New Book Chronicles Jim Marshall's Love of San Francisco's Haight

Jim Marshall was always ready for the moment - whatever that moment was. He was never without a Leica dangling from around his neck. Sometimes he had five.

The legendary San Francisco photographer put his cameras to heavy use - capturing iconic rock 'n' roll images images of Johnny Cash flipping the bird, Jimi Hendrix setting his Stratocaster ablaze, Janis Joplin curled up on the couch with a bottle of Southern Comfort. The moments unfolded - Marshall clicked the shutter.

“These are really pieces of history that will never happen again,” said Marshall’s longtime assistant Amelia Davis.

When Marshall died in 2010, he left his life’s work - hundreds of thousands of images he called his “children,” to Davis. She waded into the piles of negatives, laying eyes on images that even Marshall had forgotten. There among the rock 'n' roll photos Marshall was famous for was something else. Images of hippies, drug dens and people merely walking down a street.

It became clear to Davis that while Marshall was busy chronicling the great musicians of the 1960s, he had captured their backdrop: Haight-Ashbury.

“So Jim wasn’t only just photographing the musicians,” Davis said. “He was photographing everything that was going on around the musicians.”

Marshall’s lens honed-in on anti-war protests, Haight Street music festivals starring the Grateful Dead, and a station wagon filled with straight-laced visitors gawking at hippies. A cultural revolution was unfolding and Marshall somehow knew to capture it.

“I think these photos are a love letter to his hometown,” said former Chronicle music writer Joel Selvin. “I think this is Marshall’s observations on this extraordinary occurrence that was happening.”

While digging through Marshall's estate, Davis found evidence that Marshall recognized the importance of his Haight Street photos.

“When i was going through his apartment I found a notebook that said ‘The Haight,’” Davis said.

It turned out, Marshall had planned to release a book on the Haight - but his timing might’ve been a little too close to the source.

“He tried to get it published in 1976, but no publisher would publish it,” Davis said.

Recently Davis and Selvin, who supplied the writing for other Marshall books, teamed up to complete the Haight Street book Marshall intended. Davis pared somewhere close to 100,000 photos down to the 305 pictures which make up the book: Haight; Love, Rock and Revolution.

Selvin, who lived the '60s Haight Street experience, cast the period between 1965 to 1968 in vivid descriptions of hippies, drugs and music.

“It was just a scene beyond a scene. It was a circus, it was a frolic, it was a religious ceremony,” said Selvin, who often perused Marshall’s archives while the photographer was alive. “His heart is fully on display in his photos. His soul is evident to all who look at his work.”

Davis said the book project brought her a certain satisfaction - knowing Marshall’s dream had been realized, nearly 50 years after he took the photos.

“So I think he would be really proud and happy,” Davis said. “We finished what he started.”

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