The Ventures and the Shadows, perhaps a difference?

[abstamaria]

Some debate, often emotional, has been taking place at a Ventures forum, prompted by the discovery that, on some “Ventures” pieces (and some claim, whole albums), session musicians played lead guitar and in some instances entirely by themselves, with nary a Ventures member in sight. This was prompted by a post that a session guitarist, Tommy Tedesco, played lead on the enormous Ventures hit “Hawaii Five-O.”

I have been participating in that Ventures forum, principally to learn how to play the early Ventures hits, and was quite disturbed by that revelation and didn't know quite how to take it. Imagine if I had learned here that an unknown (but very good) session guitarist, not our hero Hank, played lead on the original version of “Apache.” Or that none of the Shadows were actually present at Abbey Road. "Apache" would still be as good, but ...

I should add that the great bulk of the Ventures pieces were I believe by Bogle, Edwards, and McGee. But there were a few very different sounding ones attributed to the Ventures, such as "Wipe Out" and "Guitar Twist," that may not have been theirs.

Andy

[cockroach]

HI Andy,

I've been following that thread on the Ventures site too...

Don't worry about it or get upset!

That sort of practice was common back then in the '50's and '60's, including in the UK (but not the Shadows!), Australia and elsewhere...it was primarily about business, time is money...if a popular band was touring and a new recording was needed to capitalise on their popularity, well, if they were'nt able to record, then the record company had records made with session players, which the band learnt and played later on stage.

Sometimes the band members weren't top players or used to recording studio pressure and discipline etc, so the session guys did the recordings in a few takes,to save the band doing 100 takes to get a tune correct, on expensive studio time..

It doesn't matter now..after all, there is enough live footage on YouTube etc which shows that over many years, Bob Bogle, Nokie Edwards and Gerry McGee and Don, Mel etc could certainly play anything that was recorded and released in the band's name, even if not played by the actual band members.

The late Tommy Tedesco often played lead on various recordings where the band member who had to play his recorded lead on stage was struggling to play the solo on the record...but that didn't happen with Nokie and Gerry for instance, as they were session players themselves..

[abstamaria]

Thanks, Johm. That is truly amazing.

The question I ask myself is, if that hadn't been Hank and Bruce in a couple of those pre1964 recordings, would I have noticed?

Best,

Andy

[captainhaddock]

It appears to be well known amongst other forum members, but came as a shock to me, that Jet Harris did not play on the recordings of some of his hits.

[ala1940]

If you can get hold of a copy of "Vic Flick's" autobiography "Guitarman - from James Bond to The Beatles and Beyond" you'll get a good idea of a leading session guitarist life, with a few others mentioned on the way. Or do a web search for his site. Quite revealing.

[drakula63]

I loved The Shadows version of 'Walk Don't Run' - I actually wish they had released it as a single in the spring/summer of '77 instead of 'Another Night', as I personally think it would have stood more chance of being a hit. It was also the only track from Tasty that they played on the 20 Golden Dates tour, so it would have seemed a good idea to then release it. Oh well...

[GoldenStreet]

It appears to be well known amongst other forum members, but came as a shock to me, that Jet Harris did not play on the recordings of some of his hits.

Yes, the names Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones come to mind in this respect!

Bill

[captainhaddock]

Joe Morretti played lead on Scarlet O'Hara and Applejack, this was confirmed in the book about Jet that came out following his death last year.

[Gary Allen]

Cliff thanking Bert for the Apache session

[abstamaria]

To answer my question, if the work of a session musician were popped into a pre-1964 Shadows album and the musician played in his own style and used a different guitar and amp from Hank's, I as a teenage fan then would probably have noticed. Being older and a more serious student of Hank’s sound now, if that piece were to crop out now, I am certain I would know it wasn’t Hank and call attention to the discrepancy.

Now if one of you were playing your covers of Shadows tunes, I may not notice! Some of you sound more like Hank did in the early 60s than Hank does now.

Seriously, I think the reason is that the Shadows had one lead guitarist who worked to develop his style and sound, even if it did evolve. The Ventures had Bob Bogle, Nokie Edwards, Gerry McGee, and the occasional session musician, all using different guitars and amps, so it is difficult to pin down a specific, identifiable style or sound. That makes identifying Shadows music easier and The Ventures (good as it is) more difficult, perhaps impossible, unless one were to zero in on a specific lead guitarist.

I am trying to study Bogle’s early pieces, which I think attracted many fans because they were simple. But they are in fact difficult to play (at least for me!).

Andy