I was at Vintage Amps forum today and noticed a new thread there under the Marshall tag.
Ken Underwood who was one of the founding members of the Marshall company has joined and is offering answers to questions from members about the early beginnings of Marshall.
Pretty interesting and it's hard for him to hide his opinion about Jim Marshall.
Anyway, a great read if you are interested in all things Marshall.
One of the things he mentioned was the first song played on the early Marshall amp was "Zipperdy Do Dar", never heard of it but the second song was "I Saw Her Standing There" written by the Fab Four. (Not played by them of course)
He remembers it because it was in 1963 at a little night club in London.
He said JM always says it all started in 62 but is wrong because that song didn't come out till late 63.
Verrry interestink.... as they used to say on TV! Just looking at pics of the old amps I had thought it was not exactly a real business in the very early days, nothing wrong with that and no pejorative implied.
For someone who lives in London and reasonably close to the London branch of a Leeds-based music store of dubious repute, it's worrying to learn just how few early amps there were and how none of them were produced until late 1963 despite Jim's protestations to the contrary.
I think said music shop on their own have probably sold more 62s and 63s than were ever produced!
I don't think Ken's insights are being taken at face value, necessarily.
There have been plenty of suggestions before that Marshall can't have started producing amps until 63, which is why the question was put to him, and the '62' amps all seem to have been of rather dubious origins.
His recollection about the specific timeframe, the venues and even the songs out all seems to corroborate the story nicely.
Tubetastic wrote:Zip a dee doo dah is from Jungle Book.
I think it's from something called, "Song Of The South" which may not be politically acceptable these days.
Jim Marshall -- how many have met him? I met him at Namm, and stood and watched for a while. He has a clear and consistent answer for every single question. He may be completely wrong, but his delivery is sure and people seem to accept what he says. Since he still likes to be involved, you can see why he does this.
I've met him at quite a few things here in the UK. He does have stock answers for things but then he's a businessman, much like Leo Fender was, and I'd imagine gets asked the same questions all the time.
I'm sure he got the date confused in the mists of time and once it got set in stone found it easier just to run with it.
