The Shadows- those guitar giants from the early 1960's

The Shadows- those guitar giants from the early 1960s.

It is easy to get stuck in a horrible rut. Besides we've all been in this together for what has now seemed like decades, eras, even several generations. Now that's quite obviously a huge exaggeration but surely things couldn't get any worse. We've travelled the highways and byways, that head spinning labyrinth that is Covid 19 where nobody knows where they might be going and none of us can really find a clear path and a plausible answer. But then we find a brief respite, a chink of light, a heady, balmy sanctuary away from it all.

Last Friday evening BBC Four once again excelled itself with one of those beautifully told stories about one of Britain's most distinctive sounding pop groups. In fact it was so refreshing and a force for good that some of us were just glad to hear it again so many years later. It was indeed just what the doctor ordered, a perfect balm to a deeply stressed out mind and soul. It was rather like one of those instantly restorative cures for the common cold, an antidote to anguish for those who are still battered and bruised.

During the late 1950s four boys from Newcastle got together and transformed the rock and roll landscape that had so characterised the decade. There was Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. And from dearest Britain there arrived the Drifters who then organically became the Shadows because somebody had told those Newcastle lads that there was one of the smoothest boy bands in America who were also called the Drifters and at the time ripping up the music charts with one record breaking hit after another.

So Hank Marvin, Bruce Welsh, Brian Bennett and Jet Harris pooled their resources, strapped those famously symbolic guitars around their necks and overnight produced one of the most original sounds from the late 1950s and 60s. As the documentary rightly pointed out there was little in the way of musical stimulus for the teenagers before the Shadows. All they had were suave crooners and smartly dressed gentlemen whose voices were more or less a direct throwback to big band wartime music and the likes of Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie.

Suddenly though, four freshly scrubbed men from the North East of England came down to London in the hope of finding pavements of gold and enduring fame. After a brief flirtation with the clubs and theatres of the capital city, Hank, Bruce, Brian and Jet, with stars in their eyes and fantasies well and truly fuelled, discovered another young, burgeoning pop singer with similar aspirations.

The Shadows were introduced to one Cliff Richard and of course the rest is pop history. It was the ultimate chemistry, pop music compatibility on the most dynamic scale. Cliff and the Shadows were meant for each other, destined to hit the heights of the vinyl record mountain. They liked the cut of each other's jib, recorded hit after hit and then appeared in one of the most life affirming films of the time.

Summer Holiday followed Cliff Richard and the Shadows on a whirlwind tour of Europe on a red London Route Master bus accompanied by Melvyn Hayes and Una Stubbs. It would prove a pivotal moment in the upward trajectory of the Shadows career. Summer Holiday propelled the Shadows onto the highest plateau of the music business, a fun loving and frivolous group of boys who just wanted to milk the teenage hysteria that their fans had generated up until that point.

But the recurring theme of the BBC Four documentary had to be those glorious guitars. There was the Fender Stratocaster and the Fiesta Red Stratocaster, classic guitars with so many variations of riffs and a versatile blend of sounds that you couldn't help but think that this would be their signature sound, a template for everything that followed.

The programme featured Apache, surely one of the band's most successful and outstanding records. Heavily influenced by a country and western vibe Apache reminded you of a classic TV edition from Bonanza. There was Wonderful Land, a typically twangy composition that sold millions, Atlantis, which would be used by the pirate radio station of the same name during the 1960s and a string of foot stomping classics that dominated the charts for varying lengths of time.

There was also a nostalgic visit to the Abbey Road studios in North West London, St John's Wood which had once played host to the phenomenally creative Beatles whose lyrics and prodigious instrumental experimentation would turn them into global superstars for the whole of the 1960s. Now it would be the turn of the Shadows to pay their own special pilgrimage to this musical shrine.

Both Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett wandered into Abbey Road as if it were some sentimental return to an old home where all the fittings, fixtures and furnishings were still there unmoved. Bennett was seen opening up one of the cupboards and although everything had undergone inevitable change some of the instruments had quite clearly brought a lump to his throat. Welch, likewise, picked up a guitar like a young boy handling his favourite football magazine or a much loved toy car from his childhood. Bennett proceeded to strum some of those familiar chords and both men were back in 1961.

Frequently, the documentary would go back to those romantic locations of old. There were those unmistakable coffee bars such as the Three Eyes in Soho, often the platform for some of the finest rock and roll anthems of all. And then there was the Shadows soft shoe shuffle, that endearing dance where Welsh, Marvin and Harris would find their firm footing on the road to the big time.Tapping their feet and then crossing them in a cute manoeuvre, this was the Shadows in perfectly synchronised harmony.

By the end of the 1960s, the Shadows were no longer fashionable, no longer the sound that the 1970s would be crying out for. The age of the rock and roll guitar belonged to some distant time when coffee bars and juke boxes were de rigeur and truly identifiable. No longer did those Teddy boys with their well groomed quiffs and girls in billowing skirts need to decorate a jam packed dance hall with their innovative dance movements.

For a while there was a brief Shadows reinvention when the Eurovision Song Contest beckoned. Now in their mid 50s, the young 1950s heart throbs had come round full circle. Still, the beat was hypnotic and the guitars as finely tuned as was ever the case. Let Me Be the One was an upbeat and bouncy number that reminded of you just the point that the 1970s had reached. It may have finished as runners up to Dutch combo Teach in with Ding A- Dong but the boys were undeterred.

It was now that the Shadows would be seen in an entirely new light. When the deeply moving film Deer Hunter required a soundtrack of some originality it was felt that something different was wanted and something that would set it apart from the standard themes of the era. With a rich outpouring of guitars, the Deer Hunter would forever be associated with the Shadows.

After another album of classic re-interpretations of old songs, the Shadows would, quite literally, retreat into a shadow of their own. Now Hank Marvin lives in Australia and has now been a resident there for over 30 years while Brian Bennett and Bruce Welsh enjoy a contented retirement, perhaps recalling that magical moment when both would accompany Cliff Richard on a double decker Route Master bus. Oh for the joys of BBC Four on a Friday night. At a time of unspeakable trauma and tragedy. this was escapism of the best quality. Catch up with this on I Player. It's a must.