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I discovered this on the Fanderson facebook page yesterday, in a thread discussing Thunderbirds are Go. The post was made several years ago so I suppose it's too late to reply to it and try to make the guy see the error of his ways! I can't understand why he got the impression that the Shads were just a covers band, who apparently specialised in covering Ventures tunes! I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that the Ventures probably covered more Shadows tunes than the other way around... or it was at least equal. Oh well. Anyway, here it is...

Robbie Paramor
Actually The Shadows were pretty much a cover band for Ventures material, aside from things like Flingel Bunt ... don't get me wrong they were good, but they did covers!

And yes I did note the irony of the guy's surname!

I have over 700 Shadows tracks - and one Ventures track (guess which). No contest for me.

drakula63 wrote:
And yes I did note the irony of the guy's surname!

Wonder if he could be a son of one of Norrie's daughters who, as legend has it, made the key decision that Apache should be released as the A side almost sixty years ago!

Bill

Using his mother's maiden name!!

The Ventures have recorded much more tracks than The Shadows did. The number of covers recorded by The Ventures is also much highter than that of The Shadows. It has to be said that they also recorded a great number of original tracks. Of the hit singles they had, only about four were original recordings (self-penned or penned for the group), while The Shadows had much more original recordings as singles (self-penned or penned for the group).
I think it's totally incorrect to say that The Shadows even covered The Ventures, because for instance "Walk Don't Run" and "Perfidia" were indeed hits for The Ventures, but were not Ventures originals.

Hi Ivo,

One thing is sure the shads played on every recording themself(except a few Bruce stayed at home).
It's well-known, that while The Ventures were on tour, in the studio multiple different peeps recorded the records...also some of the hits
Also it happened, some were on tour and some were in the studio, both groups "originals" supplemented with par-time peeps...(kinda Milly Vanilly, yes they didn't sing on the records...but both could sing for real.... )
So The Ventures played more then the shads...is maybe a different ratio?

Cheers Rob

I discover from the Forebears website that there are 415 Paramors, mainly in England or the Isle of Man. What are the odds of a connection?

Of course, there was Alan Paramor, Norrie's publisher brother, who managed Lorna Music in the 60s, and signed up Paul Simon to a writing deal during his UK sojourn at the time.

Bill

iefje wrote:
I think it's totally incorrect to say that The Shadows even covered The Ventures, because for instance "Walk Don't Run" and "Perfidia" were indeed hits for The Ventures, but were not Ventures originals.

Would it not be fair to describe "Walk Don't Run", "Perfidia" and, say, "Riders In The Sky" as covers by the Shadows of recordings originally associated with the Ventures, irrespective of the origins of the works themselves?

Equally, I would consider the Ventures' recordings of "Apache", "Blue Star" and maybe even "The Lonely Bull" as covers of tracks first recorded by the Shadows, with neither group being involved with the original creation of any of the actual tunes.

Bill

I feel the word cover doesn’t really fit for Riders. With or without ‘ghost’, the song had been around for many years. It certainly wasn’t ‘originally’ associated with the Ventures. If there’s a connection with any previous one at all for the Shadows - and I’m not sure there is - it would be with the old Ramrods version, which ends with a burst of Apache.

Admittedly, Riders In The Sky is a rather tenuous example of a cover, in the context of this discussion, of an old standard.

Unquestionably, the Ramrods recording is the original hit "instro" arrangement, and my reference to the chronological significance of the versions by Ventures and the Shadows was intended as a fairly loose one... I'll rest my case!

Bill