Hank in "International Musician", April 1982

[JimN]

Another garage find - this one rescued from dissolving in the damp lower reaches of a waterlogged tea-chest.

Here is the full text of an interview with Hank around the time of the "Words And Music" LP, and his recent acquisition of a FR 1958 Stratocaster from Patrice Bastien in Paris.

The article starts here:

A FACT WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE escaped the Press's notice is that Hank Marvin still looks almost as young as his one-time boss Cliff Richard! A genuinely modest, friendly and unassuming guy, Hank is inclined to play down the 'first-ever British guitar hero' tag. Yet there's not much doubt that, without Hank, Bruce Welch, and the other Shadows, British Rock music would sound very different.

In the late Fifties and early Sixties, when the Claptons, Becks and Pages were music-hungry schoolboys, there was only one guitar idol, and that was Hank. The spectacles, the Stratocaster, the silver-grey suits, the co-ordinated dance steps to make the girls scream, and above all that clean, clear, unmistakeable Shadows sound influenced a whole generation of Rock guitarists. EMI's advertising agents got it exactly right when they devised that wonderful TV commercial for the 20 Golden Greats album featuring the teenager and his cricket bat! Long before the headbangers started to play imaginary guitars, thousands of budding Marvins must have painfully picked out Apache, Wonderful Land, FBI, The Savage and all the rest, on four pound acoustic guitars in the privacy of their own bedrooms!

Ironically enough, this most British of guitar players says he started off wanting to sound American. "In Britain in the Fifties, all the top session players were basically Jazz musicians, using Jazz licks and Jazz phrasing," he explained. "If you listen to the guitar on Tommy Steele's records and compare it with Elvis' or Ricky Nelson's, you'll hear the difference. The people who influenced me were nearly all American. When I started listening to Rock 'n' Roll records the people I liked were Buddy Holly, James Burton, Cliff Gallup, who played with Gene Vincent, and Elvis's guitar player Scotty Moore."

Originally, in fact, Hank wasn't a Rock fan at all.

"It was that bad influence Bruce Welch who got me listening to Rock 'n' Roll hits," he said. "Before that I was really into skiffle and Folk Blues, people like Ledbelly and Big Bill Broonzy. In '57 and '58 we played in a skiffle group around the local clubs and halls in the Newcastle area. One night we were booked with a Rock 'n' Roll group and they didn't turn up, so we decided to play a Rock 'n' Roll set ourselves. We did a quick rehearsal at the back and then went on! It wasn't too difficult because most of those old songs like Blue Suede Shoes were 12-bars, so rehearsing was just a matter of picking a suitable key and deciding when to stop! But it was that, plus listening to American records, that fired my enthusiasm.

"In the States, white Rock 'n' Roll grew from the fusion of Country music with Blues. English musicians just didn't seem to be able to get that twangy sound, bending notes and so on. I wanted to sound like all those people and my style evolved as a sort of hybrid of theirs." Hank can still remember himself and Bruce Welch gazing longingly at the cover of a Buddy Holly and the Crickets LP in the window of a record shop in their home town of Newcastle, and wondering why American guitars sounded so different? One very obvious reason was that the instruments themselves weren't available in this country. "I always wanted a Fender Stratocaster like Buddy Holly's simply because it looked so magnificent," said Hank. "I didn't even know it was called a Stratocaster in those days. Because of import regulations or something, you just couldn't get them.

"My first ever guitar, the one I used in the skiffle group, was a Hofner Congress my Dad bought me. It was a cello-bodied acoustic with a cheap pickup that you could buy that screwed into the end of the neck. I had a small, virtually home-made amp and hey presto, an electric guitar! The trouble was that having the pickup by the bridge made it sound mellow, and I couldn't get the sound I wanted. Then a singer joined our group who had a Vega guitar, and I bought it off him. That had a lovely clangy, early Rock 'n' Roll sound, and I was still using it when I joined Cliff." At the beginning of his career, when The Shadows were still known as The Drifters and had begun backing Cliff as well as making their own singles, Hank picked up another guitar.

"I used a Japanese guitar called an Antoria on our very early records," he told me.

"I saw it in a shop and it had the tuning pegs all down one side just like the American ones, but it didn't look much like a Fender, more like a small Les Paul. I used that on our first two singles, Fee/in' Fine and Jet Black but it was quite hard to play. I think it had a bent neck, because the action was high at one end, low in the middle, and high again at the other end!

