The ShadowMusic Web Community

There have been several interviews with Hank recently on local radio stations - you can find them by searching 'Hank Marvin' on the iplayer...might be worth a listen. A few snippets of info amongst the usual chat: Hank wants to issue a DVD of his final tour in 2002 "for the hardcore fans" from a video which Dave Hawley shot. Also he says he wasn't a fan of The Ventures sound - in answer to a question..."Did you copy The Ventures?" He felt the Jet/Tony rhythm section was much better. I wouldn't argue with that!

Would love to have that video!

Moderne wrote: ... he says he wasn't a fan of The Ventures sound - in answer to a question..."Did you copy The Ventures?" He felt the Jet/Tony rhythm section was much better. I wouldn't argue with that!

Neither would I. I always felt that, although some of the Ventures output was musically more adventurous than the Shadows, they just didn't have the sound. I don't remember ever hearing any sort of echo on a Ventures tune, nor much reverb either. (I always thought surf music was supposed to be drowned in reverb!)

Also the sound of those Mosrites was pretty dire wasn't it!?

Uncle Fiesta wrote:

Moderne wrote: ... he says he wasn't a fan of The Ventures sound - in answer to a question..."Did you copy The Ventures?" He felt the Jet/Tony rhythm section was much better. I wouldn't argue with that!

Neither would I. I always felt that, although some of the Ventures output was musically more adventurous than the Shadows, they just didn't have the sound. I don't remember ever hearing any sort of echo on a Ventures tune, nor much reverb either. (I always thought surf music was supposed to be drowned in reverb!)

Also the sound of those Mosrites was pretty dire wasn't it!?

I'm sorry, but I can't let that go unchallenged!

I have always enjoyed a lot of The Ventures material...OK, they are NOT The Shadows, similar type of group, but different , with their own style and sound..and considering the history of guitar instrumental groups, it was inevitable in my opinion that they sometimes played their versions of the same tunes..

Let's not dismiss them out of hand for their musicianship either...you may not like them or you may believe that The Shadows were far superior, but to me, that doesn't mean that the Ventures are crap...

Regarding their sound, OK , their early stuff was pretty dry and raw sounding at times, compared to the better produced and recorded Shads stuff, but it always seemed to me that about the time The Shadows started to wane in general popularity (mid 60's) the Ventures kept going and produced some good exciting interesting and well played tunes..with improved production..things like Slaughter on 10th Avenue, Rap City, Hawaii-50 etc..which are just as exciting and good to play or listen to as the superb early Shads material was , but in their own (Ventures)right...

Regarding the Mosrite sound era, to my ears, it seemed to start when Nokie took over on lead from Bob Bogle- and I thought that sound was great! Quite full, raunchy and individual...just as The Shads Burns era produced different sounds...and both groups stopped using Fenders around 1964 or so.!

I still love BOTH groups- both Hank and Nokie are still favorites with me!..(although I prefer Bruce to Don Wilson and Jet/Licorice/John Rostill and Tony Meehan and BB all were better than the Ventures various counterparts IMHO..)

I'm sorry if I seem to have given you the wrong impression John!

No I DO like the Ventures, their musicianship, their arrangements and more or less everything else about them, it was just their dry lifeless guitar sound that didn't enamour me, particularly the Mosrites, which Nokie once said would "distort as soon as you looked at them."

I have loads of Ventures albums, which I never tire of listening to, and there are many of their tunes I would love to play. In fact I'm about to start recording a backing track for Driving Guitars any day now.

It was just that, for me, the Shadows always had the 'edge.'

(In the same way that others prefer the Beatles or the Stones I suppose, but still like both of them.)

No worries Steve!

I think their Mosrite sound was appealing to me back then (and still now!) because it wasn't as clean and pure as Hank's sound, but still exciting in it's own way...always been a bit of a fan of a few rough edges, me!

Of course, a short while after I enjoyed the mid '60's Ventures stuff, all you ever heard (and still do) was overdriven guitar sounds...which I generally avoid these days!

Funny you should say that, I too have gone off a lot of the distorted stuff over the last few years ... perhaps it's something to do with the ears getting older.

The Shadows and The Ventures are very diffrent .....becuase the shads played on all there own records....it's well known lots of recordings of The Ventures are played by session players because they were on tour or otherwise ocupied....


Cheers Rob

This would seem to be a long running discussion, The Shadows had hit records in this country before The Ventures but they have had at least three different lead guitarists also they went for quantity instead of quality .The reason The Shadows never made it in America is that they had groups doing the same type of material .

This is true, in the States there were many instrumental groups but here we only ever had the Shads. No-one else got a look in, although several tried.