When Influencers actually had a positive impact on business

[The Great Saiyaman]

Well these days some people with an entitled attitude and a Youtube channel call themselves "Influencers" and have the guts to walk into a restaurant and demand a free meal and in return they will give them free publicity by telling all of their followers about the restaurant.

Of course restaurant owners couldn't care less about how many followers an influencer has, they need to pay the rent, their staff and their food suppliers just to keep the restaurant going.

But there was a time when Influencers gave some businesses a lucky break. It just happened to be that these Influencers were well known musicians.


It is debatable just how much business JMI got thanks to their handshake deal with Beatles manager Brian Epstein, which meant that they would supply the fab four with Vox amplifiers for free as long as he was their manager. What IS without debate however is that plenty of kids bought Vox amps because that's what the Beatles used. It meant for JMI that they got a reputation for building first class equipment which continues to this day.


THIS is Faces guitarist and later Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood's very first Tony Zemaitis custom guitar. The story goes that Wood and fellow Face Ronnie Lane became aware of Tony Zemaitis when seeing a guy playing an acoustic that Zemaitis made and being impressed with that said instrument.

So, they went in search of Zemaitis and actually managed to track him down. They went inside told Tony what they wanted to have and Tony was ready to throw the two out, UNTIL they produced the cash.

After that, the doors were opened, and Zemaitis made guitars began to appear in the hands of George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

And having mentioned Hendrix. The story that when he arrived in England and wasted very little time checking out the best of the bands that London had at the time is well known. But it was when he jammed with Cream playing "Killing floor" that Hendrix was first introduced to a very important part of his sound. Because both Clapton and Jack Bruce played through Marshall amps and Hendrix just fell in love with that warm, raw tone they had. So having kindly been given the address of Marshall's shop, Jimi was all fired up to "Meet the cat with my first and middle name"

But when the one James Marshall met the other James Marshall, there was actually very little love lost because Hendrix walked in and went "I need eight speaker cabs and four amps, two for me and two for my bass player." at which Marshall, figuring that Hendrix was yet another wannabe rockstar who thinks everything's for free, was ready to throw Hendrix out. But then Jimi continued "And I want to pay the full retail price." clarifying that the only thing he wanted from Marshall in return was a first class product and that he could have the absolute certainty that he could his amps serviced, no matter where The Experience played.

Marshall agreed, and a few months later, the world got their first good look at what a Marshall full stack could do when Hendrix used one at Monterey Pop. Which thanks to the movie had people going "What is he playing through, what IS that thing?"

We all know the rest of the story. Hendrix kept playing Marshall for the rest of his life and Marshall's business skyrocketed.