"That was when Cliff sent to the United States for my first Flamingo Pink Stratocaster, with a maple neck and gold-plated hardware. It was fantastic, and because it was their most expensive model, we were sure it must be the one James Burton used, until we found he played a battered old Telecaster!

"At that time I got my first echo box, as recommended by Joe Brown, who actually didn't like them, but I found that I did. That, plus a Vox amp, became The Shadows sound. I used the pink Strat on our next single, Saturday Dance and on Cliff's first album. I really loved that guitar. No one had ever seen anything like it, it looked like something from outer space. I used to go and sit in in London clubs with it, just to be flash!"

In those days, pop groups spent a lot more time on the road and a lot less in the studio than they do today.

"You would do the major British cities three or four times a year, plus the smaller towns that people don't play now," said Hank. "At one of our gigs in Spring 1960 we met a singer-songwriter called Jerry Lordan who sang us a tune he'd written called Apache. We thought it was tremendous and really original. Norrie Paramor at EMI liked it too, so we recorded it."

The rest, as they say, is history! Hank gave his prized pink Stratocaster back to Cliff at the end of 1961. At that time the import restrictions on American guitars were lifted, Vox became the agents for Fender guitars, and The Shadows became the proud owners of matching red guitars and a red bass!

"Those were the days of uniformity," laughed Hank. "I used mine till the end of '63; it was basically the same as the first one but with a Rosewood fingerboard. I always felt it was hard to tune, though. I wondered if Jimmy Burns could make me a Burns guitar with a Strat sound and a similar look, and between us we came up with the Burns Marvin which I played until 1970 when I had a number of guitars stolen."

Hank then bought a 1970 black Strat which he still has, and played that until he recently unearthed another 1958 Flamingo Pink Strat in a Paris music store!

"I love it, it has a lovely warm sound," he enthused. "I would like to have it re-sprayed but they tell me it would be worth less if I did, which I can't really understand. It should be like putting a vintage Rolls into concourse condition — but anyway, I haven't the slightest intention of selling it! I do have another old Strat, a '57 Sunburst model I got from Tony Hicks of The Hollies who told me it was the best Strat in the world!"

Hank says he has never been one to modify his guitars very much. "I did mess around with the black one. I put a couple of humbuckers on it at one point to get a different sound, and then after a couple of years I fitted DiMarzios instead, but I found they were inclined to distort a little and I wasn't getting the clean sound I had got with Strat pickups. That guitar also has two switches to give me any combination of pickups, and different machineheads, but the '58 Strat I'm using now, I haven't touched." Basically Hank is a greater player rather than a guitar collector and he says that he uses most of the guitars he owns — if not on stage, where he prefers to stick to a Strat, then in the studio.

"I have also got a Gibson Firebird, a Burns 12 string and a Burns Double 6 which is a very unusual instrument," he said. "I liked the idea of being able to play guitar and bass together, so it's strung like a 12 string, only with bass strings. It has a very meaty sound for solos, though you can't play chords on it.

"I've also got a Griffin, which is interesting. It has two Gibson De Luxe humbucker pickups and lovely sustain. It's very resonant with a nice tone range. I used it on Life-line the B-side of my Don't Talk single because it makes me sound more fluid. But I mostly use my Strats unless I want a special sound."

Right from the early days Hank preferred melodic, fluid, lyrical styles rather than guitar pyrotechnics which he is inclined to dismiss as "repetitious licks that just go on and on!" When I suggested that the concept of the guitar solo barely existed when he began to play, he politely but firmly disagreed.

"Somewhere in the middle of most late 50s pop records, there was an instrumental break," he pointed out. "With early Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis or The Crickets, on those three minute pop singles, there would always be one verse which the guitar or piano would take as a solo. There weren't any extended guitar solos, it's true, because of the three-minute length limitation, right up until the late 60s. Personally, I think that few guitar players can really cope with an extended solo. In my opinion the playing of someone like James Burton on those early Ricky Nelson hits has never been surpassed. His solos may only have lasted a few seconds, but they were pure gems! His sound and style was totally original, and that's important on a pop record. On Cliff's early records, all my solos were improvised in the studio. When we recorded as The Shadows, obviously I had to keep to the tune, but there were some improvised sections as well."

Like most aspiring guitarists, today as well as in the Fifties, Hank actually learned to play by listening to records.

"I did have some piano lessons when I was ten, and learned to read music, but I was more interested in playing football than practising, so I soon forgot what I'd learned," he said.

