Phil Dirt mentions her in an article here. I'm really intrigued by the notion of her upstaging Dick Dale! How did this girl never get recorded?

seafoam_johnny
Thanks for "uncovering" Kathy Marshal Big Papu.

Check out the whole chapter on her in Bob Dalley's Surfin' Guitars book, if you can. The book is hard to come by these days.

Site dude - S3 Agent #202
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I was fortunate to be working on the set of Sound of the Surf the day Kathy was interviewed. Fascinating story. She spoke of the DD incident in her interview. Yet another reason to see this movie when it comes out. Yes, she still owns the Strat Eddie gave her.

This is really a fascinating thread. I can't say that I've ever heard of her before reading this. It'd be great if she would play in public again.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Good mention on the Surfin' Guitars book Brian. Someone gave us a copy while on tour. Been diggin her for a long time. It's a shame there's not more out there on her.

Happiness is being a surf musician that actually surfs. Ride Lord Hunt Surfboards!!!

This has been a very interesting thread. Never heard of Kathy Marshall until now. Hopefully some recordings will become available somehow.
Also, her Strat seems to have a certain historic interst attached. Apparently it had a custom finish. What did/does it look like? Has anyone here actually seen it?

Strat-o-rama
Also, her Strat seems to have a certain historic interst attached. Apparently it had a custom finish. What did/does it look like? Has anyone here actually seen it?

See earlier in this thread:
http://surfguitar101.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=144933#144933

This is info from the "Eddie Bertrand" thread.

Site dude - S3 Agent #202
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Strat-o-rama
Yea. I had seen those shots, but it looks like a regular sunburst. The color has definitely faded and shifted on that photo. Maybe it's a sunburst with sparkles???

Um, you missed this part:

Eddie Bertrand
I had painted my jag black, fading into silver...sort of a "black sunburst" if you will.
I liked the idea, so I asked Leo if he would make me a black sunburst metalflake strat. He built two actually. One was very classy, subtle flakes really bitchin lookin' guitar. The other one was way too "pretty" for me...a bit femimine. Kathy Marshall wound up with that one.

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dp
I have read that there are a few reel-to-reel tapes or acetates of Ms. Marshall in existence...maybe someday she'll set them free? Or, maybe they have deteriorated and no longer exist?

Did you read whose custody they were in? A lot of times it's not the artist, but whoever did the recording or commissioned it. For example, I think master recordings made for Downey remained in the custody of the studio/record store and were eventually purchased by Ace Records in the UK. Ace is in the business of acquiring old catalogs and putting them out in collections They have been releasing the Downey stuff in a series of interesting CDs with great liner notes by Brian Nevill. A bunch of previously unreleased Rumblers stuff has come out that way, plus releases by the Blazers, "the other" Surftones and so on. These are mostly in mixed releases by genre (surf, garage, blues, etc.), though the Pastel Six and Piltdown Men came out as special issues.

I was in touch with Rex de Long, one of the saxophonists for the Rumblers, earlier this year and he indicated that he was working with Nevill on a new Rumblers-only CD to replace the one that's gone out of print.

I also recall that in the case of folks like the Original Surfaris, the masters from the recording at Ted Brinson's studio were in the custody of Tony Hilder. And at various points he seems to have sold things like that to the operations that produced the compilation LPs that came out at the time, like GNP Crescendo and so on. Apparently he had never sold the material for the Original Surfaris LP, so it was available for that Sundazed CD. I have the impression that the deals cut back in the day for the masters were effectively "cash and carry," though this is mostly surmise and I'm not sure the artists themselves always realized that. If there was anything formal mentioning royalties, I think it was mostly honored in the breach. In some cases the artists and/or their legal representatives were able to retrieve the masters later, or at least to re-acquire rights to what was in circulation.

For Marshall I'm not sure who the "holder" would have been, originally or now. Possibly her, of course, but maybe not.

Glad to see Kathy is still making the rounds. She definately needs to be exposed to wider circles. I read that chapter on her in Surfin' Guitars. She is somebody's ex-wife ironically and living in Orange County with a daughter (somebody had used that term in their post). Kathy recorded two songs that the Ventures had written her, but they won't tell me anything about her when I post on their website. There is an acetate of the tunes, but that's as far as it went. I did ask Dick Dale about her once. He claims he gave her the Queen of Surf title and didn't have much to say about her. All I can say is she is a doll in every single shot I've ever seen of her, could really play lead and seemed to always have a painted headstock on the Fenders she's owned. How cool can one chick be?