Shadow Music album

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Shadow Music album

Postby howarddobson » Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:35 pm

Hello everyone

I listened to the Shadow Music album for the first time yesterday. It might sound odd but I’ve been listening to Shads albums from the 60s every few years so I have the experience of hearing a new one occasionally.

I thought it was a great album - consistent and very enjoyable.

The Guide to Shadow Music book was a but critical about it as an album but praised many of the individual tracks.

I wondered how everyone rated this album looking back. Plenty of band originals and some good arrangements. I wonder if the tracks were covered by others.

One thing I always note with 60s Shads albums is that they continued the tradition of not including singles on an album. I wonder if that eventually meant their albums were less well remembered than other bands. The Beatles usually had a single on an album somewhere, to encourage album buying instead of thinking it was poor value to include a single.
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby iefje » Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:18 am

I think it's a very good album, with lots of different styles and tempos. Of its fourteen tracks, just two are derivative, or three if you count Norrie Paramor's arrangement of "A Sigh (Un Sospiro)". The highlights for me are "Fourth Street", "The Magic Doll", "Benno-San", "Now That You're Gone", "One Way To Love", "Razzmataz", "A Sigh (Un Sospiro)" and "March To Drina". Also, of The Shadows' first seven albums which were issued in both mono and stereo, "Shadow Music" has the highest number of differences between mono and stereo versions of tracks:
- “The Magic Doll” in stereo features echo and/or reverb on the double-tracked lead guitar, whereas it sounds flat on the mono mix.
− “Benno-San” in stereo has the drums and all percussion instruments audible from 1:28 to 1:41, whereas with the mono version version first the drums are only audible, then only the percussion instruments and then both.
− “Don't Stop Now” in stereo: the multi-tracked electric lead guitar parts are present from 1:18 to 1:37. Also, Brian's tom-tom or bass drum overdub is more back in the mix.
− “In The Past” in stereo features echo and/or reverb on the vocals, whereas it sounds flat on the mono mix.
− “Fly Me To The Moon” in stereo omits the most likely unintended knock by Hank or Bruce on the body of the acoustic guitar at the very end of the track, present on the mono version.
− “March To Drina” in stereo includes four introductory bars, whereas the mono version includes only two.
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby Tone » Wed Jun 15, 2022 12:51 pm

It's always been one of my favourite albums and I like all the tracks with the exception, perhaps, of 'One Way to Love'.

My two favourites are 'A Sigh' and 'Now That You're Gone', the latter having wistful and nostalgic connections to a relationship I was in when I bought the album.
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby JimN » Wed Jun 15, 2022 12:53 pm

"Shadow Music"

[mono studio album LP]

EMI / Columbia SX 6041; UK, May 1966)

SIDE ONE:
1. I Only Want To Be With You (v)
2. Fourth Street (Brian Bennett piano feature)
3. The Magic Doll
4. Stay Around (v)
5. Maid Marion's Theme
6. Benno-San
7. Don't Stop Now
SIDE TWO:
1. In The Past (v)
2. Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)
3. Now That You're Gone
4. One Way To Love (v)
5. Razzmataz
6. A Sigh (Un Sospiro)
7. March To Drina
All tracks were being released for the first time.

I Only Want To Be With You, Fourth Street, The Magic Doll, Maid Marion’s Theme, Benno-San, Don’t Stop Now and Razzmatazz were group-composed originals.

This 1966 LP almost fully lived up to its title. Of the fourteen tracks included, seven were written by the group in various combinations and all but two were published by Shadows Music (Belinda), the group's publishing company. Only the standard song Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) by Bart Howard and the Euro-instro March To Drina came via different publishers. Even the three vocals written by Arnold, Martin & Morrow (2) and Michael Cahill (1) came under the Shadows Music imprint, as (more predictably) did the Hill/Whitworth/Meehan instrumental Now That You're Gone and the Norrie Paramor arrangement of Franz Liszt's A Sigh (Un Sospiro). Come to think of it though, getting a publishing credit out of the hands of Norrie Paramor really was a major achievement. Old Norrie was notorious for keeping publishing in the family...

Elsewhere, the album has been described (by Hank) as "lacking in direction" and as "business as usual" and "less essential" by Dave Thompson of the All Music Guide (http://www.answers.com/topic/shadow-music-expanded). I think that both descriptions are less than fair. Whatever one thinks of this LP – and despite any more worthy hopes that the group might have entertained for it, it is a cut way above the two predecessor albums ("Dance With..." and "Sound Of The Shadows").

