The Shadows ‎– From Hank, Brian, Bruce & John / BGO Records ‎Audio CD 1990 / BGOCD20

UPC 5017261200204

From Hank, Bruce, Brian and John is the seventh rock album by British instrumental (and sometimes vocal) group The Shadows, released in 1967. It was the last album to be issued in both mono as well as stereo.

Product Details: 

About The Shadows:

The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters) were an English instrumental rock group. They were Cliff Richard's backing band from 1958 to 1968 and on numerous reunion tours. The Shadows have placed 69 UK charted singles from the 1950s to the 2000s, 35 credited to the Shadows and 34 to Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The group, who were in the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to emerge as stars. As pioneers of the four-member instrumental format, the band consisted of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums. Their range covers pop, rock, surf rock and ballads with a jazz influence.

The core members from 1958 to 2015 were Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch. Along with the Fender guitar, another cornerstone of the Shadows sound was the Vox amplifier. The Shadows, with Cliff Richard, dominated British popular music in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the years before the Beatles. The Shadows' number one hits included "Apache", "Kon-Tiki", "Wonderful Land", "Foot Tapper" and "Dance On!". They disbanded in 1968, but reunited in the 1970s for further commercial success.

The Shadows are the fourth most successful act in the UK singles chart, behind Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Cliff Richard. The Shadows and Cliff Richard & the Shadows each have had four No. 1 selling EPs

Editorial Review:

By 1967, the Shadows were at the end of their hitmaking career, and very close to breaking up altogether. Before they went, however, they had one final classic to deliver, an album that arrived packaged up like a parcel, which, when unwrapped, revealed a host of solid gems, evidence that no matter how far pop music had moved from the model they helped style a decade earlier, the Shadows had no intention of being left behind. From Hank, Bruce, Brian, and John peaks with a typically well-crafted Graham Gouldman original, "Naughty Nippon Nights," but from start to finish, it rattles with a defiance that makes a mockery of the band's so-called "veteran" status. No matter that they scored their first hits (with Cliff Richard) while Lennon and McCartney were still killing time in the Quarrymen. For all that the Beatles brought to the '60s, none of it would have been possible without the Shadows, and their blistering version of "You're a Better Man Than I," the jokey "Snap Crackle and How's Your Father," and excellent covers of "The Last Train to Clarksville" and "The Letter" are career best album tracks (even if they can't compete with the band's best 45s). Plus they play with a ferocity that borders on menacing at times, even when slowing everything down and welcoming Cliff Richard into the pack for the hit "The Day I Met Marie"; it's a beautiful, dreamy song, but there's something oddly menacing about it as well, a moodiness that taps so thoroughly into the underbelly of psychedelia that, if this wasn't good ol' Cliff and the Shads, it could have been almost anyone.