Among The Shadows

Marvin, Welch & Farrar (aka MWF) were a 1970s British and Australian popular music group formed by Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch, both members of The Shadows – as a change of direction manoeuvre during 1970 to 1973 – and John Farrar (ex-The Strangers). The distinction was that while The Shadows were famous for their instrumental work, Marvin Welch & Farrar were a trio, vocal harmony group. They have been favourably compared to USA folk close harmony group Crosby Stills Nash and Young (aka CSNY) and The Hollies. Their second album, Second Opinion (1971), produced by Peter Vince, in a private poll during the 1970s by EMI record's Abbey Road's sound engineers, was voted as one of the best ever sounding albums recorded at these studios. This album is a compilation of MWF's first and second album.

Having already scored three major U.K. smashes, the Shadows confirmed their independence from singer Cliff Richard with an eponymous album which rates among the most accomplished British LPs of the pre-Beatles era, and one of the most influential rock instrumental sets ever. An entire generation of would-be guitar heroes learned their licks from Hank Marvin and the Shadows…

Albums are all fine and well, but if you really want to know what made a band tick during the first half of the 1960s, you need to listen to the singles. It was singles, after all, that consumed the lion's share of the market - singles by which a band's fame and acclaim were judged, and singles by which their star rose and fell.

Albums are all fine and well, but if you really want to know what made a band tick during the first half of the 1960s, you need to listen to the singles. It was singles, after all, that consumed the lion's share of the market - singles by which a band's fame and acclaim were judged, and singles by which their star rose and fell.

Live 1966 is essentially an expanded edition of Raw 'n Alive at the Cellar, Chicago 1966!, a 1994 archival release that unearthed 13 tracks the Shadows of Knight recorded in their hometown stomping ground of the Cellar. Live 1966 boasts three extra tracks, rejiggers the running order to approximate the group's two sets, and has better fidelity and artwork all sterling additions to what is one of best live American rock & roll recordings of the mid-'60s. Granted, there's not much competition in this category. Apart from a handful of British Invasion souvenirs (the most notable were by the Rolling Stones and the Kinks), live albums weren't common among rockers until the '70s, and the tapes that make up Live 1966 weren't intended to be a proper release: they're just tapes Paul Sampson, the owner of the Cellar, happened to make while the Shadows of Knight headlined at his club.

It’s 1949, and the Cold War is heating up across the world. Operating in the shadows, the Variants―once ordinary US citizens, but now imbued with strange paranormal abilities and corralled into covert service by the government’s top secret MAJESTIC-12 program―find themselves on the front lines of an international crisis.
In Syria, Variant agents have been sent to support a coup by a pro-American army officer. In Washington, a shocking suicide has them fighting for their very freedom. And at Area 51, the operation’s headquarters, the strange interspatial phenomenon which originally granted Variants their abilities has yielded disturbing discoveries…