String of Hits 2

[Iain Purdon]

The whole business of the Shadows' move from EMI to Polydor, accurately reflected by Jim near the top of this thread, was a protracted affair, born of the fact that the Shadows wanted to own and control their own material and EMI wouldn’t let them do it. It is covered in Mike Read’s book “The Story of the Shadows” and more comprehensively by Bruce himself in “Rock’n’Roll - I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life”. He describes how and why the negotiations broke down and that the process took five months.

It is obvious from Bruce’s account that the material eventually released on Polydor is the stuff the Shadows wanted to be doing - and making money from - and that EMI were not interested in merely leasing it.

After 22 years of devoted and loyal service to EMI they in effect slammed the door in our faces. They must've made a vast amount of money from sales of Apache over the years considering how many times it has been featured on compilation albums. It took 20 minutes to make and cost the company a negligible amount of money.

So the Shadows went on to own all their new material. They set up Roll Over Records to manage the business and leased the product to Polydor, leaving EMI to make the best of what they had in the can. As I see it, EMI cobbled together Another String against Change of Address in a successful, if blatant, attempt to milk the cash cow for possibly the last time.

[drakula63]

I agree that Another String of Hot Hits was, as it turned out, a cobbled-together album aimed at milking the cash cow one last time. However... just because that is how it ended up, doesn't necessarily mean that that was the plan all along. There is, to my mind, at least a possibility that something bigger and better was planned at first, but this obviously became impossible. Plans change and some things come about by accident. I have no doubt at all that the Shadows wanted to release more original material, but it seems that EMI didn't see it that way. And, based upon the evidence (such as it is), maybe as the 1970s became the 1980s, EMI were right. I like much of the Shads original output during the 80s, they wrote some great tunes, but evidently the general public weren't that interested. As I've said, an all-new follow up to String of Hits would have seemed like a logical move (certainly to EMI)... that it didn't happen doesn't mean that it wasn't considered and maybe even planned for. Unless Brian, Bruce or Hank say "Chris, you are absolutely wrong about that," I'm sticking to my belief that it's a valid line of speculation.

[Moderne]

I don't want to pay monthly subscription fees, just to listen to my favourite music. I'd rather invest once in a nice LP or CD and enjoy listening to that.

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes I'm in the mood to not listen to anything. Sometimes it's a Beethoven Piano Sonata. Sometimes it's From Hank, Bruce, Brian and John. I'm very proud of the music library of CDs, LPs, 45s and 78s I've built up over the years - although I realise it's not very modern or trendy. If I want to listen to music at all, I've always got something to listen to...

[iefje]

I think the question if a certain way of listening to music is trendy or not is totally irrelevant. A lot of the time older equipment and older music formats are superior to more modern formats.
I realise I went off-topic once again.

[drakula63]

Amusingly, well I guess you'll all find it amusing, I just bought two copies of the Another String of Hot Hits cassette off ebay - one the original EMI release and then the MFP release. They were cheap(ish) and I just had an urge. On an impulse (just as I'd bought them) I opened my cassette drawer and saw...

[iefje]

Amusingly, well I guess you'll all find it amusing, I just bought two copies of the Another String of Hot Hits cassette off ebay - one the original EMI release and then the MFP release. They were cheap(ish) and I just had an urge. On an impulse (just as I'd bought them) I opened my cassette drawer and saw...

Ah, you already had them in your collection. Chris, do you have a complete list of all the official Shadows cassette tapes you have in your collection? Do you also have 8-track tape cartridges and tape records?

[JimN]

Amusingly, well I guess you'll all find it amusing, I just bought two copies of the Another String of Hot Hits cassette off ebay - one the original EMI release and then the MFP release. They were cheap(ish) and I just had an urge. On an impulse (just as I'd bought them) I opened my cassette drawer and saw...

Does that say "Spec's Appeal" with a grocer's apostrophe?

[drakula63]

Yeah... that's Spec's Appeal. Goes well with the CD of Rockin' With The Curly Leads.

I have quite a few cassettes, but I doubt that I have the full collection. The most recent purchase (well, apart from the two ASOHH cassettes that I didn't need!) was Somethin' Else!!! - mainly because I liked the fact that the cassette itself was blue! I have a few 8-tracks, but very few... actually, two copies of 20GG, one copy of RWCL and one copy of Tasty. Can't play the 8-tracks... but the cassettes get played, although some of them are sounding a bit rough.

Still got MOST of my LPs, bought in the 70s and 80s. And a few that I have added since.

[drakula63]

I'll make a list of all the cassettes... although there probably aren't all that many to be honest. I did buy a HUGE box of cassettes off ebay a few months back, all Cliff and Shads related, but I've hardly dipped into them yet. Most of them are home recorded, but some are commercial releases.

I had completely forgotten that I had those two Another String of HH cassettes... one is the original EMI release, the other looks to be from Spain.

[drakula63]

Just arrived from ebay. I already had String of Hits on CD, but have never had Another String... on CD before. Buying these together was a pretty good deal. Interesting how, for the CD, they padded it out with loads of old hits to fill up the disc! Strangely enough, I no longer have the original LP version that I bought in 1980... so that's next on the list!