The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters until 1959) were an English instrumental rock group formed in 1958. Initially a backing band for Cliff Richard, they began scoring hits in their own right when their single "Apache" reached No. 1 in the UK in 1960. They remained Richard's backing band until 1968, and joined him for several reunion tours in subsequent years. The Shadows dominated the British popular music charts in the pre-Beatles era from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, achieving 69 UK chart singles from the 1950s to the 2000s, 35 as the Shadows and 34 as Cliff Richard and the Shadows, ranging from pop, rock, surf rock and ballads with a jazz influence. The group, who were in the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to also achieve commercial success in their own right.
The group's first settled line-up consisted of lead guitarist Hank Marvin, rhythm guitarist Bruce Welch, bass guitarist Jet Harris and drummer Tony Meehan. Marvin remained with the group for its whole history. Welch departed in 1968 but rejoined in 1973. Brian Bennett replaced Meehan in 1961 and remained the Shadows' drummer from then on. Harris left in 1962, from which time the group had various bass guitarists.
As pioneers of the four-member instrumental format (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums), the Shadows built their signature sound on Fender guitars and Vox amplifiers, but around 1964, they replaced their Fenders with Burns guitars, with Bruce Welch citing tuning issues as the main reason.. Burns shed some light on the relationship between The Shadows and the development of the Burns Signature Marvin. Burns Marvin
The Shadows hits The Shadows' number-one hits include "Apache", "Kon-Tiki", "Wonderful Land", "Foot Tapper" and "Dance On!". Although these and most of their best-remembered hits were instrumentals, the group also recorded occasional vocal numbers, and hit the UK top ten with the group-sung "Don't Make My Baby Blue" in 1965. Four other vocal songs by the Shadows also made the UK charts. They disbanded in 1968, but reunited in the 1970s for further commercial success.
Up to 2007 The Shadows were the fifth-most successful act on the UK Singles Chart, behind Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Cliff Richard and Madonna. The Shadows and Cliff Richard & the Shadows each have had four No. 1–selling EPs.
Career
The Shadows formed as a backing band for Cliff Richard under the name The Drifters. The original members were founder Ken Pavey (born 1932), Terry Smart on drums (1942), Norman Mitham on guitar (1941), Ian Samwell on guitar and Harry Webb (before he became Cliff Richard) on guitar and vocals. They had no bass player.
Samwell wrote their debut single, "Move It", often mistakenly attributed to "Cliff Richard and the Shadows" and not the Drifters. At the insistence of the group's producer and manager Norrie Paramor, in order to ensure a strong sound, two session players, guitarist Ernie Shear and bassist Frank Clark, played on the "Move It/Schoolboy Crush" single. Initially Paramor wanted to record using only studio musicians, but after persuasion he allowed Smart and Samwell to play as well."Cliff Richard – 29 August 1958" in Crampton, L., Lazell, B., Rees, D., Guinness Book of Rock Stars, Guinness Publ. Co. Middlesex 1989 In his memoirs, Welch regrets that he and Marvin were not able to be at the start of making history with "Move It".Bruce Welch: Rock and Roll, I Gave You the Best Years of My Life, Penguin Books, London, 1989, p.78.
The Drifters signed for Jack Good's Oh Boy! television series. Paramor of EMI signed Richard, and asked Johnny Foster to recruit a better guitarist. Foster went to Soho's 2i's coffee bar, known for musical talent performing there, particularly in skiffle, in search of guitarist Tony Sheridan. Sheridan was not there but Foster's attention was caught by Hank Marvin, who played guitar well and wore Buddy Holly-style glasses.
In early 1959, the owner of the United States vocal group The Drifters threatened legal action over naming rights after the release and immediate withdrawal of "Feelin Fine" in the US. The second single, "Jet Black", was released in the States under the name of The Four Jets to avoid further legal aggravation, but a new band name was urgently needed. The name "The Shadows" was thought up by bass guitarist Jet Harris (unaware of Bobby Vee's backing group) while he and Marvin were at the Six Bells pub in Ruislip in July 1959.
From The Story of the Shadows: With a combination of the American situation, Cliff Richard's first number 1 hit, the runaway success "Living Doll" had by now sold over a million copies in Britain alone and after a bit of nudging from Norrie Paramor, they set about finding a permanent name, which arrived out of the blue one summer's day in July 1959 (maybe the 19th). When Hank Marvin and Jet Harris took off on their scooters up to the Six Bells pub at Ruislip, Jet hit upon a name straight away. 'What about the Shadows?' The lad was a genius! So we became the Shadows for the first time on Cliff's sixth single "Travellin' Light".
1960s The Shadows were also becoming a popular band in their own right and in 1960, "Apache", an instrumental by Jerry Lordan, topped the UK charts for five weeks. Further hits followed, including the number ones "Kon Tiki" and "Wonderful Land", another Lordan composition with orchestral backing and even for eight weeks at number 1. The Shadows played on further hits as Richard's band.
