Cliff plays Apache

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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby abstamaria » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:23 am

Thanks, Didier. The Jazzmaster he used in their first video playing Apache. I suppose he used that in stage, as the J200 in those days would have presented problems.

Andy
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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby GoldenStreet » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:49 am

abstamaria wrote:I suppose he used that in stage, as the J200 in those days would have presented problems.

Andy

Yes, on stage and TV, I imagine little consideration would have been given to the technical issues involved in attempting to reproduce the sound of the record, with acoustic rhythm guitar, in live performance.

Another excuse for Willie... !



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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby abstamaria » Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:24 am

That was pretty cool, Bill. Thanks.

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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby MMStingray54 » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:27 pm

Didier wrote:
JimN wrote:
MMStingray54 wrote:It's a very funny sketch in my view. But I never understand why people say this about 'Cliff's guitar' - my understanding has been he bought it for Hank - and thus gave it to him originally? Fact is that Hank eventually preferred the tone of the rosewood board Strats once he got his hands on them (mellow and deeper sounding) and in any case 34346 suffered from string rattle issues - hence the paper stuffed in the string ends.


Hi, Don.

It is well-established that the original Strat was only on long-term loan to Hank and that it was returned when Jennings presented The Shadows with a full set of loan guitars in red (whichever red it was) with the rosewood necks, etc.

Here is what Hank said in an interview for a french magazine (translated by me) :

The (import) ban had just been removed, and people at Vox got an exclusive import contract for Fender products. The first packages contained some Precision Bass, some Stratocaster and Telecaster. This is why Bruce was shot with a Telecaster and Jet with a Precision Bass to promote the Fender range. Meanwhile two stratocaster and one Precision Bass were specially painted in fiesta red for us so we would all have a guitar of the same colour. We got them a few days later. So I gave back to Cliff my first Strat which wasn't really mine.

BTW, the interviewer was no one else than guitarist Marcel Dadi, one of the best European finger picking specialist who died in the crash of flight TWA 800 in 1996, when coming back from Nasville where he was just introduced to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Didier


Thanks - very interesting stuff.
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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby MMStingray54 » Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:32 pm

GoldenStreet wrote:
abstamaria wrote:I suppose he used that in stage, as the J200 in those days would have presented problems.

Andy

Yes, on stage and TV, I imagine little consideration would have been given to the technical issues involved in attempting to reproduce the sound of the record, with acoustic rhythm guitar, in live performance.

Another excuse for Willie... !



Bill


Excellent - at the very end of the clip the headstock of a (the?) J200 can be seen as Cliff picks it up for the next song. Is it possible it was an image thing, Bruce being shown with an electric whereas it's ok for a vocalist like Cliff to be seen with an acoustic? Just some Saturday lunch tine mental meanderings!! I'm astonished Wilie and the Hand Jive passed the censor in those days - coincidentally one of my favourite Cliff and the Shads songs to play from my days of doing such things!!!
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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby abstamaria » Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:25 pm

I read, and I’m no expert here, that pickups for acoustic guitars improved enough for stage use only in the 1970s. Glen Campbell and Ovation are mentioned in that regard.

In the early 1960s, I understand that the only way to get a good acoustic sound was with microphones, the pickups then not having seen the technical breakthroughs that would come a decade later. Mic’ing an acoustic on stage would have been impossible, what with Bruce moving about. Apart from looking cool with an electric guitar, the difficulty of playing an acoustic on stage was probably another reason why Bruce didn’t use the J200.

Cliff, on the other hand, performed in front of a microphone, and that may have been sufficient to amplify the J200 at the volume needed. Besides, Cliff was probably backed up by a guitarist.

My thoughts only.

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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby bor64 » Sat Jun 27, 2020 5:44 pm

Never-mind the hand jive, what about the feet jive and never get unplugged by standing on the lead.
Hank didn't pulled the lead behind his strap, presumably Bruce neither....but hard to check with the dark rim of the SB JM.

The red guitars were ready a few days later....mmmm ?
Nitrocellulose finishes are evaporative finishes, and CAN be redissolved in their original solvents.
if you wish to test this, splash some lacquer thinner on your friend's mint 1957 Stratocaster. ( NO! DO NOT TRY THIS)
Lacquers dry to the touch relatively quickly, but then it can take weeks, or even months to dry completely, leading to the misconception that they "cure".