"Most pop records in the Fifties had very simple chord sequences, so it was easy to work them out. I enjoyed picking out the melodies of songs as much as learning the chords, and I tried to learn solos too."

Even today Hank still practises and says that he knows he still has a lot to learn about guitar playing!

"I practise rather spasmodically, especially when I'm working live," he said. "I try to do half an hour or an hour every day and I can feel the difference in my playing when I do! I still hear other good players and think hmm, I wonder how he did that? I enjoy learning. The players I admire are often American session men like Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, who are very fine players, very creative and lyrical. I got a sampler album from an American guitar magazine which had two tracks by Lee Ritenour that really impressed me. Of the newer guitarists, well, who is there? Not many names spring to mind at the moment! I do find Mark Knopfler very easy to listen to. He has a nice tone and a distinctive sound, and he doesn't try to blast your ears off!

"One of the most difficult things for any guitarist is developing your own style and an identifiable sound. Most players sound pretty much the same to me! I'm happy with the sound I get, because I feel it's distinctive and what people expect from me — which is why I don't experiment all that much with effects and equipment, at least for live work."
The Shadows do still tour extensively and are planning a series of British dates in the autumn. Hank says that they consider they are travelling light by today's standards with just one artic for their lights, sound and equipment!

"We always hire our PA for tours and we're basically quite a small set-up — two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards. We use a Polymoog or a Yamaha CS 80, an Arp Pro Soloist and that's it. My own normal gear is just the Strat, Vox amp, echo box and a Morley volume pedal which I use particularly on the slower numbers. I find it gives a singing sound and takes away the percussive effect of the pick striking the strings. I take digital delay along too, so we can use ADT for the vocals.

"People today do expect more from a show. You need dramatic lighting and a good sound balance because precedents have been set and anything less than that looks cheapskate!"

As well as his work with The Shadows, Hank has recently been concentrating on a solo album, Words and Music released by Polydor in February. This is the first time he has made an album with the emphasis on songs rather than instrumentals, and it was recorded in his home studio just outside London.

"I did an instrumental album in '69 when The Shadows first split up," he said, "and a few years ago I did another one with guitar and orchestra. I thought of doing another of those but my former manager suggested I write some songs instead, and I thought, why not? There is one instrumental track, but the rest are all songs I wrote myself with Brian Bennett, Terry Britten, and my brother Joe who isn't a professional musician, though he's a good drummer!"

Hank isn't planning to put together a band or tour as a solo artist, though he says he might try to persuade the rest of The Shadows to include one or two of the numbers in their set!

"Audiences are receptive to new material — within reason," he said. "Any group with a string of successes behind them is expected to play a fair number of them on stage. That's why the people are there in the first place! We did have a problem with Marvin, Welch and Farrar in the early 70s, but we later found that if we mixed newer material with the big Shadows' numbers it went down very well."

The new album is an extension of Hank's work with Marvin, Welch and Farrar, he thinks.

"It has quite a heavy beat and lots of harmonies, but it's not Heavy Metal, no thanks!" he said hastily. "The people at the record company made a few wild guesses as to who it was. Robert Palmer was one name mentioned. It's always interesting to do something new!"

Finally I asked Hank if he thought things were easier for a young guitar player trying to break into the music business in 1982 than they were back in 1958.

"I think it's a swings and roundabouts situation; there are advantages and disadvantages," he said with a smile. "You have to remember that in the late 50s there was no group scene as such. Record companies just weren't interested in signing up groups, though a few did get signed after we made it! The height of any guitarist's ambition in those days was to get a job backing a singer, as I did, or else learn to read music and earn your living as a session player. Guitarists today have a lot more opportunity to form bands and play their own music.

"Also there are a lot more record labels and a lot more releases than there used to be, so bands are in with a chance that someone will like them. When we started, our big advantage was that there wasn't anything like as much competition for young guitar players as there is today.

"There's just a lot more music around now! Pop has borrowed from other forms of music so you get such things as Jazz-Rock and Latin rhythms — and Jazz has re-borrowed from Rock, too! Some of today's pop records are made by very sophisticated and fine musicians and some are still as disposable as a can of beans! "I like all the variety. It really appeals to me. We have people like Shakin' Stevens making real Rock 'n' Roll records, the up-to-date Funk of a Michael Jackson, and a whole other side with the electronic groups like Ultravox, and they can all find an audience." It seems strange to think that if it hadn't been for a bespectacled Geordie and his flamingo pink Stratocaster, it might all have been very different...

