Either on their own as The Drifters/Shadows, or backing Cliff Richard, Jet Harris, Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch and Tony Meehan recorded well over 100 tracks that were released as Singles, on EPs or on LPs.

If you are a Shadowmaniac looking to complete your collection, there are now so many compilations of The Shadows’ early work available that it wouldn’t be fair to pick one CD that says it all. Is it mono, stereo, digitally remastered, re-recorded or “live” that you’re after?

Well, for the sound of The Shadows as YOU originally listened to them, you can’t beat a record player and your dusty old pile of 45s, or your tattered but treasured copies of THE SHADOWS EP or THE SHADOWS LP, can you? But if you’re stuck on a Greek island without any of them, you might like to try this boxed set, which includes a bonny collection of precious tracks featuring Jet and Tony or Hank and Bruce (and, indeed, Brian) before The Shadows were even formed! 

In this chapter, I’m trying to keep it relatively simple and focus on the original Top Ten hits played by Jet, Hank, Bruce and Tony. They were recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio 2 in St John’s Wood (yes, the one by that zebra crossing!), produced by Norrie Paramor and released in the UK on the Columbia record label. With the title of the B side shown adjacent, and the highest chart position of the A Side noted in brackets after the date, these were:

The Top Ten Singles

Apache/Quatermasster’s Stores

Man of Mystery/The Stranger (Double A Side)

FBI/Midnight

The Frightened City/Back Home

Kon-Tiki/36-24-36

The Savage/Peace Pipe

Wonderful Land (with Tony Meehan)/

     Stars Fell on Stockton (with Brian Bennett)

July 1960 (1)

Nov. 1960 (5)

Feb. 1961 (6)

April 1961 (3)

Sept. 1961 (1)

Nov. 1961 (10)

Feb. 1962 (1)

Apache/Quatermasster’s Stores

Probably still the most famous track by the Shadows, Apache was recorded on 17th June 1960.

Apache went down in 4 takes. Bruce borrowed Cliff’s Gibson Jumbo guitar for the recording and Cliff himself played a Chinese drum on the “intro” and “outro”. Written by singer-songwriter Jerry Lordan, and hummed and played to The Shadows on a ukulele, the tune was instantly recognised as a potential hit.

Not long before he died, Jerry Lordan “was adamant, and he wanted it ‘noted for posterity’ (his words) that ‘JET HARRIS was the first to hear Apache’… ‘Yes, it was played to Hank and Bruce on the famous coach journey to Bristol’s Colston Hall’. But Jerry was insistent that history should be ‘put straight’: he played it first to Jet (probably the night before) and Jet replied straight away, ‘You’ve got to play that to Hank and Bruce.’” 

Quatermasster’s Stores

Note the correct spelling. This track is generally referred to online and elsewhere as Quartermaster’s Stores. The B side of Apache was actually released under the title Quatermasster’s Stores, which was the first example of the group’s use of word-play in a song-title. (This got worse later, with titles such as Rhythm and Greens and Scotch on the Socks…) Quatermass and the Pit was a scary science fiction TV series of 1958/59, as the clip below shows.

The Quartermaster’s Stores (spelt thus) was, of course, a familiar, traditional sing-along army tune, originally composed by one Bill Shepherd, with words that suggested that “there were rats, rats, rats as big as cats in the stores, in the stores”. Norrie Paramor, who produced The Shadows records at this time, was given to referring to this number as “Cookhouse Door”. Norrie’s brother Alan had recently formed his own music publishing company and he had re-published the song, which was then out of copyright. Royalties on a B side were the same as on the A side, so if the A side was a hit, the composer and publisher of the music on the B side also cleaned up on the deal! Once they’d taken this fact on board, The Shadows ensured that future B sides were mostly their own material. 

This live version of Quatermasster’s Stores, which was broadcast on Saturday Club, would be a collector’s item, perhaps, but the original Single is still my favourite Shadows record because of the impact it had on me (aged 12, I should like to remind you). It’s one of those pieces introducing each musician with his own brief, highlighted spot, very useful from the point of view of working out which one was playing which bit, I thought. When my parents heard this belting down from upstairs in the morning, they’d judiciously advise one another, “Chris is awake, then…”

Man of Mystery was written originally as the theme of an Edgar Wallace Mysteries film series by Michael Carr. The Shadows’ version  was not the music that accompanied the series. Their fast and piercing arrangement included Hank’s trademark use of a tremolo. Famously, Hank fluffed one note in the solo, and has had to continue to play it throughout the rest of his career in order to retain what fans consider to be 

the “authentic” sound! Can you spot the note? 

themes and titles, bearing in mind that TV series such as Wagon Train, Rawhide, Gunsmoke and Bonanza had very striking theme tunes and were also hugely popular in the early 60’s. Remember this? 

In this video clip Hank even appears to have taken one of the original living room chairs with him to the TV studio!