"Shadow Music" saw the group back on form with an enterprising and updated sound. OK... in the same year that Eric Clapton/John Mayall set the world on fire with the "Beano" album, the Beach Boys opened everyone's ears with "Pet Sounds" and (supremely) the sheer shock of The Beatles' "Revolver" resounded around the globe, The Shadows were never going to cause an earthquake with ten instrumentals. But there was still real progress here. The four vocals (one of them group-composed for the "Babes In The Wood" Christmas stage show) were first-rate, and the instrumentals almost uniformly-strong with only a couple of throwaway tunes to fill out the listing. Of particular note are Now That You're Gone and March To Drina (the former for the beauty and simplicity of its melody and the latter for a bravura multitracked guitar performance). Maid Marion's Theme is another introspective guitar reading. One or two tracks feature the DeArmond pedal (notably A Sigh and Now That You're Gone), though the main glory days for that foot-operated effects unit were still a little way around the corner.

Oddities:

The stereo and mono mixes of both Benno-San and Don't Stop Now, whilst being essentially the same overall performance, exhibit different approaches to the overdubbed guitar solos. The mono-stereo DigiPak release of 1998 (is it really that long ago?) came complete with both versions, of course.

Annotations by Paul Wray:

The album had 2 pressings during its run mainly because there was a mastering error with Benno-San and Don’t Stop Now.
1st Pressing (1966) - This Pressing Has 33 1/3 Printed On The Label Next To The Matrix Number.
2nd Pressing (1966) - This Pressing does not have 33 1/3 Printed On The Label Next To The Matrix Number."
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby iefje » Wed Jun 15, 2022 2:39 pm

JimN wrote:The stereo and mono mixes of both Benno-San and Don't Stop Now, whilst being essentially the same overall performance, exhibit different approaches to the overdubbed guitar solos. The mono-stereo DigiPak release of 1998 (is it really that long ago?) came complete with both versions, of course.


Comparing the initial mono version and the stereo version of "Benno-San", there can be heard differences in the overdubbed percussion instruments, between 1:28 and 1:41. All the guitar parts on this track are the same on the mono and stereo versions.
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby anniv 63 » Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:01 pm

For me this album is more of a choice for listeners rather than playing to B/ts of many of
these quality numbers featured.
I have personally tackled Now That You're Gone, Maid Marions Theme and A Sigh getting quite close
to a satisfactory sound on these which is what it is all about!!!

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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby Moderne » Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:02 am

I love the Shadow Music LP...in fact I'd say it was my second favourite album after From Hank, Bruce, Brian and John. The vocals are all great (The Rapiers did a good version of Stay Around) and of the instrumentals my favourite would have to be their version of Fly Me To The Moon. I bought the LP in 1981 when I'd have been 17 and have listened to it countless times since then. I much prefer the stereo LP to the mono. My only criticism...I wish Hank's guitar at the end of In the Past was a bit more prominent.

The question of singles from albums is interesting. By and large, in the '50s and '60s (in the UK) singles tended not to be included on LPs; I guess the record companies thought of an album as a collection of recordings separate to 45s (or 78s and 45s in the '50s) which tended to be more commercial - quite apart from any 'value for money' considerations. The Beatles broke with this tradition in 1966 when Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby were released as a double-sided 45...both featuring on their Revolver LP. None of the Sgt Pepper tracks were issued on a 45 in this country and even Yesterday (from the Help! LP) was only an EP track over here. Cliff included the A-side Don't Forget to Catch Me on his Established 1958 LP and Hank included Sacha on his eponymous solo LP in 1969. The practice of including A (and B)-sides on albums did not really get going until the '70s. Some albums of the '80s and '90s included three or four singles!
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby drakula63 » Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:40 am

One of my favourites.
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby drakula63 » Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:47 am

Moderne wrote: The practice of including A (and B)-sides on albums did not really get going until the '70s. Some albums of the '80s and '90s included three or four singles!


I think virtually every track from Michael Jackson's 'BAD' was released as a single!
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Re: Shadow Music album

Postby iefje » Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:45 pm

I have heard one of The Beatles (I think it was John Lennon) say around 1963, that they didn't release singles off of their albums, but in fact their very first album "Please Please Me", did feature both sides of their first two Parlophone singles. The singles being "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You" and "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why". Or maybe he meant that they didn't do that after the album had been released. In any case, their albums "Please Please Me", "A Hard Day's Night", "Help!", "Revolver", "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be" all included tracks which were also used on UK singles. Tracks from the albums "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "The Beatles" (aka "The White Album") were issued as singles in the UK in 1978 and 1976 respectively, some years after the group had broken up.
The very first Shadows album which had tracks released as singles in the UK was "Rockin' With Curly Leads" from 1973. The single taken from that album was "Turn Around And Touch Me"/"Jungle Jam".
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