Jill Eckersley

[chronikman-ch]

Thank you Jim for the time where you have invested
Heinz

[fenderplucker]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for taking the time to transcribe the article. We have just put up another article on the TVS website (Guitars used by Hank) which show all the guitars mentioned in your article as well as a number of others that he was known to have used in performance at one stage or another. At the moment you have to click through two links to get to it, but we are working on it so that it comes up with just one click from the menu bar. Any comments or additions to this would be welcome.

See: http://www.tvsspecialtyproducts.com/page9.htm

Regards,

Paul.

[Didier]

Here is the full text of an interview with hank around the time of the "Words And Music" LP, and his recent acquisition of a FR 1958 Stratocaster from Patrice bastien in paris.

Hank then bought a 1970 black Strat which he still has, and played that until he recently unearthed another 1958 Flamingo Pink Strat in a Paris music store!

Which isn't quite exact, Hank didn't go to a store !
When the Shadows came for a concert in early december 1980 at the Mogador Theater in Paris (he played his black Strat), Patrice Bastien was warned that Hank was looking for a vintage Strat, and asked to meet Hank after the concert, which was no problem for Patrice who already had tickets for the concert. Patrice proposed to go immediatly to his store near Place de la Nation (east of Paris), but the Shadows had other commitments for the evening and were not available. Hank asked Patrice to come at his hotel (Concorde Lafayette, west of Paris) the next morning with the best vintage Strats he had for sale. Patrice came with two Strats the 1858 model and 1960 (or 1961) model. Hank immediatly selected the 1958 one (fiesta red with maple neck). He sometime said he was proposed three Strats, but the third one was Patric'e own Strat (1964) which he brought only to have it signed by Hank.
A few years ago, Patrice met again Hank who told him he still had this 1958 Strat.

Didier

[Razzmataz]

Did he reall use 34346 on "Cliff's first album"? I presume he was thinking of Cliff's first "real" studio album.

[JimN]

Hi Jim,
Thanks for taking the time to transcribe the article.
Paul.

Just in case this is of any use to anyone else, I didn't transcribe the article by typing it!

I made up scanned images of the various blocks of text (titled in correct order) and uploaded them to a site which allows free OCR transcription: http://www.onlineocr.net/default.aspx

All I then had to do was copy the output into a text file, (in the correct order) and check the original to ensure that paragraph breaks, etc, were in the correct places.

It's a great (free of charge) facility. You can use it without registration up to fifteen times a day. It is VERY accurate (provided the input is of reasonable picture quality).

JN

[JimN]

There were four photographs of Hank in that April 1982 edition of "International Musician & Recording World".

The first, an archive image, was on the letters page and was used because of a question about Burns Marvin guitars:



The other three were contemporary shots and showed Hank with his ""Patrice" Stratocaster:







JN

[Dance with Shadows]

Thanks Paul for the interesting entry on your site.

regards

Michael

[JimN]

We have just put up another article on the TVS website (Guitars used by Hank) which show all the guitars mentioned in your article as well as a number of others that he was known to have used in performance at one stage or another. At the moment you have to click through two links to get to it, but we are working on it so that it comes up with just one click from the menu bar. Any comments or additions to this would be welcome.
Regards,
Paul.

Hi, Paul.

You have the well-known photo of Hank's collection from the 1986 tour programme as an illustration of either his Les Paul Custom or Les Paul Deluxe - but neither guitar is shown in the picture. There is a Gibson Firebird there, and a Roland (Ibanez-built) guitar synth which is shaped a bit like a Les Paul - but no Gibson Les Pauls.

There are photos around on the web of Hank with a LP Deluxe (sunburst), but I've never seen one of him with a Custom.

Best wishes,

JN

PS: Hank has used a Gibson J-45 jumbo and B-45 12-string, but not the smaller-bodied B-25.

[fenderplucker]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your helpful comments, and I'll try to find a suitable photo (or if you could point me to a photo of Hank with a LP that would be very helpful) and I will certainly include it in the article. The reference to Hank using both a Les Paul Custom and Deluxe comes from his interview in the September 1977 Guitar Player magazine.

George Geddes mentioned Hank's use of a Roland synth guitar on a couple of tunes in 1978 (Love Deluxe and Honourable Puff-Puff) and, thanks to your correction, it seems that we have a pic of one of that one too. I'll update the article and make the necessary corrections.

I'm sure that there are others that should be included and I am hoping that the article might flush some of them out of the wood-work!

Best Regards,

Paul.