Loudobit: Jim Marshall

Jim Marshall, whose work has probably appeared on more rock stages than anyone else, has died.

Marshall's focus had originally been drums. He'd earned a small fortune as a drum teacher in the 1950s, enough to set him up with a music shop. Depending on which particular mythos you want to believe, either drummers came to him asking if he could help out their guitarists, or else he was selling guitars and amplification was the next obvious step.

But whatever the spark, it was what he did, and what he - and the company that carries his name - have been doing successfully for fifty years.

Jim Marshall was 88. Without him, we'd not have heard rock the way we do. And, I suspect, many of us would hear everything else a little more sharply.