When music store owner and drum teacher Jim Marshall set to work designing an amp to realize the musical vision of local guitarists, he laid the very foundations of rock music. After playing the sixth prototype of 'Number 1', which would later become the JTM45, Jim said, "That's it! That's going to be the Marshall sound from now on!" And so it was. Since the 1960s Marshall amps have been the first choice of rock's greatest guitarists.The entire Jim Marshall story is told in the authorized biography Jim Marshall: The Father of Loud, by Rich Maloof (published by Backbeat Books), which features a foreword written by guitar hero and personal friend of Jim's -- Slash. The tale is a captivating one, broken down into 2 main parts. The first section traces Jim's story from childhood as a young boy diagnosed with a rare bone disease to his stage success as a singer and big-band drummer, onto the development of the iconic Marshall stack and Marshall's rise to prominence in the amplifier industry. It profiles a man dedicated to listening to his customers and inventing new ways of satisfying them, constantly improving and fine-tuning his designs and, from the beginning, a believer in the value of teamwork.The second half of the book delves into the amplifiers themselves, including a well-illustrated section on amp anatomy, with inside shots of the amps, plus a Top 11 list of Jim's favorite models over the years....

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