In October 1961, drummer Tony Meehan left to be a music producer at Decca Records. He was replaced by Brian Bennett. In April 1962, Jet Harris was replaced by Brian "Licorice" Locking. Bennett and Locking were friends from the 2I's who had been in Marty Wilde's backing group, the Wildcats, who recorded instrumentals as the Krew Kats. This Shadows line-up released seven hit singles, two of which, "Dance On!" and "Foot Tapper", topped the charts. In October 1963, Locking left to spend more time as a Jehovah's Witness.
Meanwhile, Harris and Meehan teamed up at Decca as an eponymous duo to record another Lordan instrumental, "Diamonds". It rose to UK no. 1 in January 1963. Two further hits, "Scarlett O'Hara" (also by Lordan) and "Applejack", followed in the same year. On the Lordan tunes, Harris played lead using a six-stringed Fender Bass VI. During 1963, the two ex-Shadows were competing in the charts with their former bandmates. Jet Harris acquired a Burns guitar, a Barracuda bass.Barracuda Bass
The Shadows, meanwhile, had issued a run of 13 consecutive top 10 UK hits from 1960 through 1963. The Shadows had met John Rostill on tour with other bands and had been impressed by his playing, and so in autumn 1963 they invited him to join as Locking's replacement. This final and longest-lasting line-up was the most innovative as they tried different guitars and developed a wider range of styles and higher musicianship. They produced albums but the chart positions of singles began to ease. The line-up still had ten hits, the first and most successful of which was "The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt". Beginning in 1965, the group also started issuing vocal numbers as singles, usually alternating a vocal A-side with an instrumental A-side. The vocal songs "Mary Anne", "Don't Make My Baby Blue", and "I Met A Girl" all made the UK top 30, and "The Dreams I Dream" peaked at number 42. Instrumental numbers also continued to chart, including "Genie with the Light Brown Lamp", "Stingray", "The War Lord", "A Place in the Sun" and "Maroc 7", all top 30 hits.
Films with Cliff Richard During the 1960s, the group appeared with Cliff Richard in the films The Young Ones, Summer Holiday, Wonderful Life, and Finders Keepers. They also appeared as marionettes in the Gerry Anderson film Thunderbirds Are GO, and starred in a short B-film called Rhythm 'n Greens which became the basis of a music book and an EP.
Stage pantomimes They appeared in pantomime: Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp in 1964 at the London Palladium with Arthur Askey as Widow Twankey, Richard as Aladdin, and the Shadows as Wishee, Washee, Noshee and Poshee; Cinderella at the Palladium in 1966 featured Richard as Buttons and the Shadows as the Broker's Men. Their film and stage roles allowed the group to develop as songwriters. They wrote only a few songs for the earliest film, 1961's The Young Ones, but, by Finders Keepers in 1966, almost the entire soundtrack was credited to Marvin-Welch-Bennett-Rostill. In 1967, the Shadows used Olivia Newton-John on the track "The Day I Met Marie" on their album From Hank Bruce Brian and John.
In October 1968, Marvin and Welch decided to disband the group following a concert at the London Palladium. In the event, only Welch left, but the Shadows had disbanded by the end of the year.
1970s
The group began 1970 by appearing on the BBC's review of the '60s music scene, Pop Go The Sixties, performing "Apache" and backing Richard on "Bachelor Boy", broadcast across Europe and BBC1, on 31 December 1969. This was followed by Marvin and a reconstituted Shadows becoming resident guests on Richard's debut TV series for the BBC, It's Cliff Richard!
In July 1970, Australian musician John Farrar moved to Britain and was invited to become a member of Marvin, Welch & Farrar. By that time, Olivia Newton-John and Welch had become engaged, and Farrar and Welch became two of her songwriters and producers.
While The Shadows were famous for their instrumental work, Marvin, Welch & Farrar were a trio, vocal harmony group. They were favourably compared to USA folk close harmony group Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (a.k.a. CSNY) and The Hollies.
Their second album, Second Opinion (1971), produced by Peter Vince, was voted one of the best ever sounding albums recorded at Abbey Road studios by EMI Records' sound engineers in a private poll during the 1970s. The band lasted until 1973.
In 1975, a reconstituted Shadows were chosen by BBC Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton to perform the Song for Europe in the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest. The Shadows recorded six songs, seen each week on a weekly television show It's Lulu, on BBC1 and hosted by Lulu, a former Eurovision winner. The group taped all six performances in the TV studio before the series itself began, with the video cut into the weekly show. For the presentation of the songs on week seven and the announcement of the result on week eight, the pre-recorded performances were run again.
Two of the songs ("No, No Nina" and "This House Runs on Sunshine") were co-written by members of the group. The public voted for "Let Me Be the One", composed by Paul Curtis, to go to the Eurovision final in Stockholm, Sweden in 1975. There, the group came second to the Dutch entry, Teach-In's "Ding-A-Dong". Having long stepped out of Richard's shadow, this was a rare excursion into vocals for a band known for instrumentals (although they had cut vocal tracks on most albums, plus some singles 'B' sides, and had four charting vocal singles in the '60s). Welch sang lead and let the world know when, forgetting a couple of words, he turned to colleagues and said "I knew it" in range of his microphone. Author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History that they were not a popular choice to represent the UK and the viewers' postal vote was the lowest in 'Song For Europe' history.O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007.