Why aren't the Shadows cool?

[Fenderman]

I admitted a few years ago i was a Shadows/Hank fan at work and nearly got laughed out of the office! Now i get wound up for being a Cliff fan. which i'm not.

[noelford]

The thing is, you don't have to be a Shadows 'fan' to enjoy the music. Sometimes, when I play a more obscure Shads number and receive an appreciative reaction, some of the audience are openly surprised when I tell them how long ago it was originally recorded and by whom.

[Tigerdaisy]

Why isn't Glen Miller cool any more- well many people still think he is, which you can see if you go to the various Glen Miller style concerts held all round the country. The Shadows and Cliff were once at the very cutting edge of being cool if you can remember as far back as 'Oh Boy' They all had attitude and balls, especially the Shadows and you could hear it in the playing, but, something happened, they sort of mellowed and tamed out and religion became an influence. The Shadows lost their original 'sound' which was part attitude and part instrument change and it all became a bit 'Sunday School' The original Strat was quite 'thin' sounding and had a lot of edge and bite which was lost on later models which together with the loss of the intensity of the music contributed to loss of 'coolness' or whatever you want to call it. Cliff changed from a 'threat to decent society' to a respectable boy you could take home to your mother or grandmother. The last track the Shadows did which I really liked as typical Shadows stuff was Riders in the Sky.

As for guitar playing, I think very few, if any, have approached Hank's style of playing, especially the variety of clean sounds you can get from an electric guitar which all tends to be lost when over-driven to excess.

[Paul Childs]

The Shadows and also Cliff became uncool when The Beatles came on the scene and other bands that followed but it was the same for others, Joe Brown for example.
The Shadows for a few years during the 60s kept the same look with no long hair etc. and although they were the same age as The Beatles they were seen as older because they made it a few years earlier.
I used to secretly carry on listening to The Shadows during the 60s and into the 70s when it was cool to be into the likes of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and if you were into the Shadows at that period you were shunned by everyone else.
No one realised at the time that all these guitarists who played heavy rock and the likes were first influenced by the Shadow's sound when they first took up playing.

[Fenderman]

My mum told me by around 1967 it was 'naff' to listen to the Shadows, everyone was still obsessed by the Beatles or the Stones. I said this was maybe incorrect as they were still hitting the top 10 in the LP charts that year but i wasn't even born then so had to take her word for it!

[EJK]

Something I forgot to mention in my previous posting!

For a view of the band in action showing their true original style which captured us all these years ago go into Youtube and look at Down the Line (full version) and turn up the volume. This shows them at their best, both as a unit and individually, in a live situation with all four of them (and Cliff Richard) on top form. It's just as well that programme recording was saved plus of course the Apache video as well. Both of these show in a strong way what they were about.

Apologies if most of you have seen this anyway but there may be some who have not. The Down the Line video doesn't seem to have been commented upon in here before (or has it)?

[JimN]

My mum told me by around 1967 it was 'naff' to listen to the Shadows, everyone was still obsessed by the Beatles or the Stones. I said this was maybe incorrect as they were still hitting the top 10 in the LP charts that year but i wasn't even born then so had to take her word for it!

If only the album charts were the correct yardstick for coolness...

Justice would be done in that Richard Rodgers would be (correctly) regarded as the coolest popular composer of all time, judging by the fact that the soundtrack to "The Sound Of Music" was high in the LP charts for several years (including 1967) ...

[Twang46]

Interesting thread here
I'm one of those that firmly believe all was lost when Jet followed Tony out of the band. Certainly the end of an era that I (like most people I expect remember in black & white) regret the passing of. Together with Cliff rock & roll pioneers in the UK.

"Why aren't the Shadows cool ?" ....... simple answer..............because they don't do cool things these days.

Dick.

[Uncleboko]

Something I forgot to mention in my previous posting!

For a view of the band in action showing their true original style which captured us all these years ago go into Youtube and look at Down the Line (full version) and turn up the volume. This shows them at their best, both as a unit and individually, in a live situation with all four of them (and Cliff Richard) on top form. It's just as well that programme recording was saved plus of course the Apache video as well. Both of these show in a strong way what they were about.

Apologies if most of you have seen this anyway but there may be some who have not. The Down the Line video doesn't seem to have been commented upon in here before (or has it)?

I had seen this before, but when playing it at deafening level through headphones, it sounds fantastic - punk rock years before it's time!!

[iefje]

I don't think it has something to do with Tony and Jet having left in late 1961 and early 1962 respectively. The Shadows were still cool and popular with Brian Bennett and Brian Locking and shortly after with John Rostill instead of Brian Locking. The musical trends were changing from 1963 onwards and I think they would have become uncool anyway, even if Tony and Jet had stayed.