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The Shadows-Bigger than The Beatles?

grillebilly

grillebilly

Empty Head
Been listening to The Shadows a lot recently. The more I listen, the more I realize how good they were. Not too many, if any, have nailed the tone or the smooth delivery of this guitar based (mostly) instrumental band.
I was way too young to listen to them in their glory days. So a little checking reveals they were bigger than I imagined. Very big...here is some notes from Wik

The Shadows are Britain's most successful instrumental and vocal group with a total of 69 UK hit charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' plus 34 as 'Cliff Richard and The Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s.
According to the Guinness Book of Hit Singles and Albums (19th edition), The Shadows are the 3rd most successful UK charted hit-singles act, behind Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard.
The Shadows were the original pioneers of the four-member rock-group format (consisting of 2 guitars, bass and drums) in the UK. They enjoyed a second wave revival spell of success and interest in their music from the late-1970s until disbandment in 1990. Their unique guitar sound was originally produced by a combination of American Fender guitars, British amplifiers made by Vox and an Italian Meazzi Echomatic echo unit.
With their lead singer, Cliff Richard, The Shadows totally dominated the British popular music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s (ie the 5 year "Before-Beatles" period: 1958-1962), before The Beatles' first year in the charts in 1963.
John Lennon once claimed that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music." As the first backing band to emerge as stars in their own right, they were early trailblazers for the beat-group boom that eclipsed them. - The Times. Nov 30th 2005.[1]

If you haven't given them a listen lately...it's time.
 
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Thanks for the tip. I can't believe I've not heard such an obviously successful and influential band. I will get some of their music. :thmbsp:
 
The Shadows and Cliff Richard have been around for decades. They were more popular in Britain then here, and they still continue to tour. I think they have a DVD of their concert.
 
I emigrated from England at the end of 1963, and for my entire childhood there The Shadows was THE rock group. I still have the Shadows and Cliff Richards 45s and 78s that my parents bought for me at the time as well as some earlier Vipers records. Note that the Shadows and the Beatles had some shared early history.
 
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i love the shadows a great deal yet I don't have much by them, cliff richards, not so much.

as an aside, all those Joe Meek produced instrumental singles from the early sixties are way cool also. if you like the ventures and shadows and such you might want to check them out.
 
Cliff Richard had that decent American hit, 'Devil Woman' back in the 70s. Otherwise, to my recollection, he has not made much of an impact here while consistently doing well in the UK. Just one of those things.

But to say he and the Shadows were better than the Beatles would be a stretch.
 
Jack Lord said:
But to say he and the Shadows were better than the Beatles would be a stretch.
Click to expand...

not better...just bigger, judging by the amount of charted hits. Second only to Elvis. That puts them ahead of the Stones, The Who, Cream, and all the other British bands that were influenced by The Shadows. Remember, their glory years were well before The Beatles ever came around.

One of the more interesting discussions on this board is influential bands. That usually means the band was doing something new and different that other bands picked up on and copied. But who influenced these influential bands? Surely this is one of those groups
 
I had a girlfriend who loved Cliff Richard. She gifted me an endless stream of cassettes and eventually a cd or two back in the day. He (and the Shadows) were big in Europe. I'd have to listen to them again to really give you an opinion but easy to listen to and not much involvement needed maybe...

For some crazy reason I always wanted to hear Jeff Beck play "Apache". Don't know why. I bet Chet Atkins could have sat in and riffed with them quite nicely!
 
grillebilly said:
not better...just bigger, judging by the amount of charted hits. Second only to Elvis. That puts them ahead of the Stones, The Who, Cream, and all the other British bands that were influenced by The Shadows. Remember, their glory years were well before The Beatles ever came around.

One of the more interesting discussions on this board is influential bands. That usually means the band was doing something new and different that other bands picked up on and copied. But who influenced these influential bands? Surely this is one of those groups
Click to expand...

They get props. Problem is, outside of the UK, nobody knows of them. The Beatles conquered the globe.

You gonna bring out Johnny Hallyday next?:D
 
Having lived in London, England twice I had heard of The Shadows (and their work with Cliff Richard), but can't say I was "familiar" with them until I ran across this double CD release in a local USED music store. It is from Eagle Records, (www.eaglerockent.com) a division of Eagle Rock Entertainment.

It is comprised of live recordings from their final tour in Cardiff, Wales (which adds to the energy level) and is lots of fun to spin once in a while.

Some of the songs were made popular by other groups but all came out of the era I grew up in -- which is why I think I enjoy them so much.

(Apologies for the run on sentences.)

Cheers.
 

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I have no clue to what their later stuff sounds like. It looks like their glory days from 58 to 63 were when they sold records.
Dig some up and take a listen...cool stuff.
 
Thanks for bringing this subject up.

I've been a shadows fan for years starting in high school in the late 60"s - today I collect any shadows CD I can get my hands on every time I travel to Europe.

These guys for some reason never had a big fan base in America and I don't know why but I suspect the "Ventures" had established themselves here at the time with their kind of music, they both seemed to have similar tunes. The other reason is that most instrumental guitar music of that era was grouped in as "Surf" music (as in beach boys) and that was popular only in California (west coast).

BTW the shadows could also sing well - their rendition of "Domino" has amazing harmony. And speaking of harmony - they provided that along with music on almost every early Cliff Richard songs.

The only thing I disliked about them was they always seemed to overdo remakes of others' instrumental themes, case in point their rendition of - "The theme from Missing" never really sounded sad like it should.

My three most popular Shadows instrumentals will always be 1. Atlantis 2. Walk don't run 3. Kontiki
 
Keith Richards was Keith Richard (no "s") in the early years of the Rolling Stones because producer Andrew Loog Oldham thought it would resemble Cliff Richard.

Silly? Apparently so since Keef soon returned the "s" to his last name.

Ken
 
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