The Shadows Story (my selected pieces)

[David Martin]

Brilliant stuff, Heinz... many thanks!

[chronikman-ch]

After Months Of Secret Practice - Jet Harris Is Ready For His Solo Debut
NME 17.9.1962 by Chris Hutchins

Jet revealed the location as we chatted in a Chelsea coffee bar last Friday just before he made his solo TV debut in “Spot The Tune” from the nearby Granada studio.
In the show he played his new record “Main Title Theme.” It was the day of the disc’s release. This week it leaps into the chart in No. 23 slot (NME article)

[GoldenStreet]

If I'm not mistaken, the recently introduced Fender Bass VI was recommended to Jet (the first to use the model in the UK) by Jack Good.

From Wikipedia:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Bass_VI

Bill

[chronikman-ch]

[quote="GoldenStreet"]If I'm not mistaken, the recently introduced Fender Bass VI was recommended to Jet (the first to use the model in the UK) by Jack Good.

...one of my favourit picture of Jet Harris & Tony Meehan in my collection
Magazine Today Week ending August 10, 1963 Colour page 16,18 JET HARRIS When a pop star BLOWS UP! by George Bruce

The Jet that blew up-at the age of 23!
Eighteen hours a day, a nine hour drive, fifty minutes of frenzy, acouple of hours for sleep-and then one more rehearsal. Yes, that's life for an idol called Harris....
Stage one:
and a Jet called Harris is streaking for the stars. All systems go. Climbing out of the Shadows to meet tumultuous teenage acclaim in partnership with Tony Meehan.
Stage two:
the Jet is grounded, burnt out. The doctor says “Nervous exhaustion.”A Harley Street nursing home. Complete rest.
And in between, the grinding, strength-sapping ordeal of one-night stands. An endless ribbon of road, linking one theatre with the next.
An endless sequence of stage-door ambushes, lipstick tributes and autograph books.
Endless meals of sandwiches and coke, endless rehearsals that soak up stamina like a vacuum cleaner.
Endless? But there has to be an end. And it came for Jet Harris with that breakdown in February. The savage demands of teenage idolatry finally laid Jet Harris low.
“It knocked me out for a fortnight,” says Jet. “ I was working eighteen hours a day more often than not.”
A lock of hair falls over his puckered forehead and the deep-set blue eyes haze over.
“We’d do a six-hour recording session, then pile into the wagon with a few sandwiches for a nine-hour drive to a fifty-minute one-night stand somewhere. We’d get back home in the early hours, snatch two and a half hours’ kip and then start a five-hour rehearsal.
“The we’d be off to another one-nighter. Back home again to more rehearsals the next day.”
“I’m not complaining. We’ve got to go. But how long can you do it?”
Mental torture
Not for very long if you’re made of flesh, blood, bones and average-capacity nerves. They physical and mental torture of pop music success is self-perpetuating. Nothing exhausts like success.
Jet Harris blew smoke rings from his ever-present cigarette.
“They called me Jet at School because I did the hundred yards in ten point eight seconds. But I nearly ran myself into the ground last February.”
Tony Meehan, nineteen years old, pale-faced and earnest of expression, chipped in:
“Jet works too hard. He puts all he’s got into it. I mean, all the time. He’s a perfectionist. Never spares himself. Work or play.”
The predominant misconception about pop groups is that there is no work. Only play. You can see how wrong this is when you watch Harris and Meehan rehearse.
Meehan sit at the drums, nods to the other musicians and sings out: “ A-one-two-three-four.” Harris sways to the beat, his scrabbling fingers clawing electronic sound from his guitar.
One nights stands
The number is over. Meehan says: “Once more, from the top,” and the group go through the number again. This can happen twenty times, but nobody says: Not again!”
And after the searing monotony of rehearsals, comes the oppressive repletion of one night stands where the programme is remorselessly dictated by the hit parade.
“Diamonds” in Darlington, “Diamonds” in York. “Diamonds” in Birmingham and Newcastle and Leeds and Plymouth and Glasgow.
This is the awful tyranny of the pop world. And the best way of going strait back to your old job of driving lorries, loading ships, hewing coal or-as in Harris’s case-making milk churns, is to fight against it.
Sooner or latter-and, sometimes, too late-pop stars realize that they need as many strings to their guitars. Security is not the strongest suit in this cockeyed game.
Drummer at fifteen
Meehan, a drummer in a night club band when he was fifteen, also has ambitions in other show business fields.
“I played with the Shadows for three and a half years, but I began to feel I wasn’t making any more progress. I wanted more experience, writing music and learning recording techniques.
“Then Decca offered me a wonderful job as their pop recording manager. It offered the experience I wanted.” And it offered a few thousand pounds a year-which is a little more than par for an eighteen year old, even in Tin Pan Alley.
“I told Cliff Richard I was going and took the job at Decca for a few months. Cliff and I parted the best of friends. We still are.”
With Decca, Meehan was responsible for ideas, tunes, lyrics, finding singers, supervising recordings and balancing the sound. He also did musical arrangements.
When composer Jerry Lordan came along with number called “Diamonds,” it was suggested that Meehan and Harris should team up to record it. They did, and transmuted the number into cash register gold.
Girls and masters
But Harris doesn’t plan any more detours to Harley Street.
“I keep to a sixteen-hour day, now,” he says gravely. “That’s enough.”
For those in gentle, restful trades like ditch-digging, boiler-stoking or demolition work, a sixteen-hour day would be far too much.
But then, teenage girls are the masters now, and they are mercilessly demanding of the pop men at the top.
Article by George Bruce for TODAY Magazine August 10, 1963

hmr

[Steve Parish]

Heinz...
All these articles you upload are always an interesting and excellent read!
It's great for us Shads fans who weren't around during the sixties... or even the seventies in my case!
Thank you Heinz!
Steve

[abstamaria]

Thank you for taking the trouble to post all this, Heinz. I have enjoyed reading his thread.

Andy

[chronikman-ch]

Tony - My Future
New Record Mirror November 2 1963 by Peter Jones

[cockroach]

Apparently Tony's Combo included Joe Moretti and John McLaughlin on guitars, and John Paul Jones on bass....no wonder they were rated well..

[chronikman-ch]

SHADOWS SHOCK AS TONY MEEHAN LEAVES

NME # 769 October 6. 1961 by Derek Johnson

[Arpeggio]

A superb series Heinz. Long may it continue to flourish. Many, many thanks and please keep posting.

Rob