The Shadows in the Eighties...

[Monty]

First let me make it quite clear that there WERE alot of 80's Shads tracks I really loved !
But were they really obliged by their record company to do some of those covers ? - by that I mean the blatantly 'poppier' songs, and a good number that that simply were NOT ever written with guitar based instrumentals in mind at all (like, for example, The Bee Gees 'You Win Again', Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven is A Place on Earth' etc) - decent enough hits by those artists but to my mind NEVER Shads style instrumental numbers in a million years ...and to me you simply can't turn something that isn't right for them into one that is...

Once they began covering tracks that (to me anyway) just didn't suit their sound they became rather a 'Shadow' of themselves (please excuse the awful pun...)

I appreciate times change & musical styles move on etc...but from the fifties to the seventies they had retained a very distinctive 'clean' sound with great guitar 'picking' often very intricate and precise, even on the more complex seventies tracks the guitarwork was supreme, but often on 80's tracks I felt it was more a basic observation of the song's melody with various keyboard sounds woven all around it...and poor old Bruce's key supporting guitar often sounding fainter and fainter (it's no co-incidence their BETTER 80's numbers were those where Bruce was more prominent in the sound)

[mojolomjl]

I don't really go that deep with regards to Shadows music, or any other music,
my way of thinking is I either like it or I do not. As the old saying goes you
can please some of the people some of the time but you can't please all of
the people all of the time.

[kipper]

well monty i wont disergree or agree with you on this, (to much of a coward) i think there is a lot of truth in what you have written but one thing for sure you have chosen the right place to air your point of view . ps. just had second thoughts i agree with more than i disagree with with what you say. also agree with what mojolomjl
says. peter

[Fenderman]

I agree with some of your comments, especially regarding Bruce's guitar (there's some 80's tracks i don't think he's even on or his guitar has been mixed into oblivion), it sounds like Hank and a backing band at times.
Also, some of the material really was questionable, who thought it would be a good idea to record things like 'Theme from Eastenders' or 'Walking in the air'? It got to the point where Hank's guitar followed a vocal perfectly with no creative input. Their original 80's tracks were a lot better (and some covers) but many fans just dismiss the 80's material.

[Monty]

Yeah as I said I HATE to criticise The Shads but for me after the move to Polydor they seemed to become a very 'patchy' outfit on the largely covers albums , and for all the decent original output (and as writers they began to diminish as time went on which was perhaps understandable) plus the better covers...there was always something like 'The Theme From Eastenders/ Howard's Way' (tho' Howard's Way at least had a decent melody & might have worked far better on it's own in a more 'Shadowy' arrangement...?) or that terrible 'Shadowmix' thing (an insult to themselves !!) on 'Reflection' that spoilt an otherwise rather better final studio album

The key to The Shadows was their imaginative guitarwork, plus Hank being supported so closely by Bruce's tasteful strumming and precise rhythm guitar playing ( in addition to the sterling basswork of Jet, Liquorice, & John Rostill) and for a time the superb addition of John Farrar's second guitar complimenting Hank's all held together by first Tony then for the main by Brian's tremendous percussive prowess.

Draining Bruce's guitar of all power and prominence in the 'mix' - and just compare '20 Golden Greats' (EMI) original classic tracks to their re-cut counterparts on 'At Their Very Best' (Polydor) which highlights it totally.....and, as said above by Fenderman, on some later covers Bruce's backup guitar sadly vanishes into the 'mix' often drowned out by keyboards...you lose the key 'Shadows Sound' and it just became Hank with accompaniment.

[George Geddes]

Some of the album track listings from that period were based on 'market research' - what the general public would like to hear the Shadows play. The exception was 'Guardian angel' which included originals, vocals, etc.

George

[Monty]

Yes George I have heard that - hence 'Theme From Eastenders'...a VERY popular BBC soap at the time, but was it a wise choice for The Shads to cover...?

Lets face it, there are some people who would ask for a cover of 'Knees Up Mother Brown' !

Similarly a Status Quo fan mate of mine DESPAIRED when they too started doing covers etc...beginning with 'Marguerita Time', then 'A Mess of The Blues', then eventually it got to songs like; 'All Around My Hat', 'Let's Dance', & 'Fun Fun Fun'
(I believe doing the covers was one major reason why Alan Lancaster left Quo)

The Shads either wrote or picked their OWN material earlier of course, and in the 80's probably ought to have been a bit 'choosier' as some of the 80's hits I just don't believe were really guitar instrumental type melodies (only my view but for example The Bee Gees 'You Win Again' certainly wasn't...yet maybe their; 'How Deep is Your Love' might have been ?, nor was Belinda Carlisle's hit 'Heaven is A Place on Earth' to me...)

just doing covers albums, for SUCH a classic band as The Shadows seems a great shame to me...

[MikeAB]

I support a number of long standing bands of quite different styles and to a man their fans bemoan all their later recordings in exactly the same way as Shads fans do. In short the once fresh innovation goes and a kind of technical smoothness and maybe a kind of safe familiar MOR style takes over. It's not really fair to the artists to berate them too much because if they do last a number of decades they must be pretty good and what was new and adventurous 30-50 years ago cannot still be so.

We can't expect the later Shads output to have stacks of instrumentals like the first album - and if we did get that not only would we moan but the boys would have been finished years ago - in other words synthesizer backings were mandatory to keep them sounding modern.

It's terrific that a track like Mountains of the Moon can come through as late as it did and we should celebrate these golden late moments - no band produces 100% great stuff even in their early days eg for me much of the 'Sound of' album is simply dreadful.

Other examples Genesis could not do another Supper's Ready (magnificent!), but much later managed the great Driving the Last Spike and the Moodies could not create another Nights in White Satin, but late on managed tracks like Deep and English Sunset. Barclay James Harvest achieved The Ballad of Denshaw Mill decades after Mocking Bird, Magna Carta produced Fields of Eden decades after Seasons and the list goes on.

Outside the highlights the late output of all these bands was still mostly classy and always dependable- just like most of that of the Shads.

[Monty]

well that's true - although the FIRST Shadows album had three vocal tracks....and the later 80's ones were often ALL instrumental ...!

There was in fact a greater alteration of styles earlier on too - guitar instrumentals (rockers & ballads - 'Shadoogie' & 'Sleepwalk' etc ), folky vocals ('All My Sorrows') rock'n'roll /pop vocals ('Baby My Heart') , piano led tracks ('Stand Up And Say That') & tracks with drum solos ('See You in My Drums') and bass solos ('Nivram') ...with material both newly penned by themselves ('Gonzales' etc) and golden oldies like 'That's My Desire' from way back in the 1930's !

....and such variation of styles was always a feature on Shads sixties albums, while the seventies sets were ultra ambitious in the arrangements

so in many ways the musical style later got if anything MORE 'straightjacketed' largely - with some notable exceptions of course - into a lone lead guitar set over synth' backing doing the latest chart hits approach, not less...

[Fenderman]

It seems that the Shadows were victims of their own success, look at the charts 'Guardian Angel' which mostly original material made number 98, whilst their next album 'Moonlight Shadows' which was all cover versions, made number 6 and went platinum.
It seems the public couldn't accept the Shadows doing original material (most of which was very good). Although i think 'Life in the jungle' is the best of their 80's albums.