The ShadowMusic Web Community

Hi Everyone,
"Rockin' With Curly Leads" was, of course, the great Shadows' 'comeback' LP from late 1973. The bulk of rehearsals took place over the course of a fortnight during February 1973 at a scout hut in Finchley. Shortly before they went into Abbey Road to formally record the tracks they were only referring to them by numbers (eg "Jungle Jam" started out life as #8). During my recent 'trawl' through hundreds of pages of EMI documentation, I accidentally stumbled across some 'new' info from just over 40 years ago! Firstly, I can now let Shads fans know that most (if not all) of the tracks were laid down at Abbey Road on March 8th, March 22nd and March 23rd, 1973. The main reason why comparatively little EMI studio time was required was that the tracks were written and thoroughly rehearsed during the aforementioned intensive fortnight. It transpired that all 10 original compositions on the LP now had definite working titles (instead of numbers). So....Shads fans....here they are!!

"Duane Eddy" / "Mover" / "The Groovy One" / "T Rex" / "Crazy Otto" / "The Spanish One" / "John's Slow One" / "The Em One" / "Stevie Wonder" / "Melodic Slow"

Now....how about some educated guesswork? How do these titles relate to: "Years Away" / "Humbucker" / "Deep Roots" / "Jungle Jam" / "Gracie" / "T A A T Me" / "Wide Mouthed Frog" / "Rockin' With Curly Leads" / "Gutbucket" / "Jumpin' Jack Input"

Privately, I've had a go and come up with my own pairings - purely based on 50+ yrs of following the Shads & their career & 'intuition'!! At some point I may pluck up courage and ask Bruce and Brian if they can remember - even though it was 40 years ago now!! If anyone reading this has any way of passing it on directly to Hank, Bruce, Brian - or even John Farrar -then please feel free. Deep within the recesses of my mind I have a very vague and distant memory of "Stevie Wonder" and "Crazy Otto" being referred to in an interview (or am I suffering from delusional False Memory Syndrome?). If anyone else has 'insider knowledge' or memories / info (Stuart? Malcolm? George? Jim? etc) - then please do fill in any gaps. Meanwhile - Shadowmusic fans....feel free to submit your own pairings! All part of the fun.

Rob

Initially replying to my own post. I think that any refs to "Crazy Otto" will be more to do with Creedence Clearwater Revival's late 1960s bluesy workout rather than the 1950s 'Ragtime Revival' artist of that name.

Rob

I do remember reading in one of the Dynamite International Cliff Richard & The Shadows bi-monthly magazine issues of 1973, about two working titles of two of the originals. "Crazy Otto" was one of them and the other, I think, was "Number 8". In a later issue of that year, the definite titles of those two working titles were revealed. I can't remember them, so I will look them up.

Thanks Ivo. #8 became "Jungle Jam" - but it was obviously given a title shortly before the Shads entered the studios. For example (& I only know this because it's noted down) - #5 became "Melodic Slow" and "Crazy Otto" was previously #7. As "Crazy Otto" was likely influenced by CCR - I wonder (& I know that a certain Sir James Of Nugent agrees - I accept his learned decision / opinion) if that one became "Rockin' With Curly Leads" itself???

Rob

Arpeggio wrote:Hi Everyone,
"Rockin' With Curly Leads" was, of course, the great Shadows' 'comeback' LP from late 1973. The bulk of rehearsals took place over the course of a fortnight during February 1973 at a scout hut in Finchley. Shortly before they went into Abbey Road to formally record the tracks they were only referring to them by numbers (eg "Jungle Jam" started out life as #8). During my recent 'trawl' through hundreds of pages of EMI documentation, I accidentally stumbled across some 'new' info from just over 40 years ago! Firstly, I can now let Shads fans know that most (if not all) of the tracks were laid down at Abbey Road on March 8th, March 22nd and March 23rd, 1973. The main reason why comparatively little EMI studio time was required was that the tracks were written and thoroughly rehearsed during the aforementioned intensive fortnight. It transpired that all 10 original compositions on the LP now had definite working titles (instead of numbers). So....Shads fans....here they are!!

