Bill and Sue-On Hillman
Rock Roots Series
www.hillmanweb.com/book
:: www.hillmanweb.com/book/gigs
Presents
BILL HILLMAN REMEMBERS
THE SHADOWS
Back before The
Beatles most of the bands I played in were almost totally instrumental
groups: horns or pianos/organs or fiddles or folk instruments . . . or
guitars. The gigs were mostly 4-hour dance jobs and I was on a constant
search for guitar instrumentals. I admired and even met many of the American
guitar bands that appeared in the Roller Rink where we worked as the house
band: The Ventures, The Fireballs, The Champs, Southern Blues acts, etc.
Chad
Allan and the Reflections (later became the Guess Who) often appeared
and became a real influence because guitarist Randy Bachman played many
Shadows numbers using echo and his big Gretsch.
Alan Jones, a recent recruit from England in another band
I played with had a brother, Keith, in England and before long I had regular
shipments of Shadows tunes. Manitoba radio stations who had long played
Lonnie
Donegan records, started to play Cliff Richard and the Shadows
hits -- most of which were not know across the rest of North America. I
bought a reel-to-reel recorder and soon built up quite a collection of
Shadows instruments which became a vital part of my repertoire. We even
worked out dance steps to go along with the songs. The Shadows tunes I
remember doing included: Apache, Shadoogie, Shindig, It's Been A Blue
Day, Man of Mystery, Peace Pipe, Blue Star, Wonderful Land, Theme for Young
Lovers, The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt, and I even applied a few
of Hanks licks to Ghost Riders, Sleepwalk and many others.
These instrumentals have served us well through the years.
When we opened for The Everly
Brothers and Roger Miller in the CKY
Fall Festival of Stars back in 1964 our opening number was the
latest Shadows instrumental -- The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt
-- followed with a Stones number, The Kinks' You Really Got Me and a few
more current rockers. We then backed The Newbeats on their hits before
bringing on Roger Miller and The Everly Brothers.
We met up with Al Jones again in 1976 when he helped us
line up a 30-day tour of one
nighters in England's Northeast. We found that many in our audiences
had fond memories of the Shadows' glory years so we always threw some of
their instrumentals into our shows. During our stay in musicians digs in
Middlesbrough we had numerous jam sessions with English musicians. Shadows
numbers were always a common language in such jams and formed a sort of
a special bond between muscians raised on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sue-On and I recorded Apache for one of our albums.
We have recorded 12 albums but much to my regret, for some reason Apache
was the only instrumental we put to tape. . . after we married in
1966 our vocals were our mainstay. The Shadows, and of course, "Apache"
were major personal influences.
When we recorded Apache
for our second
album I did all the guitar parts and used a Bigsby tremolo bar,
a DeArmond volume pedal for sustain and my home-made B-bender on a Fender
Telecaster played through an Echocord tape delay unit and Fender
Twin amp. All of these devices made the imitation of Hank Marvin's instrumentals
a little easier and I added a few of my own wrinkles to the mix.
Excerpt from our 50 Years Gig Notes Series
www.hillmanweb.com/book/gigs
Out
of the Shadows
Hank Marvin and the Shadows were an major influence in
the early '60s . . . we even took on the name SHADOWS in one of our
bands for awhile and did all the synchronized steps on stage. This was
before we, or most bands, started doing many vocals and I used to play
almost four hours of guitar instrumentals every night for our dance gigs.
Bandmate Alan Jones' brother Keith faithfully sent me Shadows LPs and 45s--
a great source for guitar instrumentals that not many bands were doing
at the time. In fact a few years later, Sue-On and I recorded "Apache"
on our second album. We always included at least one Shadows number in
our UK tour shows and they were always very popular. It was a great thrill
-- and somewhat of a disappointment -- when we saw Jet Harris, a former
Shadow, at the Fiesta Club in Stockton during one of our UK tours. But
that's another story :)
My Favourite Guitars Series:
The Fender Stratocaster
Excerpt: Hillman
Guitars: Stratocaster
Since its official debut in early 1954 the Fender Stratocaster
has proven to be one of the most successful, most influential and
most cloned electric guitars ever manufactured. My blue Strat was another
of Sue-On’s surprise Xmas gifts and it made our first Brandon Christmas
away from our country home a memorable one. One of my first guitar heroes
was Hank Marvin of England’s Shadows. I have always been intrigued by his
red Strat, but since Sue-On knows that blue is my favourite colour, blue
is what I got.
Back in the fifties, I was introduced to many forms of
American Blues in a very roundabout way. I became obsessed with the skiffle
music of Lonnie Donegan and set up many pipelines through which I could
import his records. I expanded upon these contacts I had made in England
and was soon importing the records of Cliff Richard - England’s 'Elvis.'
This led me into the world of the Shadows, Cliff’s backup group, featuring
bespeckled Hank Marvin. Since there was a tremendous demand for instrumentals
in the groups I worked with, the sounds created by Hank's Strat were soon
being imitated by a red-haired, black-hornrimmed, Gretsch-playing Canadian.
It was to be thirty years before I could try out these songs on a
Strat.
