Book Review: Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall, Edited By Dave Brolan

Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall is a book of pictures and words. It is a recorded set of iconic images that will take you on a magical history tour of rock music from the sixties into the new century. Many of these images from Jim Marshall have never been published anywhere else.

For almost a half of a century Jim Marshall has captured many moments in rock music history. With work covering everything from what may have been Otis Redding's last major performance at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967 before his untimely death, to his work with Velvet Revolver in 2007, Marshall has been one of the best "musician" photographers in the business.

Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall is a large format book measuring a bit over 12 x 10 inches and containing 162 pages of full color photos that are all high quality reproductions. Most of the photos are highlighted with  stories that surround each one. Some are informative and some are funny.

A couple of my favorites include the Jimi Hendrix sound check where, when Marshall comes in he says to Hendrix 'I'm Jim Marshall, photographer, I'm gonna be taking pictures, is everything cool?' Hendrix responds 'Man, maybe this shit is meant to be.' And then 'The dude who makes my amplifiers is called Jim Marshall.' Marshall replies 'Yeah I know that.' And Hendrix then says 'But what you don't know is my name is Jim Marshall too.' His full name was James Marshall Hendrix.

Another story is about how he had to shoot the Who. The band was asleep and he had to get them out of bed for the shoot. When you look at the expressions on their faces you can see they were not all that pleased with the situation. But what is more interesting is that with all the fancy clothing they were wearing, they actually come off looking good. Marshall says that someone should try to get a superstar band out of bed today for a shoot.

What makes Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall really remarkable is the amount of access that Marshall had with these bands. He was a fly on the wall. Many of these photos are ones that the public would rarely see and they give an interesting insight into the musician's informal personalities.

What really makes Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall fun, is the stories behind the pictures. While the stories are clean, Marshall does curse quite a bit as well as dropping the f-bomb now and then, but still, his ability take on the situation and garner the trust of all these celebrities makes this book well worth your time and money. I can very highly recommend Trust: The Photographs Of Jim Marshall.