The Shadows At Sixty

[362436]

Steve, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Just finished watching and really enjoyed it.
Will spread the word amongst my fellow Shads friends.
Really great to see this so soon after broadcast.
So pleased you made the effort for all of us outside the UK.
Cheers from a sunny but freezing Sydney.
Regards, Ian

[John Boyd]

Steve, thank you very much for posting the link to the documentary. It was a thoroughly enjoyable hour's viewing.
I, and I'm sure many others living outside the UK, really appreciate the trouble you went to on our behalf.
Cheers,
John B

[russ]

Well if anyone at the BBC ,after watching this fantastic music documentary ,still isn’t enthusiastic about The Shadows, then they don’t know what entertainment is! Really well done and hope some further biographies or a follow up of some kind will be down the line. Even friends of mine who aren’t in any way fans thought is was great. Very proud to be a Shadows fan this morning, after all the years of being told it wasn’t cool, just as Hank said.

[Gatwick1946]

Wow! And more Wow!

I give it 999 out of 1000. The look on Bruce's face as he was listening to Pete T. - priceless.

The bass players did not get much mention (as ever).

Kindest regards,
Christopher

[abstamaria]

I hope we in Asia get a chance yo see it.

Andy

[shadowriter]

Totally brilliant. More than a little emotional,
I was there moments.
Norman

[Hank2k]

I've managed to get it on YouTube but unfortunately couple of very small segments muted due to copyright. (Drakes Song primarily!)

[drakula63]

Well... I watched HALF of it again when it was repeated at 1.30 this morning. Mind you, that was after watching my recording from 9.30 !!!

My feelings haven't changed. It was an excellent documentary and did the band justice. Better late (and a bit short!) than never! Highlights for me were seeing Bruce and Brian playing Apache in Studio 2, Abbey Road, with Hank providing the lead guitar from his studio in Australia! Now THAT was incredible to see and to hear. Hank's show of emotion at the end, as he reminisced about playing 'Cavatina' at Wembley, was moving and unexpected. I'm glad they touched upon Marvin, Welch and Farrar (albeit briefly) and had a few words with John Farrar - this must have worked out fairly expensive, since he's only in it for a few seconds. I'm going to guess that there was a lot of footage shot but not used - there may even have been a longer edit - and this is what I would love to see released on DVD. I'd also like to see the old footage shown in its correct aspect ratio, as the zoom-in to widescreen meant some odd visuals here and there. But they chose to show it all in the modern format, so that was the only way to do it.

No real complaints from me. Yes, a lot was missed out - no mention of Alan Hawkshaw - but these periods are well known to Shadows fans but are not necessarily representative of the group and would be of less interest to the general public. They HAD to choose carefully what they covered and what they omitted and I think they pretty much got it right. They covered all the key points, with some surprises (the Royston Ellis footage for example) and it made for an engrossing 60 minutes.
I am sure it's something that I will watch again and again. But maybe not today!

[Moderne]

I really enjoyed it - I thought it was great. Three observations to make:-
1. After all these years of being a Shadows fan, there were still some photos and, of course film clips (I had no idea the Feelin' Fine clip from Oh Boy! still existed) which I'd never seen.
2. It didn't dwell on anything 'nerdy' (which the average viewer would find uninteresting) or sad or unpleasant
3. How do documentary makers find out 'the story'; clearly not from anyone on Shadowmusic.co.uk - which you might think would be the 'go to' starting point. Presumably not from Hank, Bruce or Brian themselves. And then to source all the film clips...as well as the generic 'period' scene-setters e.g. the Royal Mail van when they talked about the original Fender Strat arriving... (Incidentally, I first saw that lovely black and white clip where the camera pans across all those people listening to records in listening booths in the 1991 Arena documentary on Joe Meek). They really have got it down to a fine art.

Definitely a case of "better late than never"...but if The Shads had been given the 1980s 'Arena' or South Bank Show treatment...they could have interviewed Jet, Tony, Jerry Lordan...

[drakula63]

I really enjoyed it - I thought it was great. Three observations to make:-
1. After all these years of being a Shadows fan, there were still some photos and, of course film clips (I had no idea the Feelin' Fine clip from Oh Boy! still existed)
2. It didn't dwell on anything 'nerdy' (which the average viewer would find uninteresting) or sad or unpleasant
3. How do documentary makers find out 'the story'; clearly not from anyone on Shadowmusic.co.uk - which you might think would be the 'go to' starting point. Presumably not from Hank, Bruce or Brian themselves. And then to source all the film clips...as well as the generic 'period' scene-setters e.g. the Royal Mail van when they talked about the original Fender Strat arriving... (Incidentally, I first saw that lovely black and white clip where the camera pans across all those people listening to records in listening booths in the 1991 Arena documentary on Joe Meek). They really have got it down to a fine art.

Definitely a case of "better late than never"...but if The Shads had been given the 1980s 'Arena' or South Bank Show treatment...they could have interviewed Jet, Tony, Jerry Lordan...

The BBC has a computerised internal search system (can't remember what it is called). If you open it up and type in, say, 'The Shadows' or 'Hank Marvin' or 'Cliff Richard', in theory it will show you EVERYTHING that they have in their archive that matches these results. I have been to the BBC studio/HQ in Salford and have actually used it. It's incredible what you can find! I will assume that someone from the production company did this, or a BBC researcher did it on their behalf. I'm guessing that at least ONE person here has also used it, so he'll know what I'm talking about! That footage of the Shads with Royston Ellis was BBC newsreel... I know that's from their archive!