#23 The Shadows: The Shadows

Stepping out of the Shadows of Cliff and pointing the way to the future…

(Columbia EMI)

Released: September 1961

Topped the Chart:

17th September 1961 (for 4 weeks)

22nd October 1961 (for 1 week)

5 weeks total

What were the expectations for The Shadows with their 1961 debut album? Having started working with Cliff Richard following the recording of his sublime debut single Move It, there must have been a sense of disappointment for both the group and many of the fans as their sound moved away from moody rock n roll to throwaway pap like Living Doll and Tease Me.

After a clutch of lukewarm singles failed to catch on with the public, The Shadows proved themselves to be British music’s best kept secret with Apache, their number one single from 1960. Taking American surf music as its base, the melodic interplay between Hank Marvin’s lead and Jet Harris’ bass guitar creates a soundscape that could easily fit on a Western soundtrack. An instrumental it may be, but it’s one of the first truly great British pop records, inspiring the likes of Brian May and David Gilmour. The Shadows managed to be the coolest (Buddy Holly glasses, moody sounds, choreographed onstage guitar swings) and the least cool band (backing Cliff) at the same time.

Thank goodness that it’s the former that turn up here. The Shadows were the John the Baptist of British rock: they weren’t quite the messiah, but the music here points to what was to come. There’s plenty of Apache’s surf/western guitar combo to go around, but more impressive is when the sound is reshaped into the space race etherealness of Joe Meek’s Telstar, the chugging blues riffs of The Kinks and Cream, and the baroque heavenly harmonies of The Beach Boys' In My Room.

All before those songs were a twinkle in their author’s eyes.

Mainly relying on covers with a few originals peppering the running order, The Shadows have a solid canvas at its base of what has come before. Shadoogie and Gonzales are the best examples of their classic “sound”, metallic surf guitars of Marvin and Bruce Welch meeting Harris’ higher-tuned basslines sitting pretty in the mix. Stand Up and Say That reaches a little further back than Apache, this time to Little Richard’s trilling piano runs that add a welcome change up to instrumental proceedings, and tom-heavy drum fills that keep the pace peppy.

Moving into more ethereal territory, the gorgeous Blue Star features a lovely lead melody that his its head in the stars, tumbling through space like a latter-day Pink Floyd track. A cover of Hoagy Carmichael’s My Resistance Is Low pushes things even further, punctuated by notes played high on the guitar pickups, alien noises that bounce off each other like signals from a satellite. It pre-figures The Tornado’s Telstar without the technological advances available to producer Joe Meek for that track 12 months later.

While the instrumentals are the best in show on The Shadows, the trio of vocalised songs aren’t as strong, but they still feel quietly revolutionary in their way. While the lead melodies on Baby My Heart, All My Sorrows and That’s My Desire might not be the strongest, what really impresses is the backing harmonies by the three lead guitarists. Inspired by American doo-wop and girl groups of the late 1950s, the intricacy of these sounds are impressive for the era. Best of the lot is the Harris-fronted All My Sorrows, suggestive of the chamber pop sounds that Brian Wilson would become so celebrated for.

Away from the guitars, the drum work from Tony Meehan throughout is exemplary, and it’s he that keeps these 14 songs moving at any impressive clip. After four years together, this is a band that sound tight, jumping between sci-fi, western and even the occasional jazz break together with ease on the likes of Shadoogie and See You in My Drums (with pounding extended drum solos that predate Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick by almost a decade).

Most impressively, these soundscapes were created in Abbey Road in 1961, with just two recording tracks available to producer Norrie Paramore. Telstar and Pet Sounds would take advantage of the leapfrogging technical advances later in the decade, which really proves just what visionaries The Shadows were when the straightjacket of young Cliff was removed. A hugely impressive debut.

Score: 9/10

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1.      Shadoogie

2.      Blue Star

3.      Nivram

4.      Baby My Heart

5.      See You In My Drums

6.      All My Sorrows

7.      Stand Up and Say That

SIDE B

8.      Gonzales

9.      Find Me a Golden Street

10.  Theme from a Filleted Place

11.  That’s My Desire

12.  My Resistance is Low

13.  Sleepwalk

14.  Big Boy