So how did you finish up playing this music again?

[OLDEREK]

I hope this thread continues , I am loving reading this, and it's goood to share with others , it wakes up a few memories from old.............Keep E'm coming ........

[dave robinson]

Oh dear, are you saying that you swear Brian . . . . . . you'll have me and Derek at it next

[OLDEREK]

Dave I have never heard you swear.............................................Since yesterday

[tonykiek]

My dad was an electronics expert in the RAAF in 1940-5 and when I was old enough to hold a soldering iron he showed me how to build a crystal set and then a valve radio. I also started piano lessons (hated it) at age 8, but when I heard the first Shads tunes on radio I was inspired to build my own amplifier, bought a second-hand Maton guitar for a few quid with my pocket money (no sweets for a year), plugged it in, and hey presto, I was Ozzie Hank. Progressing through the local high-school and dance bands in Adelaide, including a very formative version of The Vibrants (later to become The Little River Band) to playing with (a then unknown) Kevin Peek and others regularly on lead & rhythm guitar at The Old Lion Hotel which was the main music scene in Adelaide back in the 60-70's. About this time The Atlantics released Bombora and I became a surf music fanatic, and completed this lifestyle with a 12' surfboard, a woody (a car with surf board racks on the roof) and a surfie moll. It took over my life and I abjectly failed the first two years of university so my old man kicked me out and I had to get a "real" job (as an IT specialist, mainly maths & stats).

I gave all my music gear to my young brother Llew who also left home and went to live in Sydney to play in bands; he's been a pro guitar player and CD producer for the last 40 years. I never lost the passion for The Shadows or The Atlantics, and when I moved to the UK in 1992 and saw The Shadows again at the Cambridge Corn Exchange I restarted my music "career" - but this time on keyboards. When I came back to live in Oz in 2003 I joined the Sydney Shadows Club and formed the duo Stack It with Baz Woollett on lead guitar; we toured the UK in 2008, and co-opted Alan Jones on bass at a few of the gigs, after an earlier successful UK tour with George Lewis playing as the duo Turning Point. (See the OzzieTrax website at http://www.turningpointcd.com for some samples of our music.

Nowadays I play a few gigs here & there and make backing tracks "for a living" (ha ha). Cliff Hall has got some of his "old" tour keyboards waiting for me to collect in London, which I won't be able to resist, so I will have to get a bigger house for all my music stuff or else Leanne will have to move out. What would you do?

[ecca]

Tony, you're right, the solo in Living Doll was a biggie for me too.
So smooth, such polish, it still sends shivers down my back.
Ecca

[Tab]

I started to take an interest in Hank's sound after listening to 'Bongo Blues' from an Expresso Bongo EP that my cousin had and when 'Apache' was released, well, I had to have a guitar! I eventually got an 'Elbozini' spanish style guitar from a mail order catalogue and learnt three chords - A, D and E and started with most of the Buddy Holly numbers.

My mate John (Boulden) came round one day, heard these three chords and was inspired to learn himself - rotten sod went on to join a group and had a No.1 in Scandinavia (Buckleshoe Stomp, which Rapier's fans will know) and went to the USA on tour and on US television. Needless to say, I basked in his five minutes of fame!

Like many others, I stopped playing in the 60s and didn't pick up another guitar until the late 80s. I was working in Epsom Hospital (Surrey) one day and decided to walk into town to buy a tie from M&S - I didn't get past the music shop at the end of the High St and came away with a Red Fender Squier Strat - joined a 60s/70s covers band a few years later and played the music of my youth (including a few Shads numbers) for about 10 years until I injured my hand in an accident.

Re- learning to play this music helped me greatly to recover from the injury and I haven't looked back.

Incidentally, that red Squier re-kindled John's interest in playing again and he still has it hanging on his wall at home.

[Paulps]

While still at school, Nigel, his brother Clive and I, plus Don and Phil, (not THAT Don and Phil) started a group playing Shadows songs plus anything from the top ten. Phil dropped out, or was kicked out, I can't remember, then Don left and the three of us carried on as Franz Moons (I don't know where that came from) playing clubs, pubs, and anywhere we could around Manchester. We drifted away from the Shads and were playing more Jimi Hendrix and Cream stuff by 1969, when I moved to Liverpool and the band died.
On my return to Manchester I played in a band that mostly played in the Polish clubs in the area. Polkas, Obereks, Fox-trots and Waltzes were the mainstay of our repertoire, but we always had a Rock'n'Roll session when anything went. I tried to get the odd Shadows tune in, and they were generally well received.
After about 3 years of this I started working nights in a casino, so had to stop the music.
After a gap of about 15 years, while on holiday in Cornwall, my daughters put me in a talent contest, which to my surprise I won, playing a borrowed Les Paul copy. My interest in music was reignited and I started playing at home more.
Fast forward another 20 years and I met Ken (Telegraph Road) and he invited me to the Cheshire Guitar Club, where I met a number of Shads players, including Dan (Ken's son)
I now go to Derby and North Notts clubs, when fit enough, and I have tracked down Nigel and Clive, and effectivley reformed Franz Moons, just for the Shads clubs, and, with the addition of various "guest" rhythm players, we are widening our repertoire with each appearance. September 19th will see us at Derby, with Tony Spalza on rhythm.
As long as people play guitars, the Shadows music will never die, even after The Shadows are long retired.

