New anti Cliff radio station

[eugene]

All I have to do is quit to listen to Absolute Radio !

eugene

[dave robinson]

I won't be tuning in either, with all the other good radio stations to choose from Absolute 60's radio is irrelevant.

[donna plasky]

Donna,

You may not know thatTerry Britten, Alan Tarney (and John Farrar) are all Australians, they did help Bruce a little bit in putting those albums together both in writing the tunes and the session work-Alan Tarney going on to write and produce for the following Cliff hits and albums.

Regards

Hi, Bill. Thank you for what you said about Terry, Alan, and John. I was a little too timid to say it myself. You're absolutely right...on Cliff's LPs from the 70s and early 80s, Terry Britten and Alan Tarney combined wrote all the songs and played all the guitars and keyboards. Terry wrote just about the entire "Rock and Roll Juvenile" album (except for We Don't Talk Any More, which Alan wrote) and most of "I'm Nearly Famous" including Devil Woman, and Alan wrote the entire "I'm No Hero" album. Terry and Alan co-wrote the "Every Face Tells a Story" and "Green Light" LPs while Bruce produced. Alan came back and produced "Stronger' in about 1998 for Cliff.

If there are any Terry Britten fans on the Board besides me, here is a video from 1966 of "The Twilights." Terry Britten is playing lead guitar -- he's in the dark jacket and white pants, on Stage Right (screen left), standing in back of Glenn Shorrock, the lead singer who went on to to be the lead singer for both Axiom and the Little River Band. The Twilights are my favourite Australian band...I love them! This tune is really good too -- the lead guitar sounds very "Shadow-like", almost like Move It, and the words to the song almost sound like they're talking about a very young Shadow (maybe Bruce or Hank).

I had not heard of the The Twilights before I joined this Board, so I really like that joining a Shadows group helped me become a fan of The Twilights and The Strangers (John Farrar's old group). But I did know about the Tarney/Spencer Band.

If I went too far off-topic on this post, I do apologise.

Best wishes,
Donna

[eugene]

Hi,there!

Poll→　http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a351347/poll-should-absolute-radio-60s-ban-sir-cliff-richard.html

Regards

eugene

[drakula63]

I'm fairly sure that Alan Tarney is actually British. Like Olivia Newton-John, he was born in the UK, but emigrated to Australia when he was young, hence the Aussie accent and the confusion.

Green Light and Rock n' Roll Juvenile are, in my humble opinion, Cliff's BEST albums. If only he still made albums like that now! Maybe he really ought to give Bruce, Alan or Terry a call...????

Rock on!

Chris

[iefje]

It all seems to me to be nothing but envy. The fact that Cliff is around as an artist this long and has achieved countless records over the years, is something which narrow-minded DJ's of today and sometimes yesterday just cannot cope with. That's how I look at it. They may also be afraid people will not listen to their radio station anymore. I wonder if these stations do the same, when a new record is released by Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr. If they are consistent, those artists should be boycotted as well. According to the DJ's reasoning, Paul and Ringo are also too old and not relevant anymore. I'm sorry if I'm being cynical here.
In my opinion, the majority of the so-called 'talent' of today is below par. If DJ's and producers call that talent, they may as well find a new job. If you listen to most young men and women, performing in Pop Idol, X-Factor or other talent contest, it's all about singing with a 'Whitney Houston, Celine Dion or Mariah Carey-like' high volume, howling and provoking a 'whooooo!!!' kind of reaction from the audience. It's a way of singing, which is not easy on my ear. But there you go, musical taste is indisputable.

[roninnes]

Stations like GOLD/Smooth Radio and my local station Radio Cambridgeshire do play Cliff and/or The Shadows from time to time, unfortunately they always play the same, Apache, Wonderful Land, Theme For Young Lovers.
Not that there is anything wrong with those tracks there are so many more to choose from.
I suppose I should be grateful they play them at all.

Ron

[donna plasky]

After watching a countless number of videos of "Devil Woman" on YouTube (ugh!), at last I found one with Terry Britten in it. He wrote the song, and he's the one playing all the great guitar riffs. I'm pretty sure that's Terry in the front, playing a sunburst color Gibson. Maybe that's Brian Bennett on drums? I don't recognise the bass player or the keyboard player. This is the kind of stuff I look at, to learn more about The Shadows and, by extension, musicians like Terry.



Best wishes,
Donna

[Iain Purdon]

That's Dave Richmond on bass, Donna. He was an original member of Manfred Mann who left the group just before their first hit 54321 (!). He played with Marvin Welch and Farrar and the 70s Shadows (as also did Alan Tarney) and is on quite a number of the tracks issued at the time. He is seen here sporting his black Burns Bison bass. Very good player.

The drummer shots are a bit sparse but it ought to be the late Graham Jarvis.

Cliff worked with a number of bass players over this middle period of his career, not least Mark Griffiths who went on to work with the Shadows and Hank.

Hope this helps

Iain

[Iain Purdon]

By the way, you're not off-topic at all Donna. There is a whole family of musicians past and present with Shadows connections. No surprise there. The Shadows were and are musicians, not just pop stars.

Someone could spend many a long hour drawing a "family tree" depicting who appeared on what track and which tour. Steve Gray, of Sky, referred to them all as TAS. Temporary Auxiliary Shadows.