Shadows Mysteries That May Remain Unsolved

[JimN]

Andy's questions (renumbered where appropriate for ease of reference) with my responses in italics:

1. Did Stratocaster #34346 come with flat-wound strings?

Unknowable. Some USA players do insist that late 50s Fenders came with flats, but Hank has stated that he has never used them. On the other hand, there is good photographic evidence of flatwound strings on the Antoria in use during the first few months of 1959.

2. If so, was Apache recorded on flatwounds? Or well-used roundwounds?

Roundwounds. Hank isn't likely to have got that consistently wrong and he'd have changed the strings a good few times between mid-1959 and June 1960.

3. Did Hank continue to record on # 34346 after the Shadows received the rosewood-board Strats?

Unlikely. Guitars were just guitars in those days and it is likely that the newly-arrived rosewood board Fenders had slimmer, better feeling, necks and actions than the one on 34346. I know which one I would have used...

4. What was the last piece recorded with #34346?

Unknowable without knowing the date of arrival of the matching red Fenders. There was a lot of Shadows recording in the period May - June 1961. The Shads were using 34346, the sunburst Jazzmaster and the sunburst Precision Bass when they appeared on TV to promote F.B.I. but the all-red set when they appeared on "Crackerjack" to promote The Frightened City (plus a reprise of F.B.I.).

5. What was the first piece recorded on the rosewood-board Strat?

6. What was the last piece recorded on the rosewood-board Strats?

The answers to those two are bound up with the answer to number 4 (whatever it is).

7. What was the first piece recorded on the Burns?

Some folk say it was Geronimo, recorded December 1962 (that would have been a prototype). Others say Atlantis (same month).

8. What is the clicking sound in Jet Black? (The consensus seems to be Hank tapping on the pickup of his Antoria. Someone with an Antoria will please experiment.)

The consensus is correct. Hank is on record as explaining it.

9. Cliff used for a Chinese drum for Apache. What did it look like? Why is it so low-pitched? (Chinese drums are high pitched.)

See my answer in a nearby posting.

10. Was that a whistle in the Frightened City? Who made the sound?

Unlikely, I'd say. The explanation I was given when I bought the record in 1963 was that it was contact noise on the strings (the sort of thing that players use flatwounds to avoid).

11. Who played the bongos (or other percussion instruments) in Little B? The claves or other sticks? (I think Jim Nugent recalls that the rest of the Shads played Latin American percussion while Brian Bennett played the piece at a 1962 show in Newcastle that he attended.)

See my answer nearby.

12. Was the odd pickup pole[piece stagger on #34346 truly a discernible ingredient in That Sound?

I doubt it. Hank has always sounded pretty much the same with any stagger on pickups, and even with pickups with no stagger at all.

[abstamaria]

Chinese Drum Once Again

Jim, it is good and very helpful that you put the questions and the answers together.

On the Chinese drum, I would put "still a mystery" or similar.

One of the fellows who plays with us is close to the large Chinese community here and looked for the Chinese drums we used in our shows. One he bought from a Chinese temple! The narration on the recording of Apache says that Cliff held the Chinese drum, which they called a “tamtam,” under his arm, which gives an indication of its size. All the Chinese drums that size that we tried, including the one in the photo that we used for some shows, have a high pitch, very different from Apache’s intro and outro.

For some shows, we used a large Chinese drum on a stand. It is probably the size of the drum in Jim's link. It is a much higher pitch than the Apache "tamtam." There are videos on the Net on traditional Chinese drums that illustrate how they sound. The Chinese drum “That Sound” appears to be sharp and high pitched. The exception is the extremely large drum, maybe six feet across, some larger, that is usually hung from the rafters on its side and struck sideways.

So the mystery for me continues. I wonder if that Chinese tamtam is stashed in Abbey Road Studios somewhere. There is this fellow in Manila puzzling over it.

Andy

[abstamaria]

8A91EA09-BDDC-40D9-BADE-000BA74B7B71.jpeg

(80.57 KiB) Not downloaded yet

The larger Chinese drum we used. It took up so much space in the studio I gave it to a friend. I bought it from his wife for the shows. She passed away three years ago; I thought he should have it back.

[JimN]

Directly on the last question, about the string stagger on Fender Stratocaster 34346...

It is well-known, in circles such as this, that the stagger on the pickup polepieces that 1959 Fender Strat bought by Cliff and used by Hank was equipped with an unusual stagger, in which the third (G) string polepieces were lower than the adjacent polepieces for the D string. One would expect a stagger to emphasise the G string, simply because medium and light gauge string sets of the day had a wound third string which tended to sound quieter than the D and B which were next to it.

I had assumed that the stagger on 34346 was something of a on-off, or at least, a rarity. But it appears that this might not be the case. A recent episode of the History Channel's "Pawn Stars" programme had the familiar trio of pawn-shop staff in Austin, Texas, at a music venue called "Antone's". Laid out on a table for inspection (and apparently possible purchase by Rick) were:

(a) a 1950/51 Fender Broadcaster, (b) a 1952 Fender P-Bass, (c) a 1956 Fender Duosonic and (d) a 1956 Fender Stratocaster.

The Stratocaster... you've guessed it... has the 34346 stagger...

See the video at:

The view of the Strat's pickups can be found at 02:32.

[abstamaria]

I think the Stratocaster is a 1954, Jim.

I went through my Fender and Stratocaster history books some years ago and could not find any reference to 34346’s unusual stagger. If that research is accurate, I wonder if 34346’s and the other Pus like it are a manufacturing anomaly? Someone here suggested that Fender had run out of the correct poles and so used whatever poles were in the bin. Or, as perhaps the video suggests, the unusual stagger was found in the very early Strats; perhaps 34346 was fitted with leftover Pus (but then the plastic and other components would have been ’54 vintage too, which does not appear to be the case).

Andy

[JimN]

Yes, 1956. 1965 was a typo.