The ShadowMusic Web Community

The recent thread re:- The Shadows and the Ventures and how many Venture recordings the group played on made me wonder how many members could name session guitarist I'm thinking mainly UK. There's the obvious ones - Vic Flick, Big Jim Sullivan, Ernie Shear, Judd Procter. The one's who made it it - Jimmy Page, Ritche Blackmore even dear old Bert Weedon but how many more little known can be named ? Surely they deserve there own web site. If we include the states there are the well known players - Chet Atkins ( even when his own disc were issued he still played sessions) Hank Garland, James Burton, Billy Byrd. But I feel we will be over run to include the states.

Yes, there are dozens of great American session players, including many well known jazz players, who have played on 'pop' and rock recordings.

You could add to the UK list people like Joe Moretti, Eric Ford, Brian Daley, Alan Caddy, Denny Wright, but the period spanned would need to run from Bert's and Judd's era in the 1950's through to the late '70's ? So where do you start or stop?

One amusing fact I enjoyed, and which has been divulged by both UK and US session guys, is that the use of effects units and pedals with guitars increased dramatically on most recordings from about late 60's onwards, not necessarily to get new sounds, but because the session players got paid extra session fees for each effect used!! As the legendary US session player Tommy Tedesco said 'I LOVE my pedals...every time I step on one, I make money!'