"Duane Eddy" / "Mover" / "The Groovy One" / "T Rex" / "Crazy Otto" / "The Spanish One" / "John's Slow One" / "The Em One" / "Stevie Wonder" / "Melodic Slow"

Now....how about some educated guesswork? How do these titles relate to: "Years Away" / "Humbucker" / "Deep Roots" / "Jungle Jam" / "Gracie" / "T A A T Me" / "Wide Mouthed Frog" / "Rockin' With Curly Leads" / "Gutbucket" / "Jumpin' Jack Input"

Privately, I've had a go and come up with my own pairings - purely based on 50+ yrs of following the Shads & their career & 'intuition'!! At some point I may pluck up courage and ask Bruce and Brian if they can remember - even though it was 40 years ago now!! If anyone reading this has any way of passing it on directly to Hank, Bruce, Brian - or even John Farrar -then please feel free. Deep within the recesses of my mind I have a very vague and distant memory of "Stevie Wonder" and "Crazy Otto" being referred to in an interview (or am I suffering from delusional False Memory Syndrome?). If anyone else has 'insider knowledge' or memories / info (Stuart? Malcolm? George? Jim? etc) - then please do fill in any gaps. Meanwhile - Shadowmusic fans....feel free to submit your own pairings! All part of the fun.

Rob

Very, VERY interesting revelation! Thanks! I shall endeavour to mention some of these titles in an article I am writing. RWCL has long been my absolute favourite Shadows album and I love discovering new snippets of information about it.

Hi Rob,

Cool thread! My guess is that "John's Slow One" is "Years Away" which was previously known as "John and Mary" when released by John Farrar as a single before he moved to the UK.

I did talk to John extensively about the making of this album and also Specs Appeal but I am almost certain that he would not remember any of the working titles! At one point during our discussion of "the old days" as he called them, John said, "I'm sorry, but I suffer from the dreaded CRS - Can't Remember Shit!"

As you indicated, Stuart Duffy is usually a great resource for this kind of information.

Andrew

Many thanks Andrew. Well.....please do feel free to pass the info onto John....if only for interest!! Who knows....reading the titles may stir something in his memory banks!! I agree refs: "John's Slow One" being "Years Away". Jim Nugent agrees too. There was another clue as the working title had ('D') attached to it. Jim confirms that "Years Away" definitely kicks off in the key of D. Glad that the 'new' old info is generating a little bit of interest.

Bests....Rob

HI

I'd have thought the 'Duane Eddy' title would have been for Deep Roots. I was at Abbey Road the day they recorded Years Away but don't remember any titles being discussed at all. Apart from Years Away, they also worked on Rockin with Curly Leads and Wide Mouthed Frog on that but no titles were discussed. Hank and John were at Wakefield Theatre Club sometime after this, before the album was released and the when the title track was discussed, Olivia Newton John, who was there with Pat Farrar, asked "Who is Curly Leads"!!!

Regards

Stuart

Thanks Stuart,
Well.....you were there on the day & no references to any potential titles! Agree 100% (as does Jim Nugent) that "Duane Eddy" simply has to be "Deep Roots". We're edging closer!! Love the Olivia comment. Completely irrelevant, but you might like it - some years ago the choir I sang with were working on a choral arrangement of one of Elgar's orchestral "Enigma Variations". The arranger decided to title it "Lux Aeterna". A late - coming fellow tenor settled into his place and searched for his music. "What's this piece", he said, "it sounds familiar". "Lux Aeterna - Elgar", I replied. "Lucy Turner?", my friend replied. "Lucy Turner? I'm a bit of an expert on Elgar's life. He never had anything to do with a woman called Lucy Turner". You couldn't make it up!

