their historic 1972 tour.

In 2004, Jim received the Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music Photography; the same year, Chronicle Books published Jim Marshall: Proof, providing a rare look at the creative process. In 2005, he was the Recipient of MOJO magazine's 2005 Honours List Image Award; Chronicle Books also published Jazz, an extensive collection of Jim’s photos of great jazz musicians. He also became a sponsor of MS Friends, the only 24/7 peer support help line for people living with multiple sclerosis, founded by his longtime assistant, Amelia Davis.
In 2009, Omnibus published Trust, featuring the never-before-seen images in black and white and colour following an exhibition at Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York with book launch for Trust. The same year, Harper Collins published Match Prints, pairing fifty photographs from Jim’s body of work, along with Timothy White’s Staley Weiss gallery exhibition for Match Print.

Spanning a career of over 50 years, Marshall developed special bonds with the artists he covered and these relationships helped him capture some of his most vivid and iconic imagery.

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