Jet Playing a Tribute to Tony

[cockroach]

Whatever the kit, the little Irish kid could really play!

[JimN]

I was assuming the 1961 Fore EP picture, as with that on the cover of the book The Shadows by Themselves (pub 1961), from the same photo session, was taken after Tony acquired the Gretsch kit, but I could be mistaken... certainly, Tony refers to the Gretsch in the book, and it is not, perhaps, entirely clear from the picture which they are.

The Ajax kit (or parts of it) was used for the early 1961 EP shots ("Shadows To The Fore", "The Shadows") and for the LP shoot. The LP cover shot has to be a fair bit earlier than its release because of the instruments in use, which makes it spring rather than summer.

It could be, of course, that Tony's name never featured on the Gretsch bass drum, and the kit shown in the FBI performance on Crackerjack is clearly the white Ajax set.

I'm sure that's right. Tony was never - to my knowledge - seen with any actual written logo on the Gretsch kit except for the Gretsch decal. In 1963, he adopted a black diamond symbol (almost as big corner to corner as the diameter of the drum) for a while, after the hit with Jet. The kit was used with the diamond for an appearance with Jet and the Jetblacks on the Billy Cotton TV show. This would have been around March, after the record had hit number one.

[GoldenStreet]

I'll settle for that, Jim!

To return to the original point, the partial (right handed set up) Gretsch kit:-

JHPB.JPG

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Bill