[alanbakewell]

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I heard a bloke play a guitar. I'd never heard such a sound before. Strangely this was not Apache but Wonderful Land. I knew that I too must play this tune.
A friend of mine had a "spanish" guitar that he was selling. My Dad bought it for me and I started to pluck. I used to play a few bars of a tune on my Sister's record player and then attempt to play them back on my guitar. It was murder on the fingers. ( And my plucking thumb ). Thank goodness I discovered plectrums shortly after.
After many happy hours of plucking my spanish guitar my Mom smashed it up ther wall after I ignored whatever it was she was saying to me and carried on plucking.
Shortly after this my Dad bought home a greenish / brownish guitar which I now know was a Les Paul lookalike along with the smallest amplifier in the world. The amplifier ( or "Fred", as he came to be known ), must have put out about three watts flat out. Green it was, about the size of a transistor radio. Lord alone knows what make it was.
At the tender age of twelve I joined a group and carted Fred and the Green thing to Pye Green in Cannock to the youth club. Where we played "High Heeled Sneakers" and other such hits of the day that required only three chords. ( Just as well ).
Shortly after I got the boot from said group and a chap who knew four chords and owned a Hofner Galaxie took my place.
As I walked home, very dejected, a girl called Meryl walked with me. At the bus station we kissed for the first time. I can remember. long blond hair, lucious lips, wonderful smooth skin, a toned athletic body. Ah yes............I can't remember much about Meryl mind you.
A couple of years went by and I started work. I was approached by a chap I knew who was a drummer in a local group. He asked, "do you still play your geetar"? I told him that I did and he invited me for a try out at the youth club in Cheslyn Hay. ( Now we're talking ). They were obviously desperate for a guita.................I mean, I passed the test with flying colours. After all I now knew seven chords and could play two tunes all the way through. HAH!!!!!
It was shortly after this that I spotted the love of my life. A Harmony H77. Cherry red. A thing of beauty. 50 guineas in The Central Piano and Music Stores Walsall.
The guitar became mine. I bought a Vox AC 50 head and a couple of home made column speakers from Maconnell's Music in Cannock. ( £2.00 per week for a year ).
I played with the group for about two years until packing it in for...........I can't talk about it. It depresses me too much.
Suffice to say, if I could do it all again.............

In next weeks episode.

Ecca...........that first kiss........ and why his knee REALLY shakes rattles and rolls.

[OLDEREK]

<As I walked home, very dejected, a girl called Meryl walked with me. At the bus station we kissed for the first time. I can remember. long blond hair, lucious lips, wonderful smooth skin, a toned athletic body. Ah yes............I can't remember much about Meryl mind you.Alanbakewell



LOL........

[ScouserJoe]

The summer holidays of 1960 was when it all started for me - the sound of Apache ringing across the airwaves. The quality of my schoolwork, and that of several friends inevitably suffered in the autumn term and the years to follow as a result. Initially my parents would not allow me to have a record player or a guitar but finally relented in 1962 when I bought Wonderful Land even though I had nothing to play it on. A guitar, a Watkins Rapier 22, a Watkins Copicat and an amp soon followed, as did Merseybeat, playing in a Liverpool group, and all that it entailed until 1968. I eventually stopped playing when I got married and moved to North Wales; mountaineering and photography became the new interests in a life which now revolved around climbing throughout the UK, the European Alps and The Himalayas.

But it was a need to obtain music to accompany images in audio-visual presentations that revitalised my interest in music; it also helped to pass long cold nights in a tent on Himalayan expeditions. When I was a lad, obviously I had always wanted, but could never afford, a Stratocaster. Now in 1993, when I could afford it, my wife encourgaed me to order a Standard US model in Frost Red and to start playing again. A Vox AC30, an Age Pro Echo, the discovery of backing tracks, the Fender Custom Shop and finally this community completed the resurgent guitarist in me. What I could have done with the kit I have now back in 1962 I can only wonder.

Sadly there are no Shadows clubs anywhere near where I live; it's somewhat disappointing, but working alone often makes one work things out for oneself. I've got to know some great people through this community and I have learnt a lot from these boards. That's why I am pleased to see the site reborn in its new format and I wish it well for the future.