Just watching their final concert from 2004 on sky arts. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go out and buy their greatest hits. They were of their time, and the age of the audience backs that up. Their music is very tame, but the drummer just banged out a belting solo, and owd Hank Marvin is doubtlessly much more capable than their music allows. It's as if he's holding back. A perfect example of a band attracting a fan base and then catering for them as they get older. Not my cup of tea, but doing what they're comfortable with and never moving away from the stuff that made them famous.
As a young lad my family used to have two weeks in Bournemouth every year. My cousins then fiancée worked at the Winter Gardens and could therefore get us complimentary tickets. I recall seeing Cliff Richard and the Shadows during our first week and they were very good. Second week we saw Marty Wilde and the Wildcats and their lead guitarist seemed to be more accomplished than Hank Marvin to me. After the show we got their autographs and they asked my cousin who is Poole born and bred if he could recommend a local beach where they could swim the following day. Our family has a beach hut at Branksome Chine and he recommended Branksome so we were surprised when Marty his very heavily pregnant wife and the Band turned up. It was only some years later, we realised that the baby Marty and his missus were anticipating was of course Kim Wilde who became famous in her own right. Remember playing cricket on the beach with Marty and his group. They came across as very normal down to earth lads who enjoyed what they were doing. One of the guitarists Brian Licorice Locking joined the Shadows when Jet Harris left the band.
Best version of Apache. Shadows were a decent band & deserve their place in musical history, this is on another level though.
Brilliant band. Hank Marvin was ahead of his time. A lot of guitarists learn a lot about their instruments through learning Shadows tunes.
They were good at what they did, but Hank picking out the tunes and accompanied by a benign rhythm guitarist was dialling it in, to some extent. But it was popular. Just as Status Quo did largely easy-to-play stuff which went down incredibly well. In my playing days in local clubs we included some Shadows and many Quo numbers. It always went down a storm. Anything more adventurous and we didn't quite hold the audience the same! Good days, though.
That's the version sampled by the hip-hop artists (in the main). Think I have this somewhere with mucky finger marks all over it from when I thought I could be the white Grandmaster Flash.
My Dad was in a band back in the day. They played a couple of gigs in the Ryhill area. He won't tell me name of group. Just that he played with Chris, Sal and Em. Won't give names just says he played bass. Probably four spotty teenagers in a shed
Yeah, Apache is one of a few singles I can remember my parents playing when I was a young kid. My mam and dad were teenagers in the 50s, so had a mixture of stuff from 50s and 60's . Apache was definitely one along with Barbara Ann and Hound dog by the Beach Boys and Elvis - could even have been 78s.
