From Wall St Journal: Jim Marshall, the inventor who changed the sound of rock music, has died at age 88. A drummer by trade, in the early ‘60s Marshall invented what became known as the Marshall JTM 45 guitar amplifier, seen by many guitarists as an improvement over the then-state-the-art Fender Bassman. In subsequent years, Marshall, who had been selling musical equipment out of a small shop in London, increased the effectiveness of the amps, which continue to be fitted with his name in white script against a black background.
Marshall amplifiers caught on with rock guitarists to the point that they seemed ubiquitous: A so-called “wall of Marshalls” or “Marshall stacks” stood behind almost every rock guitarist of note in the ‘60s and ‘70s including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Tommy Iommi, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend as well as next-generation guitarists Kurt Cobain, Yngwie Malmsteen, Slash, Eddie Van Halen and Angus Young, among many others. Some bands used a tower of empty Marshall amp cabinets as a prop to suggest power and success.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/04/05/jim-marshall-founder-of-marshall-amps-dies/
