Burns Era and Lineup Question

[Iain Purdon]

...he went to London to buy a Precision and called in at the Shadows Office in Saville Row and was told that 'there is one behind the cabinet'!! And what was there turned out to be white Precision that Licorice had used when he stood in for John at the Talk of the Town...
Stu

Was that not the same P-bass that Licorice was using with the Shadows for the final months of his own time with them?

[StuartD]

HI Iain

It was and I don't know how it managed not to be returned with the other white Fenders. Even bigger question: Who has it now!!

Regards

Stu

[David Martin]

This thread exemplifies all that is good about this place... just fascinating!

[Uncle Fiesta]

Interesting video. On flingel bunt, Hank's lead is so quiet you could almost use it as a backing track!

[Iain Purdon]

Yes that video is notable for the prominence of Bruce's guitar

[iefje]

A question on the Burns era TV shows: has anyone ever seen the Japanese TV show as recorded on the 18th of June, 1967, with The Shadows performing live, not miming? I have only heard a recording of it and I think the quality, performance wise and sound quality wise is superb. The show is notable also for Bruce being interviewed by the Japanese host. Also, a very rare live performance of "Spring Is Nearly Here" and "Bombay Duck".

[donna plasky]

After reading JimN's reply, I went back and watched a video I hadn't seen in a while, and now it makes sense to me. This is the Hawkshaw lineup of The Shads in 1970, and John is playing his Fender bass. When I first saw this video a couple of years ago, I couldn't tell the difference between two brands of guitars. But even funnier, in a way, was that I thought to myself, "Hey who is that? That's not Cliff Hall." Now of course I know it is Alan Hawkshaw. Then I wondered about Bruce, but of course he wasn't with them at that time.

Then by coincidence, I see that the opening song on this episode of Cliff's show was "The Joy of Living," which goes back to Paul Ferris whom you just mentioned. A bit unusual to see "Move It" played on Burns guitars and without Bruce. Are they playing or miming? I cannot tell...Hank and John are playing all the notes, but I was watching Brian, and it looks rather quiet back there.

Kind regards,
Donna

[Moderne]

Hi Donna,

They are miming - but to a BBC recording made for the programme, that's how they made the programmes in those days. Although this makes the performances sound more 'authentic' than if they were miming to the original record (as on the 1969 New Year's Eve TOTP special where they mime to Apache and Bachelor Boy) Hank's guitar sound was not always the best - as on the version of Wonderful Land from the same 1970 episode of It's Cliff Richard. I guess that as most people were listening to TVs with fairly puny speakers and they didn't imagine people listening over 40 years later on the internet, they weren't too worried at the time!
Incidentally, I've heard the MWF recordings with Cliff from the 1971 series (Love the One You're With, Down on the Corner etc) and they sound great. I'd love to hear the five songs MWF did on the show themselves...

[Iain Purdon]

You touch on an interesting point Clive.

TV sound used to be dreadful. As you say, the speakers were puny, you could rarely hear much if any bass and the studio gallery team were mainly concerned with the pictures. The sound engineers were not music specialists. A lot of the old TV footage from the 60s reflects this. Very disappointing for Shadows fans, the sound rarely did them justice.

It's very different now, thank goodness!

[GoldenStreet]

Can't really recall, but was this the only time John played a Jazz Bass?

Michael Hurll, the show's producer, died on 18th September, aged 75.

Bill