MikeAB wrote:I don't buy this stuff that Hank/Shads could not record what they wanted to - hundreds of minor artists get their material out on CD somehow and if they'd tried harder they would have done so. I think Hank's move to Australia caused them to do more covers as he would have been saying 'make the backing like the record and I'll know how to work out the lead guitar', and of course we always assume they could have produced new material but maybe just had run out of ideas, or energy, or both.
The problem for The Shadows is that they were...The Shadows! I remember Warren B once on this website saying "Think yourselves lucky you're Shadows fans and not Freddie and the Dreamers fans." When you've scaled the heights of the entertainment industry, had no.1 albums etc. as The Shadows had, you become addicted to a certain level of fame: sell-out tours, top 10 albums, TV appearances...etc. Of course they could have released albums of original material if they'd wanted to (on small 'cottage industry' labels) but the sales would have been tiny and would have put them on a downward spiral whereby it would have been far more difficult to still do the packed tours, TV shows etc. etc. I remember Bruce being very negative when it was suggested that he could release solo vocal albums. Why would he want to spend time recording an album which only a few hundred people would buy when he'd been part of one of the biggest groups in the history of pop...that was his viewpoint, and I totally understand that. They'd already started again once with MWF...'trooping offstage to the sound of our own footsteps at Batley Variety Club' and it wasn't a very nice experience for them.
The
Guardian Angel story is still a bit baffling to me; it seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy - the Shadows didn't promote it when they toured live at the time, the record company hardly promoted it - and surprise, surprise it was a flop.
I never bought
Reflection when it came out for the same reasons as Chris - but take on board Jim's comments about it; maybe I need to get hold of a copy and have a listen.
I'm sure this has been discussed before and I'm sure I've been sucked into posting messages about it...but it's still an interesting subject for discussion - and having lived through the 70s-80s Shadows career resurgence (even though I wasn't born when they had their initial burst of fame in the early 60s)... I can still remember my heart sinking when I looked at the track listing on the
String of Hits LP; I'd spent two years creating this role of 'Shadows' ambassador to the young'...trying to convince my fellow pupils at school that they were a meaningful alternative to Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Boomtown Rats, Elvis Costello etc. even when my friends were going 'twang-twang-twang-twang-twang-twang-twaang-twaang' (to the tune of Argentina) and falling around laughing! And now a whole album of covers!
One final question - back onto the topic...although I'm sure I remember this being discussed before too. How come
Love Deluxe wasn't a hit? Commercial song, great vocal from Bruce, nifty arrangement and production, lots of radio plays... As big a mystery to me now as in 1978!