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If i'm playing a Shads CD and Dear old Mrs Bell comes on i immediately hit the 'skip' button. How on earth did they think that would be a hit?

Fenderman wrote:If i'm playing a Shads CD and Dear old Mrs Bell comes on i immediately hit the 'skip' button. How on earth did they think that would be a hit?

It was pretty bang on the money for contemporary pop music in late 1967 / early 1968. Think of the hit The BeeGees had with Massachussetts and other artistes, such as Solomon King and John Rowles* were also having ballad success.

[* I think John Rowles was part of the Savile Artists management stable, along with Cliff, the Shadows, Frank Ifield and Labi Siffre.]

Tone wrote:Jim

One man's meat etc!

I think it's a very nice melody and, yes, there's no middle 8 to speak of but Hank makes a great job of extemporising on the tune. There's a very atmospheric studio video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HivQOBR ... rt_radio=1

It's had 100,000+ views so I guess others like it, not just me!

Cheers.

Tony

But not everyone who has watched it has liked it!

My mum bought the single by RS when it came out in '75, or whenever. Still got it lying around. I don't think she was as keen on the B-side! It's a very nice song, very famous and did well for the wee lad. But I'll admit to being surprised when they covered it in '81.

Well, the Ventures were always churning out album after album of mainly instrumental covers of contemporary chart hits which were vocals..some worked, some didn't...same with the Shadows in their later career..

For a group which is known for being a guitar instrumental group, it would not have been commercially feasible to continue risking their careers in attempting to sell endless new original instrumental tunes- however good those new tunes might have been...especially when vocal based music replaced instrumental music in popularity.

The average music buyer likes songs and tunes which are familiar (on the radio, TV and the charts etc)...so that's what the Ventures and (later on) the Shadows gave them.

And look how well(!) the Shads did when they tried to recast themselves as Marvin Welch and Farrar...poor response commercially to their excellent original vocal songs and superb vocals...they were typecast as a guitar group..'Play Apache!'

Many of The Shadows early tunes were covers of previously popular vocal numbers. Dance On, Blue Star and The Breeze and I immediately come to mind.

Admin wrote:Many of The Shadows early tunes were covers of previously popular vocal numbers. Dance On, Blue Star and The Breeze and I immediately come to mind.

Dance On came to The Shadows as a vocal demo but they decided to record it as an instrumental. Theirs was the first hit with the song.

Kathy Kirby's vocal hit (the following year) was the first time the general public had heard the lyric, or even knew it to be a vocal number.