Rob

Quite a few years ago now - respected fans (& so much more!) / experts Dave Herbert and Tony 'Hoffers' Hoffman spent quite a long time delving into the EMI written archives both at Manchester Square and Hayes. At the time, the idea was to compile abook about the Shadows' complete EMI recording session. It would have been along similar lines to Mark Lewisohn's book on the Beatles' sessions and Peter Lewry / Nigel Goodall's Cliff Richard sessions. Peter Vince himself gave Dave & Tony quite a lot of help. Unlike the authors of Cliff & the Beatles however, our intrepid researchers were not allowed access to the tape archives. So...they diligently ploughed through just about every bit of available documentation in existence - as well as being allowed to 'Photocopy At Will'. Session logs / sheets, index cards, letters, some copies (paper) of tape boxes etc., etc.

It's too long a saga to go into here, but the results of their researches remains largely unpublished - for reasons about which you will simply have to ask Dave or Tony yourselves. But anyway -they have amassed an enormous amount of data. Others have also visited EMI (many years ago) and found some parts of the 'archive' missing and much of it in a state of disarray.

To cut to the chase: I had a very welcome 'phone call from Dave Herbert this morning - refs: "R W Curly Leads". Dave does not have a computer and, generally speaking, has little or nothing to do with the Internet. Nothing wrong with that at all. But....someone had either shown him (or printed off) my recent "R W C Leads" thread & replies. We had a long and genial chat. Dave was puzzled about my statement that 3 tracks were laid down at Abbey Road on March 8th, 1973 as he has no record of anything before March 19th, 1973. I could only tell him about the documentation that I'd been shown - which has a date of March 8th for the first three tracks. Dave is a lovely, friendly guy. He simply pointed out that all of his data had been taken directly from the actual session sheets (& he and Tony had been through them ALL) and original card indexes. I told him that mine (now computerised, hence chance for errors when re - compiling information), I think was from the EMI tape logs. Aha! Tony seemed relieved. What I've been shown (he believes) is a digital 'comp' of tape logs / 'Red Forms'. Again, to cut a long story short - Dave confirmed that both He & Tony noted that mistakes often crept in between the session data & tape logs / Red Form stages. Moreover (& I'm sure that this is where many of the 'gaffes' I found came from) Tony recalled Peter Vince bemoaning the mess that one particular firm made when hired by EMI to transfer a lot of data from the old hand - written (or typed in the 60s) forms and cards. One effort was so bad and full of mistakes, that everything had to be done again. So....it seems that (somehow), March 8th is some kind of very bad dating error. But....he then went on to tell a whole lot of fascinating info. So, many thanks Dave. The information I looked at was at least partly correct. Now (thanks to Dave) we can have chapter and verse!

The basic tracks (simply referred to as #1 - #12 - which included Pinball Wizard (#11!) and "Good Vibrations" (#12) - were ALL recorded between 19 / 3 / 1973 and 24 / 3 / 1973. The Shads then took a break. Much re - mixing, overdubbing, 'reductions' etc was undertaken between May 16th and May 21st. The master tracks were finally 'compiled' ready for release on September 18th, 1973. It would seem that the 10 working titles were in place by May. Mystery solved!! Dave reveals all!!!! Thanks Dave.

#1 "T Rex" = "Rockin' With Curly Leads"
#2 "The Groovy One" = "Wide Mouthed Frog"
#3 "Duane Eddy" = "Deep Roots"
#4 "Mover" = "Humbucker"
#5 "Melodic Slow" = "Turn Around & Touch Me"
#6 "The Fast One" / "Creamy One" = "Jumpin' Jack Input" (formerly "The Em One")
#7 "Crazy Otto" = "Gracie"" (NB: also referred to as "Crazy Otter" - then simply "Otter"!)
#8 "The Spanish One" = "Jungle Jam"
#9 "Stevie Wonder" = "Gutbucket"
#10 "John's Slow One" = "Years Away"
#11 "Pinball Wizard"
#12 "Good Vibrations"

Rob