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Great quality! Nice to see this again and looking and sounding so good...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ozOF8XQVg

I agree, a great song. Also featured on a very good album.

Such a great song, such great harmonies. I always thought it was a shame that Bruce didn't pull this one out of the archives for Shadowmania, but I seem to remember someone here saying that he didn't have great memories of recording it so it wasn't one of his favourites? What a pity. I always consider a very "Bruce" song.

I agree with all the above.

Guardian Angel has always been one of my favourite Shads albums and this thread prompted me to listen to it again - via headphones, which I hadn't done before. It was a revelation to hear in detail how much is going on, which brought home how far the Shads' work had evolved since the early singles and albums. Not that I'm decrying the latter because they will always have that simple raw magic. But Guardian Angel is full of complex arrangements and is well produced and engineered, Not to mention the superb musicianship!

As well as OANLT, I particularly like Our Albert, Johnny Staccato, I Will Return, How Do I Love Thee, Turning Point and Guardian Angel itself (despite it being somewhat creepy and unsettling), all of which are good demonstrations of the above qualities, and I'm surprised that the album didn't sell in much larger numbers.

Apologies for veering slightly off topic.

Cheers.

Tony

Tone wrote:I agree with all the above.

Guardian Angel has always been one of my favourite Shads albums and this thread prompted me to listen to it again - via headphones, which I hadn't done before. It was a revelation to hear in detail how much is going on, which brought home how far the Shads' work had evolved since the early singles and albums. Not that I'm decrying the latter because they will always have that simple raw magic. But Guardian Angel is full of complex arrangements and is well produced and engineered, Not to mention the superb musicianship!

As well as OANLT, I particularly like Our Albert, Johnny Staccato, I Will Return, How Do I Love Thee, Turning Point and Guardian Angel itself (despite it being somewhat creepy and unsettling), all of which are good demonstrations of the above qualities, and I'm surprised that the album didn't sell in much larger numbers.

Apologies for veering slightly off topic.

Cheers.

Tony

Strangely, for an album of 'original' numbers, I wasn't that impressed with Guardian Angel when I got it back in 84. Having said that, I always liked 'Turning Point' and 'On a Night Like This'. The title track always sounded too much like Dire Straits to me.

Regarding Bruce not having great memories of recording 'On a Night Like This', I take it this means that he didn't enjoy the process of recording it, rather than he didn't remember it? If the former then I can understand this to a degree, as it was produced by Shakin' Stevens' producer (Stuart Colman) and I could well imagine Bruce and he having some 'musical differences' in the control room!

I'd say that Guardian Angel was probably their last really good album (i think anyway). It's a shame it didn't sell better as they went back to covers for the remainder of their career.

What I find interesting, is that in each of The Shadows' three 'main' decades, they released an album of mainly original material (their own compositions and compositions by others but first recorded by the group):
- "Shadow Music" from 1966: 12 out of 14 tracks (7 group compositions, 4 by others and 1 arrangement by Norrie Paramor of a classical piece).
- "Rockin' With Curly Leads" from 1973: 10 out of 12 tracks (10 group compositions).
- "Guardian Angel" from 1984: 10 out of 11 tracks (4 group compositions and 6 by others).

In my opinion, all of these are very versatile and sometimes experimental, which I really appreciate.