For contractual reasons, the composition of this fabulous number was attributed to Peter Gormley, their manager, but The Shadows had by this time started their own music publishing company and they did receive the royalties. Recorded on 13th September 1960 at Abbey Road Studios, FBI was released in February 1961. The Shadows were just about to make their tour of South Africa, where this track was recorded live at a concert in Johannesburg. The studio version only made it to No.6, but FBI remains many a Shadowmaniac’s favourite. It often ended the set, complete with the choreographed kicks that we know and love so well. In the noted appearance on Crackerjack, a children’s TV programme, FBI looks a bit tamer than how the number was usually performed live. It was absolutely electrifying on stage. 

According to John Tobler, “FBI included an intricate finger-picked riff played by Bruce, which became an object lesson for thousands of hopeful rhythm guitarists at the time.” Just as fascinating as the sound of FBI (to me), were the photographs that went with it. These people were armed and dangerous! A Pocket Guide says “Early publicity shots and sheet music showed 

the group as Tommy-gun toting, card-sharping mobsters. Hank admitted that, for a while, they were trying to cultivate a ‘meaner’ image, but their publicity agents were against it.”

The Frightened City got to a satisfying No.3, while Apache was still in the charts and had already made The Shadows their first Silver Disc.

It was more usual in those days for a record to take eight or nine attempts before it was good enough to release, because after the recording engineer had heard each musician play a bit in turn, they would all be recorded together. If one of them then played a wrong note, 

it was back to the top. Another track that made a single take was Big Boy from the Shadows’ first LP. Some took a lot more than that! By way of comparison, here is Gonzales, another track on the first LP, at Take 58! Well, that’s perfection for you…

Kon-Tiki/36-24-36

The Shadows’ second No.1 was composed by Michael Carr and was inspired by the story of Thor Heyerdahl’s epic journey across the Pacific on a balsa-wood raft in 1947. Kon-Tiki was recorded on 27th January 1961 and released in September. It charted by 7th September, made it to No.1 in the Melody Maker charts by 7th October, and remained in the various charts for 10 weeks. Re-released in November, it was in the charts for a further 2 weeks, hence the apparent discrepancies you may find in some accounts. 

According to Malcolm Campbell’s mind-boggling and exhaustive record of The Shadows’ entire output: 

“The dramatic opening featured Tony Meehan on tympani with thunderous kettledrum overdubs, which burst out again in later passages. Jet played some almost funky bass figures against Hank and Bruce’s jangly guitar patterns offset against some chord progression sequences. A very rich, full sound.”

Hank’s alleged duff note at 1.05 did not bother me, but particularly sad, I thought at the time, was the fact that Kon-Tiki was in the top slot at the end of the very same week in which Tony quit the group. The version of Kon-Tiki re-recorded for Roll Over Records Ltd in 1989 features Brian on drums and percussion, of course, with Cliff Hall on keyboards and Mark Griffifths on bass guitar. 

36-24-36

The B side of the Kon-Tiki Single was recorded on 25th May 1961 and its composition had been a communal effort by Jet, Hank, Bruce and Tony. This tune definitely has a wiggle in its walk. According to Jet, the title referred to the vital statistics of one of his girlfriends! Fifty-seven years later, notes Rob Bradford, this track is still used by guitar teachers as “an exacting exercise for would be bassists”.

For the technically minded, here is Hank in 1997 talking about Apache, Kon-Tiki and his minor pentatonic double stops, echoes, whammy bars etc. Me, I just like the tunes! All I can tell you is that in 1961 I would’ve murdered to get my hands on the sound of Hank talking for this long (about anything!) and it doesn’t do much for my concentration now…

The Savage/Peace Pipe

Norrie Paramor composed both these numbers, the original title of The Savage being “Witch Doctor”. It was recorded a couple of days before The Savage and was the version seen in The Young Ones, providing The Shadows with their very memorable part in the stage show at the end of the movie. 

Below you can hear Witch Doctor at Take 8 in the recording studio, together with the priceless sound of Tony’s suggestion to Norrie as to how they might approach it. Witch Doctor was recorded at Abbey Road on 23rd May 1961 and, I’m reliably told, differs from The Savage in that it has “improvised elements, starting at 0.52”.  

Wonderful Land/The Stars Fell On Stockton

Wonderful Land was another Jerry Lordan masterpiece. It was recorded way back on 12th May 1961, but the final Take 19, with strings and brass added, was not complete until 18th January 1962. According to Jerry Lordan himself, 

“The recording was made but it lacked something and was shelved, and then Tony Meehan suggested that the ideal thing might be, as a nice contrast, using Hank’s lead guitar, electric guitar, but with a big string orchestra behind, and Norrie Paramor agreed.” Tony himself had been back to the studio on 6th July to overdub the tom-tom and a little extra drumming.

The completed Single was finally released in February 1962 and had charted by 1st March. It made recording history by staying at No.1 for 8 weeks from 22nd March until 17th May and remained in the charts for 19 weeks. Wonderful Land was the last Single that featured the original Shadows’ line-up, including both Jet and Tony. It sold more than a million copies. If you want to hear the version that did this, you’ll have to get a copy of the mono Single or one of the CD derivatives. The most commonly marketed stereo version from the March 1990 2LP/2CD set The Original Chart Hits doesn’t include the tom-tom overdubs. For absolute Shadowmaniacs, it is also possible to hear Wonderful Land before it had the strings added!