Martyn recalls: “I had a phone call from Bill Smith in late February 1977. He had to produce an LP cover for a new band, which he was excited about—but as usual it was an urgent assignment as the record company wanted to release the album in May. The band was called The Jam, a three-piece outfit comprising Bruce Foxton on bass, Rick Buckler on drums and lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Paul Weller, who, to quote Bill,  “is a bloke with definite ideas about the group’s image.”

At this point I hadn’t met any member of the band or seen a photograph. The album title was In The City and Bill’s concept for the cover was to photograph the group in an urban location against a wall of white tiles with a graffiti-sprayed logo. I could foresee a few problems doing this on location—because of the need to spray paint on a wall, and the permissions and permits that would be required. This first shoot would also take time, as we needed to produce front and back covers, and inner sleeve images. When Bill and I discussed the logistics, we decided to shoot in my studio in Kensington Church Street.  

I can’t remember whether it was budget or time constraints but Bill and I spent the morning of the session—2 March 1977—covering two 8-foot by 4-foot flats with four-inch white crystal tiles. Then I witnessed a moment of magic, as Bill took the black spray paint and in one attempt produced the iconic Jam logo on the white ceramic tiles while the glue was setting.

The studio session for the band’s second single, “All Around the World”, took place in Martyn’s Kensington Church Street studio on 1 June 1977. It was an afternoon session – Paul Weller’s watch shows the time as 5.40pm. The band were wearing their signature black three-button suits, white button-down shirts and skinny black ties. On their feet they wore white socks and black and white “Jam” shoes. The plan was to keep the front cover simple: a full-length band shot with a vibrant yellow vinyl-covered background, sprayed with the now familiar Jam logo. Martyn added some dramatic effect by using fashion photography lighting. 

The negatives from this classic early Jam shoot were thought lost, but were discovered by Martyn during the Covid-19 lockdown.

This was a studio session in Kensington Church Street on 24 May 1978. Martyn observes: “Looking back at the images from this session, the thing that really strikes me is how much fun they were all having. There’s a sense of them operating as a unit in these photographs, and enjoying each other’s company. This was also the first shoot where Paul was in the middle. Usually he stood on the left.”

This is another session where the negatives sat undiscovered in Martyn’s archives for over forty years, and are now being offered as limited editions for the first time.

Martyn remembers: “For the “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” single sleeve, we decided to shoot on location. We chose Bond Street tube station on the Central line, mainly, I think, because Bill Smith knew the station well as it was on his daily commute. The shoot took place on 12 September 1978. We waited until late evening before our raid on the station. This was going to be a quick one because we didn’t have permission. I used a 35mm Nikon camera with fast black and white film, pushed to the limit without a tripod, hence the resulting grainy images. The band stood at the end of the platform and I waited until a speeding train emerged out of the tunnel before pressing the shutter. We then made a hasty exit to street level.”

This is the first time Martyn has ever offered the full frame of the 35mm image, complete with Bond Street tube sign (cropped out for the single sleeve) and film rebates.

Shooting still-life and street scenes for the Sound Affects cover was Martyn’s last assignment for The Jam. The photographs were all taken over a three day period at the end of July 1980, and represent a snapshot of life in Britain as the seventies turned into the eighties. 

Martyn recalls: “It was an interesting assignment pulling together all the different elements required by the brief. Some of them were very close to home—I remember eating fish fingers, peas and raspberry ripple ice cream before crumpling up the empty packaging and photographing it on the floor of my kitchen. The juke box was mine—a 1960 BAL-AMi K200 model which I still own. 

In London I took the photograph of the bus queue on the Strand, and the taxi was parked close to Euston station. The hearse was part of a funeral procession along York Way in Islington. The young funeral director smiling out of the passenger side window now runs the family business, which is still going, and is based in Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury. Many years after taking the photograph I made him a print of the image. I shot the Fidelity record player in Bill Smith’s office overlooking the Thames.

The picture frame on the window sill was in my parents’ living room in Birchington-on-Sea in Kent. While I was there I photographed the Austin Allegro Panda police car, and the electricity pylon standing in a field. The nuclear power station was at Dungeness, on the Kent coast. 

I am often asked about the baby. She was the daughter of a friend of my sister. We managed to track her down for the Jam exhibition at Somerset House in 2015, where she met the band.”

None of these photographs have been available to purchase before. Theyare available to purchase individually in a choice of sizes, or as a set of eleven photographs on 8 x 10 inch paper, each one signed and numbered by Martyn Goddard.