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Blimey! Can you believe that it's now 35 years since The Shadows 20 Golden Greats was released?!!! February 1977, if I am not mistaken!

This was the album that introduced me, as a 13 year old schoolboy, to the wonderous and timeless sound of the Shads. 35 years of pleasure they have given me and it all started with this LP. How many others, I wonder, especially those too young to have been into them the first time round, could tell a similar story?

I can even remember buying the record from the HMV store in Cambridge's Lion Yard shopping precinct and listening to it for the first time at my aunty and uncle's house out in Harston. And I have never looked back since.

The funny thing is, I also remember that virtually 'everyone' I knew at the time also bought the album - and remember we were all 13 or under at the time! Amazing. I would literally hear it playing in the background sometimes when I rang people up! It crossed a lot of barriers and I'm sure that, like me, plenty of people still have their albeit slightly scratched copies of the record now - and still play it!

So Happy Birthday 20 Golden Greats. And thanks for setting the ball rolling for this particular fan.

This is also my story.... In 1977, I was also 13 when my late brother Kevin gave me the gift of music when he gave me this album... I have never had a guitar lesson in my life - instead learning to play this record from top to tail in under 6 months, on a second hand jumbo acoustic guitar from Exchange and Mart - so inspired by its magic...then and now. I still have that album - and thank my brother everytime I pick up an instrument and play it...

A great post....

Tony

Snap!,
Well almost, I was 14 and although I had been a Shadows fan since about the age of 5, "Twenty Golden Greats" almost made it acceptable to be a Shadows fanatic. Strangely the three least known tracks, Maroc 7, The Warlord and A Place in the Sun immediately became perhaps my top three Shadows tracks and remain so to this day. 35 years ago?, no it was only yesterday or at least it seems like that.
Does anyone remember the inner sleeve advertising four other Shadows Lp's ? and the recently released Shadows "Rarities", great marketing ploy as you just have to have it don't you? and that how it has been ever since. If they never record again, it has been simply wonderful.

Likewise Gents. This was the first Shadows album I ever bought and owned outright, rather than just nipping downstairs and 'claiming' them out of my Dad's collection. I was 10 that year and got my first real guitar for my birthday after driving my parents mad for around 6 months, hogging the mirror with my air guitar.

Hopefully I've sussed out the image uploading so I can share this related press release with you...

Great stuff Jayne, well done !

captainhaddock wrote:Does anyone remember the inner sleeve advertising four other Shadows Lp's ? and the recently released Shadows "Rarities", great marketing ploy as you just have to have it don't you? and that how it has been ever since. If they never record again, it has been simply wonderful.

Just checked, and there were 6 other albums advertised on the sleeve: The Sound of The Shadows, Rockin' With Curly Leads, Rarities, Specs Appeal, Live at the Paris Olympia, & Somethin' Else!!

Must have been a good year for 13 year olds. Count me in that number too

Great post. Jayne - thanks for the press release - I don't believe I've ever seen that before. Excellent. I was (gulp!) 24 back then. Although I had just about everything that the Shads had released - I simply had to buy "20 G Greats" (possibly from Hickies in Reading). I've always been a fan of stereo recordings and "20 G G" contained a few 'first time' stereos. More than anything, of course, its fantastic success on the LP charts prompted the Shads to reform 'properly' and commence touring once again. Happy days indeed.

Rob

drakula63 wrote:Blimey! Can you believe that it's now 35 years since The Shadows 20 Golden Greats was released?!!! February 1977, if I am not mistaken!

Being a little older, I had bought all the Shadows albums betwen the first one in 1961 and "From Hank, Bruce, Brian & John" in 1967, but didn't bought anymore until the "20 Golden Greats" which put me back on the Shadows' music...

Didier

I was also 10 when this came out .... although I'd played the 7" version of Apache to death since I was about 6 years old and that was the track, like so many people before, that got me hooked ..... But 20 GG was the first time all of those great tracks were packaged in one album. By the time String of Hits was released two years later I had a guitar in hand and there was no stopping me ........... Happy days

Thanks everyone!

The press release looks great! Nice one.

Yes, that inner sleeve marketing ploy worked in my case - as I started my Shads collection with those albums! I have a feeling that Rarities and Somethin' Else were the first on my birthday 1977! Tasty Followed at Christmas! What memories...