Best Of The Rock N Roll Pioneers
Cliff Richard & The ShadowsCD1
- Move It
- Living Doll
- Dynamite
- Fall in Love with You
- Mean Streak
- A Voice In the Wilderness
- High Class Baby
- Theme for a Dream
- Livin’ Lovin’ Doll
- I Love You
- Never Mind
- A Girl Like You
- Nine Times out of Ten
- The Next Time
- The Time In Between
- It's Wonderful to Be Young
- Blue Turns to Grey
- Gee Whiz Its You
- Don’t Talk to Him
- Travellin’ Light
- Bachelor Boy
- My Blue Heaven
- It'll Be Me
- Blueberry Hill
- Lucky Lips
- Poor Boy
- I'm Walking the Blues
- Do You Wanna Dance
- Tea for Two
- Summer Holiday
- Please Don’t Tease
CD2
- Say You're Mine
- Frenesi
- The Young Ones
- I Could Easily Fall
- I’m the Lonely One
- She's Gone
- On The Beach
- Unchained Melody
- What'd I Say
- All I Do Is Dream
- Finders Keepers
- You Don’t Know
- In The Country
- D In Love
- Don’t Forget to Catch Me
- Time Drags By
- Into Each Life Some Rain
- Willie and the Hand Jive (Live)
- A Forever Kind of Love
- Singing the Blues
- All Shook Up (Live)
- C'Mon Everybody
- Why Wasn't I Born Rich
- You and I
- The Day I Met Marie (Live)
- Sea Cruise
- Your Eyes Tell on You
- Shame on You
- We Say Yeah
Cliff Richard and his famous backing band, The Shadows, celebrate a landmark anniversary today.
Sixty years ago, on October 17th, 1959, Cliff Richard and The Shadows hit the No. 1 spot in the UK with ‘Travellin’ Light’. This was the first single credited to Cliff Richard and The Shadows – re-named from their original title - The Drifters. The American Drifters had got there first, so a new moniker was required, thus, The Shadows were born, at the suggestion of bassist Jet Harris during a band meeting at the Six Bells pub in Ruislip!
This notable anniversary will be marked with a brand-new album: CLIFF RICHARD and THE SHADOWS: The Best of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Pioneers is a 2CD collection which focuses, for the first time, solely on Cliff’s output with The Shadows (or The Drifters for pre-October ’59 releases). All seven No. 1 singles and a further sixteen Top 10 hits are included.
The name change would serve the band well and ‘The Shads’ went on become the most successful instrumental group in pop history, placing 69 UK charted singles from the 1950s to the 2000s
Their effortlessly slick combination of Bruce Welch’s rhythm guitar and Hank Marvin’s elegant, pioneering lead guitar licks were an inspiration. Roy Wood, of The Move, once described the Shadows as "the cleanest sound I'd ever heard, like it had been dipped in Dettol". Other notable musicians inspired by The Shadows include Brian May, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, Pete Townsend and Tony Iommi.
For the fans, the combination of Cliff and The Shadows was the ultimate: “before Cliff and the Shads, there was no Rock 'n' Roll (in the UK)" said Grammy Award winning White Stripes engineer, Liam Watson during an interview with The Guardian in 2009. That piece was written by journalist, musician and fan Bob Stanley, who has written the sleeve notes for this album, where he reminds us of the seismic musical and cultural impact Cliff and The Shadows had in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
For The Shadows themselves, the holy grail was Buddy Holly. For them, Holly’s guitar-playing and song-writing was the ultimate inspiration. Last year, Bruce Welch said ‘He did more for music in his 22 years than most of us in a full lifetime. He’s my all-time hero, no doubt. No Buddy Holly: no Fender Stratocaster: no Shadows.’
“It takes 50 years to get as good as we are”, joked Cliff during their 2009 reunion tour. Listen to this album and be reminded that this band was not just good: they were awesome - from the off.
Earlier this week Cliff & Live Nation announced details about "THE GREAT 80 TOUR" a reference to his 80th birthday celebrations that will take place in the UK in 2020.