According to the peeps at Vox at least 3 neck changes were done on Bruce strat and at least two complete exchange of the two strats and bass did occur.
On the higher quality colour pics you can see Hank with a plain grained neck and with a tiger stripe rosewood neck.
When the strats came in for service and it was to much "work" they get exchanged according the Vox veterans.
The strats were just sold off to employees, the amps the same....when a amp case was to much damaged they replaced it with a new case and speakers.
Employees could pic them up for very small prices.

Cheers Rob
Last edited by bor64 on Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
"afterwards everyone is clairvoyant"
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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby GoldenStreet » Sat Jun 27, 2020 6:00 pm

Andy,

I would wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts. I suppose for that period, a possibility could have been a DeArmond 210 soundhole pickup for the J200, which would have produced a more electric sound, anyway, but, especially on TV, symmetry of image was (is) all important.

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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby JimN » Sun Jun 28, 2020 4:25 am

abstamaria wrote:I read, and I’m no expert here, that pickups for acoustic guitars improved enough for stage use only in the 1970s. Glen Campbell and Ovation are mentioned in that regard. In the early 1960s, I understand that the only way to get a good acoustic sound was with microphones, the pickups then not having seen the technical breakthroughs that would come a decade later. Mic’ing an acoustic on stage would have been impossible, what with Bruce moving about. Apart from looking cool with an electric guitar, the difficulty of playing an acoustic on stage was probably another reason why Bruce didn’t use the J200. Cliff, on the other hand, performed in front of a microphone, and that may have been sufficient to amplify the J200 at the volume needed. Besides, Cliff was probably backed up by a guitarist.
My thoughts only.
Andy


Oddly, you may think, I can remember at least one live television appearance where Bruce played the sunburst Gibson J-200. This was for a Sunday Night At The London Palladium show in late 1962. The Shadows played their new record - Dance On! - with Bruce playing that acoustic guitar, amplified by a microphone on a stand. They didn't do much stage movement for that song so the mike technique was adequate. At the end of that tune, Cliff walked on and Bruce came forward and handed the Gibson to him. He was in turn handed his red Stratocaster by a stagehand and Hank moved across to piano for a performance of Bachelor Boy - probably the first time most of us had heard it (and Dance On!).

After Bachelor Boy, it was the end of the programme (there was just one item each from the Shadows and Cliff & The Shadows, which wasn't all that unusual), and compere Norman Vaughan walked on from the wings as all the performers started to form up for the traditional revolving stage farewell. Speaking over the orchestra playing the theme tune, he announced that due to an attack of laryngitis, Cliff (and by extension, The Shadows) had mimed the last number.

But Dance On! was played live, with that jumbo acoustic for rhythm guitar.
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Re: Cliff plays Apache

Postby StuartD » Sun Jun 28, 2020 3:59 pm

bor64 wrote:Never-mind the hand jive, what about the feet jive and never get unplugged by standing on the lead.
Hank didn't pulled the lead behind his strap, presumably Bruce neither....but hard to check with the dark rim of the SB JM.

The red guitars were ready a few days later....mmmm ?
Nitrocellulose finishes are evaporative finishes, and CAN be redissolved in their original solvents.
if you wish to test this, splash some lacquer thinner on your friend's mint 1957 Stratocaster. ( NO! DO NOT TRY THIS)
Lacquers dry to the touch relatively quickly, but then it can take weeks, or even months to dry completely, leading to the misconception that they "cure".

According to the peeps at Vox at least 3 neck changes were done on Bruce strat and at least two complete exchange of the two strats and bass did occur.
On the higher quality colour pics you can see Hank with a plain grained neck and with a tiger stripe rosewood neck.
When the strats came in for service and it was to much "work" they get exchanged according the Vox veterans.
The strats were just sold off to employees, the amps the same....when a amp case was to much damaged they replaced it with a new case and speakers.
Employees could pic them up for very small prices.

Cheers Rob


That's exactly what Hank told me in the late 60's They were taken back and given others in their place. He said they wouldn't always feel quite the same when they got the next set. So basically the ones on Crakerjack will not have been the ones in Summer Holiday, two years later#

Regards

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